The Ramsey Show - App - Can We Slow Down After Baby Step 3? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

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I'm Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I am bestselling author and Ramsey personality, Rachel Cruz, and next to me in the co-host chair is Dr. John Deloney today. How are you? Doing good.

How are you? Good. Awesome. We're going to get to the calls, you guys, and give us a call if you have any questions about your life, your money, anything. John and I are talking about money and marriage a lot these days. So if you've got questions about relationships and all of that, let's just dive in.

So you can give us a call at 888-825-5225. All right, up next, or up first, I should say, is Drew from Pittsburgh. Hey, Drew, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Absolutely. How can we help? So my question for you is in regards to life insurance. Yes. And just to kind of lay out for you the picture here, my wife and I got married last July. We have our first child on the way due in May. Yeah. And God willing, we're hoping for more children over the next 10

years. I'm 33. My wife is 30. And right now I'm trying to get in a position, you know, set up with life insurance and just kind of wondering the best on how long I should get that for based upon. I know you said it should be 10 to 12 times your annual salary and then really until your your children are out of the house. So looking to the fact that we'll be having kids over the next 10 years, then would we be needing to get a 30-year policy? Yeah, that's a great question. So when it comes to life insurance, so it's either, yeah, when someone is not dependent upon your income anymore, or you become self-insured. So where are you guys at financially?

Are you in debt? do you own a home? So we are not in any debt. We just bought a home. So we have a mortgage for 150,000. Okay. But no debt. That's awesome. An emergency fund and all of that. Correct. Yeah. There's about 70,000 in the bank. Oh, that's great, man. Yeah. Congrats. That's, that's huge. So what I would do is, I mean, with life insurance, and obviously the younger you are, the healthier you are, the cheaper it's going to be even with term life. So if I were you, I would overshoot probably what you need. But you guys can sit there and do the math and think,

okay, if we do baby steps four, five, and six, how long will it take us to pay off the home? How long will it take us to build an amount of money in our investments that we're comfortable with that if something were to happen to you, if you were the only one bringing an income or if your wife works, something happens to her and look to see where do we feel comfortable sitting if we had no life insurance? Like if you have a paid for house and you got $2 million in investments, pretty great, right? So I would look and kind of say, okay, in the next 20 years, well, what does our life look like financially as much as you can? And then determine from there. So I hope that

helps, Drew. And Drew, I just redid mine. And for what it's worth, I'm taking myself through 60. And I hope that you're young enough that the policy will be so inexpensive. It'll still cost you money, but it's going to be so inexpensive to run you through 60 years old and hopefully by then if I become independently wealthy at 50 I won't pay the last 10 years or I'll cancel the plan or whatever and we'll call it good but that's what I did in my house yeah and when you can lock in the rates I mean with term life

which is great Drew that's what you're leaning toward that's what we recommend because it is so inexpensive to your point I'm like you almost could just pay it and have a policy on each other just in case. You know, like mom and dad, we always laugh because dad still has life insurance on him because mom wants it. She's like, I don't care what we have. I just want to know that something happens to you.

There's some extra cash coming just in case. So, yeah, it's one of those things that's inexpensive, especially if you're young and healthy, that go ahead and just, yeah, I would overshoot it if you could. It's a great question, Drew. All right. Next is Nick from Philadelphia. Hey, Nick, how are you? Hi, thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? Yeah. So my wife and I are baby step two. I've been turned on to you guys for a couple of months now. We've really kind of gone crazy. The big thing that we've done that's made a huge difference is we finally combined all our finances and got totally on the same page financially. Way to go, man. That's hard.

Way to go. Yeah, and we should have done it years ago. Hey, but here you are now. Yeah, you're here now. Yeah, so my question, though, my wife and I each own our own independent small business, and we don't materially participate in each other's business. How should we think about, like, the spouse's input in a situation like that? That's a great question.

Why are you laughing? Because, well, because in my house, I debate the amount of input I have, like, on what we're getting at the grocery store. Let alone running a business. Just my initial input, Nick, is none. Unless it's, unless somebody asks you, right? Like, you're the, you're the CEO of your business. And I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, Rachel, but I find the CEO of you right like you're the you're the ceo of your business and i i mean

tell me i'm wrong rachel but i find the ceo of my business and you're the ceo of your business and we're close friends i mean if you ask me your my opinion on your business great sure but i'm not going to get involved there no but i do think in a marriage there's obvious strengths and weaknesses each person has so like i would know if I was running a business, there are certain parts of Winston's brain that I would want to know. That you would want. Yeah, that I'm like, no, I want that thought, or what would you do here, you know, and vice versa. So I think it's, I mean, I think the rule of thumb always with advice.

Do you have a specific thing in mind, brother, that happened? Well, no, I mean, nothing like, there's nothing like contentious going on, but I don't want to get to that situation ever. But one of the things that does come up is the concept of business expenses. Like if I would want to buy a new computer for the business or she would want to do advertising for the business, how should we think of that when we could not spend those things on the business and pay down some debt. That's kind of something I'm kind of struggling with a little bit. So I think it's important that you two, with your business, your business pays you a salary.

And that salary is what you take home and you put into the general pot. And if there's a bottom line, meaning you're just going to take X percent of the overall revenue of your business and that's what your take home is going to be. So not buying a computer would actually provide more money in your home, that kind of thing. I think that's a conversation you all have. It's a philosophical conversation and a theoretical conversation. If you get into the weeds of each other's business and you don't need that, I don't need this. Man, that feels like a recipe for disaster for me. I'd see y'all pay each your business pay y'all salary this is what we're going to take home and then that's the money that y'all are budgeting together

okay yeah that makes sense and that gives like some pretty you know that's the good thing about numbers is like numbers are emotional so so knowing okay yes that's the number we've set for a salary that's what's coming in that's the number we've set for a salary. That's what's coming in. That's the boundary that's set. So then if she goes into her business and does pay more for advertising or write or you go buy the new computer, that's within the business. That's kind of over that boundary. So having that hard number makes, I think, a lot of this so much easier.

I would love to see y'all have a regular – I don't know the right way to – I don't know what I would love to see y'all have a regular I don't know the right way to I don't know what I would call this but it's not a marriage retreat of some sort but it's almost a business mastermind group that y'all are the only two members and or maybe you invite some other friends and it's not for you to give advice but it's for somebody to ask advice

like you mentioned I would love Winston's brain on some of these problems but I know that if Winston came in and just started barking, you know what you should be doing? You can take that advice and walk out the door with it, right? And so wait to give advice until you're invited into that conversation, but set up some pretty clear boundaries. But man, it'd be cool if y'all talked to each other. you've got a lot on your plate a job your home your marriage and your growing family

while you're enjoying the present you can't help but think about your future and your finances as you explore your options consider christian health Ministries, or CHM, for your health care. Their generous maternity program and budget-friendly monthly programs have been a blessing to members welcoming children into their families. Visit chministries.org slash budget to see if it's right for you. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a Ramsey-trusted provider. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ramsey personality, Rachel Cruz, here with Dr. John Deloney,

answering your questions about life, money, relationships, anything. And driving. And driving. Tell, yes. Rachel, I crashed my wife's Prius today. We got a story. That was a scary. It's scary.

And why did you crash, John? That's the big question. I was not being an attentive driver. And you crashed. I did. Which is actually very scary. I was doing some breathing exercises, which is not wise to do, but yeah, it was not good, man.

It was scary. And it looks like we're going to put the old Prius to bed. Dave's not going to be able to make fun of me anymore. I'm going to have to get a new car, but we made it here okay. Do you think it'll be totaled? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're able to drive. No one got hurt. We'll say that out loud. No one got hurt. It was a single car. I just hit that concrete divider. Just so scary. Yeah. It was pretty single car. I just hit that concrete divider. Just so scary.

Yeah. It was pretty wild. Going too fast, not paying attention. My wife, I've changed. America, I'm changing my driving habits. Effective immediately. I'm going to be a, what do you call it? A speed limit driver.

I was going to say a student driver. Nope. Need a chaperone in the car. Exactly. I'm going to be a speed limit driver. I'm going to drive a speed limit and just slow down my life a little bit. That was scary.

I think that's a great plan. Well, everyone's driving well. If you want driving advice, feel free to give us a shout. That would be great. If you're a driver's ed teacher, give us some laws. If you're a driver's ed teacher,

don't call this show. But for real, if you have a question, give us a call at the show oh but for real if you have a question give us a call at 888-825-5225 all right up next is robert out of phoenix hey robert how can we help hey rachel hey dr john how are you guys doing doing great thanks so much all right so i have a question uh i'm on baby step two right now. And just recently I heard one of the podcasts where David said, you probably have too much car. And so the car is the last thing on my debt snowball. And I also keep walking out the baby steps and pay off the car as I get there? Or should I try to save a little bit, like the negative equity that I have on the car, pay off the car and go get a little beater to finish walking out the steps? Yeah, great question. How much do you owe on it?

I owe about $16,000 on it right now. About $16,000. What's your household income? I make about $70,000 a year. Okay. And what other debt do you have? That's it. Student loans, credit cards. I owe a lot to AT&T because I bought a lot of devices because I was very materialistic at the time. It's okay. We've all been there. Uh, okay. So what, how much does the rest, does all that debt add up to? Cause you said it adds up to about 60,000, right? 50 or 60,

60, 60, but they're all small debts because you said the car is the largest, correct? Right. I mean, student loan would probably be, um, my like second largest because I've got two or three student loans and they're all in the 12 or 13 range. Okay. So you have a total student loans of 30 or 40 grand, right? Somewhere around there, yes. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, I would still recommend, though, Robert, still doing that debt snowball method, even though, yeah, your student loans, they're all separate. And even though they add up to more than your car, still keep those separate unless you want to consolidate those

for a lower interest rate, you can do that. But again, those quick wins, and it's kind of nice, I mean, a little bit that you do kind of have these small chunks because it's going to help with the momentum and the feeling like you're that you're winning. You're going to get those quick wins, which is great. So the rule of thumb really with the car is,

I feel like if you can't pay it off within six months to a year, then you probably have too much car. And so you can wait until you get to the point and take out a small loan for the difference and then go get a beater if you want to do that. Or if you get to the point that the $16,000 is part of that snowball toward the end, that you get to there and say, okay, what do I want to do? You can make the decision then. But looking at this now, I mean, I don't think it's a make or break for me, honestly, Robert. I'd probably keep the car and just tell you to get after it. Okay, yeah, because that's what I was thinking.

Like I wanted to think about getting a B-Div. I'm like, what about the maintenance? What about this? What about that? I don't care about that because you're going to go gangbusters on this deal and you're going to be out of debt in two years anyway. You're not going to go

to a restaurant. You're not going to hang out. Everyone's going to laugh at you and you're going to just smile the whole time. You're going to work two jobs and three jobs. The time on this deal and the maintenance on that, I don't care about that. I care more about It's the math. Like if you said that I have a $50,000 car,

we're going to have a different conversation. But the $16,000, yeah, to the point that you're going to be able to pay that off in less than a year when you get to that part of your debt snowball. I think, yeah. What's the car worth, man? It's worth about $10,000 right now.

So I have like a negative equity of about $6,000 on it. Yeah, and then you'd go take out a $10,000 loan. Yeah. Hope that helps, Robert. Thanks so much for calling. Cars. They're the thing.

I know. You're either over it, you've got too much car, you're crashing them into things. That's the theme, is what it feels like right now. But it is amazing. Obviously, everyone wants a safe car. Having a nice car is great because you're in it a lot. But the utility of what a car does, of getting you to point A to point B,

we've lost our minds, I feel like. We laugh about it here, and obviously I fall way over on this side of it. But the car I crashed today was a 2010 and i just put in the put a little bit of money in it because i wanted to last me another 10 years yes and because it's a it's a fine car it just gets me to and from right and i think when you disassociate yourself from the identity like i'm the kind of guy that drives this kind of car that's when you're just a recipe for disaster right absolutely and there is is a real sentiment about beaters and they're going to cost us.

They often don't. If you take care of your car, they often don't. A great Honda, great Toyota. We'll go for eternity, yeah. Forever, forever. All right, up next is Nick in Birmingham. Hey, Nick, how are you? Good, Rachel and John, how are you?

Doing great. How can we help? Good. I have a question. It's kind of both a spiritual and a financial question. And so a quick breakdown of me. I'm married with two kids. I have a two-year-old and a five-year-old. I'm in baby steps four through six. So we've been attacking the house with gazelle intensity and anticipate paying off the house within the next two years. Um, but I believe, uh, absolutely. But I believe that I, um, have a calling from God to expand our family through international adoption. Um, it's something

that my wife and I just recently, uh, started thinking. Um, we've always wanted to have four kids. Um, but I was, uh, baptized a few months ago and it's been a crazy spiritual journey over the past few months. And, um, and I think God has laid it on our hearts to look into international adoption. So I guess my question, the first thing is I know nothing about the adoption process. And we've talked to some people here and there over the past week or so. But also financially, obviously, it's not the cheapest thing in the world. So I guess given my situation, where I'm at in the baby steps,

only having the house left to pay off, how do I kind of just approach that financially and prepare for that if that's something we ultimately want to pursue? Well, all great questions, Nick. And I think the heart of adoption, I think it's one of the most beautiful things for a family to do. And yeah, so for you guys, I mean, you're in a position to do it. I mean, you guys don't have debt, you don't have payments, you're able to take your income if you guys wanted to and put a lot towards it versus attacking the house with gazelle intensity. So you could even pull back from that some if you wanted to.

But I know that there's tons of agencies out there and people that really can walk beside you in this process because there's a lot of layers to this. There's actually a great book called Adopt Without Debt by Julie Gumm. She walks through her entire story, how she did adoption completely debt-free. Um, and so that can just give you some ideas and a starting point, uh,

to be able to start this journey because it can be done debt-free. And, um, and again, this book is, it's a great resource. And I recommend everybody who's going on this sort of major life change journey.

They feel like they have a calling, get a couple of people in your life who are down the road, 10, 15 years, who have been through the international adoption process, take them out to coffee, make them a regular part of your life and learn what's actually going on. Don't mistake a calling for being irresponsible. We'll see you next time. Well, in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, we have Shelby and probably one of the best names I've ever heard, Maximilian. Thank you. Yes, from Detroit.

Dude, my parents named me John and your parents named you Maximilian. That's incredible. I can thank my mom for that one. My dad called me Teddy. Not even shortened to Max, like the full thing. It's awesome. Okay. Well, we're here to celebrate you guys because you've done what

some would say is the impossible, but you are debt free. So tell us your story. When did this start? It started about a month before we got married. My Aunt Sarah had mentioned this Dave Ramsey guy after I was complaining about how the numbers on my student loan payments weren't going down. And then we were doing premarital counseling.

And I was talking to Pastor Daniel Wine, Williams Lake Church, about that. And he was like, well, you know, we got a guy here at the church who teaches the FPU classes. So we signed up, and we just did it. And did it together before you married. So how much did you guys pay off? Just under $43,000.

Awesome. Making what kind of money? We made between $70,000 and $80,000 during the two years. That's awesome. And how long did it take you? Two years and three months. Two years and three months.

What do you all do for a living? I'm a freight broker. A freight broker. Freight broker. Okay, I thought you said something else. Yep, yep. And I work for the family business doing lawn care and some construction projects with my dad. Love it.

That's awesome. Yeah, it's great. Okay, so two years ago, you guys are engaged. How long have you guys been married now at this point? Three years? Three years. 2019 we got married. We've been together 10 years, though.

Yeah. Okay. That's all running together. Maximilian, you should have that number in your back pocket at all times. 11 coming up right now. Yeah. Yep. So what was it for you guys that clicked?

You guys went through Financial Peace University, and what was about it that you thought, okay, we're going to change stuff. We're going to change the way we've been looking at money, handling money, and we're going to start paying off this debt? Yeah. I think for me, because the majority of the debt was my student loans, I just got mad at looking at the number, and I wanted to do something about it. And, you know, it was great to have a husband who is so supportive and on board. He's very willing to do almost, like, anything I ask of him,

so I didn't really have to, like, persuade him into it, so that was nice. Just kind of here for the ride, you know. Aren't we all, man? Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know I think I just got mad enough and I just like the more I started learning about the Ramsey program it just it made me even more mad and we just originally we tried to we were thinking we'd do it in three years and even when we made that goal we were like I don't know we can do that yeah but we'll just we'll just see how it goes.

And then as we started going and getting closer, it's like you learn how to cut out the little things, and that makes even more of a difference. So then we made our new goal to get debt-free before our daughter's first birthday, and we beat that by like a week. So when you say you were getting mad, what were you getting mad at? So I was told by friends and family, you know, like if you can put extra towards your your payments, you'll be out of debt faster and blah, blah, blah. So I would put like twenty five, fifty bucks extra towards my payment. And after like a year of pain, I was like, I'm going to see what my total is at.

And it had increased like from the original start of what I was paying. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me. How is anybody supposed to get out of debt? This makes no sense. And, you know, when you go to college, they tell you you're going to get a job and yeah,

don't worry about the student loans. You'll be able to pay those off real quick. Cause you're going to have big girl job. And like, unless you're intentional and you make those big sacrifices, like that number doesn't go anywhere. Yeah. So yeah,

it's. Maximilian, what was it like dating somebody that you've fallen in love with, you've already spent your life with her, and then she's like, by the way, I'm coming in with a cool 50 grand in debt. Yeah, you know, it's kind of accepted because we both went to the same college. I guess you just kind of accept the debt like that's normal. When she told me about this program, I was, like I said, in for the ride.

I wasn't sure what it was going to bring, but I think with her type of personality, she's so persistent and disciplined, very headstrong. As soon as she wants to do something, she'll go at it full throttle. And seeing these payments she's done by herself, I mean, I think I saw it was seven payments just back-to-back. Even when it wasn't pay week, she was still putting money in. And I was like, okay, this is serious.

Like she's putting some serious control on her debt and lowering it. And I think that's where I was like, okay, this is who I want to pitch in. I want to help out. I want to be a part of this. It was inspiring and motivating. It's awesome. It's amazing when a married couple does that, right? You work together and it makes it go that much faster.

I think that's part of the magic of you guys paying it off a year earlier than you even were expecting, which is amazing. Yeah. So who were your biggest cheerleaders during this time? We had a lot of supporters, but I'd say the biggest was probably my parents, Darren and Lisa, and then as well as my grandparents, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Rob, our FPU coordinator, Bud, who came to support us today with his wife, Jane. Oh, awesome.

And a fun teaser for the next hour of the show, though. There's another debt-free screen that you guys are aware of. Oh, yeah. And who is that? My beautiful parents, Darren and Lisa. They're going to be on. And they've paid off their debt, too. It's like the family affair.

I love it. Yeah, it's great. We're so excited to be able to do this uh together you know Max was easy to get on board but um my parents they were a little trickier but like you said I'm persistent so I eventually got them on board I love it well you guys you've done a fabulous job so how does it feel how does it feel? How does it feel? It's crazy. It's like you kind of imagine what it's going to feel like, but it's better than what you think. And it's just crazy in a culture where like debt is so accepted. Like once you're debt free, you're like, that was so dumb.

Like never again. No. You know, we got friends getting houses with nothing down and brand new cars that they can't afford and all this stuff. And we're just like, oh, that's good. Congrats. Absolutely. Behind closed doors, we're like, never. Not us.

I know. Because you tasted the freedom. You know what it is. It is. It's freedom. And then it's crazy, too, because you think when you're debt-free, like, oh, I have this much more money to spend. But now it's like, man, we don't even really want to spend it. We want to save it. And now we have other goals. Sweet little Avery.

Yeah, we were joking about now that we finally paid it off, it's like we want to go back into debt just to do it again. Joking. Once you build momentum and see that number grow, it became a game. It was just fun. Hey, the game's fun when you flip it around and you start wealth building,

right? Yeah, we're getting there. And giving it all away is fun too. It was just fun. Hey, the game's fun when you flip it around and you start wealth building, right? Yeah. Yeah, we're getting there. And giving it all away is fun, too. Yeah, it is. For sure. Congratulations. Thank you. Absolutely.

Do you want to grab Avery, or is she good right now? Yeah, she'll probably stop crying when she sees me. No, that's perfect. All right. Come here, babe. So we got Shelby, Maximilian, and Sweet Avery, who's about to be one. Two. Two. They're about to be one, two. Two.

They're about to be two. I'm sorry, about to be two. And they paid off almost close to $43,000, making $70,000 to $80,000 in two years. Count it down. Let's hear your debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! We're debt-free!

Yes! Oh, one. We're dead free! Yes! Oh, amazing. Absolutely amazing. And we've got a copy for you guys, Baby Steps Millionaires, and the total money makeover to pass to friends. And, of course, Baby Steps Millionaires is the next part of your journey. I love it. I love when the babes are in.

The little babies is my favorite. It's my favorite because, man, it's possible. I'm like, this couple that's been married three years sacrificed everything, put all their effort in, and now that little one's life

is forever changed. Completely different. And they've proven to themselves as a young married couple, us two are old married couples now, that not if, but when things show up in our lives, which they will, right? That's just part of doing life is doing hard stuff together. They know they can come together, develop a plan, and that they're going to follow it. And, man, Max, they don't make a lot of husbands like Max who looks at his wife and says, I'm going to walk lockstep with you.

I'm not only going to walk in front of you and behind you. I'm going to walk next to you. We're going to do this thing together. That's just incredible, man. What a gift. There is. There's such a power that happens in a couple's life when they do this. When you have anything in your life that you think, this is going to be hard,

but we're doing it together. We want this instant gratification in life right we want that but it's the journey that forms and molds you so much and walking through that together and choosing that sacrifice it does i mean it changes your marriage forever because like you said they can do anything now absolutely anything absolutely and all you guys listening you can do this you can do. Just as they've proven today. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I am Ramsey personality Rachel Cruz. Alongside me, Dr. John Deloney hosting today.

So we're going to get to Scott in Indianapolis. Hey, Scott. welcome to the show. Hey, Rachel. Hey, John. John, sorry about your accident. It's a big bummer, but I'm glad you're okay. Thanks, man. It's my own dumb fault. That's what I get. That's what I get. Probably trying to wake you up for something, so pay attention. Thanks, man. My wife said the same thing, Scott. You're not helping. Well, no, I meant in the bigger scheme of things. She, man. My wife said the same thing, Scott. You're not helping. Well, no, I meant in the bigger scheme of things. She did too. So what's up, man? Well, I just really want to express my gratitude for your ministry because my wife and I are in a position where we really

have a tremendous piece about where we are financially and that's due a lot to your ministry. So thanks very much for that. Well, you guys did it. You guys did it. Well, we are in a position now where we're, we've got some financial stuff coming up and I wondered about sort of a strategic shift. We've been focused a lot on like college savings and, um, and paying the house off and, you know, those types of things. But, uh, we feel like we're really heavy in retirement

and we have, um, you know, two vehicles that are probably like I call in the zone, meaning anything could happen at any moment, you know, with, uh, with both cars. So, um, but we're not ready to go out and buy a new one, but just to prepare for that. And also, my wife has a special needs brother. He's an adult that we would likely have to care for, and we just can't do that in the house that we're in now. So just some things that might be on the horizon here, and I'm wondering if shifting away from retirement savings and some of the other type of thing might be an option to prepare for those potential expenses. Because we feel like we're really heavy in retirement.

Are you guys doing more than the 15%? We have in the past. We're not right now. We're probably right there at 15%. So my recommendation, Scott, would be that, yeah, I i mean the car situation you know is more obviously more urgent and going to be more recent than the house situation so are you thinking with the home are you guys going to move homes completely or you're going to have to refurbish and redesign your current we are pretty tight here just with the land and things like that so we would um and

we probably just we have three little boys. So having that separate living space, like either, either a carriage house or like an apartment above a garage or something like that, that would have some independent space that still care for him. And he's high functioning and, and, and not, you know, and, and a great guy just, just had some, um, some disabilities. Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's very kind of you guys to step in there for him and his life. So I love that. So if I were you, I would not go over, I would not go under that 15%. I want to keep that steady because the thing with investing specifically is,

you know, even if you guys paused it for four to five years, like going backwards, you can't refund your IRAs, your 401ks, these retirement funds. In the past, you just can't. Being consistent in that at 15% is something that I would encourage you to still do. Kids college, you guys could look at saying, hey, let's slow down on that just a little bit. Maybe slow down on the house for just a few months and to save up cash, again, for the cars is what I'm looking at first and foremost. How much is enough on college? Where do you kind of say, hey, we've got that covered? I would talk to a smart investor pro,

and they're going to be able to kind of do the math, especially if you have little ones that, hey, in 18 years, here's what it's going to look like if it's invested in a mutual fund or whatever the 529 is in or the ESA, to be able to do that math. And the thing about college, too, I always say when you get to this point, this is a gift for your kids that you're able to help with college. But also there's a lot of kids that go to college debt-free that never had their parents help.

But setting people up to do that is a a gift and taking care of your family in that way i think is is a great thing i think it's important that you and your wife just the the scenarios you laid out are rather amorphous they are are hey we want to kind of stop doing this so we can kind of start doing that i would get real specific and you've heard me say this a thousand times i know that sound like a broken record but this is one of those moments in your marriage. You got three young kids where you're going to clear the deck. And the challenge a lot of folks run into when you're in this situation is they want to keep living as things were, but y'all's life is different now. Right? And so let's have a half day retreat with just you and your wife. Let's go somewhere. Let's get out of town. Let's get somebody to watch the kids.

And let's say, okay, where are we? We have three little ones. How old are they? Six is our youngest and we have an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old. So they're all boys. Yeah, you've got stinky, hairy boys now. You've got a six-year-old. You know what I mean?

Our life suddenly shifted and all of a sudden we blinked and we've got a teenager now and we've got a six-year-old who still doesn't know what day it is. And let's get out and say, okay, here's our life. Here's how much money we have. Here's how much we've paid on our house. What would a house look like? Where do we want to move?

What do we want to be doing? And let's get real specific about these goals that you want. And then, yeah, hang on to your retirement principle. I love that, Rachel, because that's the one that's going to hang on you. And then if you want to move, move. And if you want to pause on the student loans thing, I mean, with this paying for college, I've heard people say, I just want to have $50,000 a kid. I want to have $100,000 a kid.

Because of my job and this, I'm going to put $200,000 away for each kid. I think that's a very personal thing. And never lose sight of what Rachel said. It's a gift. There's not an ethical mandate or a spiritual mandate or a governmental mandate that you come up with 100%

of wherever your kid wants to go to college. So what number can y'all afford right now? And you got a brother moving in with you and y'all are of a great spirit and a great heart. And so that's a right now expense that y'all need to start preparing for because you know it's coming. So again, let's get real specific about what we're

going to do and be real specific about what we're not going to do. And that clears a lot of this ambiguity up, right? No, absolutely. I think that was what I was going to say next too, which is perfect because I'm like putting numbers to it, right? When you're able to put numbers into know an actual plan. We have a guy that we work with in marketing here at the office. And he always says like, you know, you have to be able to just see it. Actually, you say this too, but the picture. Yes, but that thing. And so even just pulling up the picture, like literally finding something.

Here's the kind of car we want. Here's an ideal house. What is this going to cost? I mean, all of that. Giving any level of weight to these options in a sense of just reality, not that they're just kind of floating in your head and you think you might, I don't know, go Kelly Blue Book your current car,

see, okay, if they're about to die out, maybe you sell them now, put any extra cash you guys have and buy new ones in the next month or two. I don't know. Let's talk about that real quick. Often couples, and we've said this before, we all do, we speak in words, but we've said this before, you know, we all do.

We speak in words, but we think in pictures. And so you and your wife can be talking about, you know, we need to get new cars. Well, my mind flashed another 2010 Prius. Your mind flashed a Tesla, right? And so we're going to decide, like we're going to go past each other with what we are looking for and what our dreams and goals are.

We need to get a new house. She may be thinking a 4,500-square-foot house, and you're thinking a 2,800-square-foot house. And so the difference there is $500,000. And so let's get very specific. This house, this car, this time, this place. And then you can have some values conversations and some telling the truth conversations and i don't need that you don't need that and then we can land on a path and once you get that path man then you're off to the races that's what it is yeah and so with

this whole i love that when you say this about you know we speak in words we think we think in pictures what can couples do out there that are like man man, I'm just missing my spouse and X, Y, and Z. It could be on anything, right? Whether it's goals or you're wanting to change career, anything like how can people put that into practice today? The key word there is practice and is to take the pressure off. We build up so much pressure on each other and we just miss each other. And then it's like, we lost the Superbowl. You didn't, man, you dropped a pass in practice. That we're practicing right and so instead of when you find yourself using that ambiguous language like i wish you just clean up around here

be what does that mean because for me that means i'm going to put my shoes away for my wife that means i want you to spray and wipe down all the counters and make sure all the stuff's in the dishwasher right and again i would love to be able to to honor her in that way and to take care of the house in that way and be a great partner in the house i didn't even know that was a thing right yes um and i remember talking to my son once and he was six or seven and he was we were in so in a public space and he was saying something and i said will you just be cool man and my wife said what does that even mean i thought how do i i gotta paint a picture for my six-year-old we need to do that with our spouses.

We need to do that with our friends. We need to do that with our workplaces and be really clear. I love it. Love it. Well, thanks, America, for tuning in. And thanks to James and Jenna in the booth for helping us out this hour. This is The Ramsey Show. have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of ramsey advice in their life let them know about the ramsey call of the Day podcast. It's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes.

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