The Ramsey Show - App - Business Debt Is STILL Debt... Pay It Off! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life, your mental health, your relationships, and your money. I'm John Deloney, joined here by my good friend George Camel, and we are taking your calls on everything. Lines are open, 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225.

Let's go to Anna in San Jose, California. Hey, Anna, what's up? Hello, just looking for some help on strategy. Oh, your name is Anna, isn't it? Anna, yes, it? Anna. Yes, it is. Thank you. Here's the thing.

You said it right, and Jenna wrote it correctly. It's her name. Oh, that's true. Well played. You said it right. Jenna, the call screener, she wrote it correctly, and I didn't read it. I'm sorry. I hate getting people's names wrong.

That's so basic humanity. So, Anna, what's up? Okay, my husband and I want to purchase a home, and we're hoping to be able to pay cash for that. But we just have a little bit of a struggle on strategy on what we should do first. We currently are renting. We live in San Jose, California. The rent is outrageous. We have $400,000 towards a house purchase. We

realize that we'll have to move out of the area. My husband and I are both working right now. We would not be able to transfer over our jobs if we leave the state. So that means looking for new employment as well. He has contacts in the Dallas area that he feels he could secure a job, but there's a high income or the high property taxes in Dallas. We were also looking in Florida, but he doesn't really have that many contacts there. Additionally, we have a 103-year-old mother-in-law in a nursing home, and that means leaving her and then coming back for her later

to bring her to where we're at. So we just don't know what steps. Like, should we look for the house first or look for the job first or what? Where do you guys want to live? Well, ideally, in a perfect world, I'd love to stay in San Jose because we were both born and raised, but we know that we can't do that. So he's leaning towards Dallas because of the job contact. I'm leaning towards Florida because we'd be on the coast, close to the water, what we're used to.

How old are you guys? We're old souls. I am 66 and he's 65. But we want to keep working. We're both very healthy and we're young 65 and 66. So I love the fact that you want to keep working. I think that's remarkable. I want you to think you're 65, 67.

George's question, I don't want you to miss how poignant that was. What do you want to do? Because you're asking questions as though you're at the beginning of your financial future. I want to avoid this. You've worked hard to get where you are. So what do you want to do? Ideally, we want to be homeowners, and we don't want to have a mortgage so that when we do stop working, whenever that is, we are secure that we have shelter and room over our head. We have no debt, no credit cards, no car payments, none of that. So your question sounds like it's coming from a place of fear.

That soon everything's going to implode and we need to make sure we've got a tent and a lean-to and a root cellar. And I want to flip this around. You've said you've got $400,000 in cash. Yes. That will buy you a nice place in a lot of places across the country. Not in San Jose, not in California, not in Austin, not in certain parts of Florida. That's a chunk of money. And so I would love you to flip this thing around and say, we were born and raised here.

We spent all of our life here. We want one last adventure. Where do we want to go? And not look at it as you're escaping for your lives, but you are going to live your life the fullest. And I know you're leaving California, so I know many people think they are escaping with their lives. But do you get what I'm saying, how important that mindset shift is? Yes. Because when you make such a big move out of fear and desperation, you end up in a city you don't want to be in or you don't think through all the implications or you wish you had just been on the water and you kind of regret the last 10 years. I want you to flip that thing around and say we get to because we've been stewards of our money, because we have put ourselves in a position where we want to still be working.

We are blessed with health. What do we want to do? We got 10, 15 years of working years left. We want to go to the wheels, fall off on this thing. What do we want to do? We got 10, 15 years of working years left. We want to go to the wheels, fall off on this thing. What do we want to do with that? And start thinking about that. And then this whole thing turns into an exciting adventure, not a run, run. You get that? What's interesting is that you were going to have a paid for house, but then you were worried about the cost of property taxes. And so to me, there's always going to be another thing, another fear,

and that's why I asked, where do you want to live? And if you want to pay cash for a house, that's awesome. I love that goal for you guys, especially at your age, not having to worry about a mortgage payment. Do you guys have anything in retirement? We have close to a half a million in retirement. Okay, awesome. And what's your household income?

It is, let's see, I wrote it down. It's about, oh my gosh, I don't know where I put it. My husband's here. We have a little over $120,000 in death grows. Awesome. So that is closer to $85,000. Sure. And it'll probably go up if you move away from California, so that's nice. But here's the thing.

You guys are close to millionaires if you're not already. That's awesome. Have you taken a moment to celebrate that? Because a lot of people are fearful and they have a right to be, but you guys are millionaires. You have a great income. You're very healthy. You're willing to work.

I mean, if it's anything like mom, you guys could go past 100. You still got another 40 years of your life. So I want you to have a vision for it. And it doesn't have to happen tomorrow. I know you're sick of renting. But I don't want you to sit around renting for the next 10 years because you want to pay cash for the house. I want you to move forward with your life regardless of that. So here's what I want to see you do, Ana.

I want you to take out that handsome husband of yours, and I want you all to go. He's right here. He's right there. He's sitting right here with me. He's not that handsome, is he? Just kidding. He is. So I want you to take his hand, and I want you all to go have breakfast.

I want you to plan a two- or three-hour breakfast together or a nice lunch or dinner, whatever you all do. And I want you to ask each other the question. We've got 20 years. We've got 30 years. If we're looking at mom who's 103, we may have 40 more years to go. What do we want to do with the last few precious years of our life? What jobs do we want? Where do we want to live?

What do we want to have access to? What do we want that to look like? And I want you all to dream together. To answer your original, original question, I would not be looking at homes And I want you all to dream together. To answer your original, original question, I would not be looking at homes until I had a place to work. And I wouldn't, in your situation, be so focused on what the job is going to be until I know where I want to look and concentrate that. Or maybe we're going to look in Dallas and in Florida.

George, you nailed it. There's always going to be a thing that's going to trip this up. You're a millionaire, Anna. A millionaire. Y'all did it. You're doing great. Turn this thing around, dream big, and then find a place where you want to be, find work, and then work on getting the home. Thank you so, so much for the call. Give us a call, 888-825-5225. We'll be right back on The Ramsey Show. I'm going to go on a little rant here for a minute. I took a call from a father who wanted to know how to plan for the care of his special needs daughter after he dies. Why is it that parents of special needs children are so deliberate in their planning while other

parents have a tendency to be sloppy? Do the needs of your family matter less if something happens to you? Oh, I'm sorry. Did I just guilt trip you into getting some term life insurance? Well, then good. Your family needs you to step up. Having the right amount of term life insurance is a matter of personal responsibility. If you want to use the new year as a reason for Having the right amount of term life insurance is a matter of personal responsibility. If you want to use the new year as a reason for doing the right thing, then do it. Term life insurance is something every family needs, which is why I talk about it every day. It's not complicated, it's not expensive, and you need to do this now. Zander Insurance is the only place I recommend. Visit zander.com or call them at 800-356-4282.

Please learn from other people's mistakes and get this taken care of. That's 800-3525-5225. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by George Camel. We are taking your calls on mental health, relationships, money, your mortgages. What in the world are we doing in 2022? Anything you got going on in your heart and mind, 888-825-5225. Let's go to Mindy in Birmingham, Alabama.

Hey, what's up, Mindy? Hi, thanks for taking my call. Thank you for calling. What's up? Yeah, okay. So I'm in a situation where we've worked really, really hard for a long time in school

and saving and everything but we have quite a bit of savings we have or just money that has that we have I guess earned I hope that's how you got the money yes 400 to 500,000 in cash right now. And we are wondering, we were planning on putting it in the stock market, investing it. But the other day I started, a couple weeks ago I started listening to your show. And I thought, I turned to my husband and said, maybe we should pay off our house. And he said, you know, well, our house, our house, to pay off our house would cost about as much as it would cost to pay off our business loan. And he's like, that's not a, our business loan has a higher interest rate.

And I was kind of like, oh, well, I'd rather put our money, if we're going to do that, I'd rather just put our money into investment. And so now we kind of have three options because we have no, since we're self-employed, we do not have any match program or any retirement program right now. And so I was just calling to ask what you would do, um, as far as where we should put, what's the best use of this money? What's your business? And, um, it's an orthodontic practice and, um, y'all are billionaires, aren't you? Uh, no, no, no, no. Um, but we have for a long time, he's been working for seven, eight years now. We have four kids. I mean, we've paid off $300,000 of student loans. We brought, you know, another practice that we ended up, you know, going back to zero

as far as our bank account goes to, you know, go in with, you know, another, bought another practice. And so we feel like, I kind of am sitting here feeling like we have no retirement. You know, well, we have a couple of businesses and that's just where we've put it. We haven't, you know, or my family kind of grew up telling you, put it in the stock market, put it in the stock market. And he's kind of more like- Mindy, how long did it take for you guys to get this $400,000 or $500,000?

A couple of years. You're going to be okay. So here's what I want to say. Mama Mindy, breathe, exhale. Well, it's also, you know, you never know how your business is going to go. I mean, we've had a great couple of years, but, you know, is it going to stay like that? Let me simplify this. You know, with the economy going down.

I try, if I'm talking to my wife and she's sending a text, she's not hearing me. It's really hard to do multiple things at once. And right now you're trying to do three things at once. And you're feeling the tension in the middle of all of this. And so if I'm in your shoes, here's what I'm doing. The business loan is not on the same playing field as your mortgage. You guys are in debt. This loan is under your name.

So this is like baby step two. We're taking a sidestep here. So if I'm in your shoes, I'm paying off this loan, which is going to free up a whole bunch of money, isn't it? Which one? What's the debt service on your business loan? On this business loan, you said it's high interest. So they're both about the same.

Right. on your business loan on this business loan you said it's high interest they're both about the same they're both right so our house we probably have about 300,000 left which is our house is on a 15 year and um it's like 2.3 percent and then the business loan is a little more it's closer to 400 um because he actually just renovated um the office so anyway, but that's at like a 4.5. And he's paying like, he told me yesterday, he's paying a little over $4,000 a month for that. And like 26 is going towards principal. Sure. I'm not as concerned with interest rate right now.

I'm looking at it through a different filter where I'm going, all right, let's pay off this business loan. That's going to free up a lot of cash flow. And then you're going to start investing 15% of your income into retirement. That might look like a SEP IRA or a solo 401k. You guys got to get that set up for yourselves as self-employed folks. And then beyond the 15%, you're going to have so much margin to throw at the house and pay this thing off within a few years. So we can do all three, but we can't do it at once.

Right. So another thing that's going through our minds is that the stocks aren't down right now. Is this a good time to invest? It's a great time. Every day is a great day to invest. If the stock market's down, you're getting the stocks on sale. And if they're going up, your stocks are going up with it. And so I don't want you to try to time the market here. You just need to be consistently investing over time. Let me give you a framework I want you to keep in mind. Okay. You're trying to solve for safety, and you're trying to solve for freedom, and you're trying to solve for growth.

You can't solve for growth and freedom. You can't solve for growth and freedom, or you can't solve for growth when you're not free and you can't be free if you're not safe. And you've got a $400,000 liability in a business loan hanging out over your head. Right. Right. Right. So let's solve for safety there and let's be safe. Let's get that out of the way. Then let's solve for freedom. We owe, let's solve for safety there. Let's be safe. Let's get that out of the way. Then let's solve for freedom. We owe, let's say your last name is Smith. The Smiths owe nobody anything. No business debt, no house debt. And then suddenly, I just freed up an extra $8,000 a month in business loan payments and house note for dumping into retirement.

Now we're solving for growth. You hear where I'm going? Yeah. So let's be safe. So my husband's right. Let's be safe. Oh, that's what it was, John. She just had to admit, so my husband's right.

Oh, no. A lot of resignation in that tone. Oh, what's his name? No, I'm good. Don. Yep. He doesn? No, I'm good. Don. Yep. He's not listening. He doesn't even know I'm calling, so.

Well, when we email him after this call and we clip it and send him the video, he for sure will. But you are asking great questions. Here's what's cool, George. Mindy and her husband, they've already been living these principles. They have a 15-year note. They are paying off their student loan. I mean, they're way down the road, right?

So now it's just a matter of getting these things in the right order. Yeah, and Mindy, I want you to run this business debt-free once this loan is paid off because that's going to take all the fear out of the equation. It's going to take – this is going to be a tough year for us. You don't have to worry about that when you have no payments in the world on your business and in your personal life, but we have to do these things in order so that we feel the progress because otherwise you're going to be going, I'm going to try to pay this off while paying the house off while trying to invest in the market. And you're not going to see progress in any of those areas. So you just recently paid off your house.

What was the challenge? I'm like her. I want to do everything all at the same time. And if I can't do one of the three things, I quit them all. And I just sit in my house. Well, you know, John, a lot of people are, they came to me and said, George, why are you paying off your house early? You could be investing in the market. Why are you paying down this low interest debt when you could leverage that and put it on the market for 10, 11%? And I just kept thinking to myself, I'm fine because I follow the baby steps. I'm going to, we'll be multimillionaires. So right now my goal is not to try to get rich quick in the market. My goal is I'm solving for freedom right now. I'm trying to increase my cash

flow so that our greatest wealth building tools are income. And until you have that freed up, you can't really do all the things at once. And now that we don't have a payment in the world, we can go all in on investing and generosity. And we have time for all these things. And so that's what I want from Mindy. I mean, i mean they're young sharp couple running an amazing business making great money but she didn't feel that you don't feel that in her tone that she's doing great everyone in america there's fear there yeah you guys are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and you feel this tension of we're not doing enough right so you i don't blow i don't want to blow pies buy something here real quick before we go to break you mentioned hey, hey, this business debt, y'all set this up in your name.

This is really like a huge credit card bill. People don't see business debt as their debt. Kind of like student loans is a debt, right? Or business debt is not debt. But it's Don and Mindy LLC, you know, orthodontist practice. It's your debt. And so you've got to get rid of this thing. Run your business debt free. That's what we teach in Entree Leadership. And Mindy, I'd love to practice, it's your debt. And so you've got to get rid of this thing. Run your business debt-free.

That's what we teach in Entree Leadership. And Mindy, I'd love to send you a copy of that. Hang on, Jenna's going to pick up. Read through that book. You guys are crushing it, and I want you to continue to crush it. 888-825-5225. We're talking about everything right here on The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. On the De-free stage, Tracy from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. How in the world are you?

Really, really good. Really good. So good to see you and your friends and your matching t-shirts. You fit perfectly here in Nashville. Is this like a bachelorette party? What's going on here? No, this is my debt-free screen party. Oh, thank goodness.

Y'all didn't come here on a pedal tavern. That's fantastic. All right, so you're here to do your debt-free screen. Yes. Walk us through it. How much have you paid off? I have paid off $98,000. Ooh, how long did it take?

About four and a half years. Four and a half years. And how much money was your annual, what was your annual income? I went from about $45,000 to about $58,000. And what's your profession? Well, now I am in IT, but before I owned my own business, I've always had three or four jobs my whole life, but I was a college coach. I owned my own business, did accounting. I'm an accounting major. So I had several things that I was doing. Now, since I've become debt-free in June, I sold my business. I

was catapulted to baby step seven, and I've been able to quit a lot of those. Wow. You get to be a human again. Yep. So what kind of debt was this? It was everything from student loans to IRS to family loans to, I mean, anything you can imagine. Credit cards, doctor bills, everything. So what happened four years ago that caused you to say enough is enough is enough? There was a couple of different things. One of the major turnarounds in my life was when my son and I had gone to one of his hockey tournaments and I had gone up to the hotel to pay the hotel bill and my credit card was denied.

And so I pulled out another credit card. That one was denied. And so I pulled out another credit card. That one was denied. I called a couple of my friends to see if they could. Nobody would answer. During this time, while I'm standing there at the desk, several people from my community are coming up and seeing this. And I was only able to get a room by my dad faxing over a form saying that he would take care of my hotel bill. So that was the first thing like, okay, something's got to change. And then at four and a half years ago, I was just at the time where I was going to do a debt consolidation. And I remember talking to the gal on the phone, and she's like, you know, just quit paying on everything.

We'll take care of it for you. And I remember thinking, I got a really sick feeling in my stomach because I'm like, but these are my debts. I should be paying for these. They're not the responsibility of anybody else. And about that exact same time, my sister was signed up to do,

well, she signed up to do the financial piece within our church, Fusion Church in Mitchell, South Dakota. And so she said, you know what, Tracy, before you do that debt consolidation, because I was about ready to sign, and she said, before you do that, look at Dave Ramsey. Look at this and see what ever since then. I've just, I've been gazelle intense, man. Wow. It's incredible. So what was the hardest part about this journey?

Probably the hardest part was just, you know, of course, telling people no. But after I got comfortable with telling people the journey that I was on and not really caring about their reaction because really the, you know, everybody out there thinks that you have to have a car payment. You have to have a credit card, you know, all of this. And I was proving them wrong. I was, I was proving them wrong. It can be done and you can do it. So I think probably just saying no. And that's probably, that's probably about it. So what did you do to get out of debt?

I hustled like a maniac. You were already kind of a hustler maniac. Yeah, like I look at my planner from two years ago and there's no room. Like I was everywhere doing everything, you know, whatever. So now I can relax. So you went from, you've got these maxed out credit cards that are being declined. What were you feeling during that moment? And now what do you feel after this transformation? I was feeling beat down and I was feeling like

I have been believing everything people have been telling me all this time. And my parents were great with money. And I have, there's five siblings. And we, I mean, we worked from the day, you know, from 14 years on. I've always had two or three jobs. So it wasn't part of that. But I'm sorry, I forgot the question. Oh, I was just wondering the feeling, the emotion from like the shame of like, oh my gosh, I'm in front of all these people and my cards are getting declined left and right.

And now the freedom that you have. What was that transformation like emotionally? And you know, that day we went back to the hotel room and I just started bawling. And my little boy, he was like, mommy, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. And I tell you what, when you guys tell us that this is freedom, that this is peace, I'm telling you, it is. There is.

I'm just shaking. There's no other feeling like it. What other things were going on in your life? Because usually when money is in that situation, when you're sitting at a hotel counter trying to get in, the rest of're sitting at a hotel counter trying to get in. The rest of our lives are a mess too. And this is just the big neon sign saying we're in the ditch. Yep.

I was single. I had two kids. I was waiting. I literally was waiting for somebody else to make it better. I was. I thought somebody was going to come into my life and I wouldn't have to work. I wouldn't have to worry. And it's like, why was I ever okay with thinking that and feeling that? It's just, it's such empowerment.

And I can see that that woman four and a half years ago was not real happy with what she saw in the mirror. And this Tracy, you love Tracy enough to get matching t-shirts that's all I'm saying all right so who are your biggest cheerleaders right there these are my biggest cheerleaders my sister Teresa is um like I said she's now a smart vest or pro as well as leading financial peace university um but my niece Kelsey my daughter Taylor my friend Nikki and my friend Kelly they Kelly and Nikki are both debt freefree. My sister's on her way. She's almost there. And our two girls are living it, too.

They're seeing us do it. That's incredible. What do the shirts say for everyone listening? It says from the 605 to the 615. So, a South Dakota area code, Nashville area code. Nice. Then on the back, it says, ask me why I'm on my way to Nashville. And then it's got hashtag 605 baby steppers.

Oh, that's awesome. Y'all have a gang? Yeah, we have a gang. So you don't know this, but the cool thing in Nashville is to get the hashtags on your shirt tattooed on your body. So y'all can do that after this. We've actually thought about that. We've actually thought about it. Don't listen to him.

Do not listen to him. Of course you have. We're so proud of you. Yeah, we're so proud of you. Thank you so much. Listen, you are strong and brave and you did hard things and you've changed it. Not just your family

tree, you've led the charge and all of these folks' family trees are different because of the work you put in. I'm grateful to have people like you in the communities that my little kids are growing up in because that kind of bravery that's going to get us out of this mess and you did it and I'm so grateful for it. Thank you so much.

We got Tracy from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Paid off $98,000 in four and a half years. All by herself. Working a million jobs. Count it down. Let's hear your debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free!

I'm debt-free! Yeah! Yeah! Wow! We felt that through the double-pane glass. Oh, my goodness. That might have been one of my top five screams. Ever. Ever.

And what John forgot to mention is we've got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for Tracy. Oh, well played. That is absolutely the next chapter in her story. And, of course, a copy of Total Money Makeover so that she can ignite someone else's journey to bravery and hard things and sacrifice and winning with money and freedom and all of that good stuff. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to give you a copy of Total Money Makeover to each one of your gang. Oh, I love it. And the goal is to give it away and bless somebody else.

You're going to run across somebody in the next few weeks that's going to be struggling and you're going to say, I got the key and it's going to be hard and it's going to take a few years and you're going to change everything.

Good for you guys. I'm so proud of you. That's amazing. So proud of you. George, that transformation, she's a great storyteller. She's a great storyteller thinking about being at the counter

and not having the money to pay for a kid's soccer stay and being able to stand up in front of millions of people and say I am absolutely free that transformation happened because she put the work in she followed the plan, she kept going, she surrounded herself

with great people and kept going from the 605 all the way to Nashville. So grateful for you. Wow! Change can happen right here on the Ramsey Show. It's resolution season, and if you're like most people, you make resolutions on New Year's Day and give them up by Valentine's Day. Why? Because you are trying to figure it out on your own. So, if you've decided to take control of your money this year, don't do it alone. Get the support and accountability you need by joining a Financial Peace University class. You'll go through our proven money plan with other people who will help you stay motivated because they're trying to get out of debt and build wealth just like you.

Right now, there are hundreds of FPU classes getting started, both in person and online. Welcome to the 21st century. So forget the lame resolutions. Make 2022 the year you take control of your money and don't do it by yourself. Find an FPU class and get started for free at ramseysolutions.com slash FPU. That's ramseysolutions.com slash FPU. Let's go to Robert in Richmond, Virginia. What's up, Robert?

Hey, how are you all today? Hey, my brother, how are you? Just fine. Before I ask my question, I wanted to congratulate George and his wife on paying off their house. Oh, thanks so much, Robert. That's very kind. Well, my question is about retiring earlier than I had planned. I'm 61 years old. My husband is 67, and he was recently diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer's. I'm so sorry. I planned to retire at 65, but now I'm thinking I may have to either go part-time or fully retire earlier than that. Why would you need to retire early? well right now uh he's he's fully functional but i don't know how long he will be because you know with the dementia and alzheimer's you can't predict a timeline yeah it's it's an absolute demon i i want to take a second to say i'm'm so sorry. That's so, so hard.

Walk us through your financial picture here. I hate that this is a part of the conversation, but you know it is, right? It's part of it. You know, everyone's giving me all this advice on caring for someone with dementia, but it's the financial issue. There's a reality to it. Yeah. Yeah, it's reality. Well, we're debt-free, including our home.

Awesome. Currently, our household income is about $106,000. Is that combined income or just yours? That's combined. That includes his Social Security. Okay. That's combined. That includes his Social Security. We have a retirement account that's worth about $930,000. How much is your house worth?

About $250,000 to $275,000 range. So I'm talking to a millionaire, right? Yeah, I'm an everyday millionaire. Very cool. Yes, or baby steps millionaire. Baby step millionaire. There you go. So if you reduce your income and go to half,

what is that going to do to your overall take-home pay? Let's see. To go part-time from 36 to 24 hours a week would reduce my take-home income to about $57,000 a year. And what's his Social Security total? His Social Security is... I don't remember the number. Is it $27,000, $33,000, something like that? I forgot that. His Social Security, if I calculated it correctly, is $6,900 a year.

Oh, okay. That's lower than that. The reason, one of my hesitations about leaving the workforce is my insurance, because I don't qualify for Medicare for a few more years. So is he on your insurance plan? No, he's not. He's already on Medicare. Okay, okay. I have insurance through my employer, which if I go to part-time, I can still maintain my employer-sponsored insurance.

Okay. So what do you think care looks like in the near future through Medicare? I'm sorry? What does that care look like long-term? Because right now, everyone's at home, but you're saying, do I need to stay home and help take care of him? Is that the situation? Yeah.

Because right now there's a lot of unknowns, it sounds like. There's nothing in stone. There are, and part of the issue was I've always worked nights. I'm a nurse. I've always worked nights. I'm a nurse. I've always worked night shift. And I'm sure you know that with dementia, a lot of people with dementia are fine during the day, but as the evening progresses and they get tired,

they start to become confused. How much of this is already happening, and how much of this is a year, two years, an indefinite number of years down the road? He's just forgetful once in a while. He'll misplace things or forget he has appointments. He's still able to drive, go shopping, you know, normal everyday things. So it sounds like, Robert, the question you're wrestling with is, do I want to make, do I feel a need to make sure I get the most time as long as we've got it. Yeah. Or, because the money part

sounds like you're clear. I mean, the money sounds like you can pay your bills, you got a million dollars in the bank, you got a paid-for house, you're going to,

you know, once you get Social Security, you can drop down financially, especially once you are in Medicare years and your insurance is taken care of. That,

you sound like you're good there. Sounds like a question of, do I want to keep working? Am I going to feel guilty about missing time? You get where I'm headed? Yes. Yes, and that's a big thing for me is I'd like us to have, you know, some time together while he's still, you know, reasonably cognitive okay. Sure.

I mean, yes, I'm going to stay home and take care of him when he declines, but I'd like us to have a few good years together before that happens. Could you switch to a day shift? Things you plan to do in retirement. Yeah, is there things you can do professionally? So here's some things I'd love you to dig into professionally. I'd love for you to dig in and see if you can go to day shift for a season. Can you try the part-time gig for a while, see how that goes financially,

see how that goes at home and at work, and then if it doesn't work, you can swing back? Sounds like as a nurse who's been doing this a long time, you've got a lot of options. The big thing here is, number one, I'm never going to tell somebody, George, I'm never going to tell somebody work over relationship, work over family, work over time. Time is finite, right? It goes. The other side of it is, as we talked about, there's a financial reality to some of these decisions. It looks like, Robert, y'all have put yourself in a position for just a moment as this, but I don't want you to project things that might happen in two years, in three years, in five years, in seven years onto your present reality because right now things are

pretty good still. It is wise to be making decisions and planning for the future. But right now, things are okay. And I don't want you to miss the moments now or make professional decisions now for things that might happen in the future, right? Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking of. I don't want to make decisions based on what ifs and maybes and five years from now we'll cross that bridge when we get there and the good news is the financial part i mean robert's done so well financially following the baby steps that the money's not really a stressful part of the equation right now right it's more about the relational aspect of okay and retiring early at 61 he's

ready to retire if he wanted to he's a he's a healthy guy he can keep working we need nurses out there but oh god we need nurses like you mentioned he's got options retire if he wanted to. He's a, he's a healthy guy. He can keep working. We need nurses out there, but Oh God, we need nurses. He's got options and that changes the situation. And so if you were, if you were young and you're listening to this, those options that Robert at 61 is,

is, is, is looking at started years ago, right? Started with little decisions made years ago to retire, to pay off your house and and to do things right. So, Robert, we'll be thinking about you, brother. That's it for this hour of The Ramsey Show.

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