The Ramsey Show - App - A Proven Plan to Pay Down Medical Debt (Hour 3)

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jacob starts this hour in Detroit. Hi, Jacob. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up?

All right. So a couple months ago, my wife and I got back into the country. We did a bit of traveling because we cheated in life, I guess. Basically, we came back into the country. I signed up for a job that didn't work out so well, but the pay was supposed to be at $65,000 a year. And I immediately jumped into a horrible car loan because I got overexcited. Now, since then, I've changed to a job that I actually really enjoy. But the pay is about $15 an hour, and I'm making not a lot of money. My question is, I need to sell the car, obviously,

but how much is it worth losing in order to get out of the car alone? Because right now I'm making the payments and struggling, I guess, to make those payments. We have rent and all that stuff to take care of as well. Yeah, what do you owe on the car? It's $21,000. Yeah. Does your wife work outside the home she did until next week uh she's a teacher's assistant so she only works nine months out of the year um so i six months ago is when i or seven months ago is when i got the car um and everything was looking up and and I thought I'd be making decent money. Not paying attention to the summer that she's not working

or the fact that I don't have that job anymore. So owing 21, I haven't... It doesn't really matter how much you lose on it. You've got to get rid of it. You can't afford it. Okay. You don't have the luxury of making the decision. The decision's made for you.

Yeah. So just list it for whatever I can get rid of it for? Well, you've got to, I mean, whatever the value is, hopefully you can hold on to it long enough you don't have to sell it for 50% of what it's worth. Have you looked up on Kelley Blue Book what it's worth? Yeah, yeah. Well, I've had it listed for about two months now at $19,000. What does Kelley Blue Book say it's worth yeah yeah well i have i've had it listed for about two months now at 19 000 what's kelly blue book say it's worth between 19 and 20 on private sale

yeah have you got any nibbles at 19 uh no what is it it's a vol GTI 2015. Limited market. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to drop that puppy. So if you sell it for $17, you're four in the hole, and if you sell it for $18, you're three in the hole. Where are you going to get the money?

I have about $2,000. Well, I've got $1,900 in a savings account, and in another savings account I've got about $1,000. So $2,900. So you have $3,000, which is, and you're advertising it at $2,000 in the whole. You're probably going to burn all that $3,000. So it sounds to me like your wife and you both are taking extra jobs. Okay. Like now.

Yeah. Well, she's planning on getting a job. She's not going to wait around as long as she can. She's trying to get another job for the summer, and I'm planning on taking up another position at a different place as well. Good. You're going to have to. I mean, you're going to have to because you can't pay these bills otherwise.

Because the problem with this car is you can't keep it, and you've got to be able to afford to get rid of it. Correct. And you barely could do that if somebody offered you $18,000 right now. You'd be rolling nickels out of the corner of the couch to get there, right? Yeah. And you'd be down to zero money, which scares the crap out of me. I don't know if it does you.

But having zero money is a real bad plan. That's one cough from homelessness. So I don't want you there. But, yeah, you've got to get out of this car. I mean, it's a nightmare. It's insanity on wheels. And, you know, everything about this decision was stupid. And it's just going to cost you.

I mean, when I do something stupid, you know, Jacob and I have done plenty of stupid stuff, and it costs me money. I call it stupid tax. So you're getting ready to write a check for stupid tax. And the trick is to learn your lesson. And don't, you know, well, I got a job. I can afford the payments. Famous last words of fools. And I've been that fool and so have you now.

So don't be that fool again. And learn your lesson from it. It only cost you three grand, four grand this time that you didn't have. And it's going to put you in a pinch. And hopefully that will make you, you know, sear this lesson into your conscience and you just go, no, I'm not borrowing money again ever. You know, whatever we drive, we're paying cash for or we're not buying it. I hope you learned that.

John's with us in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Hi, John, how are you? I'm doing good. Thank you for taking my call, and thank you for everything that you do. Thank you, sir. How can I help? Yes, sir. Me and my wife, we're in a really bad situation.

We make about $2,600 a month, and combined, that's take home after taxes and paying our employee insurance. And I'm a part-time that works. She's full-time. I'm a full-time nursing student. I's full-time. I'm a full-time nursing student. I've got one year left. Yes, sir. And our debt is about equal to what we make. We've got about $30,000 in debt.

Most of it's medical bills. My son, he's two. He was a twin, and we lost his brother at six weeks old. Oh, my Lord. And he spent two months in the NICU so and then shortly after that she had an ectopic pregnancy which was an emergency surgery and she didn't have insurance which now we know was foolish but we're new listeners and we don't really know where to start. I have an appointment at the end of this month with a one-on-one with a financial coach. And I just don't know what to do about it. Most of it's medical bills.

We do both have a car. Okay. The first thing I would tell you, John, is that if we put a couple things in place, I think you can tread water until you get your nursing boards passed. And when you do that, your household income is going to triple because you can make some really good money as a nurse and you can get all kinds of extra jobs as a nurse temporarily if you need to to clean up some messes like this $30,000 in debt. So if we can just kind of keep you afloat for 12 months, then that's like your worst case scenario.

Your best case scenario is you actually make some progress on the debt during those 12 months and clean up some of these medical bills. So thing one is I'm going to put you on a budget, a written game plan where every dollar that's coming in has an assignment on paper before the dollar gets to you you and your wife sit down go to every dollar.com and sit down and build yourself out of budget it's a free budgeting tool and give every dollar an assignment before it comes to your house that will make you feel like you've gotten a raise you don't have a lot of wiggle room in your budget right now uh you're not got a lot of money coming. You don't have a lot of wiggle room in your budget right now.

You've not got a lot of money coming in, so there's not a lot of wiggle room. That's okay. You're doing something about it. You're getting your nursing degree. You pass your boards. Your life is going to be better. I see a light at the end of the tunnel for you, brother. You're going to be doing fine.

But that budget then, any money you can squeeze out of it, goal number one is save $1,000 as a starter beginner emergency fund. And then goal number two is we're going to list these debts, smallest to largest, and we're going to pay off a bunch of those tiny little medical bills because you've got a lot of $79 and $179 stuff floating around that's bothering the crap out of you. You get some of those off your back, then you can fight through the rest of them or hold them at bay until you get that degree and get your income out of them. Hang on.

I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, to help you. Okay, I need you to listen to this. Because one normal routine that everyone does can cause total chaos in your life. I'm talking about the simple act of using Wi-Fi. When you're on Wi-Fi anywhere in public or at home, you're at risk of hackers easily seeing every site you visit and every search you're doing online. It doesn't matter if you're on your cell or your laptop. They can see you visiting websites, streaming or downloading, uploading photos, files and more. I'm not telling you this to scare you, but I want you to be aware and take action.

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Hi, Trevor. How are you? I'm doing pretty good, I suppose. Good. How can I help? Well, currently, I've been saving money for a while because I'm pretty content right now so there's nothing I really want to buy so I've just been saving up all my money for a while now I've gotten to the point where I have about $500 kicking up in

I don't know, a cigar box my brother gave me to store money in and I was just wondering if I should just shove it all into my bank account or do something like micro stocks. I don't know. I'm just curious.

And how old are you? I'm 13. Okay. Where'd you get the $500? Well, I don't know. Just a combination of saving over the years. Okay. Are you working or are you earning money?

Well, yeah, I'm working. I don't know. Just last week, I just helped my, I just went to my friend's house and I weeded with him and his dad and I made some money there. Yeah, good. I sometimes lawnmow and I get, you know, paid by my dad and, you know, that sort of thing. Good for you. Very good. When you turn 16, who's going to pay for your car?

Well, I'm guessing my parents, but I don't know. I might want to be a bit more financially independent, but I don't know. You might want to have a discussion with them and say, are you guys going to buy me a car, help me with a car, or do nothing towards my car? Because then that would give you something to start planning towards and saving towards, and then I would pull that money out of that cigar box and put it in a savings account and add to it towards buying your first car. That's probably a really good goal to have when you're 13.

And then you've got something systematically. When you earn money, there's three things you do with it, Trevor. You enjoy it, meaning you go out and spend it. You give it and help someone else, and you save and invest it towards your long-term goals, like in your case, a car. So when you're earning money, I'd try to do all three of those, but with this money, I would use that as the starting point for your good savings account over at the bank, and let's start saving towards that car, and that'd be my game plan.

Taylor is in Houston, Texas. Hi, Taylor. How are you? Hey, how's it going? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right, so I just kind of got started with, I just bought your book maybe a week ago,

and I feel like I've been doing a good job at saving, and I'm kind of torn on what to do. So we make $200,000 combined, me and my wife and uh i've got 16 in the savings and all we owe is 26 on her car my truck's paid off uh we owe 133 on the house and i've got a 529 for my son which i i contribute about 330330 a month. How long have you been making $200? For about five years now. Or is it all gone?

Yeah, that's a good point. Okay. I don't know. All right. Well, what we teach folks to do is to work through a financial planning process we call the baby steps, which is the shortest method that we know of, and we've had about 10 million people do it now, the shortest method we know of towards becoming wealthy.

You make really, really good money. You make too much money to be this broke. So baby step one is to save $1,000 and stop all investing, including 529, including 401K, until you get these baby steps done. So temporarily stop the 529, temporarily stop any investing you've got with 401Ks or anything else, and you have $1,000. Well, you've got that because you've got $16,000, right? Right.

So I'm going to take everything above $1,000, which would be $15,000, and I'm going to throw it on that car. It means that we've got $11,000 left to pay that car off. And then that's baby step two is to become debt-free, everything except the house. And so we're going to attack that car, and in just a matter of a couple of months, you ought to have that car paid off. Would you agree with that? Yeah.

With the kind of income you've got. And then from there, baby step three is to have a fully funded emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. So in your house, that's $25,000 or $30,000 you need to set aside just for rainy days, just for rainy days, never touch it for anything. Once you have that, then and only then would I start your 401K investing, 15% of your income going into retirement savings. That's what we call baby step four.

Baby step five is start to save for kids' college, so I'd restart the 529. At the same time I did that, and then any money I can find in my budget, and you need to start doing a written budget every month so you know where this freaking money is going um and then once you get that then i'm gonna uh any other money i can find baby step six is thrown at the house and we'll get the house paid off because you don't owe much on the house you'll probably pay off your house in two years maybe three years something like that if you start doing a written game plan and telling your money what to do instead of wondering where it went and you can do all that.

You're making really good money. I don't want you to look up five years from now again and go, I made another million dollars and I don't know where it went. So that's the budget, having a written game plan to accomplish those steps. You do those things and then you continue to invest and give, you're going to see ridiculous levels of wealth coming your way because you have a ridiculously wonderful income. And it's fabulous. I'm glad.

I'm proud for you. Hold on, Taylor. I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, which is going to show you how to do exactly what I just outlined. It's those baby steps on steroids. That's what this book is. And that's why we've sold six and a half million of them. James is with us in Los Angeles.

Hi, James. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm of them. James is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, James. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hi.

So I'm calling because I'm $107,000 in debt, and I want to be an actor. I went to a very expensive school here in Los Angeles, and, you know, I took a path that I didn't want to take in the first place because, oh, I want to take the stable job and everything, and yet here I find myself more unstable than ever, you know. You know, I know that the debt is nothing more than a symptom to everything that is going on, and hopefully, and I'm right now currently, you know, getting help in therapy and all these other things. But I don't know, you know, I read your book, Total Money Makeover, and I started, you know, hitting early debts, you know, really, really strong about a year ago. And then I just kind of lost track of it and fell off the wagon.

Thankfully, I haven't really gone into more debt. I caught the cards and all that stuff. But I don't know where to go. I don't know if I need to find a group. I don't know what I need to kind of keep myself moving in the needle. So I'm calling for your help. Okay. How old are you?

I am 26, about to be 27 next month. Good for you. What do you earn? What's your income? Well, actually, I'm unemployed right now. I lost my job about three months ago, and I haven't been able yet to find something. How are you eating? I am receiving some unemployment right now from the job that I lost,

and that's kind of what's kind of helping me build, you know, continue on flow. That's going to run out. What are you going to do? I currently don't know. You know, my first thought was just to do the most basic thing, you know, something like Uber or Lyft, anything just to kind of keep myself going until I found myself, you know, back in a career, but hopefully not in a career that I hate, at least in my way to, you know, while I pay off this debt. I mean, like I told you, you know, I'm hungry. What were you doing before?

I was working as a distributor at the publicist's kind of the career that I took on college, and I was doing that fine, and, you know, I was enjoying it more or less, but it isn't really my passion. So why did you lose the job? I just was not getting along with the people that I was working with, and it was a very detrimental kind of situation, so I just departed away. I see. Okay. Well, I mean, the biggest crisis you have

on the horizon right now is not a debt crisis, it's an income crisis. And so, a career crisis. And so we've got to get you working again, dude, so that you can earn your way through this $107,000 worth of debt. That's the trick here.

And then if you don't have that monkey right on your back, you've got more choices. You've got a lot of options, things you can do at that point. So, you know, it's all about income in this case. It's all about you finding something that you can tolerate or do to, and foremost survive, and then secondly, to be able to clear this debt. So let's work on the career side of the equation. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Folks, the real estate market is on fire all over the country. If you're looking to buy a home and you need a mortgage,

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How are you? I'm doing good. Thank you. Good. Good. Welcome. Where do you live? Kansas City, Missouri.

Good for you. Very cool. And all the way here to do your debt-free screen. Yes, sir. Very good. How much have you paid off? $21,000 in 10 months. Way to go. And your range of income during that time? $42,000 up to $55,000. Nice raise in one year. What do you

do for a living? I work in the insurance business. Okay, cool. Good for you. What kind of debt was your $21,000? A little bit of everything. I had about $3,000 in student loan, $4,000 in credit card, which was a private school tuition, and then $14,500 in a car. You were kind of normal. Yeah. Yeah, normal sucks. You weren't having fun. Yeah, that's cool. So what happened 10 months ago that got you jazzed up and on fire? It was a combination of two things. I wasn't really paying attention. I was just paying my bills and going along, caring about my business. But every year, you have to report the interest you're paying on your student loan. And I noticed it was never going down. And then it wasn't until I was trying to help a friend saying that he was in a lot of debt and was stressed. I said,

oh, you should look into Dave Ramsey. And then I realized I'm not really following Dave Ramsey myself. So I started following your podcast and went from there. Wow. Okay. So you just said, okay, it's time to do this. Time to grow up and move to that level. How old are you? I'm 37.

Good for you. Well done. How does it feel to not have any payments? You know, I'm kind of numb. I've been so focused on meeting goals and everything, and now I'm babysat 3B. So I'm focusing on saving on that. So I still feel like I'm running. So you're saving up for a house?

Yes, sir. Good for you. Very cool. Excellent. Well, I'm proud of you. Well done. Did you have people cheering you on or people telling you you were crazy? Both.

Both? Yeah. Okay. Who was your best cheerleader? Probably my mom, I guess, because she was the one helping me out so much. She also thought I was crazy, though. I ended up picking up an extra job, and then I just recently picked up a second job. Wow. ended up picking up um an extra job and then i just recently picked up a second job wow um and

but she's been very supportive um providing child care for me so that i could keep going there you go what is the um what is the key to getting out of debt that you tell people once they hear you've done this uh you got to focus on your why um if you don't have a good why and if you don't follow your budget and stick to your budget, because I've tried to help other people and I've realized they'll make the budget, but they won't follow it. There's always that. Doing the budget and then living on the budget. That second step's a big one.

Right. You've got to follow through. Yeah. Very cool. That's a good point. You said you worked some extra jobs. What did you do for extra jobs? So I worked at, well, I still am, working at a grocery store delivering groceries.

And then I just picked up a second job at a non-for-profit organization. Very cool. Good for you. Good for you. Well, it sounds like you got this on the run. I'm proud of you. Good job, hero. Thank you.

Very cool. Very cool stuff. Well, we've got a copy of Chris Hogan's proud of you. Good job, hero. Thank you. Very cool. Very cool stuff. Well, we've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Retire Inspired. We want that to be the next chapter in your story that you become a millionaire and you're on your way. And then as you go along, be outrageously generous along the way. So you obviously are doing that, too. Congratulations. Very, very, very well done.

All right. Laurie is in Kansas City. $21,000 paid off in 10 months, making $42,000 to $55,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free. Yeah. That's how it's done.

I love it, I love it, I love it. Very cool. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. 100% satisfaction guarantee that they have means that even if you mess up in the ordering of your blinds, you don't measure it correctly, you pick the wrong color, they will remake your window blinds for free. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code RAMSY to get the best possible deal. Today's question is from Steve in Pennsylvania. My company gives us a choice of pre-tax, Roth, basic, or after-tax.

They only give a 3% match for the pre-tax, Roth basic, or after-tax. They only give a 3% match for the pre-tax. My question is, what's the difference between a Roth basic and the after-tax? After-tax is not something you would do. You'd either do pre-tax or the Roth basic. After-tax is just an investment. You've already paid the taxes. You put the money in the investment. There's no benefit to it at all.

So we will do a pre-tax 401k or a Roth 401k and I think you misunderstood Steve your Roth 401k probably does have the three percent match however the three percent is not in Roth it is in pre-tax. That has to be by law. So you can put your money into Roth, and your money will grow 100% tax-free. They will match at 3%, but you'll pay taxes on that portion whenever you roll it into the Roth later or whenever you pull the money out to retire either one. But I'm almost positive they're going to give you the three percent match either way with the roth it's just that the three percent the portion of the match has to be by law in the before tax idea roth grows tax free before tax you don't pay taxes on the money before it

goes in so more money goes in but it and it grows without paying taxes on it until you take it out. And then it's 100% all available to be taxed at that point. And so you don't want to go that direction. We're having a summer sale on envelopes and wallets at DaveRamsey.com starting as low as $12.99. Hurry up. This week only. It's a great deal. These helpful budgeting tools will help you organize your cash and

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Chain is on Twitter. Dave, I'm doing my best to eliminate my credit card debt. But where I live, credit card numbers are being stolen from gas stations with my credit card. They canceled the charge with my debit card. The money is gone. No, it's not. You don't know what you're talking about.

When your debit card is hacked and you lose money due to fraud, the bank is required to put the money back. You have exactly the same protections with your debit card that you do with your credit card. And so your solution is to use a debit card. Or if you're in a situation where you continually are a particular station is continually putting skimmers in their pumps, then, you know, you've got to change stations, do or start paying cash for your gas. You could do that and then just use your debit card for other things. But no, you did not find the hole in my theory, sir. You did not find the, you're not the one guy after 30 years that figured out a way to get Dave Ramsey to use a credit card. Listen, credit cards are really ridiculous. There is so much downside and so little upside with screwing with a credit card.

People's lives have been completely ripped inside out by these things. They're a real menace to society. They're a real menace to your wealth building. It really, I mean, truthfully, when I was a little kid, everybody smoked. Everybody I knew in my neighborhood, all the parents, everybody smoked. I'll smoke like factories, you know. And, you know, sometime during my life, smoking became not cool because people discovered it kills you. It stinks.

And when you kiss somebody who's been smoking, it tastes like an ashtray. Pretty much smoking has become uncool. And I think credit cards are the cigarette of the financial industry. I think they're rapidly becoming uncool. There may be sections in restaurants you can't sit in if you have a credit card someday. Who knows? This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Folks, turnover is bad for business and it's expensive.

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Paul Meyer said productivity is never an accident. It's always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. There you go. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Isabella, or Isabel, rather, is with us in Virginia. Hi, Isabel. How are you? Wonderful.

Glad. Thank you. Good. How can I help? So my question today is about my husband and I own a rental property in our area and we've been renting it out for the last 12 years plus years. We've lived there for a year and a half. So we spoke to our account. We do have capital gain on it. It's doubled since we purchased it. So we have always net pretty much about between $300 plus every month. So we do have debts that I'm looking into going through this,

you know, financial university and be debt-free in the next couple years here. The other hand tool where we have talked about keeping it for the kids' education. So I'm not sure if we should sell it and take the, you know, plunge with the capital gain, which is pretty hefty amount, looking at $55,000 to $60,000, or should we just keep it and figure it out later? And I'm not sure what to do. Okay. How much debt do you have? $50,000, and that's due to loans and just credit cards.

And what's your household income? Close to $300,000. Okay. Well, you don't have to sell the rental to pay off $50,000 making $300,000, do you? No, no, no. And we have plenty. I mean, we have investments in 401K and stocks. This is just that I just hate owning money.

I just hate. I have not. Well, you make $300,000. Stop your 401Ks. Stop your investments. Stop everything. And pay the $50,000 off in, what, six months. Okay.

You'd be debt-free in six months. Okay. That can be done. However, my main thing is the profit or gain that we can't seem to avoid. Is there a way to get around it? No. You're going to pay capital gains if you take the cash out of the rental property. You don't need to take the cash out to pay the debt, though. We established that, didn't we?

Correct. So why are you selling the rental property now? Well, at some point, we need to start a kids' college fund. You make $300,000 a year. Correct. I think you need to get on a budget and quit spending money like you're in Congress. Well, the thing, well, I happen, we live in a very expensive area. Oh, come on.

You make $300,000 a year. Really? You're spoiled rotten you're i mean unbelievable you can hit your college goals and you can hit this debt free in a heartbeat you need to cut up your freaking credit cards and stay home quit traveling quit buying crap and quit going out to eat every night. You make $300,000 a year. And you can hit your investment goals. You can hit your college savings goals. You start living on a written plan and doing this stuff on purpose. You and your husband need to sit down and really get serious about facing this stuff.

I mean, the fact that you all are this broke making this kind of money is what's known as pitiful. You really have to address this. It's really sad. And then if you want to sell the rental, you may have some capital gains on it. If you want to have a different rental, you can do what's called a 1031 tax deferred exchange and sell that rental and use the money to buy a different rental and you won't what's called a 1031 tax deferred exchange and sell that rental and use the money to buy a different rental and you won't have any taxes on it.

But that is not your problem. Your problem is called lifestyle. That's what you're facing. And if you don't deal with that, you're going to wake up broke at retirement with a lot of this really bad taste in the back of your mouth called regret. John is with us in Kansas City. Hey, John, how are you? Hi, Dave.

How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I'm a pretty short-time listener. I wish I had heard about you a long time ago. But anyway, I'm 67 and retired in 2006. I'm just kind of wanting to run by my figures here. I'm kind of wondering, am I going to be all right as I get older?

Okay. How much have you got in your estate? Anyway, I've got in my credit union cash, I've got $64,000. And I have, in a Morgan Stanley account, I've got $94,000. And I've got $150,000 in an IRA and $100,000 in a regular. And a couple of years ago, this is kind of what worries me, is I took that out of those two things out of the American funds and put them in this annuity. Why?

Well, I was talking with my brother and this and that and the other, and he was going to do that. And I thought, well, you know, we decided, well, maybe I should do that myself to make sure that that's there and doesn't get lost somewhere along the line. But I'm kind of thinking, wow, you know, I'm missing out here on that. I didn't know if I should do something. Do you have any

income coming in? Yeah, I have. My income is Social Security and I've got two pensions. And that's about $3,100 a month. And then one of my pensions, that's another

question, one of my pensions in the last about six years has been cut two times. So I picked up just a part-time job a couple of days a week, and I make about $600 a month on that, which... Is your home paid for? My home is paid. I'm debt-free. I don't have any debt. And what's your house worth? About maybe $160,000, somewhere around there. You're single? Yes. Okay.

All right. Yeah. I kind of wanted to quit this part-time job and then maybe draw, just take the $600,000 out of some cash I got on hand until I get to where I can draw my IRA. Well, you are where you can draw your IRA. So what I would do is sit down with a good financial advisor. If you want to know who we recommend in your area, you click SmartVestor at DaveRamsey.com, fill in a little bit of stuff on you, and it will drop down a list of the SmartVestor pros in your area we recommend.

Here's what I would tell you when you sat down with me to do that. Those guys don't work for me, and I'm not in the investment business. But if I woke up in your shoes, is how I answer questions here on this show, and what I would do is simply this. I would take the Morgan Stanley. I would take the IRA. I'd take the other $100,000. It looks to me like you've got about $350,000 there, not counting the $64,000 in your simple cash account.

Okay? Right. $350,000, I would invest that as a group, combine it, put it into, if it's in IRAs or whatever it is, put it into some stuff like those American funds you were in before, some good growth stock mutual funds. And I spread my investments across, I'm 57, across four types, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. If you want to go a little bit more conservative,

the SmartVestor Pro will coach you on that. They'll teach you. You decide what you want to do. You could do, instead of the aggressive you could substitute that out for a balanced but either way let's say you made 10 on that money okay 350 times 10 is 35 000 that's three thousand dollars a month if you never touch anything except the income that the goose is, the golden eggs is laying, all you take is the eggs. You don't touch the goose. The $350 is the goose.

You easily could pull $1,000 to $2,000 a month in income off of that $350 if it's invested properly for the rest of your life and never touch the $350. And it would run in perpetuation. It would run out past your death, in other words. And so that's why you need to have somebody sit down and help you put this together. You have enough money to live the life you want to live. You've done a good job. You're a good man. That puts us, our The Dave Ramsey Show, in the books.

We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, it's Kelly, Dave's phone screener. We finished 2017 with a bang as the fourth most downloaded podcast of the year. Thanks to all of you for listening and helping us spread the word. I hate to see people waste money, and that's exactly what happens when you spend hundreds of dollars a year on ID theft protection plans like Trusted ID, LifeLock, ID Watchdog, and any of them. Well, let's face it. Identity theft is a nightmare, and it's not going away.

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