The Ramsey Show - App - Budgeting & Saving Money on Groceries (Hour 2)

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in your life, specifically your money, your work, and your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw joins me. The phone number for you to jump in is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. It's your show because it's your life, and we're here to help. So let's go.

Albany, New York. Well, this is great. If my eyes don't deceive me, this is one of my favorite things. It's alliteration. Yes! This is Alba from Albany. I mean, this is like a gift to a broadcaster. I'm saying it right.

Is it Alba or Alba? It's Alba. I'll change it. It's Alba from Albany. I'll change it. I can work with that. I got a better one. It's Alba from Albany who's from Albania, who lives in Albany from Albania.

You're from Albania? Yes. I love it. I just want to make sure everybody catches this. We're talking to Alba who's from Albania but now lives in Albany. This is very exciting. This is a broadcaster's dream come true. It's driving James the producer nuts, so we'll get into the call.

How can we help? Okay. Okay, so I've got a home equity loan that we took out and as well as mortgage debt and um we're a one income household with two kids so my husband makes about um like 60 grand take home at the end of the year and i was wondering if we have a 401k and i was and i was wondering should we take out money out of our 401k which includes like a nine percent interest on whatever we take out to pay off the home equity line of credit no pay it back to ourselves. No. No. Because you're trying to solve debt with debt. You can't solve a problem while simultaneously creating a problem.

And you're taking one loan to try to, you know, it's like that robbing Peter to pay Paul, right? So the only way to pay off debt is to pay off debt with real money that wasn't allotted for something else, right? And you're not going into debt to do that. So let's break this down. Let's figure out how we're going to do this. How much is the home equity loan? It's right now 46 grand. Okay, 46k. And the income is $60,000. You got two kids at home. Yeah. And this is the only debt or is there other debt? No, we also have our mortgage debt and that's all. Okay. And that's fine. So baby step two, we're paying off all the debt except the mortgage. And so I would lump this into baby step two, which by the way, though, let me just double check your mortgage. How much is it? Like what's the full amount you owe? $115,000. $115,000.

Interesting. So technically, Ken, what we would say is if the HELOC is more than 50% of the home value, then we would lump it in with paying off the home. If it's less, then we'd add it to baby step two. So in this case, technically, you could lump it in with paying off your home. Do you guys have an emergency fund? Not really. Our savings and our checking are very, very low. I think you're right. I think you're right, Jade. I think we put that into the home and let's tackle the baby step three.

But here's why I'm very nervous about this. Because of what you wanted to do earlier lets me know that you're not necessarily done with debt. Yeah. And can we explain that? Did you, let me just ask you this, Alba, do you understand why we don't want you borrowing from your 401k? My husband did mention something about, you know, leaving money in there because of the stock and stuff like that. Well, like, you know, Jade, in there because of the stock and stuff like that. Well, no, Jade, explain why. I want you to understand this because if you understand this,

you won't touch it. You will never even think about it again. So number one. Yeah, I'm a baby in this. I just started reading the Ramsey book. Oh, good. Jade's going to set you free. Then I will.

Let's talk about it. So with your 401k, Alba, the purpose of it, it's for retirement. And so when you touch that money before 59 and a half, before retirement age, there's penalties on it. That's number one. So if you guys pull out a certain $50,000 to pay this off, you're going to be penalized for that.

And I think at this point it's 10%, something like that. So you're going to have to pay that. Then you're hit with the taxes of it because it's adding to your income. So you would have to pay taxes on that money. Then there's this whole idea of like, if you have a 401k loan, if something were to happen and your husband were to lose his job, he's on the hook for that money, right? Because it's part of his 401k. So I believe he's got a calendar year. I think he's got a year to pay that until he's hit with more penalties and fees. So it puts you in such a precarious situation. I would never again.

And at the crux of this whole argument is the idea of you're not really solving the problem of debt. You're just shifting it from one very important asset, which would be your home, to another very important asset, which would be your retirement account. And that line of thinking just doesn't make any sense. What you really want is you, if you ask yourself, what do I want here? I don't want to feel the weight of this HELOC anymore. That's really what you're after in your heart, right? Is you don't want to feel this debt. It's on your home. So the solution to that really is to pay it off with your own hard-earned money and that way when it's gone it's gone it's not just shifted over here and shoved in the closet over there right i'm curious how much money do you think you and hubs can throw

at this right now without doing anything different than than what's happening today how much extra could you put on it right now? Well, nothing really. I mean, we've got $7,000 in our checking, and we don't even have like, we've got $200 in our saving. Okay. Okay. So the way I look at things like this, Alba, is if I were going to pay it off in a year, that would be about $4,000 a month we would have to put towards the home equity line. Okay? Yeah. If we can't do that, then we say, okay, could we do $2,000 a month we would have to put towards the home equity line. Okay. If we can't do that, then we say, okay, you just start, well, could we do 2000 a month? And so you begin to be able to picture this. You've got to have an end in mind or else it just feels like this, this

mountain we can never climb. So we've got to start to put some goals and we say, okay, if we pay it off in a year, we would have to do this. If we paid it off in two years, we'd have to do this. I think that's really important for you guys to look at and go, okay, what is possible if we make some changes in our life? I'd start with that exercise. But Jade, to you, and I mean, you understand that you're the expert on this one. If they were to wrap it into the mortgage and tackle it that way after getting through baby step three, because either way to get that baby step three, if you go that route, it's going to take you guys a while.

You guys need more income. Yeah, we need more income. And less expenses right now to make more momentum. Does that make sense? Right. Yeah. Ken is right on. You need more income coming in.

I want to ask if you're on a budget. We are not. So I've been telling my husband we've we gotta sit down and do this for real get a pen on paper yeah uh and let's not do pen on paper um matter of fact let's let christian pick up and let's get you guys into every dollar and not only that so every dollar is the budgeting app that we created here at ramsey solutions it's the only budgeting app i i use alba my husband and i used it to pay off over $460,000 of debt. And not only that, but George Campbell, one of our personalities, is going to be hosting a free webinar September 26th.

And I want you to attend that. We're going to put the information on the screen in the show notes. I want you to go to that. And Christian's going to pick up afterwards. I want him to hook you up. Use my promo code, Christian, so she can get $15 off of EveryDollar because that's what you need. You have your own promo codes? Come on, EveryDollar.com slash Jade. And if you want to do the webinar, it's EveryDollar.com slash budgeting.

Okay. Yeah. Take part in that. George is going to walk you through that webinar. Again, that's EveryDollar. By the way, everybody's invited. EveryDollar.com slash budgeting. Thank you for the call. We just talked to Alba, who's from Albania but now lives in Albany. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show where we talk about your life, specifically your money, your work, and your relationships. Jade Warshaw is with me. I'm Ken Coleman.

And this segment is going to be about your budget and specifically groceries. Oh, the biggest budget buster. I mean, we're in this season of it feels like forever inflation. And one of the areas that hits people the most is groceries. That's right. So tell people, first of all, I'm so excited. This is what I call sample time on the Ramsey show. Oh, heck yeah. I'm just an absolute stooge right here. And Jade is going to walk you through and walk me through some sampling.

And you're going to prove a point here. I'm going to prove a point. The point is, especially when you're in baby step two, you're trying to save money at the supermarket, at the grocery store. You make sacrifices. You want to get cheerios but instead you get our value right or great value and so we've got to make those sacrifices and here's the thing we're really going to taste and see if there's really a big difference in the way it tastes because we know there's a big difference in the price so ken so what so i want it for our listening audience what we've got here is a round table on the desk. Yes. And here's what we're about ready to go through. We've got some

coffee I can smell. Coffee, two brands, a national brand and a much, much cheaper brand. All right. And then we've got some shredded wheat, looks like. Yep. We've got the national brand Kellogg's and then the store brand. All right. And then we've got some basic chips, no flavor. No, basic potato chips. We've got the national brand, which is Lay's. Right. And then the store brand. Now, I'm going to sample these. Yeah.

But now what's worrying me, James and Jade, if I can be honest, is I see two rolls of toilet paper. I ain't sampling those. America's not ready for that. We'll put them through the test, though. We'll put a test on them. So, Ken, let's try these chips because... That makes me laugh. I like the nice toilet paper.

So I can just tell you by the looks. We'll get to that. What are we doing first? So everybody buys potato chips. You put them in the kid's lunch. You can either spend $4.79 on an eight ounce bag of Lay's or you can spend $2.89 on the store brand. So give them a try.

So I bring both bowls over here? Well, let me get some canned eggs. Oh, I didn't know you were doing it. What am I supposed to do right now? Get you a chip, Kim. All right, one chip. Taste it. All right.

This is a good one. I had to eat it on the mic. That's what makes it either entertaining or awful. It's awful for a lot of people. Okay, that's your standard chip. That's right there. Taste this one. All right, now hold on.

I need to like cleanse my palate. Okay, hold on. Clean to like cleanse my palate okay hold on cleanse your palate okay a little sip here all right now this is number two oh that's some good uh that's good radio right there did you hear the crunch that was a great i'll tell you this it's an obvious winner for me which one number two number two is the store brand. And you know why I chose it? Taste and crunch. It's $1.90 cheaper. That's almost $2 cheaper.

What was this that I had? Lay's. The first one was Lay's and they were stale as heck, weren't they? What's the other one? Publix? Publix brand? I'm going Publix brand over Lay's. It's not even close.

Wow, wow, wow, wow. And part of a chip, by the way, for a guy, I'm speaking on behalf of all men, so ladies, listen to this. Part of eating chips for guys is the sound. I want to hear it crunch. I want to hear it crunch. Since you like the crunch, now we're going with cereal. Oh, gosh. Standard shredded wheat, right?

Kellogg's. By the way, true story. I've never had shredded wheat in my life. Ever. First time right now. And then we've got the store brand. So let's pour some milk in the cereal for the people listening. You're actually doing milk?

I'm doing milk. I've never had milk in my, I don't put milk in my cereal. Well, first of all, that's not milk. For our listening audience, that's oat milk. Well, I have to be able to try it. I want some 2%, man. Give me the lactose. All right.

Get you a spoon, Ken. A spoon. And taste one of these. Folks, I get paid to do this. I just want to point this out. Okay, this first time ever. Yeah, I like shredded wheat, but I just eat it dry. You also like oat milk.

Here we go. I didn't slurp. Did I? No, you didn't slurp. You could slurp it on the radio, though. People like that. All right, that's the first one. What's next?

Okay, use your same spoon and try the second one, because I want to try this. All right. How are we doing on time, James? Are we doing good? Are we fearless? We're one. What's next? Okay, use your same spoon and try the second one because I want to try this. All right. All right, how are we doing on time, James? Are we doing good? Are we fearless? We're good. We're good.

Okay, I'm going to taste this one too. First of all, no one should ever eat anything with oat milk. Let me just tell you that right now. I don't understand how people... If you've got to be healthy and this is what life is like... That's kind of good. I don't want to live it. That's kind of good.

I like it. I put orange juice in my cereal okay i don't clear winner clear winner again what's the one first one that's the store brand i don't know what's going on the store brand one again apparently i am a generic dude guys and by the way i'm taking away from this this is a blind taste test only i know which one is the store brand i have no clue that'll come as no surprise to anybody okay so ken what you're saying is i'm telling you which is a dollar 88 cheaper again almost two dollars difference is better tasting it is is it because they're putting more bad stuff in it uh no not

necessarily i'm just asking you're the health queen i don't think so you're one of the cleanest eaters i know here's the thing most of these uh store brands are made at the same manufacturer as the national brand. It's the same thing. They just slap a different label on it. Well, if it's the same thing, why do I keep picking the cheap brand? I don't know. I think they taste...

I'm telling you that the cheap chip tasted different. It did. It had the crunch. Now, let's try this. This coffee. I don't know about the other one. Coffee is what we have here. You guys know, of course, it's better to brew it at home than Starbucks.

Right. But in this case... Is this mine here? Yeah, that's yours that's yours now i'm gonna put a little creamer in my coffee i'm gonna drink it black just because so you can really get the taste because i want to judge the okay okay does that make sense yes i won't do cream so the first one here we go first one down the hatch is this gonna burn my tongue so i can sue you do i get to sue dave if i burn my mouth oh i'm kidding stop it that going to be on social media later. Oh my gosh. Taste it.

Okay. All right. Okay. Golly. Ooh, that's nice. You people that drink coffee black and act like you like it, why don't you all just own it? You're lying to the rest of us.

What are you saying? I like black coffee. This might as well had a shoe bottom in the filter. Then that means it's not good. No, all black coffee's terrible. No, it's not. that means it's not good no all black coffee's terrible no it's not see it's not a manly thing i'm man enough to go i want some sugar and cream in my coffee can i man i have my choice all right number two that was off that was dreadful okay this one was this one i'll put it oh gosh yeah number two is even worse than number one. All right.

So on that one, here's what we did. What did I choose? The national brand was Pete's. You guys have heard of Pete's Coffee. Yeah. And then the $5.99 brand was Cafe Bustillo, which is a Latin brand, which I like. I thought that that one was better because I like a full-bodied. But guys.

Which one's cheaper? Cafe Bustillo. Did I choose the cheaper one? No, you chose the expensive one because you're bougie, Ken. But I chose the less expensive one. Apparently I'm not. I mean, it's a $7 difference. $6.60.

All right. So now we're starting to, in the budget here, we're going to come back to this. So maybe I scrimp on the chips and I pay a little more for the coffee. I mean, we're working our way through this. Or maybe just put creamer in the coffee. Oh, gosh. All right. Now there's a big one. Ken, toilet paper. See, I don't even have to well i'm not sampling it so what am i

doing i mean i'm just looking i'm touching it it looks like it's got a decent ply to it oh okay i can hold on i'll wipe my nose i don't have anything yeah yeah blow your nose let me let me just let me do that okay come on ken okay we're good j Well, let's think about this. The Charmin, for the same amount, the Charmin is $7.79. And the Angel Soft is $4.79. Well, I don't know. You tell me. Don't be reading it. Just look at it.

Oh, I didn't read it. Hold on. I've got to wipe my nose really quick. That is a $3 difference, guys. Oh, there's no question. There's no question. The second one is much softer on my nostrils. It's softer, but will the first one get the job

done ken that's the question when it comes to toilet paper i don't want john wayne toilet paper you know what john wayne toilet paper is it's rough and it's tough and it won't take crap off of anybody hey watch out i'm going number two it's softer what what say you i don't want you to go number two anywhere in this studio ken Ken. I walked right into that one. All right, so which I chose toilet paper. You chose Charmin, which is three dollars more expensive. I'm going to pay three more dollars for my bottom. Look, I'll be honest with you. I am team Angel Soft. That's what we bought when we were in baby step two. And look, it's a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain. Your bum will be okay. I tell you what, I'm doing that.

Let's talk real budgeting. Real budgeting. What if I go generic brand, I save all that money on everything else, but I spend on the soft double-ply toilet paper? I say do what you got to do, Ken. Again, we're making trade-offs. This is trades. You can say, hey, I'm willing to scrimp on this in order for me to have a little bit extra to buy that. So walk through this. How much money could we save if we go generic brand across the board, all the way up and down the old list? Oh.

Hundreds? Per month, hundreds. There it is. Easily. Hundreds. We just now, just right here, we saved $10. All right. Tell people how they can learn more from you on this and budgeting and everything else.

Come on and go to my Instagram. Boom. She's doing it. Jade Warshaw. That's where it's at. Ken, this was fun. Hey, we save people some money. I'll be honest with you, though.

I wouldn't scrimp on the toilet paper. I'm going premium. Team Angel Soft all day. Give me my $3 back. No. No. Ken, you got bougie nostrils. I do.

I do. It's been said many times. Hey, good stuff. Don't move. We got more of your calls coming up next. I'm going to eat some chips. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman.

Jade Warshaw joins me. We're here for you, America, taking your calls about your money, your work, and your relationships. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. We're here for you, America, taking your calls about your money, your work, and your relationships. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. 888-825-5225. We've got a great crowd today in the lobby. And I want to just mention we've got a lot of new people listening and watching all the time. And if you ever get to the Nashville area, we'd love to have you stop by.

You can watch the show in the lobby. We'd love to come out and say hi to you. We feed you free treats and free hot beverages. I mean, I don't know what else you could want. So we'd love to see you. Come by and see us. RamseySolutions.com to kind of check the show schedule and all that jazz there as well. All right, Talon is up in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Talon, how can we help? Hey, how's it going? Good. How are you? Oh, I'm it going? Good. How are you? Oh, I'm better than I deserve. I've heard that a time or two. I like your draw on it. I like how you put a little extra length on that.

That was good. How can we help? Oh, I feel overwhelmed and we're just a tower of debt. Uh-oh. Tell me about the tower. Build it for Jade, please. Absolutely. The total debt is $36,271.

About $22,000 of that is in vehicles, and the other 15 is, or almost 15, is between personal, loan, and credit cards. Okay. Tell us about the cars. How much do you owe on them, and what are they worth? Well, that's the downfall. A few years ago, my wife and me and my family were traveling, working. I was working on the road making a lot better money than i am now and just gotten a bind and a lot of vehicles that i couldn't afford and i moved back had to give up the vehicles and so one of them after they sold it and however that

whole scenario goes i owe 4 436 on one them, and then the other one that we let them repo, we owe $17,684 on. Wow. We do not own either one of those vehicles anymore. Oh, wow. What's the car worth that you owe $4,400 on, the only one you have? I don't have that one. He doesn't have either of them.

I'm confused. What did I miss? You have zero cars? Well, I have two vehicles. Both of them are paid off. I paid cash for them whenever I got rid of those vehicles. Oh. And so I let both of those go back.

Okay, I got you. And that's what I owe on them now. So the two vehicles you have that are paid off, what are those both worth? My wife, she drives a Camry. It's probably $7,000. And then mine isn't maybe $500. That's $260,000 miles on it. Okay.

Okay. So and then tell me, Talon, what's your income? I make $47,000 a year. My wife doesn't work right now. What do you do for a living? I'm a police officer. And why is your wife not working? She was at home with the kids.

My son just turned six and just started kindergarten, and my daughter's in therapy. And so this just begun and we're trying to figure out what what she's going to do for work okay so that's a big key point how your daughter that's in therapy how old is she he's four and a half four and a half okay so with the other kid going to daycare we do want to or going to kindergarten we do want to think about your wife working even if it's part-time something that she can do to bring in money i'm going to let ken tackle that career stuff because at the end of the day i would like to see you guys get your income up i mean you're definitely below the national average and i'd like to at least get you up to the national average

in the 60s okay so that's the goal for now um and until we can get extra margin in the equation, you don't have a lot of wiggle room, right? So you've got this almost $37,000 of debt. Are you guys working on a budget? No, not enough to say we are. Okay, so that's thing one. The first thing I want you to do when you leave this phone call

is I want you to go to everydollar.com and I want you to download a free version of EveryDollar. It's our budgeting app. And you're going to do a zero-based budget. So you're going to put in your income and you're going to subtract all the things that you spend money on. Those things that stay the same every month, like your mortgage, your car payment, those things and the things that have the ability to change, like your groceries your gas money i want you to think of everything that you could possibly spend and it's going to do all the math for you okay and it's going to tell you how much you have left

and it'll either be a number in the green saying hey not only can you pay all your bills but you've also got a little bit of money left over or it's going to be in the red because you mentioned that you have some credit cards are you still using the credit cards nope we've cut them up don't have any of those anymore um nothing excellent and is there any money saved anywhere no okay not at all so the goal is we're going to get off the phone we're downloading every dollar we're working through that budget like i said and then the first thing out of here is as quickly as you can sell whatever you can, I want you to get $1,000 set aside. Because if you have $1,000 set aside, Talon, hear me when I say you are going to be ahead of the majority of Americans. Because most Americans don't, it doesn't matter how much they make at work, most Americans

don't even have $1, dollars and could not cover a thousand dollar emergency. So you're going to do that and you're going to feel, you're going to be able to hike up your pants and be like, all right, I'm doing something good. I'm already ahead. And then we're going to start tackling this debt. Ken, hit them with the advice. Yeah.

So before we get into ideas, I'm just, I want you to get some ownership into this talent. If I said, hey, you've got to come up with $20,000 in the next two to three months, you've got to work it. You've got to work for it. What are the first couple of ideas that would hit you if you had to come up with that kind of money? So working for the police department, we have what we call off-duty stuff, which is where businesses and stuff contract and work out to our police department, and we do that.

Yeah. I currently work normal 84 hours every two weeks. Over the next 32 days, I'm working 29 days. We have off-duty. It pays $50 an hour. So I'm able to, here in the next month, I'm going to be able to make about an extra six grand and all that's going to go towards it

that's huge what else could you do it doesn't even have to be tied to your police work I love the overtime as it relates to parking cars at churches or directing traffic not parking cars you've got to get more

I'd like you to get even more of that because you've got the ability. That's really good money at $50 an hour. And we could knock out some debt really, really fast. I know $36,000 seems like a tower to you. And I love to use those words. But the more income you can generate, that tower gets short pretty quick. $36,000. My friend, if you were to, and I know you can't do that tower gets short pretty quick. $36,000. My friend, if you were to, and I know you can't do this every month, but if you were to make an extra six grand a month, that's six months. So you need to start to go, okay, what else can I do?

You might be able to do some security, some overnight security, four nights in a month on a weekend. I don't know. I would be doing anything and everything. And then forget just the police work or police-related work. What other work can you do? You've got some handyman skills. You have got to get really, really intense about this.

And if you do it, and let's say you come up with an extra, we know you got to six. That's new income. If I'd like to see you get to 15 to 20 in new income over the next several months, additional income, my friend, it is going to change your life. It's going to change your world. Yeah. I mean, unbelievable how you can walk through this. And your wife too. She needs to get something going on too. She's watching the kids during the daytime, maybe during the afternoon she's doing this. Is there something she can do that's work from home, you know, that she's able to pick

up nights or at nap time? You know what I'm saying? Where there's a will, there's a way. Minimum. And the way the internet is these days. Yeah. She should be committing to 20 hours a week. And let's say she can make somewhere between, let's shoot for 15 bucks an hour.

I'm just throwing some numbers out to begin for you guys to go, wait a second, because there's something powerful about writing numbers down on paper and looking at them and going, well, if I do this and she does this, oh my gosh, we're out of debt in a year. Yep. That's right. And I think that's doable. Do you think that's too bold? If you can, look.

A year to year and a half. You know you can live on 47K. If you were to double your income by her getting a job and you doing extra hours, you're out in a year. I agree. It's doable. It's doable. We believe in you, Talon. Thank you so much for the call, and thank you for how you serve your local community.

You guys got this. We believe in you. All right. Don't move. On the other side of the break, more Ramsey Show. The Ramsey Show continues from our Ramsey Solutions headquarters just south of Nashville. Thrilled to have you with us. 888-825-5225 is the toll-free number to jump in on the conversation as we talk about your life, your money, your work, and your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw

is with me this hour. We're thrilled that you are with us. Wow. You know, every time I see this, I never get over it. I hope I never get over it. I hope you punch me in the throat if I get over it. It's so cool to be able to talk to people from around the world. Oh, most definitely. The world has changed. And it's flat when it comes to this kind of thing, the podcast and YouTube, people watching everywhere. It's not actually flat. It's not actually flat.

It's flat metaphorically. Got you. See? Okay. Relax in there. They thought I was taking a position. Well, first you hit me with the toll-free number. Then you went to the world is flat theory.

So it took me a minute to- I get it. I know. I'm throwing a lot at you. Metaphorically. Because Shane is on the line. Yeah. And I'm going to try to say this because I like to try. Harare, Zimbabwe. You got it. Did I get that right? That's amazing. I'm taking the rest of the day off. All right. Shane, how can we help, sir? Well, I'm getting ready to retire in about four years, and I'm kind of concerned.

What are you concerned about? Well, we're debt-free. We've in, uh, our TSP's, our 401k's, traditionals, our Roth IRAs, our other investments we have. But we have no house. What are you doing in Harare, Zimbabwe? I work for the U.S. government. Okay and so you have government housing? Yes. Okay so you got about a million in your way. Oh go ahead. Yeah so in about four years I'm going to have to find a place to live and I'm concerned whether uh if if I take and pay cash for a house it takes and wipes out uh you know half of uh what we have okay um how old are you uh and then I'm I'm 61 okay um um yeah having a paid for home is is is part of what we teach it's important to have that

obviously you want something you don't want to be renting going into retirement because it's such a variable thing with the money that you have i really don't think that you need to rent uh when you come back stateside where do you plan on living like where where's home going to be right now it's looking like houston texas okay and have you started looking at what it would cost to buy a modest home it's you and your wife in houston texas yes uh it's uh around four hundred thousand dollars Around $400,000 or so. Okay. So there's a couple of ways you could approach this. Well, can I ask a couple questions? Sure. I'm curious.

Two questions, Shane. Number one, what will your government retirement pension or benefits, what will that look like? Just for my government pension, it will be $3,000 to $4,000 a month. Okay, and that's until you've got Social Security down the line, correct? Yes, and that could be another, you know, I don't know. I'm thinking it's like $3,000 a month or something like that. Okay, but why I interrupted you, Jade, because I want us to be all working from the same page.

I mean, Shane, let's just say it's three, and let's say it's three and three. That's six grand a month. My guess is you can live pretty comfortably on six grand a month, yes? Yeah. Shane? Yeah. I don't know. Uh, I, I, I would suspect so. I mean, do you know, do you budget now? Say again? Do you budget now?

No, we don't, unfortunately. All right. I'm setting Jade up here, but, but I'm trying to also get a real picture of where you're at because you present really scared. And you've got four more years of income, first of all. Then we know we've got some benefits coming your way, so you're not operating under, I'm going to retire, and all of a sudden I'm going to have half of my retirement. There's a whole lot more money coming in, and you're still going to be 65. And if you had to work some, there's that option too. And you still have four years before this all takes place. So where my brain is going is how much money can you pull together in the next four years

to put towards a home? That's my first thought. And then my next thought is just because can we enter into retirement age doesn't mean that we stop working completely and we never do anything again. So part of me is like, OK, what else what else would you like to do once you come back stateside? What's another way that you'd like to earn some money to put towards this? Because I'll be honest, I don't love the idea of saying I'm going to pull out, you know, 300,000 from my, you know, and get hit with that. The taxes so I can pay cash for a home. So I think that you've got four years to save up. And then I think that there's a home that you can buy that's, you know, not overly expensive. And I think you've got some more working years in you

to put, to make headway on that. And I think in the meantime, you're still stacking up money because here's the thing, you've got a million dollars now in seven years that's going to double you know as a lump sum so you're going to be okay retirement wise all right let's dive into these numbers a little more if you don't mind um what's your salary right now uh my wife and i together we make probably about 180 000 dollars, somebody. Shane, I know what's going on. There's no budget. You have no budget, so you have no idea what your money situation is, and you're also a guy who is scared to death because you're not sure what the future looks like. You haven't run any of these numbers.

So $180,000 combined income in Zimbabwe, and you've got government housing? Can you live on 80,000 on a 400,000 house he can easily over the next four years save up most of that just by scrimping Shane am I right Jay tell me I'm wrong oh I'm you're not wrong at least 50 percent no excuse to not have 50 down payment no excuse where he has a 200,000 mortgage am i making this stuff no that feels right what i mean shane you tell us are we are we tripping are we okay in zimbabwe what expenses do you have he's debt free i know that's what i'm saying what are his other expenses he has no housing hit it let us know shane food fuel You're not spending...

So, $2. Yeah, yeah. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I mean, bro, you got more money than you know what to do with. Are you a saver? I... My wife calls me Mr. Cheap McCheap Pants.

All right, that's what's... Cheapy McCheap Pants. Okay, now we know what's going on. Now we know what's going on. So, how much money do you have in savings outside of the retirement? In cash, probably about $60,000 or $70,000. Shane, come on. That's great.

Shane, you're fine. You've got to stop worrying, man, and just put all this intense worrying into intentionality of saving for that down payment on a home. You're going to buy a home in cash, and it's going to be completely through your income. You're not going to have to touch your retirement. At all. You guys are going to put away $100,000 a year for the next four years.

I'm coming to Shane's house in Houston and having a party, because Shane's going to have money buried in the backyard. Okay. Shane, I get it now. You're cheapy McCheap pants, or whatever your wife calls you.

I get it. You're scared. There's no reason to be scared. Do you give a lot too, Shane? Do you give a lot? Yeah, we probably give about $20,000 a year to our church. You're fine. We give 10%. Yeah. Okay. You're going to be just fine.

Let me go back and re-ask the question and answer it for Shane. Shane, can you live off of $6,000 a month? You should have been like, uh, yeah, I can live off of two. I can hear your wife in the background going, oh boy. No, don't tell him he can live off of two because Cheapy McCheaperson or whatever she was calling him will emerge. She doesn't want that. He's already there. He walks around with a cape. Hey, Shane, you're going to be fine, my friend. I've talked to her about eating beans and rice and rice and beans and she just kind of gives me that look. You don't need to eat rice and

beans and beans and rice. You need to be living it up in Zimbabwe. Look. That money goes a long way over there. The storm is over now. You don't have to keep doing that. I love when you sing just out of nowhere. It's very exciting. I love that. Oh, the storm is over now. You don't have to keep doing that. I love when you sing just out of nowhere.

It's very exciting. I love that. Oh, Chiefie McChieferson. He's fine. He's fine. The dude is going to have over a million dollars. Over, well over.

He could easily live off of his benefits plus Social Security. With a paid for $400,000 house. Shane, go buy your wife something nice she's been having her eye on and just relax.

Take a couple deep breaths and get on a budget. You're going to feel better about it. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to ramseysolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com

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