The Ramsey Show - App - Are you Stuck in the Paycheck-to-Paycheck Grind?

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and host of The Ken Coleman Show, is my co-host today. So in the 1860s, there was a famous poet, a lady named Sarah Hale. She was the editor of a book called Goody's Lady's Book. She penned the famous nursery rhyme, Mary Had a little lamb. And for 17 years, beginning in 1846, she wrote to the President of the United States, and she was influential and known, so they would have received her letters. Plus, back then, people actually could just walk into the White House. It was a different world, of course. And for 17 years, she would write to the president as a well-known figure,

asking the president to formalize a day of Thanksgiving as a national holiday. In the middle of the Civil War, 18 months before the Civil War was to end, in 1863, Abraham Lincoln decided to do that. And his Secretary of State, Seward, who wrote a lot of his speeches with Lincoln, Lincoln was known for his ability to speak, but Seward did a lot of his writing, and Seward wrote out the proclamation, and the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, declared that on October the 3rd, 1963, or 1863, that Thanksgiving is going to be a national holiday. Here's 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 such extraordinary in nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, 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, the shuttle, or the ship. The axe has enlarged

the borders of our settlements, and the mines as well of iron 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 counsel 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. 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, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged

and fervently employ the interposition of the almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace harmony tranquility and union in testimonyof, I'm here to set my hand and cause the seal of the United States to be affixed. By President Abraham Lincoln. I read this every year, and I have for almost 30 years on Thanksgiving on this show because I'm a cornball, and I love stuff like this. And there's two things that never cease to strike me about this, Ken.

One is, I just wish we could speak like this. there's two things that never ceased to strike me about this Ken one is I just wish we could speak like this yeah I agree I mean it's the only time of the year I get to use the word beneficent yeah I mean what a word that's a great word and the second thing is this is the president of the United States telling the nation to say thank you to God unashamedly, straight up. That's what this holiday is. Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. Thank you, Lord. What strikes me is the third sentence of this amazing piece is he's talking about we've been in the midst of civil war.

And certainly we're not experiencing that. But if we think about the last election season, then we've just come through and we've been in the midst of a cultural war. A divisive war. Certainly a divisive season. And so I'm struck by the fact that I'm very thankful today that, as he goes on to say, order has been maintained, laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed. Now, I don't know how much harmony is going to be around the Thanksgiving table around politics this year, but we are a peaceful nation, and I think we should be grateful for that, given the

stakes and given the divisiveness. So I'm struck by those words that are relevant today. It's perspective. I mean, the time you look back, this lady for 17 years asked, she kept knocking on the door, knocking on the door, knocking on the door. And finally, a president in the middle of the Civil War decides this is the thing. But that was Abraham Lincoln's unique spiritual position. He's square in the middle of this huge conflict and still stops and says, oh, look at all the blessings around us, and guess where they came from.

So we're going to stop and be thankful for that. Thankful that he did this, and this is a great tradition that we should be thankful for as well. And, you know, we've been blessed mightily, this nation. When we look at the world picture, God has been good to us. And even Abraham Lincoln, in a time of unbelievable torment, of ripping a nation apart, family fighting against family, he was grateful for its goodness. And also, very positive as he looked forward there. A lot of positive vision he expressed.

Heal the wounds of the nation. Ask the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation. the almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation it's a good word yeah it's a good word to remember right now that's why i do it so what are you thankful for that's your uh entry onto the show today yes i'm a cornball but it got my name on it so i can do what i want to with it this is the ramsey show Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. What are you thankful for? Joe's going to start off this hour. Joe's in Albany, New York. Joe, what are you thankful for? Hey, Dave, I am thankful for God first and my 10-year-old daughter. Awesome. What's her name? My daughter's name is Aubrey. Very cool. Very cool. How can we help you today, sir? So I guess my question is kind of

centered around God. So main question is, does God want me or us to be wealthy? I kind of wanted to ask you that because I feel like you have a pretty big business and you have ties to people who are in church, so maybe you could offer some biblical insight. That way my finances and my spiritual life can be aligned a little bit more. Yeah, okay. Well, there's two ends of the spectrum in the Christian world, both of which create an inaccurate teaching of Scripture. One end of the spectrum we call the prosperity gospel, that God wants you to be rich, and if you're not rich, you must not be right with God, and all this kind of stuff. And that's not biblical.

You can't back that up scripturally. The other end of the spectrum is that God says biblical. You can't back that up scripturally. The other end of the spectrum is that God says you have to be poor in order to be holy, and that's actually not scriptural either. That's a form of heresy called Gnosticism. So what actually happens is it's not really a spectrum between those two, but it's maybe a third point on a triangle off in a different direction. I was on a TV show with a pastor one time, and he asked me what he thought was an underhand pitch question. Is it okay for Christians to be

wealthy? Kind of what you said. And I said, no, we have to all be poor. And it kind of freaked him out because he thought I was going to say, yes, it's okay to be wealthy. But my point, and then I went on and expanded so here's the true idea okay god doesn't care if you're wealthy or if you're poor he doesn't care one way or the other all he wants is your heart all he wants is your worship and if poverty gets in the way of your worship that's a problem if wealth gets in the way of your worship, that's a problem. And that's stated by Paul in the New Testament. As a matter of fact, I've been rich and I've been poor and, you know, Lord, keep me from having one or the other if it gets in the way. If you

remember reading that scripture, Joe, you probably have heard that. And so the point is that those of us that are people of faith, that are people of the book, believe that we don't own anything. We are merely managing it for God. He's the owner. We're the steward, is the old English word that has been Christianized because it was in the King Jamesames version of scripture so we're merely a manager so we don't own anything we're managing it and managing wealth is a a privilege it is a responsibility and it's to be managed for the good of god and for his kingdom the first thing he says to do is to take care of your own household feed that daughter or you're worse than an unbeliever it says a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children and that's not necessarily just an inheritance of character

it's also an inheritance of money because solomon built the temple but he built the temple of god in jerusalem with his father david's money david was prohibited from building the temple because of Bathsheba and his order of the murder of Uriah, but Solomon used David's inheritance to build the temple with. So a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children is fine. And, of course, you don't want to leave an inheritance to your kids if they're misbehaving because you're just going to fund their misbehavior. But that's what we're talking about here.

So, you know, we've taught our kids that we're managing this money for the good of our family to eat, the good of our family to enjoy some of it, to be generous with. God loves a cheerful giver, says in Scripture. So this continuous generosity. There's an indication all throughout New Testament and Old Testament to tie the tenth of your income as your baseline for your generosity, offerings above that.

So we've got these, we kind of got a, like we got a job when you get money, and your job is to manage money, and then God gives you the directions on how to do that, how to manage his money. You take care of your own household. You're generous. You leave an inheritance. You stay out of debt.

You build wealth. But this idea that I'm getting rich for me to be a snotty rich person, no. But are all rich people going to hell? No, that's heresy. Because anything that teaches that the blood of Jesus is not powerful enough to cover any sin is heresy. And so we're suggesting that a prostitute that comes to Jesus, a murderer that comes to Jesus can go to heaven,

but a wealthy person that comes to Jesus can't't and that's what the gnostics taught and that's what some of these people who teach theology on twitter think um and i've been torn between yeah and and it ends up you get this mixed message like you are spiritually inferior if you become successful. And yet you're not, because the Bible says the diligent prosper. What is diligence? It's excellence in the ordinary. You're good at your job. Do your work as unto the Lord, Colossians 3.23 says. And how would you do your work?

You would do it wide open, like I'm working for Jesus. I'm going to go crazy, man. I'm going to leave it all on the Like, I'm working for Jesus. I'm going to go crazy, man. I'm going to leave it all on the field, you know? And if you're faithful with the little things, you're going to be given more to manage. If God was against wealth, why would he give you more to manage? And that's out of Jesus' own mouth. So there's all this biblical evidence that we're not supposed to worship wealth and that wealth can be dangerous because it can become an idol. But if we can maintain the distance from it as a manager, instead of an owner, if you don't say my, my, my, my, my, instead you go, I'm holding this with an open hand.

What do you want me to do with it? It's yours. And then you're managing it. If you're faithful with the little things, you'll be given more to to manage and so then you don't have to live under this ridiculous communist left-wing guilt trip for successful people and then they try to put a bible spin on it which is really hilarious yeah but on the other hand you're not you're not better than someone else. I know some of the highest character, smartest people who are not wealthy. You're not better than them if you're managing more money than they're managing. You just have more responsibility. Does that make any sense? Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

I didn't realize that there was two, I guess, crazy sides of each spectrum. And just knowing that God really doesn't care it just matters where my heart is that tells me a lot yeah i mean he he wants you that's what he wants and go yeah i mean like i always tell people it's like you know people get so torqued out about this or that listen you know i'm giving money to my church well listen if God wanted your money, he would just take it and there'd be a greasy spot where you were sitting. I mean, you know, it's like he's not worried about the money. You know, this is God. So, you know,

so it's almost, you know, you got to think sometimes he's sitting up there, Ken, with Gabriel, just laughing at us. Absolutely. And I feel like after that sermon, there's only one thing to do and I should take an offering right now. That was really good. Three points. We should have a little background music. It was almost a Baptist thing. I could do an altar call and a love offering at the same time. It's a rare talent, but some of us have it because of the amount of hours I've logged. Since you're kind of growing your hair out, you know, that would probably fit. You know, you could probably.

Uh-oh. Are you worried that I'm heading over to the health and wealth crowd with the longer locks? I'm thinking. I don't know. You keep slicking that on back there. I'm telling you. Well, it's a new toupee. I'm trying to get it figured out.

The glues, it's obnoxious. You know, you got to really work it out. But yeah, I think it's a good word, Dave. And I love that he locked on to really, I think, the simple thing. If anybody's grasped this for the first time, I think what you said in one line really captures the whole thing. And that is, it's about your heart. So whether you have little money or you have a lot of money, it's about how you view the money. And that's just really good theology. And it just, it cannot be, by the way, that's not debatable. It's about managing the money. There's too much scripture that just lays it out that we're stewards of everything he gives us. And so that's just a beautiful answer to that question. So no guilt, no overthinking, just locking on what Dave said there, because that's about as strong a teaching on that as you'll get. The 1% are all going to hell. Let me scare you about that one. If you make $38,000 a year,

you're in the top 1% of income earners in the world. Whoops. You're not going to make it. If you believe that toxic Gnostic heresy, this is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything. It's a fun story, and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets, our own workout routines, our own jobs, our own social media feeds, everything. It's easy to forget that no one can do life alone. And I don't care if you're an introvert, an extrovert, or whatever you want to call yourself, we all have to have a community and a support system to do life with.

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Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Black Friday week is going strong. Going so strong we're going to run out of stuff, I think. Thank you all. We appreciate the number of you that have stepped into the store and have bought gifts that have meaning. When you give away, I mean, you can give them an ugly tire, you can give them a book, it'll change their life.

These are choices, right? And so thank you for doing that. Best-selling books like The Total Money Makeover, Baby Steps Millionaires, Ken's book, DeJohn's book, Own Your Past, Change Your Future, Ken's book, From Paycheck to Purpose, all $12 each. The Total Money Makeover book, of course, has helped tens of millions of folks learn the step-by-step baby steps only 12 dollars ken's get clear assessment is on sale as a part of our black friday sale too it's the perfect gift for someone who this is the printout when

you take it what you get uh it's the perfect gift for somebody who feels stuck in their career it helps identify your unique talents passions and mission and helps you outline a good direction for where you're going to go with your career a lot of people rethinking things here in the uh all the change that we're going through and here we come towards the end of the year a lot of people resetting and going hey i'm kind of hopeful i'm thinking i need to make my move now well that will help you do it. Don't wait. Check out our Black Friday deals, ramsaysolutions.com slash store, ramsaysolutions.com slash store. Kalamazoo, Michigan. Daryl is with us. Hey, Daryl, what's up? Hi, thank you for taking my call. I'm grateful for my wife, my children, and I'm grateful for his forgiveness so that I can say I'm debt-free.

Hey, I love it. Good for you. All right, perfect answer. How can we help today? I'm calling about one of my children who got married this last year, this last summer, to someone who has not got a green card. And he's grateful for the United States because he wants to live here and make money. But she's working on getting his green card, and the paperwork to do it requires her to have a long time of wages, like over a year's

worth of consistent wages. She just graduated, so she doesn't have that. It's a 10-year commitment and they're asking us, my wife and I, to sign up for this and be a co-sponsor with him to get his green card. And we're looking at retiring in about three to four years. So we're kind of on the bubble with what to do. And we know that it's a relationship-impacting thing, too. And we thought we'd ask your advice. So what is it you're promising when you do that they have to make 125 of the poverty wage and anything short of that we have to true up okay so i thought about 28 000 a year he has to make and i don't know if it's

her and him or just him we're trying to get that clear through the uh immigration lawyer we just don't know okay and um who they have to file paperwork to prove that each year i assume uh he does yeah that's part of our questions too is do they come back and ask us for our wages each year i don't know how that works yet we We're trying to figure that out. I want to know how they prove that. In other words, how tight is the mathematical audit on this? Or is it just like, I promise to do it, and we keep going? Then the second thing is, how long have you known the young man?

It's been over a year. He's very kind-hearted. He's very proud. He doesn't like to take money. Where does he come from? Which country? He comes from Jamaica. Okay. Alright. Is he industrious?

Ambitious? Very. Yeah, very ambitious, very industrious. He's been working under the table and he's been doing really well financially, paying his way before she even came into his life. Okay. So if you're going to put a percentage on it, it sounds like you're going to say 90% or 95% chance he covers this

and you never have to. Correct. That's my take on it, but it's that fraction of percent that my wife and I, we probably are on kind of different ends of the spectrum here. Yeah. I mean, really what you're doing is you're betting on him. You think, Ken? That's what it sounds like.

Yes, but I'm just sitting here going, and I tend to be old school on this. I mean, I think he can do this. I mean, it has to happen. I mean, it's all in. You guys don't even really need to be in this conversation, in my opinion. I don't know what end of the spectrum you're on versus your wife. They have to sign promising that he's going to do it.

That's what the sponsorship is, if I understood you. Is that what you said, Darrell? That's correct. If he doesn't go do it, then Darrell's got to write a check. So that's the only way. Are you positive of that, that the only way he could get his green card is if somebody else signs this?

Correct. Positive. That's really new to me. That is a wrinkle I was unaware of. So if that's the only way. I mean, you're looking at him. Are you willing to take this risk on him and you know him a whole lot better than i do obviously everything you've had to say about him is positive sounds like a go-getter um he is and you know my experience

with folks from caribbean countries is they're kind of like a Gen Z person. They're either the best on the planet or they're the laziest on the planet. A quick clarifying question. If he were to not do this, is the option for him to go back and you not have to pay anything, or is the U.S. government coming after you regardless because you signed the document? If he goes back, the agreement is over. Yeah, so... But that means my daughter would go with him and we don't want her to leave the country. I get it. I just, that's why I asked that clarifying

question. I mean, I'm just real curious. Where's your wife? You said opposite end of the spectrums. Give us who's on what spectrum on which side? Well, she, she's really worried that we're going to get caught. We just paid our house off, so we are in baby step seven, and she doesn't want to have to look back and have an obligation. We understand the freedom and comfort of that green grass in the yard, and we don't want to be in a position where we are pulled back by something. Yeah, I'm going to have a real strong conversation with him and her yeah that's gonna be uncomfortable that's so strong like i'm gonna kill i'm gonna kill you too if i have to

write a check like i you know like i'm gonna i'm gonna you you guys don't understand how pissed off i'm gonna be so i'm gonna get like all up in their grill so that we set the table appropriately where now they're not only scared of the U.S. government, they're a little scared of you. All right, got it. And by God, then they'll go, Dad told us he's going to kill us. We got to go get, you know, you better be driving Uber, man. You better be cutting some grass, cleaning some toilets, or whatever it is you got to do to make some dadgum money here.

Don't tell me i'm unemployed for six months you know it's not an option dad's gonna kill us you know and i'm gonna have a conversation that's that's very very blunt and very strenuous so that i don't have to have one later i agree dave if i'm i just put myself and. But I'm going to do it. I sign it under the agreement that you're leaving. If you don't do what you're supposed to do, you're leaving the country. And I don't want my daughter to leave, but this is not my problem, not my financial problem. You have to go figure it out.

Because I think it provides a safety net that I don't like. I don't like it. I understand the government. It feels like co-signing in a sense. I mean, it feels like it. It very much does. It's a contingent liability, and that's what his wife's worrying about. But, again, it has everything to do with the quality of young man this is.

And, I mean, if you smell a rat, just don't do it. Just don't do it. And maybe you're the one breaks them up then, you know, by doing that, cause you're, cause he's got to go back now. Um, so I don't know, but I, uh, I'm not an immigration specialist, but I, I would be willing to, my sons-in-law are both very industrious, very ambitious, very successful in their own right, nothing to do with me. And, you know, I could easily have bet on them in the old days

and have been fine. That's right. And so that's kind of what we're looking at here. And you're going to be fine if that's what you're dealing with. So, I mean, but this guy better be a stud. That's all I'm saying. I agree because I'll look at that young man and say, now, I'll take care of her. But if I have to take care of her, you're nowhere in the picture, pal.

You're back in the homeland. I just don't like this. I don't like this. But I don't like a lot of things the government comes up with. Stupid idea. Pass the citizenship test and give him the dadgum green card. You know? It's a whole other issue.

If he goes and joins the military, he goes away. So if he can't make the payment, he has to go join the military. That's a promise. I like that. I could be good with that. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving

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slash budgets. Well, tis the season. In a few weeks, we're going to be doing our special giving edition of The Ramsey Show, where we want to hear stories from you about how you have given generously this season. Maybe you tipped a waitress $100 or $1,000 or bought Thanksgiving dinner for a family who couldn't afford one or whatever you did. I want to hear your generosity stories. Or maybe you've been on the receiving end of generosity. Someone came along and changed your life or helped you or gave you lift. I want to hear both kinds of stories to inspire giving during this season.

It's our annual giving edition. If you want to be part of it, go to ramseysolutions.com slash ask. Put giving in the subject line. Put a little bit about your story, and our team will get in touch with you and make you one of the storytellers on our giving edition. It's coming up on December 18th. And remember, we're celebrating living like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else.

Mary Beth's in Virginia Beach. Hey, Mary Beth, what's up? Hi, good afternoon. I am thankful for God always providing, even in the hard times. And then I'm also super thankful for you, Dave, you, Ken, and the rest of the Ramsey personalities and how you are helping people to see what the true American dream is, which is to live debt-free so that you can do what you guys do, live like no one else, but you can give like no one else.

Very cool. Thank you. How can we help today? Okay. I guess I'll give you the question first and then whatever details you'd like. I am trying to figure out whether we should sell our house soon, hold onto it for a couple more years, and then when we do sell it, do we rent or do we buy again? The reason is that we are including the mortgage about $440,000 in debt. Let's see. $47,000 is a HELOC and $14,700 in cars, $38,000 in credit cards and personal loans, and then $339,000 in the mortgage. My whole salary, my husband makes $6,000 a month after taxes. I am self-employed. I make about $4,400, but then all of my $4,400 is going towards paying down debt and for estimated taxes. So my whole salary is basically going right out the door. Paying down the debt you mentioned? Yes, all of that debt.

I am paying, I pay weekly on the various credit cards. So you've got a $10,000 a month take-home pay. Yes. And are the two of you working on this together? Well, I'm definitely a Ramsey addict, and my husband is kind of hands-off the finances, and I have tried to get him involved. We've even tried to get him on the EveryDollar app.

It didn't work out. He turns his whole check over to you to do with what you will? Yes. Yes, I pay down all the debt. I pay all the bills, and I actually have a side hustle. My $4,400 is... Okay, so you have a $10,000 a month income, and you need to clean up, what, $50,000 or, I'm sorry... About $100,000.

About $100,000 in debt, not counting your mortgage. Right. Okay, so why can't you do that in less than three years well i can that's the best thing in about 32 months 30 months i've calculated it out i can get rid of everything but the mortgage but here's the thing if we were to move i could wipe it all out and have a hundred,000 to start funding our retirement because the clincher is that we have $0 for retirement. How old are you? I'm 58 and he's 61.

Well, the clincher is in three years you're going to start saving for retirement. My thought, though, was, and that's why I wanted your opinion. Well, you're going to be homeless with your thought. Your thought is, I want to be homeless with $100,000 in a paper bag. Well, not homeless. We would buy another place. And you would go back in debt. Well, but the mortgage would be, if we put the $100,000 into a new place that's smaller and downsized,

then the mortgage would be lower and we would have zero debt other than that and then my do you like your house um i do but it's a lot of work i think i think you need to keep your house and i think you need to invite your husband to carry the weight of your household with you your shoulders are tired from carrying it by yourself because he whisked and handed it all and set it on your back. Yeah, and I think that's my biggest thing about why I'm still pushing towards selling is because I feel overwhelmed by the debt. Yeah, because you're carrying the whole thing by yourself, and I think you need to invite your husband to step up and shoulder part of this

weight oh I wish you could sit at the dinner table with him because I have tried every which way from Sunday and I just don't know how to get him I would say it just like that I'm tired of you being a wuss I'm tired of being the only grown-up in the family that carries the weight. Thank you for handing over your check and then me treating you like a little boy. I'm not your mommy. I need some help carrying this. Absolutely, absolutely. My wife says that similar thing last night

when we were cleaning up dishes after Thanksgiving dinner. Hey, wuss, get in the kitchen and help me. What do I look like like your slave over here? That ain't exactly how she said it, but that was what the look meant, right, Ken? You know her. You know the look. They're a strong inference is what I'm hearing. I mean, you just got to communicate, Nancy.

This is not a bad guy. No, he's not. He loves his wife, and he does not he loves his wife and he does not know he does not grasp because you've not been clear with him how much this is stressing you because he's not emotionally carrying the responsibility of this household with you correct you're tired you're tired he needs to hear it very clearly from you and then you guys need to roll up your sleeves together and plow right through this and keep your stinking house and then get your get your retirement started you got 15 years to do a retirement plan you'll be okay you're going to have some money for

retirement you have paid for house by then and you keep the house if you want to sell the house later that's fine but you're selling the house for the wrong reasons. Yeah. And I think I love being really honest with him about the stress because I think he has stress and he's unloaded all of his stress onto you because I don't think he likes talking about it. That's why Dave, you so beautifully years ago, and you came up with this whole plan. You got the nerd, right? And you got the spender. And I think this is a guy who he just has zero nerd in him. And because he doesn't, there's a natural tension there and he just shoves it over to her and so she has to shoulder it all i think if he could acknowledge

i know how i feel thinking about doing this it's unfair that you're the only person feeling that way and i'm stress-free i need you to man up yeah he needs to learn how to deal with his own stress around talking about money need you to man up and help i need you to help and um you know and you know it took 43 years for sharon and i to get that figure somewhere along that line we figured out that uh you i'm she figured out i'm not a mind reader she'll say it out loud and then and then once she found that out she says it pretty loud so it's so true uh but i invited it so i would rather at least know what's going on if you go okay why are you in there throwing dishes oh because i'm supposed to be helping you should have just

said that instead of breaking everything okay right drop the pan 14 inches above the sink yeah what's wrong nothing nothing nothing and of course guys aren't smart but ladies for for just all women out there please take this from a man we are not the smartest people in the world but we are not stupid we know when something's wrong you act like we don't know what it is so how about sparing us all and just tell us what is my personal favorite day i'm so grateful for stacy's learning to work through this phrase but i love when she says hey we need to go weed the lawn or we need it's something that she never does but it's always hey we need to do this and i'm sitting there going here's what i'd prefer i'd prefer

that you just ask me to go do it because for that slight moment i get pissed off yeah because we know you're not i know because there's no what we you got a mouse in your pocket right like when are you going out there and pulling up weeds there's a a couple in the front row there. We've hit a nerve. We've hit a nerve. We've hit a nerve. There's no we. Don't ever say we need to do this. Well, you've got to say we about something.

I mean, we teach people to say our money. Oh, about the budget. We need to do the budget. That's allowable. Yeah, because we are going to work on it together. It's not, yeah. That's the only we. Really, honestly, 98% of this whole thing here is, in your case, Mary Beth,

I would just sit down and have a real clear conversation with him, and I think that's going to take a lot of weight off your shoulders, and you're going to sprint right through this and keep your house. And that's what I would do on it. Happy Thanksgiving. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel, do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like, hey, you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you didn't order?

Yes, I have, George. Sketchy and never trust them. And that's why we recommend Delete.me. They help with that. Yeah, they do. Delete.me actually goes in and removes your information from data broker websites. And it is an incredible service that everyone needs. And there's a lot of shady companies out there that solely exist to sell your personal data to bad guys. And that means your info, like your email address, your

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So you got to be sure to check them out. Ramsey fans get 20% off their annual plans. Just go to joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. That comes out to less than nine bucks a month. Super affordable. It's amazing. So again, that's joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. Make sure to check it out, you guys.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author of the book, Paycheck to Purpose, is my co-host today. Happy Thanksgiving to you, America. What are you thankful for? You've got a lot to be thankful for. You ought to really just make a list of your blessings,

because it's a long list. Really, Thanksgiving's a thing, and we're so happy you're here what are you thankful for nancy is with us in tampa florida nancy what are you thankful for i'm thankful for every day i still have with my husband oh that's good cool so tell me your story how How can we help? Well, my husband and I have been together around nine years, married seven. There is a significant age difference. When we got married, he had five grandchildren, and they kind of insisted on a prenup, which I didn't mind. I had my own house.

He had his own house and my own investments, his own investments. No biggie. Well, about a year and a half after we got married, he got diagnosed with dementia. And I had to quit my job early and take care of him at 62. So I started doing my social security early. I still had investment checks that come in from my investments. But his daughter kind of pays all the bills for his house,

and I still take care of mine. So you have your house? You have your old house? No, I just sold it in June. I owned it with my mother, and she was getting elderly, and she moved in with my sister. It was too much house for her after I got married, so we sold it. And by the time we paid off the debts, so at the profits, I have about $60,000 left. Okay, and so you have $60,000 there, and you have investments of how much? I have about $200,000 in investments.

And you're 62. I'm 62. Okay. I'm drawing from my investment account. I get about $1,800 a month, and then I have $1,600 a month from my security. And how old is your husband? He's 90. Okay.

And he's not doing well, I take it. No. I don't have as much time left. I'm sorry. Very sorry. So that leaves you, like his house that you're living in is in the prenup, I guess, huh? Correct. So, you know, the kids are going to sell it eventually, and I don't know what they're going to do with it.

But my question is, I live in Florida. Rent's super high. Do I try to rent? Do I try to buy something small like a manufacturer home, a condo with a small mortgage with what I've got left well I would try to buy something and work towards getting it paid off

obviously the least expensive thing you buy the faster you getting it paid off obviously the least expensive thing you buy the faster you get it paid off because um the largest item in anyone's and not anyone but most people's budget is housing and if you're renting uh you're um you're 64 for the next 25 to 30 years, every single year of your life, your housing cost is going to go up. Correct. If you own, you're locking it down, and the only thing that goes up is taxes and insurance.

And if you own and get it paid for, the largest line item in your budget is no longer the largest line item in your budget. So from a stability standpoint in your life, I want you to get something and get it paid off as quick as you can. And then you can live on a lot less and have a good quality life from that point forward. Right. Okay, well, that was my question. I was debating. What did you do for a living? What were you doing and what profession were you in before all this happened?

I was a medical office manager for 20 years. Do you feel like, I mean, I hate to think too much in the future, but this is a reality, you know. Do you think you can get back into that world and make a good income? I'm not 100% sure. I've got serious back issues and I've got some disabilities. Okay. Well, any income you can add to the equation makes the equation run better.

That's obvious, right? Exactly. Yeah, so that's something to consider if it's not exactly that field or some version of that field of virtual assistant. I was thinking that same thing, Dave, because Nancy, here's what we're trying to encourage you with. You've got a lot of administrative giftingness. You're organized.

You've got a lot of experience you can play with there and look at opportunities to work from home. And even if you're bringing in somewhere between $45,000 to $65,000, it's going to go a long way here as you start to move into the next chapter. So the prenup leaves you absolutely nothing. Pretty much, yeah. Well, now what's pretty much mean? As far as I know, that's it.

I have like 30 days after he goes to move out. Okay. So it covers death as well as divorce. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Okay, all right. I pretty much live separately as far as finances go since day one. I mean, I've had my bills here too. When I sold my house, I paid off $30,000 in debt.

I still owe $10,000. So I'm considering just going ahead and paying that off, and it would leave me $50,000. But I don't want to pay it off too quickly. No, go ahead and pay it today. Okay. One less thing to worry about. You've got that $50,000, you've got the other $200,000,

and you've got some ability to earn an income doing something and those are your those are your mathematical benefits as you walk through a very sad and tragic situation so so when you uh you know what amounts to is when she signed the prenup she felt like she was more independent than she actually is. Yeah. So it left her in a problem. You know, and honestly, I mean, I get the idea. I get the concept. I don't know how wealthy her husband is. We didn't get into that.

But the. Do you have a feeling that he's pretty wealthy? That's why it's so stringent um no i think he was solving for uh the grandkids and kids raising kane about him getting married um uh and he tried to get that's his way of getting them off his back that's what i'm guessing i don't know just kind of got that running down my spine right now. The other thing is most, most prenups allocate something to the person, not nothing. Right.

That's unusual. That's an unusual. Out within 30 days is stringent. Yeah. That, I mean, it's unusual. It's unusual to get absolutely zero. Um, and that's all of course, based on the fact that she thought she was in better shape than she actually

is financially. It's not in destitute, but I mean fact that she thought she was in better shape than she actually is financially. She's not in destitute, but, I mean, she's not got $2 million of her own. And she's 62. So there you go. Yeah, I think you're looking at something to earn some income. I think it's going to make your life a whole lot better. And it'll help you open up the next chapter of your book as well. Because, you know, you've kind of your book as well, because you,

you know, you, you've kind of been defined by this whole thing for a while. And it's time for a new time for a second act. Act two, click or act three, click. This is the Ramsey show.

I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly, and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through, how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of all that grief, like it's just, it is, it's terrible. And so life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston

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

Or go to zander.com. The Ramsey Question of the Day is brought to you by Y-Refi. If you've made student loan mistakes with zeros on the end, hey, we're not judging you. We are saying do something about it. Contact Y-Refi. They were created specifically for people with defaulted private student loans. If that's you, go to yrefi.com slash Ramsey. with defaulted private student loans.

If that's you, go to yrefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Mary in New Mexico. My husband and I have been listening to you for 30 years. Being empty nesters now, we have found that we had to pull back the reins a little bit, went back to using an envelope for groceries. We also eliminated credit cards and mostly used cash. The one expense that my husband refuses to use cash for is golf in all caps with an exclamation point.

He has been an avid golfer for 40 years, being the main breadwinner. He feels somewhat justified and deserving to continue this hobby. He never remembers what he spent, so we're constantly having to adjust for extra money that's coming out because he changes everything at the club, and then we get an invoice. Could I please get your expert advice on dealing with this type of scenario? Well, I was a member of a local club for a while. One of the things I'm very thankful for, we had a corporate membership at a great golf course here,

and Stacy and I had to put this in the line item. And so he's got to put this in the budget. And if it's not going to be cash, because I understand the way these clubs do this, he knows what it costs to golf. He knows what it costs to get a cart if they're adding that in. He knows what the taxes are on that. He also knows what it costs for a Twix at the turn or a turkey sandwich. So these are things that are all very controllable,

and he's got to play ball. And so you know what it costs to play golf beyond your membership or whatever. So he's got to put that in there, and you guys got to come to an agreement on this is what we can spend as we're having to tighten up right now. He doesn't have to give up golf, but he's going to have to maybe cut back. So maybe that's rounds. Maybe it's a drink after the round, whatever it is.

He's just got to be disciplined with it, and it's pretty easy to track. He's just not wanting to do it because he's never had to. That's my take, Dave. I don't know what you think about that. Well, there's a difference between continuing the hobby and she wants him to quit i mean it feels like this thing's dripping in i hate golf wife language um yeah the all caps gives it away and so you know there's a difference between he has a right to continue his hobby

because he's the red winner he says that's different argument than um hey you know you can't buy all the expensive stuff and play that's right you know because we're having to tighten up and so we're gonna we can put a line item to this and we can manage it if he chooses to be responsible there's a difference between choosing to be responsible and choosing to play golf that's right i mean you can be you can be irresponsible, not bother with it, which is what he's doing. So I think step one for him, for you, is not try to get him to quit. It's try to get him to rein in the additional expenses,

whether you're buying food or drink or whatever he's doing while he's there. And, you know, what can we do to limit that and put a number on it that we're not going to go over? And that's very doable. It's very doable. But I think there's more going on here than the golf, capital letters, all exclamation points. Right.

It's pretty much I hate golf wife language. I saw it. Oh, no question about it. And in his defense, you don't walk into the golf club with your cash envelope. Well, a lot of courses don't. I mean, if you're a member of something, you have to sign. Yeah, that's exactly how it works. You don't have a choice.

That's the only way to handle it. But it is track but that doesn't mean you can't that's right manage what you're spending and you should so he needs to be responsible and you probably need to light up lighten up on the golf hating sarah is in detroit hi sarah welcome to the ramsey show hi thank you. What's up? Well, I've got a question around an EIDL business loan that was taken out. It's an economic disaster relief loan in 2020 for a business that has since gone under due to the pandemic. I spoke with two attorneys. They both said I don't owe on the loan because it wasn't

personally guaranteed. And it was the name of a business that went under, but I am a Christian and I'm, I'm grateful for the blood of our Messiah. Hallelujah. And God's law seems to say differently. Um, so I'm going to negotiate with the SBA. I've been given the paperwork to do that, and I'm just wondering if you have any advice on how to negotiate, and then depending on what that number is, how I should go about paying it. You don't have the money. Well, I don't have the money for the whole loan, no.

How much is the whole loan? How much is the whole loan how much is the whole loan okay 25 000 all right and um 25 000 yeah i have 15 actually it's 24 okay and you have how much and you have how much money 15 000 okay my emergency fund. Okay. Okay. Well, there's two or three issues. Okay, from an ethics standpoint, the government gave you money for disaster relief for your business that failed, and it's not got a personal guarantee,

and you're not liable. The government forgives that from an ethics standpoint you are not doing anything wrong by just simply accepting the forgiveness because this is not a bank loan from a the bank is not going to get tagged on this if it's got an sba label on it the SBA is going to cover it. Because this is a government thing that, you know, is waived in this instance, okay? So, you know, another example would be like if you have a federally insured student loan and you become permanently disabled, the terms of those loans are there forgiven if you're disabled. the terms of those loans are they are forgiven if you're disabled uh you are not under an ethical christian obligation to pay it anyway the term of the loan was that it's it's forgiven if you're disabled the terms of the loan on this are it's not personally guaranteed because it was given

to a business in the midst of a disaster relief situation, and therefore they did not require personal guarantees because it was virtually a grant is what it was, and it didn't work, obviously. It did not turn your business around. So I'm going to ask you to spend some time in prayer and make sure you're hearing from God, not childhood guilt, about what your Christian obligation is here. If you really feel like God is telling me to pay this, then for goodness sakes, pay it. Right. Okay?

Not really. No. But if you feel like, and that's that's okay i mean i've been in those situations i've paid stuff that you know people look at me like i'm a nut for having gone back and paid that but i just i felt like god said to do it and then other times i don't feel any tinge of guilt at all i'm just done you know i mean this is this is. It's the way the deal went. Sorry. Good luck. And that's where this one could fall. But I never step in between someone and the Holy Spirit.

That's a dangerous place to stand. Yeah, I guess I should give you a little more context. I got to a point where I was three months default because I didn't feel like I did all that. I don't lie. I do my best to follow God's law. And I got on the phone with the SBA and I learned everything that they do and how it wasn't personally guaranteed. And it goes, my information goes to the Department of Treasury after, like, they just write, SBA lets it go. Department of Treasury gets my information.

And then I started to feel like fear. and I know that's not of God um and then I talked to my family and I started to get advice just from other people and um yeah then I actually suggested I called you well I think you're telling me you're doing this out of a an emotional guilt trip not out of a Holy Spirit leading. I think that's what you just said. Yeah, I think so. I'm not sure. But, again, I'm not going to stand between you and the Holy Spirit.

If God tells you to do something, kiddo, you go do it. Dave does not get a trump card on that. I don't get to lay down on that hand. So you've got to figure that one out. But if you're just scared yeah it's the government tell them to stick it that's pretty easy for me this is the ramsey show ken coleman ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today in the lobby of ramsey solutions and we invite you to drop by and watch the show anytime.

We do the show live Monday through Friday from 1 to 4 Central Time on the glass, and we usually have 50 to 200 folks coming by and eating some homemade chocolate chip cookies and great coffee all on us, and they get to watch the show. In that same lobby, we put a little stage called the debt free stage where hundreds now thousands of people have done debt free screams and that includes Matthew and Jody are with us today hey guys happy Thanksgiving hey how are you guys doing better than we deserve welcome where do you live we live in South Bend, Indiana. Very nice. And how much debt have you paid off? We paid off $153,000 in three years. Way to go. Range of income during that time? We started at $162,000

and we ended at $192,000. Okay, very cool. And what do y'all do for a living? I'm a high school teacher. I teach history, economics, and a little course called Ramsey's Foundations in Personal Finance. Love it. And I work for a dental supply manufacturer and solutions company, and I oversee their service department. Very cool. Very cool. All right. So, Jodi, how long have you been teaching foundations in personal finance?

I've taught it, I think I've taught it three years, two times a year, so yeah. Now, when you're working a get out of debt journey and you're having to stand up in front of high school students, that's got to change the intensity. It does, it does. I think it gives the kids a better perspective on this is possible, you can really do this. Oh, you shared your story with i've shared my story matthew often tells me i i share too much with my students you overshare i overshare they know everything yeah so i can't wait to tell them that i did my debt-free scream oh make them watch it oh yeah play it in class absolutely so were the students uh i mean high school students are brutal uh sometimes were they encouraging or were they

messing with you or what very encouraging yeah they're they're super excited about this whole process um they're very excited about the fact that we're going to be debt free i think they're very excited about their journey into adulthood and walking the path debt free as well so it's been an amazing thing what kind of debt was the 153,000 uh it was our mortgage oh you're weird people yeah we're really weird everything yeah house and everything yeah what's the house worth uh the house is probably worth Matthew what do you say uh conservatively five okay yeah million or hundred yeah fortunately we'll stick with a hundred checking all right south bend i'm just checking

so i want to ask you about the students and and the interaction with them do obviously high school kids have a lot of anxiety yes and how old are these kids that you're teaching i i have all juniors and seniors okay perfect for my question yeah so that's when they're in this vice grip that culture has put on these kids to choose a college, then choose a job, and they're freaking out. They're just never seen more anxiety than this time in history in that age group. I'm curious. When they start to get it, you're teaching them the foundation. And when they start to get it, do you see the anxiety drop as it relates to money?

Yeah. I'm just curious your take. Yeah, I think the idea that you can walk this path debt-free, it frees them in a way that other paths don't. When they think, well, I don't necessarily have to go to that big name college and take out all this debt. I can find a different path and I can find a career I love, even if that doesn't mean going to college. I think it really opens a lot of doors for them. And the idea that maybe not college is an okay choice, that really frees them to do what they really want to do

and have an amazing life debt-free. That's fascinating. That's some actual real common sense coming from a world-class high school teacher. Well done. Thank you. Very, very well done. So what got you guys plugged into this whole Ramsey thing? You decided we're going to knock out our house.

Yeah, well, I think so. Really, it's all Matthew's fault that we found you, Dave. And so you want to tell that part of it? Yeah, I just years ago heard you on the radio, started listening, and you reminded me of the Southern preacher when I just years ago heard you on the radio started listening and you reminded me of the Southern preacher when I used to live down in Tennessee. And so just started listening to this guy's makes a lot of sense. And so asked Jody if she would, you know, maybe read the book along with me. And it was a total money makeover is what we got into. And we got gazelle intense.

We knocked out consumer debt very, very quickly. And then we went on autopilot for a little while with a 15-year mortgage. And I was actually very unhappy with the work I was doing. And we made the decision that I would step away from my work. And we were pretty safe about it. We had a fully funded emergency fund, and, you know, at the time, economy was booming, and I also was getting offers from headhunters every week, so I was like, this is great. And so on January 31, 2020, I left my job, and something happened with the entire world

almost immediately after that. You have the worst possible timing. Murphy moved in fairly solidly in our house. To the whole world at that point. Yeah, it really did. So we just kind of lived in that for a couple of months. I was obviously teaching virtually, and then we thought, okay, well, you're not getting a new job right now. So how do we make this work? We've gotten really good at budgeting. Matthew is a very good budget grocery shopper. We found that out. We ate more spam than I'd like to admit during that time.

Mustard or no mustard? Mustard. Yeah, good call. I grew up on it. I had to ask. Good man. I started doing, like, grocery delivery during the pandemic, and so we were able to pay our mortgage just with the grocery delivery that

I was making. Matthew started delivering pizzas and we found a way to never touch our emergency fund. Matthew didn't find another job in your field until about a year. So February, 2021, you got a new job. And we said, man, the only thing that stressed us during the mortgage, we're getting rid of it. Let's get it done. Let's just, let's be done with it. And so I'm the, I'm the budget nerd. I'm the every dollar nerd. I'm the one that's on the budget all the time. And Matthew started playing with the payoff calculator. I just, all the time, a Saturday morning, I'm looking at the Ramsey mortgage payoff calculator and like, you know, if we threw an extra this on

it and threw this on it and three years later, knocked it out. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Way to go. How's it feel to be free? It's absolutely amazing. Yeah. The freedom that we have now to just do whatever we want to do is amazing. Yeah. Take your shoes off, walk through the backyard. The grass feels different. Yeah. Yes. That's yours. and um yeah it is quite a life lesson you've lived in front of your students thank you for doing that yes yeah thank you for those of you that don't know what she's talking about we have a high school curriculum that's now been taught to almost seven million students nationwide and almost 48 of the high schools and uh we've got wonderful teachers and administrators and sponsors that pay for it to go into these schools all over America.

And, of course, teachers like Jody right here that are world class. And we all remember teachers like Jody that were the good teachers in high school, and we all remember the teachers that sucked and that were just mailing it in. And so we always get the good ones. They're the ones that want to teach foundations because they love the idea of taking common sense to their students. And the students like the material, don't they? They really do.

And I have to say that George is their favorite. They absolutely love George. Yeah. Well, George is our favorite, too. How can he not be, right? Yeah. They like George better than you and better than me oh better than both and i've got too much of a dad vibe so i'm not surprised by that at all

i mean i got kids their age so george is super cool and and fun yeah i love that well the good news is that they actually engage but i remember i remember taking algebra and i'm going what is this calculus and i'm like i'm unless I'm an engineer what am I going to be using this for and I really have never run a calculus formula since the senior in high school I can't even spell calculus and the Pythagorean theorem doesn't come up much another one I can't see uh but I'll tell you what uh balancing a checkbook and staying out of debt having an emergency fund knowing how to do a budget that comes up every dadgum day right so you're teaching them common sense, and they know that.

They do. That's why it's popular. Way to go. I'm proud of y'all. Thank you. Thank you so much. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I think intentionality is the key.

There it is. Just being focused and working the plan. Matthew and Jody, house and everything! South Bend, Indiana, $153,000 paid off in three years. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free!

Yeah! Yeah, baby! Yeah, that's how it's done. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and at the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is

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The Ramsey Network app. And that's where we will go in just a few minutes. In the meantime, let's talk to Elise in Colorado Springs. Hi, Elise. How are you? I'm good. How about you? Better than I deserve.

What's up? So I'm calling because I'm in Baby Step 2. I make $96,000 a year and have about $25,000 left in debt, which I should be debt-free by June. Good. I'm single. Thank you. I'm single and a full-time student doing my master's degree in social work and have a year and a half left of that. Master's degree in what?

Master's in social work. Social work. Okay, cool. Good for you. It's going to be great. I get to serve and help people. It's going to be awesome. So my question is, do I need to buy a house? I currently live in an apartment. Do i need to buy a house i currently live in an

apartment do i need to buy a house and if so when would i do that and then also uh since i am single do i need to save the six months uh of emergency fund after i'm debt free or should i can i do less no you need the six months yeah you need the umbrella in case it storms, and that's baby step three. If you're going to buy a home, the soonest you would do that is what we call baby step 3B, which is after your emergency fund is in place, you start saving for a down payment on the house. That's the soonest. There's not a requirement in the short term that anyone buy a home. I'm a strong proponent of you owning a home as a long-term issue because they go up in value, and you're stabilizing the most expensive line item in your budget,

which is housing. If you rent for the next 50 years, you can count on 100% of those years the rent will go up every year. Every year. That is true. And you're going to get, you're going to have stress added to your life from just being displaced by a landlord deciding that they're going to sell the house or they just move you out or whatever because you're not in control because you're not the owner. So your stress level goes down, the line item in your budget stabilizes, and it goes up in value and adds to your wealth building program so there's a lot of great reasons to own a home but there's

no reason to rush into it yeah that's the thing i'm worried about like so i'm a veteran and um i and i've heard you say that the um the zero down payment is a bad idea. It is. Using the first time buying. So I shouldn't use my VA loan? No. When I get a home? VA loan is way more expensive than a conventional loan. Just save up a good down payment and take out a conventional 15-year fixed where the payment's no more than a fourth of your take-home pay

once you're the other side of baby step three if you want to buy. But if you're in a bunch of transition time in your life, you're finishing, you may move, finishing a master's, you might move to pick up a job in that field in a different area, and you're kind of just enjoying being single right now and all that, hey, that's okay. I mean, if it's three or four years or something before you get around to thinking about buying, or five years, that's not the end of the world.

Now, real estate prices will go up during that time, but what I'm discussing is a 10- or a 20-year decision, not a three- or a four-year decision. So, you know, I don't want you to go buy something just because you need to go buy something. No, we don't believe that. So take your time. You know, when is the rhythm of this right for you? And it will be after you're out of debt and have the emergency fund in place before you think about anything else. Yeah, I like that she's got her path figured out.

And it's like get through the Masters, get in there, start helping people, figure out what that new life looks like. What is your income going to look like? She's going to be somewhat capped. You know what I mean? And so getting, I don't mind renting during that first year to two, just to figure out what my professional situation is going to look like. You get paid 90 grand a year in social work with a master's? I'm not aware of that. I don't think so. I don't either. I would not have. Sounds like she's signing up for a pay cut. Yeah. It feels that way. If I'm guessing, and I'll look during the break, but if I was going to guess,

I'd say the 60 to 70 range would probably top out is what my guess is. Now, that depends. If she's working for a local municipality or state government, you're going to be very much capped. If she can somehow take that master's in social work and she's in the private sector, then I think you could probably make a case for that. Garrett's in Seattle. Hi, Garrett.

How are you? Good. How are you doing today, a case for that. Yeah. Garrett's in Seattle. Hi, Garrett. How are you? Good. How are you doing today, gentlemen? Better than we deserve. Happy Thanksgiving. What are you thankful for? Definitely my family and this show. Oh, thank you.

How can we help? So I'm going to be joining the Air Force next year. I'm currently on Baby Sub 2, or my family is, and I'm just trying to figure out the best way to kind of go about tackling our debts to really set ourselves up for success once I head off to officer training and make sure that my wife and kid are in a solid position to... How much debt do you have? Right now I'm sitting right at about $100,000 for the family. Wow.

How do you clear that in a year uh what's hard work yeah what do you make uh right now i'm currently making about 72 000 a year okay so where do we get 100 plus living expenses in one year. I'm sorry. I think I might have... I thought you said you wanted to be debt-free before you went in the Air Force one year from today. No, sorry. I'm not trying to be debt-free before I go into the Air Force.

I'm just trying to navigate kind of the best strategy because we just sold our house about a year ago, so we have a good amount of money that we're sitting on. Oh, how much are you sitting on? Right now, about $33,000. Okay, and what is the $100,000 in debt? $25,000 is for our car, and then the other remaining $75,000 is for student loans. Okay.

Well, sell the car. Okay. Sell the car or use the $33,000 to pay it off? No, sell the car. Okay. Sell the car or use the 33 to pay it off? No, sell it. Use the 33 on the student loans and get you a $10,000, $5,000 paid for car. Okay. You don't need to stink a car payment for one thing. I mean, if you could almost be done with a student loan,

if you sold the car, that's 25 of the 100 and the rest is student loans, right? Correct. Okay. So let's just pretend you bought a $5,000 car and you sold the $25,000 car and you throw $25,000 at the $75,000, at least $50,000 to pay off. You could almost be debt-free by the time you take officer school. Officer school all paid for? Yeah, so officer school will be all through the Air Force, and then after that is when I'll go into my technical training

and start the career. Okay, good for you. What are you going to be training for? Either cybersecurity or intelligence. Excellent, excellent. Hey, thanks for your service to the country. Yeah, I think the more of this you have in the rearview mirror, even if it's uncomfortable, the better officer school is going to go.

Yeah. And that's what you're asking, actually, and I agree with your principle here. Yeah, I agree. I think this is knocking out. Use the baby steps the way we teach it. That snowball. Just lean into everything you can. You're renting and you're moving anyway to go to officer school. So that's why I sold the house.

Good stuff. Garrett, thank you for the call. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey solutions. It's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. He's the number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose and host of the Ken Coleman Show. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. Happy Thanksgiving, America. You've got a lot to be thankful for. It's a good time to just pause and think about what we're thankful for. Mike is in Springfield. Hey, Mike, what are you thankful for?

I am thankful for my six kids and my beautiful wife all right very cool good for you all right thank you questions what uh my question a little backstory on it real quick i like to hang out on the ramsey babysitter's facebook page a lot of fun there was a dad on there saying hey i'm in the trades i i don't know if my kids are going to go to college maybe they'll do trades I don't know if I should stay for college. And everyone was saying, yeah, do the 529, do ESA, do trade schools. So that was great. But then there were some people saying, no, you don't have to do Babes at five. It's just optional. And that's official Ramsey, you know, speak. And I was really confused about that. Everything I've read said it wasn't. And

in fact, I had people in, like, I'm debating them in the Facebook page saying, I'm an FPU coordinator. I'm a Rams certified financial coach. And the official position of Rams Solutions is that Babysit 5 is optional. So I'm sitting here going, well, Total Money Makeover says if you're single, your kids are grown and gone. Yeah, obviously that's optional. But if you're in 4, 5, 6, 7, you save something for kids college. And so I'm just, you know, I'm trying to find out if I'm wrong and just being petty or if I'm right and probably still being a little bit petty, um, if babysat five is optional

or not. Wow. Um, yeah, I guess I'm going to have to get the administrator to get in that Facebook page and talk um you know it yes it's optional uh because some people don't want to pay for their kids school period um it's not optional if you're looking at your kids and you're thinking i want to support them improving themselves with trade school or with higher ed. So in my mind, at the Ramsey household, it's not optional because, you know, we told our kids they're going to school.

Absolutely. Period. Now, you're not going to study left-handed puppetry or German polka history. You'll end up being a barista. So, no, I don't want you to get a useless degree and $200,000 in student loan debt to go with it. That's not the purpose of this whole thing. So, no, dad's going to speak into where you go to school. Dad's going to speak into what you're studying.

Dad's going to speak into how you act while you're at school since we're using dad's freaking money to go to school. So, yeah, I'm'm gonna save with all of that and that's exactly how the ramsey household operated our three all went and got four-year degrees magically in four years which also was a requirement why is this hard but the uh uh so that that's that's the kind of stuff but but in terms of you know i've got a friend who's an NFL player, and he grew up in a – his dad was a steel worker, and he thinks his kids ought to work and pay their own way through.

He doesn't want to – he doesn't philosophically believe he ought to help them with their education. And I'm not saying he's a horrible dad. I just felt like I wanted my kids to be smart so they would leave and stay gone. Yeah, and that was my understanding was basically like it's – I think people were just having a breakdown in the philosophy of it because a lot of people were saying, you know, just like that, I want my kid to hustle and grind. Like that was my position.

Like my parents couldn't afford to send me to college, so I had to hustle and grind. But it's safe for kids' college. They're like, oh, you don't have to pay for your kids college i'm like that's not the that's not what baby said five says no that's that you're you're right you're right okay some people are taking yes it is technically optional but you better have a real strong thing going here but and i personally believe that listen very few people have unlimited have high levels of success can back me up on this with only a high school diploma now i don't mind you spending two years becoming a diesel mechanic and making 120k i don't mind you spending three years and becoming a an apprentice and becoming

an electrician and making 120k i don't mind you being a welder uh and and going to and getting or i don't mind you going and get going to code school instead of a four-year academic institution and make 200k in the uh coding you know i don't mind you doing all those things but for god's sakes plan on learning something somewhere from somebody this idea i'm gonna graduate and go to happy hour the rest of my life is stupid you're not going to be successful doing that you need to be growing and doing something all the data supports that right ken absolutely i mean historical right now the data shows that there is an income difference between people who get a four-year degree that is that is is closing the gap and i who get a four-year degree. That is

closing the gap. And I think as we look over the next 15 to 20 years, that's going to probably be different. However, it doesn't change the point that we're making, that training is the word, whether that is in a traditional educational environment or in some type of trade school or a boot camp, training for your kids to be able to become viable citizens is the goal here and i think the other thing is is i would stay out of i'm not saying don't participate but i'd stay out of facebook arguments i don't care if it's our groups i've got a group just stay out of the arguments make your point and leave this is not good for anybody because everybody that's in these comment sections james don't come to jump in there though and post this because this is you know it is not optional that your children learn something

more right and honestly this idea that they somehow have to uh struggle to become hope bull you know my kids are not lacking in ambition my kids are not lacking in humility they're not lacking in work ethic they're not lacking in gratitude because i paid for their education they're not spoiled entitled brats it doesn't necessarily go together and so and you know you're you've got a college student you're helping yes absolutely right now and so uh if you don't pay for all of it you want to do some work. Fine. Our budget was very limited. We didn't want them partying on my dime. That wasn't the goal.

We're not trying to get a degree in beer pong. And so, you know, we did we did all of that stuff. But this idea that, you know, OK, you're 18. Good luck. When I have had the means and the ability to help you further your learning path whatever that path is that's right preparation i would i would be financially in a position to do that with 529 so yeah no the the idea that's a hundred percent no you just don't really want to do it you know i just don't i don't agree with that so no um so technically yeah it's optional i mean your kids are grown and gone you

don't need to do it you don't have gone. You don't need to do it. You don't have any kids. You don't need to do it. You're in the military, and the military is paying with the military benefits, paying 100% of your kid. Yeah, fine. Don't say. That's good.

No issue with that at all. But are you a horrible parent if you don't pay anything? No, you're not. But it's not what I did, and it's not what I recommend, and it's not how we live. So in that sense, it's not optional. So, jeez, these people just spend way too much time in a rabbit hole. I'm with you.

I'm not sure. Yeah. The back and forth never helps anybody, anytime. And there's like 600,000 of them in there or something it's like this huge facebook and here i am trashing it oh well it's just this is the ramsey show happy thanksgiving america ken coleman ramsey personality is my co-host today the best way to make the most of your money is to make your money behave with intentionality every dollar is the world's best budgeting app it'll help you do that and we've had tens of millions of people

download and are using every dollar to make every dollar behave every dollar do what it's supposed to do working with your spouse to achieve your dreams of getting out of debt building wealth and being able to be unreasonably generous you can download every dollar for free in the app store or on google play be sure and check it out it's life-changing to start telling your money what to do instead of wondering where it went courtney and jackson mississippi what are you thankful for i am thankful that i have the next few days off i like it that's good that works for me. So what's your question for today? Okay. So a little bit of background. I was diagnosed with lupus in 2016, lost job, had to leave grad school,

ended up back in my parents' place working minimum wage with a bachelor's degree. Fast forward to now, I started in august at a job making 55 000 an hour i mean 55 000 a year i'm sorry i'm sorry you did good that's good good for you um and thank you um but i made a lot of mistakes along the way, and I take responsibility for them. And one of the mistakes that I made along the way was I had signed a car for my sister. And about four years ago, and she stopped paying on it. She just stopped paying. Didn't realize it until the repo guy showed up you know

about the repossessed car has it been repoed no it hasn't she sold it no why because she doesn't care um yeah it's my name that's on line so is the car in your name or her name mine okay i'm sorry so i'm now caught up and what's your question hon i'm trying to consider whether i should let it get repossessed or um it's right at like a thousand in the red so i'm on baby step two i got my thousand so i'm just trying to see would it be worth letting it get reconsessed or should i use a thousand and just start back over i'm not really sure how to what are you driving um i am driving a toyota camry um and it's it's new it's one of the mistakes that i've made oh so you owe money on that yes you owe more on it than it's worth

i'm sure okay or about as much okay i don't think you or your sister are going to like this call okay so if i woke up in your shoes what would i do all right one thing you've got to do if you're going to move forward in life is you have to say okay i made a mistake on this can i undo the mistake and the answer is yes so i pick up phone and I call my sister and I say, hey, you don't give a crap about me and you're destroying my life by not paying this bill.

And so here's what's going to happen. Get your stuff out of the car. I'm coming to pick it up. It's mine. It's not yours anyway. And I'm going to take it and then I'm going to look at the one in the but look at these two cars in my driveway and i'm going to sell the most expensive one which is probably

the one you're driving see i told you that you weren't going to like this because she's driving a junkier car than you are, but both of them are in your name. You own two cars, and you're a broke person. Right? I am. Yeah. Yeah.

And so broke people can't give their sister a free car. And that's what you're doing. No, you don't get repoed it's got the car is in your name you call her and tell her it's my car i'm going to have to sell it because i'm broke and you're not paying the bill so get your stuff out of it i'll be over there in about 10 minutes okay what happens when you do that you're really going to do that or not oh i can do it i know are you going to do that are you going to no i will do that yeah i'll do that okay good yeah that's no problem now we're going to sell it because if it gets repoed you're trashing your

credit and they're going to sell the car for a super cheap price on the repo lot and sue you for the difference and you can get out of it for right now for a thousand cheap price on the repo lot and sue you for the difference. And you can get out of it right now for $1,000. And I'm going to price your car. I'm probably going to sell yours and drive that one. Because it's probably the cheaper of the two, isn't it? Yes. Yeah.

What do you owe on yours? About $25,000. What do you owe on hers? About $8,000. There we go owe on hers? About $8,000. There we go. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Pick that car up. Pick the car up she's got and drive it. It's yours.

And sell the other one. Sell the expensive one. And that'll start getting you straightened out. You made two mistakes. You get to undo both mistakes. That's awesome. Not everybody gets that option. Okay.

If you took out $75,000 in student loan, you can't undo that mistake you just got to pay it these you can undo by selling this stuff and courtney i would just tell you you need to play this scenario out with sister because you know dave and i do not know how she's going to react we can take a guess but you know you know her personally and you need to play this thing out in your mind for the purpose of uh not just coming off this phone call. Dave's got you fired up right now, and now you've got to go back and do it. And so you need to play this thing out mentally and emotionally ahead of time so that when it actually happens, you aren't shocked.

You've thought through this. You know what to expect. And if she surprises you, great. But if we play this thing out in our mind Dave I know that it's a lot easier to stand tall and strong because she's probably going to have to yeah it's it's well her sister doesn't care anything about her exactly and so my sister won't speak to me anymore this is the one that is causing me to get repoed, oh, I'll struggle through. That's right. You know? And sorry.

You know, that's not. Yeah. It's interesting, though, that people that don't respect boundaries, when you suddenly set a boundary, they usually don't react well. Oh, they're the ones that. So I expect sister to go into crazy mode. I do, too. The very statement, she doesn't care, tells me we've got a lot of immaturity. And so we're probably looking at a toddler tantrum.

And so let's prepare for it. A toddler tantrum. I think that's what's probably going to happen. As prescribed by Ken Coleman. I think that's what's probably coming. And so I want to prepare for that so that I. She's going to call her mommy. She might.

And tell her that her sister is the Wicked Witch of the West. There it is right there. That's my Wicked Witch laugh. That wasn't very good. I think America would love to hear you get as high pitched as it would require. There we go. There we go. Dave's fresh off of seeing Wicked with his granddaughter, so he's got that in his head.

I'm trying to figure out how that would go down. I don't think I could do any of that, but there you go. But, Dave, this is reason 954,271 why we don't co-sign. Well, this isn't even co-signing. This is just I bought a car in my name. Oh, I thought she co-signed for it. Handed her the keys. No.

Oh, she just. It's in her name. It's all in her name. Yeah, if you co-sign and it's in the sister's name you can't go pick it up that is true that's grand theft auto she did say that i did yeah if it's in her name though this is even worse i'm coming to get my car that i've been loaning you wow that's what it amounts to legally it's a very good sister i i would never it's not a good sister. I would never do that. It's not a good sister. Bad sister. Bad decision. Very nice heart. My heart would never, I would never buy my brother, I wouldn't buy him a Hot

Wheels car. You just said that on national radio. Yeah, it's a good joke. I would buy him a Hot Wheels car. I probably did at some point. You would buy him a Hot Wheels car. For his ninth birthday, I'm sure, when I was 11. At least one. You might even get a set of two. I wouldn't buy my brother a car. A real car? Not a real car. Yeah, I'm just saying.

No, I wouldn't. Nope. Scrooge. Scrooge McDuck. We're just mean people. Mean people. This is the Ramsey Show. Happy Thanksgiving, America. Ken Coleman, Ramsey

personality, is my co-host. Dee is in Pittsburgh. Hi, Dee. How are you? Good. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my magic question, how much do you need to retire?

Hmm. Well, it's not a set figure. And if you're willing to do investing and are doing investing in good growth stock mutual funds with long track records like I do, and like I have recommended for 30 years, you should average around 12%. Last year you would have made 30%, but you don't make that every year. The average since the stock market began is 11.8. Okay? That's the average on the stock market since S&P 500. Now, having said that, that's what you would be earning on your nest egg

if it were invested in there. Agreed? Agreed. Now, so what we tell folks is if you can live on 8% of your nest egg while earning 12, you're growing it by the rate of inflation every year. You're leaving four in there, taking eight off. And so if you need $80,000 a year, you need a million dollars. If you can live on $40,000 a year, you need a half million dollars. Right. 8%. Got you. That's a very simplistic and primitive formula,

but no one actually lives on these thinking formulas when they get there anyway they just have to sit down and figure it out the the and the formula that we just laid out by the way will uh will you never touch the nest egg in this formula so it will run in perpetuation you don't run out of money right matter of fact the nest egg goes to your heirs you just live off of the golden eggs that the goose is laying the goose sticks around right i think what complicates it is is i'm 54 my husband's 57 um he has a pension and we get health care until we're 65 so it's not a very common formula well you just say okay how much is his pension going to be and um it's 5300 a month

and so you know can you live on that if not how much more do you need and that more would be eight percent uh you know divided eight percent and gives you the nest egg size you need. So he gets $5,300 a month and we have $2.7 million saved. You're fine. And I have one broker saying no and one broker saying yes. The broker that's saying no needs to be fired. You're fine. Okay. You're fine. Okay.

You're fine. So, honey, I mean, $3 million, I mean, are you going to spend $200,000 a year? No. In this case, I'm sorry, $270,000 a year because you've got $70,000 coming in on a pension. Right. Are you going to spend $270,000 a year? No, I probably never did in my whole entire life i suspected that yeah you know if you're not going to spend that kind of money you're not going to

get into this nest egg if that 2.7 is invested in mutual funds now if you've got it invested in stupid butt stuff or something it's not making any money that's different no it's diversified okay you think you think you're earning you think you're earning north of 10 yeah oh yeah okay my one account i just looked at i did uh 20 percent this year okay yeah you should have yeah i did 30 yeah the s&p did the s&p did 30 this year so last 12 months anyway but the uh anyway so yeah that that you're fine you're fine i don't know what this broker is trying to do. Is he trying to make you, you know, he wants more money to manage because he's making more?

I don't know. I mean, they talk about, oh, you're in the prime and you're making money. You know, you're in your mid-50s. I would keep building wealth, but not because I'm afraid I'm not going to eat. Right. 10% of 2.7 is 270, and you've got a $70,000 a year pension. That's 340 before you tear into the nest egg. And by the way, 2.7 is going to double every seven years if you don't touch it.

And you said you're only 50 what? Four. Okay, so if you don't touch it and you're 61 and it makes 10% average between now and then, it's going to double again. So it's going to be 5.4. Right. I think you're okay.

By the way, when you're 68, it'll be 10.8. Okay. I think you're okay. You did great. I like this President Biden whisper you've come up with today. President Biden whisper? You didn't know that he was whispering in his press conferences when he'd make a key point? That totally went right over your head.

A lot of people got that. I never noticed. Towards the end of his, when he'd make a key point. That totally went right over your head. A lot of people got that. I never noticed. Towards the end of his, when he'd make a key point, he would go in and say, Just leave it alone. Just don't do that on this show. That's awful.

Which is why it's so... It had nothing to do with that. Of course it didn't, and everybody knows that, but I love the whisper. Everybody but you, apparently. Trust me. Everybody that knows he whispered.

He does the whisper emphasis. But Willie, I everybody that knows he whispered he does the whisper emphasis but willie i'll never bring it up again i'll try it i'll leave it i'll try never to do that again just never say i'm serious i'll never do it again i'm not joking it's over it's a distant memory other than the psychological scars that you just brought with i apologize i the first time you did it i i just it was it was funny. And then the second time, I was like, I've got to say something. But it was good. You made a good point. She is going to be okay.

She's going to be okay. Oh, my gosh. I'll show him a clip during commercial break. No, don't. Please don't. He'll love it. Please don't. I don't want to see it.

I'm already disgusted with the whole idea. So anyway, you're going to be fine. You have a lot of money, and your broker cannot do math. You're going to be fine. You have more money than your broker has, probably, by the way. So at 2.7, getting ready to be 5.4 in seven years, getting ready to be 10.8 in seven more years, if you don't touch it and you allow it to grow at an average of 10%,

it will double every seven. That's what a nest egg will do. So that helps you guys when you're doing some of your calculations out there. You're fine. But that's exactly what I meant when I said no one actually does this formula. That's right. Because she doesn't need 8% even. No.

I'm not going to live off of 8% of my net worth. Not even close. Right. Not even close. Yeah. No. that word not even close right not even close yeah i know but because no one ever actually you know you either end up short yeah or ahead no one ever actually says oh my little formula that i figured out when i was 32 when i get to 65 worked exactly like i thought oh bullcrap never never in a million years not even close close. So what ends up

happening is you end up saving more because you're concentrating. You build wealth better than you thought you're going to. And you surprise yourself on how big your freaking nest egg is. Or you do a horrible job and you have to live on social insecurity and eat Alpo. You know, I'm going to wait for the government to take care of me which is well known for its ability to handle money bad idea nick is in new york hi nick how are you hi how are you doing better than i deserve what are you thankful for i'm thankful for my family and friends as always good how can we help so i am a second year medical student and I've been trying to set myself up for my future and knowing how fiscally irresponsible physicians can be. So when I was in college and high school,

I kind of worked a little bit. I saved up about $20,000 and I have that invested and I have no, uh, I went to state school, so I have no undergraduate loans. But recently, and I'm kind of embarrassed to say, I was messing around in crypto, and I had a few hundred in there, and it actually turned to $25,000, and I'm not really sure what to do with it. Get it out. That's what I thought you'd say. Yeah, walk away from the table before you keep gambling.

When you're ahead in Vegas, you walk. That's what you do. Vegas is not a wealth-building methodology, and neither is crypto. And so if you're ahead, you walk. You got $25,000 extra for your goal here. Good for you. That's wonderful. I'm glad that happened to you um please don't count on it happening again that's that's when you get burned in vegas as you think you've got the system figured out now pride comes right before and that's the truth

oh yeah it's up to you man you do what you want if i were you i'd take my chips off the table and run for the door before they figure out that you actually made money wow scary this is the ramsey show our scripture of the day colossians 3 15 let the peace of christ rule in your hearts to be indeed to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful maya angelo said let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer oh that's a great picture all All right. Jody is with us in Long Island, New York. Hi, Jody. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. What are you thankful for? Good afternoon, Dave.

Yes, I'm thankful for my two granddaughters, my two beautiful granddaughters. That's fun. Yes, always is. How can we help? Well, Dave, I was looking to purchase a watch, rather a $50,000 timepiece. And the wife, like I said in my little note to you, the wife's giving me a hard time. I know that we can afford it. I'm not taking food off the table.

But she seems to think that we have to leave money forever in time, you know. So I'm just trying to rationalize with myself. Um, you know, what is it? No. It's a long and son. Oh yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So you got a thing for watches, obviously. So what's your, what's your net worth? Okay. So my net worth is about, um, without real estate, it's about 3.2 million. Real estate's part of your net worth. Okay. Well, well, I'm not selling it, so I know. I know.

I didn't ask you to sell it. I just asked what your net worth is. It's about $5 million. Okay. And your income annually, what are you living on? Okay, so we're both on Social Security. However, I still maintain three positions. Our ran, and she works one day a week.

So our total monthly income is $29,310. But you have income off the $5 million, some of it, right? Well, the income is $29,310 per month. From the $5 million? No, no, no, no, no. I know. I just asked, the income is the the investments are making money are they not some of them they're not being touched they're just it that wasn't

what i asked honey i asked what they were producing oh the income on the investments about nine percent about nine percent i would say okay so is is that another 500 000 well some of that includes a house that's not making you money, right? Well, I have two houses. I have one that's income producing. Right. I have a three-family. And then you have a nest egg in retirement investments, I assume.

Yes, we have 401ks. How much is that? Between the two of us, it's about $900,000. So your real estate's $4 million? No, the real estate's about $3 million. $3 million alone. Okay, so where's the other million? Invested.

In what? It's diversified with uh you know an investment company okay so you've got about two million that's actually creating income with investments right now plus the rental property is that right right yeah okay all right i'm just trying to get a handle on you know so and you've got income that's approaching $30,000 a month. Right. That's between Social Security income and working. Okay, the rule that we teach folks to use on luxury purchases is a couple things. One is you guys need to be on a written budget that the two of you both are agreed to overall.

When I get ready to buy something that falls in the category that your watch falls into, that's not one of my things, but I could be accused of spending that kind of money on something else. What I ask myself is if I put that amount of money, and you could ask your wife this, if we take this amount of money and we put it in a bucket in the middle of the floor and we light fire to it does our life change right if the answer is yes don't buy it okay your life does not change you can burn 50 000 bucks and you won't even notice it with the

numbers you gave me right right you can afford the watch thank you that's what i tried explaining you know lady lady calls up and wants to spend your wife wants to spend twelve thousand dollars on louis vuitton luggage same answer okay although you emotionally won't understand that right i said buy whatever you want to buy she goes i don't go out and buy you know my wife is very she's a marshall's kind of gal you know dj max marshall i think you both are that's how you got here but you have this one thing and it's outside your emotional norm okay where people get in trouble is they go buy crap like this and they don't have the money to burn well you know dave in the past year i i just opened this five point something money market account and in 11 months i had over a

hundred thousand i'll save in it yeah so you know i mean i'm a saver i'm a saver you know i like putting away money and you know at this point the game you know i'm 68 she's 69 i said you know i wanted to treat myself there's three things you can do with money and you ought to always be doing all three you can enjoy it you can give it being generous and you can invest it save it you should always be doing all three and the percentages should lean towards the generosity and the investing because you're at a point where you guys can have a really good life off of a small percentage of your income because you have a wonderful income and a wonderful nest egg because you've done a wonderful job, Jody. Congratulations. Quick question on this, Dave. I don't know watches

like this. I'm assuming this watch holds its value. Is that true? I suspect it will. So, you know, wear the watch for two or three years, and then if you change your mind, you sell it, and you're really not out a whole lot of money. That's another part of the conversation that might help with the wife, too. You don't need to have that, but it helps if it's something valuable like that.

I wouldn't do a plan where I think I'm going to make money on watch purchases. No, no, not make it, but you're not going to lose that money. Typically, typically you're not. What you may run into is hard to sell. Oh, right. You know, it's hard to sell because limited market and it's limited number of human beings can afford a $50,000 watch. Yeah, I didn't know if that fell in that category, but I know there's some guys that are in that

world of watches that are, it's like there's some guys that are in that world of watches. It's like classic cars. Exactly. They're crazy. You can at least hold on. Again, classic cars, same thing. It might hold its value. It might go up in value, but getting rid of it's tough.

Yeah, that's right. You know, you can't put it on the auction block and come out. That doesn't work. So, interesting discussion. Emma is in Baltimore. Hi, Emma. Happy Thanksgiving. Hi. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving.

How can we help? Hi. So I'm 23. I'm on Baby Step 3. I have an emergency fund, and I am the owner and beneficiary of what's left of my 529 account. It has $28 28 000 in it um i graduated early um i went to an cheap in-state school and now i have this extra money and i don't really know what to do with it did you get any scholarships no i'm not in. No, did you get when you were there?

No, I got a little scholarship, but nothing crazy. Okay. Nothing that totals up 28 while you were there? No, that's from my parents. Thanks, Mom and Dad. No, I'm saying you did not get any academic scholarships, sports scholarships, or anything like citizenship scholarships, anything like that, where they paid $13,000 of your tuition or something like that?

No. Okay. All right. Are you married? No. Okay. You can use this for your children's school. You can use it for your spouse's school.

You can cash it out, but you're going to pay a penalty. I've also... Go ahead. I've also... You can roll it over into like a Roth IRA? Yeah, it's very hard to do that, and it takes a... You have to do it over a lengthy period of years. It's not just a simple flip. Okay.

It is limited to $30,000. Yeah. It's hard to do. If you sit down with your SmartVestor Pro and have a meeting with them and they can show you how to do the Roth and that works in your situation, that'll be fine. That'll be fine. Not nervous about you doing that at all.

Way to go, by the way. Congratulations. Very cool. And, Dave, if I'm not mistaken, she could also use that, let's say that in her career, let's say two or three years down the road, she wants to get a certification or something. We're not talking about going back to school full-time,

but you can use that towards that as well. Yeah, I'm going to knock out a master's or anything like that. Yeah, definitely could use it for all that. Way to go. Good job, girl. I would not cash it out today. I'd let it sit there, or I would roll it to a Roth today, and then that gives you all the options of whatever later.

That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Thank you.