The Ramsey Show - App - Can I Buy a Corvette at 16 Years Old? (Hour 3)
Episode Date: September 15, 2020Business, Relationships, Home Buying, Career Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting:... http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios,
it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king,
and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.
I am Dave Ramsey, your host.
Christy Wright, Ramsey personality and number one best-selling author,
is my co-host today here on the air.
We're answering your questions about your life and your money.
Open phones at 888-825-5225.
That's 888-825-5225.
Jessica in Los Angeles starts off this hour.
Hi, Jessica.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
Thanks.
What's up?
My husband and I recently had a baby boy.
Yay!
Yeah, and I really would like to be a stay-at-home mom or more of one.
I currently work full-time, and we just want to know if we can do that or
what we need to do to reach that goal. Okay. Can you live on his income?
So currently, his income's a lot less than mine, and if we did, so we've paid off all our debt,
and we're currently saving for a house and retirement. If we lived on his income,
we couldn't save anymore. That's where we would
be at. And that's kind of my concern. Okay. So you can't buy a house.
Right. Right. We have a good amount towards the down, but you know, we live in Southern
California, so we're not to where we have enough for a down. So how do we fix that?
Um, I need more income.
One of you has to make more income in order for you to get a house because you don't – I'm guessing that you do want to stay at home, and I'm with you on the goal.
Christy's with you on the goal.
But I'm also guessing you don't want that to mean you never buy a home.
Yeah.
I mean, we're not in a big rush to buy a home, but yeah,
currently we rent from my mom and we have really low rent in our area and we're helping her out.
But eventually, yes, we would like to buy a home. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, I think one of the
things that is an option for you, Jessica, I'm not saying it's the right option, but an option
is to take a step in that direction without fully completely just staying home.
So you could work part time.
You would still have some income to contribute to savings, but you're able to spend more time with your baby.
You're able to kind of have a little bit of the best of both worlds for a season until
you reach that financial goal.
Another option, if you've ever heard me talk about business boutique, I love helping women
start businesses from home.
So you probably have skills and knowledge and talents that you could turn into a home-based
business or a side business that would bring in income for a season.
You might not be saving or might not be saving much, but you could build that business up
and work during nap time.
So that's a very common thing I see women do.
So I would just say it's easy to feel like I'm either going to work full time or stay
home full time. But we live in a world right now where you have more options than that.
So I just think that's one thing you could consider that would still reach your financial goals
of being able to save for a house but also move you in the direction of being home more.
What do you do for a living?
I'm a speech therapist.
Oh, Jessica.
Jessica, Jessica, this could be your business.
Now listen, I've got to tell you I'm not the type of person that, this could be a business.
Now, listen, I got to tell you, I'm not the type of person that says everything could be a business.
But as no, no, it's not for everybody.
It's not for everybody.
But but in your case, and I say this specifically from firsthand experience, Jessica, my son Conley needs occupational therapy.
We were going to a clinic and he just got so comfortable.
I was like, I really need someone to come into our world and environment. I was just telling Dave about this.
And we are now looking into an occupational therapy therapist that kind of comes in our world, goes to school with them, goes to soccer to help him in his environment where he struggles.
A speech therapist is something that you could do virtual or go to the people or from home on
your own terms. That is something you absolutely could
turn into a freelance type of business if you want to.
Now, you don't have to.
I just want you to know that that is a skill that would be very easily turned into a business.
What do you make a year now?
I make between $85,000 and $90,000.
Okay.
All right.
And what does he make?
My husband makes about $60,000. He's freelance as well.
Doing what?
So he's an audio engineer.
Okay. Is he staying busy?
Yes, and getting more busy because he does a lot of podcast editing,
so that's only picked up with all of this, and it's continuing to rise.
But he has other skills as well that he relies on
okay so there's three or four buttons we can push but they're all on the income side
okay button number one is his career expands his income expands how do we grow his business
how do we double his income and that gets you there too okay button number two is we take a temporary reduction in pay
and um you work either part-time or you start a uh a one-person solo uh customized in the home
type of a speech therapy situation like christy's describing um and that might be so lucrative that you even could replace your income
but work many, many, many less hours and really have control over what you're doing.
So I would want to explore, try to find some people around the nation, certainly in California,
that are doing what we're talking about and try to figure out how to price it.
And then based on pricing it, how much of that do I have to do per hour, per project, per job, per package?
I don't know how you price something like this that gets me to $75,000 or $65,000 instead of $85,000.
But it's more than someone would pay going to a business.
This concierge type of service has a higher value, so don't price yourself at whatever you're...
It's not a business.
No, this is somebody that's doing exactly what we're talking about doing somewhere else, and you can study them.
Yes.
And let's give her a ticket to livestream Business Boutique.
Jessica, I would love to give you a ticket to our Business Boutique conference.
It's October 22nd through the 24th we're live streaming it so you can watch it from
home with your baby and we are teaching you how to grow your business or your turn your idea into
a side business it'll be exactly a great thing to kind of get you started exploring this and if it's
right for you if you want to do it it's a perfect way to get you set up so I would love that and I
think I'm going to pull all these levers, his side, your side,
either, you know, so we're going to explore a part-time corporate gig for you,
or we're going to explore a startup concierge type thing like we're describing,
and what can we do with his career, what other things can we do to cut expenses,
and let's just start to you know you know
develop the life that you are desiring okay and that that includes um being at home
or mostly being at home right and uh you know saving for a house and so you don't have to say
oh i'll never buy a house in order
to sit at home full time and turn the thing completely off. We can use a dimmer switch
instead of an on and off switch here. Yeah. And I think you can pull this off. You got to start
working on it though. And you got to, and I would work on all of it at one time. Okay, honey, what
are we going to do to get your income up?
We've got to raise your prices or something here.
We've got to get going.
We need to get you on some more famous podcasts,
not those little startup things that aren't paying you much.
I don't know what it is.
And then you start working on your thing and going, okay, talk to your current employer,
what they consider part-time, or somebody that's one of their competitors part-time.
And then you start talking and studying concierge or whatever we want to call this new thing we're designing here
and how to price that out and then divide that into $75,000 a year and how we're going to get there,
$65,000 a year and how we're going to get there.
You can do this.
So hold on.
Kelly will pick up.
We're going to send you a copy of Christie's number one best-selling book, Business Boutique.
And we're also going to give you a live stream ticket to the Business Boutique event that is three days long coming up. We'll
tell you more about that after the break. Folks, I love telling you about well-made,
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That's Grip6.com. Christy Wright, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author,
is my co-host today here on the Dave Ramsey Show.
We're answering questions about your life and your money.
So the Business Boutique Conference, we just gave her a live stream ticket. We've got
a few, just a handful of in-person tickets available. We are limiting it to half of what
we normally do, and it is almost sold out. And then we're doing a live stream for the first time
ever. And this is a three-day event. And what are the dates on this event? October 22nd to the 24th.
So it's a Thursday night through a Saturday right around lunch.
This is kind of the same structure we've kept in past years.
We kick it off on a Thursday night, go all day Friday.
We've got breakout sessions and half the day Saturday with amazing rock star speakers.
And you know, we change it up every year.
We bring in new speakers on different topics.
But the thing we stay consistently true to is we bring in speakers that are going to help these women in the areas of
their business that they need help the most with. So marketing, selling, making money,
overcoming your fear, pushing past your fear. And you hear these incredible stories
of these women that have done it and best practices and plans to show you how you can do it too.
But you're also in a room with other women that is so empowering to realize, oh my gosh,
I'm not alone, even though business can feel lonely.
But the live stream option is going to be really cool this year because for the first
time ever, you don't have to travel.
If it's not the year for you to come in person, you can join us from the comfort of your own
home and still get that great teaching and encouragement and those amazing sessions to help you build your dream.
Elizabeth Hasselbeck will be speaking, Chris Hogan, Lisa Brevere, Gigi Butler of Gigi's
Cupcakes, Jamie Kern Lima, who sold her business for a billion dollars.
That's right, a billion dollars.
Just a small, tiny little side business.
A little B on there.
And Annie F. Downs will be speaking.
And some powerful speakers here and teachers here.
The Business Boutique Conference, October 22 through 24.
Learn about it at businessboutique.com, christieright.com, daveramsey.com.
We're everywhere.
And daveramsey.com slash events is an easy way to get it, of course.
It's one of our biggest events of the year.
We'll have about 1,500 folks there, primarily folks there primarily ladies occasionally a guy sneaks in and um but uh it is an incredible
incredible lineup of uh star-studded people uh speaking and teaching and so uh it's a great
bargain for those of you thinking about this so we gave her a live stream our last caller there
we'll get her set up and get going on that.
All right, Alex is with us in Indianapolis.
Hi, Alex.
Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Hello.
It's a pleasure to speak with you.
You too, sir.
How can we help?
All right.
So my dad's been watching you for a while, and he kind of put me on to you.
And I've been watching your YouTube videos like the past year and um I I'm
16 and I work uh I work at a restaurant and make between 500 and 800 a month and I've been saving
and I really want to buy a 2001 Corvette and they're about 10k but my dad keeps telling me
not to and that it's like the worst decision I could make.
But he said he would allow me, and I just wanted to know,
I want to get your opinion if I should be allowed to buy this
with my current income.
Because I don't plan on going to college.
I'm going to go to the military.
And I don't really see a reason for me to say right now
that I should be able to buy this.
Well, that's going to be up to your dad as to whether you are able to buy it or not
in terms of getting permission.
That's not up to us.
I've got two Corvettes.
I love them.
I've got a 1960 and a 2014, both.
And so I'm a Corvette fan. I love the car. I love the history. And, you know,
2001 is an interesting vet. It really is. It's a pretty cool car. If my son were 16 and in your
situation, I would be giving him the same advice that your dad gave you. I don't think it's a
place for you to put your money. A 2001 is not going up in value.
It's going to at best stay stable and or probably go down in value. So you're going to turn
$10,000 into $5,000. And $10,000 is a lot of money in your world. It's a lot of money in your world. There's a lot of money in your world. And so I wouldn't do that if I were you.
I think it can be a goal later on when you're an adult with a full paycheck
and you're in the military, if you want to go get you a vet,
save up and pay cash for it, whatever the year at that point.
But it would make a lot more sense when you're earning a full-on paycheck
than it would make a lot more sense when you're earning a full-on paycheck than it would
now. Again, you and your dad get to make the decision of what you all are going to do in your
home, but I would tell my 16-year-old in your situation with those dollars that you're talking
about that that's not where I'm going to put the money. Yeah, it's amazing too how I think so often we feel like,
oh, well, I can afford it, so I should buy it.
But it's like, is that the best use of that money,
especially, like you said, in your world when that's a whole lot of money to you?
Yeah, and, well, you only live once, YOLO.
Well, that's true.
But you can screw up your life while you're living it by YOLOing around.
So, you know, you have to stop and look out and go, okay,
is the 26-year-old you going to be happy with the 16-year-old you's decision?
And that's what I'm looking at.
I don't think he's going to be happy with you.
Your 26-year-old version of you is going to look back and go, well, that was dumb.
And so I wish that I had that money to, that was dumb. And so I wish I had
that money to do this or do that with. I wish I'd have been able to do that. And I had been a little
bit more conservative in my car purchase. At this stage of the game, that's where I would be. But
again, I will defer to your father. He runs your house and whatever you all decide at your places
there. But if it were my 16-year-old son, I would tell him not to do it
because I don't think it's a good play.
Thanks for calling in, Alex.
Open phones at 888-825-5225.
Monty is with us at Tri-Cities.
Hi, Monty.
Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Hi, Dave.
Thank you for your financial and spiritual guidance and services you provide.
Well, thank you.
How can we help?
Yeah, I'm 35.
I work for the DOT.
I've been suffering from scoliosis my whole life,
trying to figure out how to get the surgery done,
which has like a nine-month turnaround in the hospital.
And I would do that without committing financial suicide.
Wow.
Nine months turnaround, meaning like nine months recovery?
Nine months recovery, yeah.
Wow.
It's a head-to-toe back surgery.
Yeah.
Wow.
And so no work for nine months?
Correct.
You're single?
No, I'm married to a girl.
Okay.
And does your wife work outside the home?
She does.
She's a bartender, and she's working on getting her insurance license,
working for Country Financial.
Mm-hmm.
She makes between, like, $16,000 about a year. Mm-hmm. Okay makes between like $16,000 about a year.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
What do you make?
I make about $60,000.
Okay.
What do you do?
He's with DMV, you said, right?
I'm an engineering technician.
Okay.
Okay.
So you're going to lose nine months at $60,000.
About $45,000. About $45,000. About $45,000 we need to make up for because you're living on your check, obviously.
And so you have any money saved?
I have, well, $10,000 in my savings account.
I have $10,000 in deferred compensation and then about $30,000 in state retirement,
but that's kind of a pension-type deal, so it's not really accessible.
Not there.
So do you have any kind of short-term disability through the state?
I would have to look at it.
That's exactly what this is.
This is a short-term disability.
And so if you can get that covered, that may be your answer right there.
Or if you can buy it as a benefit, a health benefit, add it to your policy.
Before you buy it, obviously make sure it covers this type of situation.
Yeah, that's the other thing, too,'re being pre-existing i'm not sure yeah
exactly and whether or not they'll consider a surgery to be a disability i don't know
but loss of income a loss of income type policy on the short term would sure go a long way uh but
i don't know you know again i don't know what you're gonna have to do to qualify for that and
how this is going to work but you're on the right track you've got to have to do to qualify for that and how this is going to work. But you're on the right track. You've got to say, somehow we've got to find this $45,000
because your family's going to continue to eat during this time,
and they're either going to run you deeply in debt or you will have planned for it, one of the two.
So we need a plan.
This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Christy Wright Ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today here
on the air open phones at 888-825-5225 two of the biggest things that you guys are saying
out there that you need right now in this pandemic slash post-pandemic world is community and help with your money.
And think about this.
What if you could get both of those in one place?
Imagine being coached, encouraged through a money plan that you know will actually work for you.
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It's one membership that guides you through our three big hitters.
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And my goodness, this thing, it is a premium all-access package, Ramsey Plus.
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word people around Ramsey like. Free trial of Ramsey Plus right now at DaveRamsey.com slash FPU.
That's DaveRamsey.com slash FPU. Financial Peace University is in there. Hello. This is how it
works. Shawnee is with us in reno hi shawnee welcome to
the dave ramsey show hi dave and christy thanks so much for taking my call sure i'm actually on
the california side but near reno and i just have a question we're in baby steps four five and six
um i am one of four kids my mom was a single mom from when I was two, and my oldest brother was 12, so four of us in that span.
She is currently 82 years old.
She has done fine for herself.
She has about $100,000 left.
Three of my four brothers are very, or three of the four of us, I should say, are very stable in our financial
situation. And we're wanting to help my mom with grace. So my question for you, Dave, is not so
much mechanical as we all feel like we have the funds. But the question is, do you let her go down
to kind of a lower amount until she starts to feel worried about her money?
Or do you start supplementing her nest egg now so that she doesn't feel as stressed with her money?
So hadn't heard you address this before and was wondering what your thoughts were on this.
What would she want to do?
You know, we haven't talked to her about it too much. I know that she's starting to worry. Her
expenses, she brings about $10,000 in per year with her security and her expenses are about
$30,000. I think that she would be fine. You know, we often give her gifts of, you know, a new phone. We just
got her an Apple Watch because it now has that fall protection so that we get called if she
falls and doesn't get back up, that type of thing. So she definitely takes larger gifts from us.
And I just was wondering, you know, should the three of four of us, you know, be
sending her $1,000 a month
so that she kind of keeps her at her nest egg,
or would you think that we should decrease that because it's not all four of us, you know, helping?
I just didn't know exactly what you, if you had any thoughts about that.
And how did your earth grace?
The three of you have talked and
you're all willing to put up a thousand dollars a month each yeah okay all right well the grace
would be um uh that this is a method of honoring her and say, Mom, you have been a warrior.
You raised us as a single mom.
We turned out.
You did it.
Touchdown.
Way to go.
Absolutely incredible.
And we want to honor you and honor the work that you've done
and honor how the lean years and how you took care of us.
And so it's our turn to honor you.
And so your budget is going up by $3,000 a month
because each of us are going to send $1,000 a month to you.
And just when you look at those checks, Mom, call them honor.
Would that work? Yep. Christy, what do you think? Thank you so much.
Yeah. Christy was raised by a single mom. Yeah. I think the, the interesting thing in your question,
um, Shawnee, is that you and your siblings, um, y'all have such a heart to do that, to do exactly
what Dave's saying to honor her. Um, I think there's just such an opportunity here too, for just really great dialogue where she might seem stressed, but you can ask her like,
Hey, like we want to honor you. How are you feeling? What's going on? Just, just open up
the conversation. Not so much because there's going to be some incredible insight that you
don't already know in terms of her financial situation, but it just becomes a conversation with her that she feels
ownership in, feels a part of, feels seen and heard. And I think a lot of times we can just
assume how people are feeling or assume what they want. And just like Dave asked you from the very
beginning, hey, like, what does she want? You're like, I'm not sure we haven't really talked about
it. I would just say, talk about it. In addition to what you're planning to do, I would just say,
yeah, just have some really, um, loving conversations
to see where she is and share your heart. And I think that that will set the table for you all
giving a check every month, uh, for her to get to hear your heart of what y'all want to do. Um,
but just maybe, maybe start with some questions and just kind of hear where she's, where she is
right now. Yeah. Cause at her current burn rate, um, she's, she's having to supplement $20,000 a year,
and she's got $100,000.
That gives her five years before she's out of money, right?
Right, and we didn't want her to get to that point.
No, no, I wasn't going to get to that point.
You know what I am going to do, though?
I'm going to change it now that I think about it a minute.
After you've done what Christy's talking about, you've got to have the conversation.
You've got to open up and have a dialogue.
Let her be heard, and let her hear you, that this is about honor.
This is not about charity, and this is not because we feel sorry for you.
It's our way of giving you a trophy because you won.
You did it, and that's what honor is.
And so once you've got all of that table set emotionally and spiritually,
and this opens back up, now back to the math a second, I'm not going to fully supplement it.
The reason is the fourth child. I'm going to let, I'm going to let some of the hundred burn down
and I'm going to supplement maybe half of it, which would mean she would have 10 years worth
rather than five years worth. If she puts in 10 K and y'all put in 10K to cover the deficit or something like that,
okay, I wouldn't cover 100% of her deficit.
I'd let some of the 100,000 burn each year.
Doesn't have to be a bunch, but the point is she no longer has to worry.
You've got her covered either way, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, and it makes sense. I mean, I think
right now the way she has her will set up because that other child owes her some funds already.
I think she has it split between the other three. Um, and those are the three that are financially.
Okay. Well, that may be, yeah, that may be, that may be the answer to the question.
Cause that's what
ran through my mind if i were in your shoes and i paid a thousand i paid twelve thousand dollars
a year for four years and so i put fifty thousand bucks basically in the pot here
and then junior who didn't do anything gets gets a quarter of that $100,000 in there, I got a problem with that.
I don't mind helping mom.
I do mind that deal going down.
So, you know, that's what I was thinking about.
But if she's already got him where the three of you are getting this,
then basically all you're doing is you're fronting some of your inheritance that's going to come right back to you.
Right.
Yeah.
So some of it.
You're not, depending on how, you know, the math would depend on how long she lives, obviously.
But, yeah, this is a good plan.
Okay.
Yeah.
I think it's wonderful that you all are talking about this.
I think you're dreading talking to her for some reason, and you're going to have to do it.
You're going to have to bring her into this
because i got a feeling this woman has a really strong backbone
i could be wrong but i doubt i am uh this is the dave ramsey show Thank you. Our scripture today, Psalms 90, 17.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us. Establish the work of our hands upon us.
Yes, establish the work of our hands.
Dwayne Johnson said,
Success at anything will always come down to this,
focus and effort, and we control both.
Wow, good quote.
Christy Wright, Ramsey personality and number one best-selling author,
is my co-host today here on the air.
Open phones at 888-825-5225.
Up next is going to be Clay in New Orleans.
Hi, Clay.
Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Hi, Dave.
Appreciate it.
Sure.
What's up?
Well, I'm calling because my wife and I currently are in a smaller, older home.
We've got a growing family, two boys and another one coming in a couple of weeks.
Yay! Congratulations.
Yeah. Thank you very much.
And so I was a little bit afraid that with as much money as the federal government's been spending,
that interest rates are going to start to climb. And so my wife and I had always wanted to, in the next, you know, three to seven years,
either tear down and build new or move into a bigger home that's a little bit more suitable
for a bigger family.
And so my question is, is that, you know, the rising interest rates a legitimate fear?
And is that something that would or should push us into doing something like this
a little bit sooner no uh you don't make your decision based on that you make your decision
based on when you're ready to do it and then you deal with it because the interest rate my wife's
just ready now she just you know wants to get into a bigger nicer home are you guys out of debt
uh no we still owe 100 on the house are you out of debt
except the house except no i owe about 30 on a car okay we need to clean the car up we need to
have an emergency fund in place and then we talk about moving but no the fear of the fear of higher
interest rates uh the fear that the marketplace is going to shoot up in value the fear that um
because let me tell you
what if interest rates don't go up prices will the only thing will keep prices from going up
is interest rates going up so both of these things are going to affect what you end up buying right
and so you know they're going to get you you know and by the way the house you own is going up
and being affected the house that we yeah it's got some issues with it.
No, but I'm saying if the house you're going to buy is going up in value,
the house that you own is going up in value.
Mm-hmm.
Unless you live in a dog neighborhood or something.
Well, no, it's actually a good neighborhood,
but the tendency in this neighborhood is for anybody that buys,
tears down the old home and builds a new home.
So the current home doesn't have much value, but the land does.
Well, the land is going up in value then.
Yes.
So you're in a pretty hot market or you're in a pretty hot neighborhood if they're doing
teardowns.
So very desirable because the numbers don't work on teardowns very often.
Most of the time, that's just, I really want to be there. desirable because the numbers don't work on teardowns very often.
Most of the time, most of the time, that's just, I really want to be there.
Um, and so that's true.
Yeah.
So I, you know, I know, I think you need to get the car paid off, get the emergency fund in place.
We talk about moving after that.
Um, unless you're going to move a lateral move, which is not what you're talking about.
You're talking about moving up.
Well, yeah, right, right.
Getting you something bigger. But you're talking about moving up. Well, yeah, right, right, getting something bigger.
But you're talking about moving up in price too, aren't you?
Yes.
Yeah.
So, yeah, you need to get those things cleaned up before you do that.
Because, I mean, here's the thing.
Think about how long these interest rates have been sitting at four and under.
Mm-hmm.
2008.
Mm-hmm.
12 years.
Yep.
And so I don't have any way i don't know i mean i if i if i start
predicting interest rates i become an economist and economists and weather forecasters are the
only people can be wrong every time and still keep their job and apparently medical professionals too
but um anyway the uh but but yeah the uh uh so, yeah, I – no.
I don't know what interest rates are going to do.
I don't know what they're going to do.
I would not – I have not made good decisions when I make it based on fear of something happening that no one can predict.
That's just a bad decision-making tool.
That's called worry.
And, you know,
I think you're going to be in a position to buy something, um, and you're going to be able to buy it. Yeah. One of the things I hear in Clay's question is it sounds like his wife just wants
to move, but you're just not in a position to, you know, and when you're, when you want to do
something, you can come up with all kinds of reasons like, Oh, interest rates, they might go
up. We better, we better get out of here. You know what? That's that's true you know it's like we can justify what we want because we've just got
our heart set on a newer bigger nicer house you're just not in a position to so you don't these other
factors don't affect what you're doing because when you get yourself in a position to move then
you can start looking at moving but right now you're just not in a position by the time i get
ready to buy house prices will be so high i'll never be able to buy something i've heard that
for 30 years yeah we can talk ourselves into all kinds of things, but the reality is
you're just not in a position to. Yeah, that's really what it comes down to. That's a good
observation. Very well done. Nicole is with us. Nicole is in Des Moines. Hi, Nicole. Welcome to
The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, my husband and I are 40 years old, and we have been practicing your principles that you teach for many years now.
And we have our emergency fund fully funded, and we've been contributing 15% to our 401ks for many years now.
Great.
So I feel like we're in a very good position. The only thing we really are working on now is paying off our mortgage,
and we have three children that we want to pay for their college for.
Good.
So recently what happened was my husband,
who's worked for the same company for 25 years,
found out that his position has been eliminated.
So he's in a position for the next six weeks where he will
stay on with the company and not be paid, but he's being placed in a talent pool for those six weeks
where he could potentially be picked up for another position within the company. If there
is no position offered to him, he will get a severance package in which he'll be paid out a little bit more than a year
of his salary. So my question for you is during the six weeks, not six months.
So during the six week period, when he's kind of in a holding pattern, he's going to be looking
for another employer. My question really has to do with if he gets offered another position in
his current company, should he take that? Because he would be eligible to have health insurance
subsidized in retirement when he takes early retirement until Medicare kicks in with his current employer.
We would like to retire by the time we're 60,
so that provides us with that gap between 60 and 65.
How old are you now?
We are 48.
Yeah, so you're talking about 15 years.
No, we don't make decisions based on health insurance 15 years from now.
Well, 12 years from now. 12 years from now, yeah. No, I don't want to make a decision based on health insurance 15 years from now. Well, 12 years from now.
12 years from now, yeah.
No, I want to make a decision based on my career and the income.
Okay.
The income and how do I feel about this company
and do I want to work there after they laid me off after all this time.
And now I'm in the talent pool, which sounds really appealing.
Yes.
So essentially what we could do with his year's pay is we could get our mortgage down to a point where we could pay it off in two years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, you know, if he's offered a job inside that company and he's offered another job outside the company, we just compare those two things.
We say, I'm going to compare the companies.
I'm going to compare the upper track.
What am I going to get for the next 12 years if I work here 15 years if i work here um and what's the pay you know and what's the
benefits package and so you know and i'm going to pick the best job between the two um because you
have absolutely no reason to stay at the company that he's at unless they give you a reason to and that would be money
right because they you can't stay and say i'm loyal to them because they've not been loyal to
you right so we're just just a transaction yeah i feel like financially we're ahead a lot more
if he leaves and takes that year's pay because he can potentially double his salary in one year.
Yeah, then do it.
Okay.
You've got to consider that.
But if you have to do that and then his pay is cut in half at the new place
and it's a horrible place and there's no upward trajectory,
no mobility inside the position, then that would be a bad trade.
You're taking some short-term money for a bad long-term play.
So you've got to compare it out.
But they really want you to leave because they're giving you a lot of money to leave.
So I don't suspect he's going to get a great offer inside the talent pool.
If he gets a great offer outside, he gets a signing bonus with a severance package.
I'm out of there.
That puts us out of the Dave 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.
Dave here.
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