The Ramsey Show - App - Are We Ready to Buy a House? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 27, 2019

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, 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'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. In 1848, a lady named Sarah Hale began to write to the President of the United States. She was the editor of Goody's women's book, and she wrote a letter to the President of the United States saying,
Starting point is 00:01:12 I think we should have a national holiday of Thanksgiving. I think we should have a national holiday where we are grateful. Her letter was not answered. For 15 years, she wrote, starting with James K. Polk and then to Zachary Taylor, then to Millard Fillmore, then to Franklin Pierce, and then to James Buchanan. And each year for 15 years, she would write the letter to the President of the United States saying, we should have a national day of Thanksgiving. In 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, the letter was opened by Abraham Lincoln.
Starting point is 00:02:00 By then, Sarah Hale is 74 years old. She had not given up. And President Lincoln felt like in the middle of the Civil War that it was a good thing that we pause and say we're grateful. If you don't know a lot about Lincoln, he famously did a bunch of things, but one of the things was he would put people on his cabinet that were his enemies and were in perpendicular belief systems with him. They really argued. One of those was his Secretary of State, William Seward, who was a writer of many of Lincoln's famous speeches.
Starting point is 00:02:47 They were frenemies, without a doubt. Seward sat down and penned the proclamation that Lincoln then read. The prose is so beautiful, and it so struck a chord with the nation at the time that when Lincoln read the original pieces, it was in William Seward's handwriting when he read it before Congress. And then from there it was printed up, and printed copies of the proclamation were sold to raise money for the widows and orphans of the Union soldiers. That's how much of a chord this piece of prose struck with the nation.
Starting point is 00:03:26 Oh, that we could think like this and speak like this again, the proclamation. The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression,
Starting point is 00:04:11 peace has been preserved with all nations. Order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, not shuttled the ship. The axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines as well of iron
Starting point is 00:04:46 and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield. And the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom no human council hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things they are the gracious gifts of the most high god who while dealing with us in anger for our sins hath nevertheless remembered mercy it has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole american people
Starting point is 00:05:42 i do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience commend to his tender care all those who have become widows,
Starting point is 00:06:22 orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as it may be consistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union. And with that, the President of the United States made Thanksgiving a national holiday to praise God. I know that's shocking to some of you politically correct people, but it's good to know your history. The purpose of Thanksgiving was to stop and praise God
Starting point is 00:07:17 and say, thank you, Lord, for what you poured into our lives. That was the original proclamation that caused all of this shopping to occur this weekend. It was the original proclamation that it caused turkeys to be slaughtered. It was the original proclamation that has now been, of course, institutionalized, materialized, and turned into a shopping experience. But the original proclamation is not unclear. Oh, the prose is beautiful, and we don't speak that eloquently anymore. I wish we did. I wish I did. I can't imagine even having a conversation with someone that thinks like that.
Starting point is 00:08:07 But stopping and saying, the hand of the Almighty are where these blessings have come from. Thank you, God. That is Thanksgiving. This is a tradition here on The Dave Ramsey Show. If you're just joining us for the first time on a Thanksgiving, we do this every Thanksgiving and have for almost 30 years. It's good to stop and know where you come from, folk.
Starting point is 00:08:35 So when you come on the air today, I'm going to help you and answer your question, but your entrance fee to the show today is you have to tell me what you're thankful for. There's a ticket to get in today. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. If you're going to join this team, we want someone who cares and has a passion about what we do. That's why we trust LinkedIn Jobs. They are the best at matching the right person with the right job. We don't want someone just looking for a nine to five. We want thoroughbreds. One of the things that distinguishes a world-class thoroughbred in racing is the size of their heart. A true thoroughbred in the workplace is someone with a heart that is going to be staying and
Starting point is 00:09:22 growing with our company. You can't get a more highly targeted field of thoroughbreds than LinkedIn jobs. They literally screen candidates for both those hard and soft skills that you're looking for, so you can hire the right person. LinkedIn makes sure your post gets seen by the people you want to hire. It's no wonder someone gets hired every eight seconds with LinkedIn. Get started today. Pay what you want and get $50 off your first job post. Visit linkedin.com slash Ramsey. Terms and conditions apply. happy thanksgiving to you america this is the dave ramsey show open phones at triple eight
Starting point is 00:10:16 eight two five five two two five trey is with us in georgia what are you thankful for trey um well first i'm thankful for my health, and I'm fortunate enough to have a lot of my family here to be able to celebrate with them. I'm also thankful for all the active military members that are not able to be with their parents and fighting for our freedom. Amen. Cool. How can I help today?
Starting point is 00:10:42 So I had a question about my vehicle. I'm trying to figure out what you thought I should do. I'm on baby step number two. I just paid off my first credit card. Good. And my car is the last thing in my debt snowball. Unfortunately, because of a lot of stupid decisions I made prior, I'm stuck with a high payment, about $10,000 in negative
Starting point is 00:11:07 equity. And I'm trying to figure out if I should just start paying down the negative equity as quickly as possible, or just keep going to debt snowball as I usually would. Okay. What do you owe on the car total? Just about $30,000 and change, about $30,500, I think. So you think it's worth around $20,000? Around $20,000, yeah. Why do you think that? Kelly Blue Book.
Starting point is 00:11:30 Kelly Blue Book, okay. Kelly Blue Book is a private sale. It's about $20,000 and some change. Perfect, okay. And so you rolled negative equity into that deal probably from your last deal, right? Right. I bought a car. I had a 4Runner that I had no payment on, which obviously I should have kept.
Starting point is 00:11:51 But I bought a Jeep, and it turned out to be a lemon. It was out of warranty, and I had to put a new engine in it. So that obviously got put on credit cards because I didn't have the money. Trickle effect there. So my mechanic, who's a very trusted advisor, close family friend of ours, said, you need to get rid of this car. It's going to keep giving you issues. So I did it.
Starting point is 00:12:13 All I needed to do was take it in and trade it. But my point is that you rolled a negative equity from the last car into this. This car had dropped $10,000 in value by itself. Correct. Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay. So what's your household income? My base salary is 53 gross, but then I also have a side hustle where I make about $800
Starting point is 00:12:34 a month. Okay. So what's your household income? That make it about $65,000 a year? Are you married? Right. No, I'm single. No kids. Okay. So you got $65,000 a year? Are you married? Right. No, I'm single. No kids.
Starting point is 00:12:47 Okay. So you've got $65,000 a year. You have a $30,000 car note on a $20,000 car. Okay. A couple of rules of thumb that I use. Rule of thumb number one is, even if they're all paid for, don't own vehicles, things with motors and wheels all added together, including your freaking lawnmower, all of it added together,
Starting point is 00:13:09 should not be more than half your annual income because things with motors and wheels go down in value rapidly, okay, as you have discovered. Now, the second rule of thumb I use is can you be debt-free in two years other than your home and keep this car? So you have $30,000 owed on the car. What other debts do you have? What's the total of your debt?
Starting point is 00:13:35 Right now, as I sit, it's about $111,525. Okay. You need to sell the car because the car is $20,000 of your debt on $111,000, and you make $65,000 a year. You need to be driving a $2,000 car while you clean this mess up. Right. And that means you're going to have to borrow the difference, that $10,000. Who is the loan with on the 30?
Starting point is 00:14:08 Toyota Finance. Okay. They're going to be no help at all. So you're going to talk to your local credit union, your small town bank, somebody that you can actually sit in front of and explain to them this situation. Is your credit trashed? Yeah, pretty much. Okay.
Starting point is 00:14:24 It's going to make this very difficult but as soon as you can get this car sold by paying by borrowing ten thousand dollars and getting rid of this payment and having a payment on ten thousand dollars instead of a payment on thirty thousand dollars that's going to help you towards being debt free inside of two years the car itself does not violate the half of your annual income because $20,000 value is less than half of $65,000. But it is a big chunk of your debt. It is a big mess.
Starting point is 00:14:59 It is a high interest rate. And they have taken you to town, brother, and you're going to have to cut them loose. So I would go borrow the $10,000 and I would get the car sold if there's any way that you can do that reasonably. If you can't, then you're going to pay payments on it for a while while you work your debt snowball until you can get to it. And when you can get the payment, I mean, when you can get the negative equity reduced, then you can sell it. If you can't borrow the difference, you probably can borrow the difference. It's probably going to take some work, but getting out of debt takes work, and cleaning up past sins that we all have takes work. It's a hard thing to go back and you know clean up a mess that you have made and that's
Starting point is 00:15:47 what you've done here so yeah this is a i'm sorry man you are really in a pickle but you really gonna have to work to get out of it and otherwise it's gonna you know you're just gonna wallow in this mess forever and we certainly don't want that cara is with us in Texas. Hi, Kara. How are you? I'm great. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What are you thankful for? I'm thankful for my family. Cool. How can I help today? So I've been working your baby steps. We're on baby step two, my husband and I. We started FPU with our church in September. And since September, we have paid off $43,000. Good for you.
Starting point is 00:16:30 Yeah. That included the sale of our house to move in with my mom for a little while because I am a full-time master's student. But all we have left in debt is my student loans that I got into before I met you. So my question is, my mom is fine with us staying with her while I am in school full time. And so that I will graduate in December of 2020 with my master's degree, and then we'll have to start looking for a house, but I don't know how much of that debt will be paid down by then.
Starting point is 00:17:14 So I was wondering at what point do I pause and try to save for somewhere for us to live? How much student loan debt do you have? With my undergrad and now my master's, I'm looking at about 96K. So you're still borrowing money for your master's? I did, yes, sir. Okay. Are you going to continue to borrow money for your master's to finish it? My goal is not to.
Starting point is 00:17:44 That wasn't – the answer is yes or no and the answer is no i'm not going to borrow any more for my master's it's not just a goal what does your husband make a year he makes about a hundred grand a year okay and um what is your master's in it's uh my master's of social work. Okay. In order to do what? I want to work in a clinical setting, so I'll be a licensed clinical social worker, which means that I'll work one-on-one.
Starting point is 00:18:20 What does that pay? In Texas, I can make anywhere from $56,000 to $69,000 a year. Okay. All right. And, well, we're not borrowing anymore. You make $100,000. You cash flow the balance of this master's, even if you don't reduce any debt, even if you don't do anything else.
Starting point is 00:18:40 I'm certainly not worried about you buying a house. You have a mess. And so what you need to do is finish your master's and get you a rental property while you finish paying off these debts. And then when you're out of debt, then you build your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. Then we talk about saving to buy a house. But yeah, you ought to be able to cash flow this master's with him making 100 grand unless you're overpaying for it i hope you're not overpaying for a master's in social work
Starting point is 00:19:10 that'd be a bad idea you want to get that at a bargain for sure because your income lift as a result of having it is not substantial so you know finish it up i'm with you you got one year to go cashflow it, then go rent you something and, um, get to work both of you. And then let's take that $160,000 income and pay off this mess. This is the Dave Ramsey show. folks let's cut through the bull interest rates are exceptionally low so you're missing out if you have not called churchill mortgage to see if you can save money on your home loan lots of other companies are out there claiming great deals, but don't get lured by slick
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Starting point is 00:20:43 NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Thank you for joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Anthony is in California. Anthony, what are you thankful for? I am thankful for my wife and our two boys and our health. Very cool. Most definitely.
Starting point is 00:21:30 How can I help today? I have two questions. I'm 33. I'm in Baby Step 4. And I'm going to be leaving my current employer. Currently, I have about $53,000 in the CalPERS retirement plan. And I was just wondering, looking to try and start making my money work for me. And I'm just confused about if I should put that, do a direct transfer rollover all into a 401k into my new employer,
Starting point is 00:22:00 or do half in a 401k and half in an IRA with mutual funds, or what would be the best plan for that? I would take your old 401k anytime you're able to and roll it with a direct transfer rollover to an IRA. And I always use four types of mutual funds to fund my retirement, IRA, 401k, or anything, and that's growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. I put about 25% in each one, and so a fourth across those four types. And so yeah, I would just take it and roll it over since you've got that opportunity too.
Starting point is 00:22:38 Because you have more options for investing. There's 8,000 mutual funds you can pick from to do an IRA. You've only got 10 or 12 in your 401k. And so you can always get better options. You've got better access to it. You can change it easier. And so, you know, obviously when you leave the company, you don't have to deal with the old company's payroll and so forth. All right, let's go to Richard inard in texas hi richard welcome to the dave ramsey show thanks dave how are you doing today better than i deserve what's up um got a question for you my wife and i are coaches for adaptive sports in our area and it's been a really off year for us, and we want to take FPU,
Starting point is 00:23:25 but we want to lead one, but we also want to target special needs families because we deal with special needs families in our depth of sports, and I was wondering if you had any suggestions. there is a benefit to having special needs families integrated with non-special needs families going through this. One of the benefits is the non-special needs families would learn some compassion for some of the things that a special needs family faces. The other benefit might be that the special needs family would actually get some encouragement from someone who's not necessarily facing the same things they are. And so I'm not sure I would build a class. I wouldn't tell you not to, but I'm just thinking out loud as we're talking this
Starting point is 00:24:25 through i'm not sure i would build a class with an exclusive group like that that are all facing one thing there might be some benefits to it and that you are you know you've got a shared experience that you're doing what you don't want to do what you don't want to do is you don't want to allow the special needs discussion to cause you to think that the law of gravity does not apply to you. And I mean, go ahead. I mean, we believe in your program. It's just it's been a hard year for us because of our daughter. Sure.
Starting point is 00:24:59 Me. Sure. And that's why my wife and I think we need a rehearsal course. But the best way to do it is to lead a class okay yeah I think it's a great way to do it and I don't mind you doing that I'd appreciate you leading a class and I'm just kind of thinking out loud with you whether that what will work and what won't work in other words you don't
Starting point is 00:25:18 want for the benefit of the participant you don't want the financial peace class to become a special needs discussion. It needs to remain a financial peace discussion for the benefit of the people in there, regardless of if it's all special needs people or if it's mixed with the general public, so to speak. And so, yeah, I think it is a wonderful idea. And that's just the warnings I would think of, because one of the things that happens in a traditional financial peace class is sometimes the person, that there's one person in the class who is in a particular mess, and they're particularly verbal,
Starting point is 00:25:58 and they can take up all the airtime. And they monopolize all the discussions. And, you know, and so a good coordinator has to quietly gently and with manners say um we want to walk with you and help you through your mess but you're not the only person in here and so we're going to have to have some evenness and conversation and some smoothing out here and uh control the airtime so to speak and that's what i don't you know i don't want to magnify that in this situation because obviously, like you said, you've had a really tough year. And you would probably have some other people in there that have had a very tough year. And so it can get sidetracked, and you would lose the benefit of having taken the class,
Starting point is 00:26:39 and the other members would too, if you're not careful. But if you take that warning to heart and you just watch it and you go, okay, hey, let's stay, let's get back on the road, let's get back on the road, no rabbit trails, let's get back on the road. And if you do that as the coordinator, I think you'll be just fine. And if you've not had one of our team furnish you the financial peace class yet, we'll certainly give it to you guys to try to help you with the tough year you're having. Hold on, Madison will pick up, and we will do that.
Starting point is 00:27:07 So, hey, thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Happy Thanksgiving. What are you thankful for, Daniel, in New York? Really thankful that me and my wife are still here for our four-month-old. We were in a bad car accident. A drunk driver hit us a couple weeks ago, and thankfully we had a baby step through to fall back on.
Starting point is 00:27:31 Wow. And everybody's okay? My wife is pretty banged up, so am I, but I'm in the family business, so I had to go back to work, but she's out for another two months or so, at least. Ouch. Well, I'm sorry. I'm glad you made it through it.
Starting point is 00:27:49 So ahead on? Yeah, we were going northbound. She was going southbound and came into our lane. I made it last second just veered to the right, and she smashed us into a utility goal. Wow. And then a third car has, you know. Of course. Of course.
Starting point is 00:28:06 How can I help today? Well, you know, my father is 68 years old. He's getting towards retirement dreams. And I'm looking to see how to appraise a family business and how to transition because they didn't really save for a retirement. They've got about $80,000 left on their loan from the bank to purchase the business back from about 2004, and I want to know the best way to make this a smooth transition, and what is your advice?
Starting point is 00:28:37 What is the business profit? How much profit does it make a year? We're roughly around $30,000 net. That's after you've been paid a salary and he's been paid a salary? And my mother, yes. And your mother's been paid a salary. Okay. Yep.
Starting point is 00:28:56 All right. Not much here. So a small business is worth roughly four times its net profits, maybe five on a good day. And so this is a $120,000 to $150,000 business. It's got an $80,000 loan on it, and so it's not worth much. If it's worth $120,000, that means your dad has if it's worth 120 it means your dad has 40 000 in equity to retire on okay which is not enough to retire on no so i mean if you paid him 40 000 and you took over the loan you would have bought the business properly okay and uh so this is going
Starting point is 00:29:44 to be very very difficult because this business is not Okay. And so this is going to be very, very difficult because this business is not very profitable. And the problem is he's worked so hard on it for so long, and he thinks it's worth more than it is. Correct. You're not wrong there. Yeah. So unless there is some outside circumstances,
Starting point is 00:30:02 I would want you to consider a new career and tell your dad to sell his business. I think that'll be better for him, and it'll be better for you. Because there's not enough here for this whole family to eat out of when you sell it or when you transition it. It's not going to work. You don't have enough wiggle room in this thing. If you can double the profits or triple the profits we've got something to talk about but not right now this is the Dave Ramsey Show Happy Thanksgiving, America. We're so glad you're with us.
Starting point is 00:30:59 Open phones at 888-825-5225. Samantha is in Virginia. Hi, Samantha. What are you thankful for? Hey, Dave. I am just so thankful for God's grace and his forgiveness and just the love of my family. Love it. Very cool.
Starting point is 00:31:15 How can I help today? Well, I'm not in baby step four yet, but I'm looking ahead to the future. And when we're investing our 15% of our income, is that supposed to be net or gross? Okay, perfect. But there's no magic here, okay? It's just because it's easy to calculate. The magic is a steady investment of a goodly portion of your income,
Starting point is 00:31:46 but not so much that you can't do five and six while you're doing it. And that's where the 15% came from. Oddly enough, I kind of pulled that figure out of the air when I was designing some of this stuff many, many years ago, and I was experiencing trying to get college funds started and trying to get the house paid down, so I didn't want to put it all. I didn't want to load up the retirement where there was no money to do that. And so I just pulled a couple of different figures out there.
Starting point is 00:32:10 I used a 10, and I used a 12, and I used a 15, and I used a 17. And I pulled average household incomes, and then I thought about the single mom making $28,000. And then I thought about the guy making $115,000. And I just ran a bunch of case studies back and forth with the different numbers and projected them out at different ages. And the weird thing is 15% gets you there. I mean, it gets you there. You'll be a millionaire when you retire if you never do more than that in most households.
Starting point is 00:32:36 So it gets you there. But it really is just a starting point until you get the house paid off, and then you move on. So, hey, good question. Thanks for joining us. until you get the house paid off, and then you move on. So, hey, good question. Thanks for joining us. It was a random thing at first, but now we've got so much case study, so many case studies of having worked with so many people, and when you run the numbers out, just take 15% of a household income.
Starting point is 00:33:01 By the way, the average household income in America, according to D.C., according to the Department of Labor Statistics, is $59,000 right now. That's your average household income, so $60,000. So 15% is $9,000 a year. Okay? If you invest $9,000 a year from age 30 to age 60, you will have lots of money, like millions of dollars, if you put that in a mutual fund and a Roth IRA. So if that's all you ever do, and if you did 12%, you also would, okay? But I just, you know, we work these numbers backward and forward, and now we've had 30
Starting point is 00:33:32 years of dealing with the data that results from our suggestions, and we see how many everyday millionaires are popping up. So it's good stuff. Hey, thanks for the call. Sarah is with us in New York. Sarah, what are you thankful for? Thank you, Dave, so much for taking my call. I'm thankful for you and all the advice and motivation you provide us every day.
Starting point is 00:33:55 Well, thank you. How can I help? Well, I'm in commercial real estate, so I definitely have that variable income. It's really, you know, up and down, but I've been very blessed. And I feel like I'm seeing really good progress with, you know, some years reaching six figures. I'm debt free. Me and my husband have just our home to pay for. And we always get a little caught up in the numbers.
Starting point is 00:34:20 And when we have those really great years, and I only have an IRA, a Roth IRA and now a SEP along with like our house payment, we don't know how much I should contribute to those or pay a lump on the house and what makes us feel comfortable with the whole tax ramifications as well. What tax ramifications? With my income being an independent contractor, 1099. Well, you need to set aside your taxes before we have a discussion. Okay. So, I mean, if you make $100,000 and you go allocate $100,000 to debt reduction and investments, you have a tax problem. Yeah. And so you have to do withholding on yourself.
Starting point is 00:35:08 You're supposed to be doing quarterly estimates anyway. And so anytime you pull money from your real estate business to your home, you need to set aside at least a fourth of it for taxes. Okay. And withhold on yourself, in other words, to not get yourself behind the eight ball with taxes. Now, with the money that's left over, I would invest 15% of it. And so if you get a big check in, put 15% away. And that big check might allow you a lot of extra money to chunk some big lumps on the house.
Starting point is 00:35:38 If you get a little check in, put 15% of it away, and you're probably not going to put anything on the house. Okay. And your husband's income, you know, runs in there too. We're running these budgets together, congruent. But the beauty of a volatile income is as long as it's volatile up, that would make it volatile. It's just not down all the time, right?
Starting point is 00:36:01 But I mean, if you get some big checks, I grew up in the real estate business, and I had, you know, I remember in my 20s, I had some months where I made zero and had some months where I made $25,000. And it felt like, you know, I was, you know, richer, I was poor all the time. And so, but what we learned to do was when, you know, when the harvest is coming in, when there's a big pile of money, A, we set some back for down months, and B, we just apply a percentage to everything, and any money that's left after those percentages, meaning I'm going to put 15% away on this, I'm going to put 5% on lifestyle, I'm going to set my taxes aside at 25, 30, 40%, depending on what your income is, and then I'm going to start chunking the rest of it on the house, and when you get a big check in, it's really easy to throw a big check at generosity
Starting point is 00:36:47 or a big check at debt reduction on the house. And when you get a small check in, you're just barely eating. But you still do your percentages, and that keeps everything moving along. Good question. Virginia is with us in New Jersey. Hi, Virginia. What are you thankful for? Hi, Dave.
Starting point is 00:37:07 I am thankful for my whole family, very large family, but especially my husband, who's been extremely supportive with me finishing school. Cool. How can I help today? So my question is about buying a house. We will be finishing up with our student loan payments next month. So it's very exciting. And we're going to start building up our emergency fund. So we did delay our wedding until next May because we wanted to have our student loans paid off before having this big extravagant wedding.
Starting point is 00:37:43 So we do have some, still quite a big amount that we have to set aside for that. But we also want to think about buying a house because renting in this area is very expensive. And your question is what? So my question is, is it a good idea for us to think about buying a house when we're just barely getting out of debt? I'm not sure if we're going to have time to save a 20% down payment along with our emergency funds, and I just don't know if the timing is right and if we should just sign a lease for another year.
Starting point is 00:38:18 I'd sign a lease for another year. You're coming up with a lot of expenses, and what you're really telling me is you're not going to have a down payment unless you use your emergency fund, and no, I wouldn't do that. So that's what you're really telling me. For instance, we're going to have a down payment because I think we are severely overpaying in taxes right now. Why?
Starting point is 00:38:37 So our paychecks are about 60% to 65% of our gross amount. Why are you overpaying in taxes on purpose we're not doing it on purpose i did do a calculator and according to that calculator on like the irs website it said that we're actually going to owe about 200 which i don't understand yeah i don't think the irs website is what i would use for my source of truth okay i think i would you know what i would do is tell you to sit down with your tax preparer and actually calculate what your tax bill is going to be and based on that do your withholding accurately rather than have this vague sense that i have a savings account with the irs that i'm going to get cash out in april called a return. That's not a good way to manage money. So let's get the
Starting point is 00:39:26 proper withholding done, get the proper amount of money coming home, uh, pay for the wedding, you know, get out, get all the debts paid off, build your emergency fund, then build you a good strong down payment. And I kind of think I'm hearing that's going to take a year. So you're probably signing a new lease. And that's not the end of the world. There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, renting is patience until you get your ducks in a row. We have to get the ducks in a row.
Starting point is 00:39:55 We have to get everybody quacking in the right direction. And people get in a hurry, and they're like, oh, I've got to buy a house. Oh, I've got to. And renting is so expensive. I've got to buy a house. I've got to do this, and I've got to do this i can do this and then i gotta do this and you just get people get you know everybody does this and folks just calm down you know it's just it's just a process walk the process out walk the journey out walk the journey out it takes a little time hustle and grind it's not comfortable winning is never instant and it's never easy this is the Dave
Starting point is 00:40:30 Ramsey show hey it's Kelly associate producer and phone screener for the Dave Ramsey show this episode is over but if you heard about a product or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything that is mentioned during this episode in the podcast show notes section. Thanks for listening.

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