The Ramsey Show - App - Contentment Is the Key to Winning With Money (Hour 1)

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour, and my daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Jonathan is with us in Morganton, West Virginia.

Hi, Jonathan, how are you? Hello, Dave. Better than I deserve. How are you? Just the same, sir. How can we help? Awesome. I've known your voice for probably 20 years now. I'm 31. My father

listened to you as I was a child. I strayed from the path a little bit leaving college, but we're back on it now. We paid off about $110,000 in debt in three years. We're on baby step six. Wife and I got married in 2017. We are now expecting our fourth child in February. Our oldest is four, turning five next month. Dang, that's a lot of kids. A lot of kids under five.

I know. I'm the oldest of 11, so the more the merrier. God will provide. Amen. But our house is 1,200 square feet. We bought, you know, what we could afford back in 27. Valerie has gone from about 90 to one 60 ish, uh, since then.

Um, but my wife really wants more space for the fourth kid. Our house is only 1200 square feet. And, we're wondering if we should just, you know, be content, uh,

pay off our house and go from there. Or if we should look at buying a bigger house or look at remodeling options. Uh, we really like the location we're at in our property. We've got five acres out in the country. The kids love it. But my wife has really been looking and wanting more space, and I'm wondering if I'm being a cheapskate

and wanting to be content with what we have until we get it paid off. So in your mind, Jonathan, once you pay it off, would you be open to moving then? I suppose. I suppose I would be. Or saving up money to do a remodel and get more space. What's your household income? My wife is a stay-at-home, homeschooling mother of our kids,

and I have a mining engineering degree. I work for a coal mine as a supervisor. My salary is $120. After bonuses last year, our gross was $160. And our net worth is $450 right now. All we owe is $150 on the house, and it's worth 200 or 220 somewhere okay i've done a lot of remodels in my real estate life and um i would strongly recommend with that many children under the age of five that you not try to do a remodel um there would be a murder it's just one of my wife's concerns yeah i think

you i think you like the acreage and i don't really blame you for that um that many kids in 1200 square feet is pretty tight um i don't think it's an unreasonable weird thing to say you know like we're not being out of control opulent or something like that to try to move up a little in-house get a get a little bit more square footage uh since you're going to have uh this many chickens in the coop and so um yeah i but i you know it might it might take a little time to find a piece of property that or a house that's a little larger on a piece of property because you like the acreage and again i don't blame you for that i like a little space myself i can't stand these things where they're crammed in on top of me but uh um but anyway yeah that

that so i you do make enough money to sell that house and to move up into more square footage you're just going to be careful about how you do it so that you don't take on too much house and that the payment is no more than a fourth of your take-home pay. Yeah, and I think, Jonathan, sitting down with your wife and you guys talking out, like, hey, what do we want the next five to ten years to be like in our home? What do we want it to feel like? Do we want the freedom of, do we value more acreage? Because I know when you're, you know, when you have kids like that, yeah, you're growing up and they're able to run and do stuff. Or do we value a neighborhood where there's other kids and we can all play? Like you guys have to really figure out your values and what you guys want your home to feel like and be as a family. And then your house can reflect that. And so it may take some time to find something that meets both

of those, but that's what I would try to kind of figure out. And, you know, and maybe in a season that you kind of give up some acreage to get some home, you know, a bigger home just to get through, you know, the kid years. And then once they hit middle school, you know, you can even move up again or change locations. So a house isn't forever. I mean, it's obviously a major purchase and a big life move. So you want to be wise about it. But yeah, I think you guys can definitely afford something more. The thing you want to guard against, folks, is, and Jonathan's trying to do this by asking the question,

is this idea that you just always move up and always have a mortgage. Oh, I'm going to always have a mortgage, so I might as well move up. And I just move up and I move up and I move up. And it kind of falls in the same bucket of, oh, I got a $232 a month raise at the office, so I'm going to go take out a $300 car payment. Right. You know, that's not what we want to do. We want to go the other way. So, but, you know, I don't think that, you know, you didn't call me up and say she has a 4,000 square foot house and she wants a 6,000 square foot house.

Sure. You know, you call me up, she's got a whole bunch of humans and 1,200 feet there. And she's homeschooling. Yeah. So there's room. I mean, like that. Yeah. Yeah.

It's very justified. And so you could look at adding on to that current property, but I would advise against doing a rehab while you live in a house with a bunch of small children. I just, I think it's stressful. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've done minor renovations and I didn't like that. It was no fun. So building a house is one thing where you're not living in it. That's a different project. That's a whole different thing. It's all the mess is over there somewhere. But if every night when you sit down to eat dinner there's sawdust on your plate that starts to be old fast and um it doesn't and it just seems to drag out forever so i would not recommend that just as a lifestyle decision more than the issue of um might also overbuild the neighborhood you might overbuild the price range all that kind of stuff but which is what a

lot of people do when they add on but you know that's what these are the things you got to consider but it's a contentment is a big deal we often say rachel and i and every all the ramsey personalities that it's one of the most powerful of the financial principles uh if you can learn to be content you can get out of debt if you can learn to be content you'll always have margin in your budget if you can learn to be content you can get out of debt if you can learn to be content you'll always have margin in your budget if you can learn to be content you've got money to give and be generous with if you can learn to be content you've got a margin you can learn to put you'll have money to put in investments yeah yeah yeah and and and on the other end of that also wanting a level of space with these kids you know like what she's what she's presenting isn't in my opinion discontentment it's more just a quality of life crazy moments yes we have a lot of monkeys

in a small cage i mean it's just oh my gosh you know it's i i keep all the grandkids and and we got a big house and and it's not big enough. They find ways to drive you all crazy. I love them. They're awesome. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life and your money. Hey, those of you that tuned in last night for the student loan free live stream, there were, I guess it looks like right now we probably had over 100,000 people already view it.

Thank you for that. We really appreciate you guys turning out. And Rachel and Jay did a stellar job, and I bookended it, so there we go. Hey, we appreciate you guys hanging out with us. Hopefully it helps those of you that tuned in. It was really good content. The way you guys did, what y'all did covering the budgeting stuff was really good. Well, yeah.

Well, we wanted tactical stuff, and I feel like that's one thing that's so hard, especially with these payments coming in October for a lot of people. They're looking at their money, and they're like, I mean, I don't know. I don't even have a margin right now. So hopefully us kind of walking through and showing you examples of what it looks like to cut, what it looks like on the income side to even looking at pausing investing, how much money that can bring back into each paycheck. So, yeah, we got really detailed in it, but I think it's what's helpful.

I mean, you took the EveryDollar app and actually built a budget live on the thing. It was pretty cool. Yeah, and actually, the link, I think, is up still at ramseysolutions.com slash studentloans or on YouTube. Okay. So make sure, yeah, to check it out because we put it out last night hoping that it gives you guys direction. Also, we're heading to Chicago momentarily, and we'll be up there to do Smart Conference Friday night and all day Saturday. If you're in the Chicagoland area and don't have your tickets, get them. But the morning session, the first couple of hours on the couple of money talks,

will be Jade and George, and they will be live streamed for free. You don't have to pay a thing. You can just watch the startup of Saturday Morning Smart Conference. And so make sure you check all this out. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash events. And again, that's Friday evening and Saturday if you're in Chicago. If you're not and want to catch the live stream in that Saturday morning, it will be live and it will be Jade and George.

And a little bit from you. A little bit, right? No. Nope. Nope. I'm in the afternoon. Okay. Maybe a little bit from me.

I do an intro video that says hello. That's what it is. That's what it is. And I'm doing a little intro thing. Yes. Yes. All right. You'll see us.

Jason is in Shreveport. Hi, Jason. How are you? I'm good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay. So I'm 40 years old.

I am a classically trained opera singer and music teacher. When I was 27, I was working on my PhD. I had a grand mal seizure that year. The next year, I had another grand mal seizure. I was diagnosed with epilepsy. Fast forward to 2020, I had my second brain surgery three weeks before we went into lockdown. They removed 10% of my brain. I'm on the mend in terms of the epilepsy, but there is no cure for epilepsy. It's never going away. What is not going away is my student loan

debt. So when I go to try and buy a house, they factor in 1% of that total amount as a monthly payment that I'm not making because I'm on an income-driven repayment plan. And I have tried to file for the total disability discharge and was denied. Why? Apparently, well, because they said that my epilepsy wasn't severe enough. However, when I went through the disability process, it was a retired gynecologist making the decision as to whether or not I would be. So you're not on SSI. You're not on Social Security.

I am now, finally. It took three years. Permanent disability? No, well, it's not permanent. I have to re-qualify every three to five years. I'm waiting on that next set of paperwork. Well, the retired gynecologist didn't do that. That didn't get you into SSI.

Well, ultimately, I don't know. There had to be another medical professional on that part of the story, right? Well, I have a neurologist okay epileptologist and uh and they gave you the paperwork for the for the social security administration to approve the ssi disability that's correct okay and your your your uh denial on the student loan idiots was before you got this SSI approved? No. No? No. They said my condition was not severe enough.

Okay. Listen, the answer to the equation is I'm not stopping on that. Dude, you're disabled. Fair enough. Okay. Okay. Yeah, the answer is I'm going to go congressman, senator. I'm going to hire an attorney.

You got $300,000 wrapped around your neck that's not going away going to go congressman senator uh i'm gonna hire an attorney uh you got three hundred thousand dollars wrapped around your neck that's not going away that should be forgiven is that how much debt it is jason yeah that's how much i have in my name my wife my wife so i have 297 000 in student loan debt starting in 2001. My wife also has an additional two. She has her doctorate. That's correct. What does she do for a living? She's now a college professor. Making what? She's a tenure track professor making $51,000. She just got this job this year. We just moved a month ago. It's a really good job for her. Now, I was hoping to have the same kind of position, but without my exit degree. Help me with this, because I'm sorry.

I'm struggling with $51,000, and we call that a good job. So tell me how this works. She's on a tenure track. Does that mean she's going to be making $120,000 in three or four years? We don't know the final number, but once she's granted tenure in seven years, the income does go up drastically. Yeah. And it should go up incrementally between now and then also. I'm hopeful that that will be the case. $51,000 of a Ph.D. teaching at the university level sounds low, period, whether there's tenure or not.

I agree. Okay. I agree. it's a tough world out there uh no it's not that i mean i'm telling you it's not that's not right that's too low other phds teaching at the college level make a lot more than that that's what i'm saying so i don't know whether this is the particular university she got on with or maybe it's the degree of field, I don't know. But so the answer to her $200,000 is for you guys to get your income up and get rid of it. The answer to your $300,000 is, good God, is half a million dollars is for you to go after these guys on the disability issue because i mean you've if one the trick with the disability with them is to get if the social security administration has declared you're disabled and put you on ssi that should be the ticket and they should just straight up forgive it now is there a difference with it not being permanent the fact that he has to reapply every

three to five years you do that you have to you have to re-look at all the time anyway. If you become undisabled, you lose that. But yeah, I'm telling you, man, I am spending some energy and some time with senators, congressmen, staff, and an attorney, and I'm going to get this gone if I'm in your shoes. I think that should be forgiven. That's what it's for. I mean, upon death or disability, federally insured student loans. But disability isn't I feel bad. Disability is the Social Security Administration has declared you disabled.

And that's the definition for purposes of student loan forgiveness. And that's a standard program that is not a joe biden helped you out that's that's been from day one that program has been there yeah wow jason i'm so sorry you guys are facing this what a horrible process y'all have been through and these student loans have just made it worse so um man that's awful um and at risk of sounding like i'm piling on him because i'm not um but that that should that kind of a phone call for this show should be a warning to some of you that you don't go two hundred thousand dollars in debt to get your phd to make 50 grand okay those numbers don't work and you don't go three hundred thousand dollars in debt to

live your dream in the uh opera world because you could end up with a medical condition and end up in a mess and it probably isn't even that lucrative of a well i mean it is if it is it's it's uh you know but it's it's like anything else in the music business. There's a percentage that make all the money and a percentage that wish they did. And so, but either way, you cannot bet $500,000 on these tracks. That's not, this is what gets you in trouble. Because then life happens and you end up here. And gosh, Jason, I'm so sorry you're there. I'm not picking on you.

But the rest of you should take a warning from this. And if you've got a kid wanting to go on this track, tell them no. No, we're not doing this. No. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personalities, my co-host today today thank you for joining us brian is in portland oregon hey brian how are you i'm well dave thanks so much for having me uh on um so i'll get right to the point um it's a bit of a first world issue uh problem but

i'm at your step seven point and i I guess my, my biggest concern is balancing, obviously how much I really should spend now based on the amount we have based on, or comparing it towards how much do we need to save? Cause I mean, we're at a point where our total retirement plus non-retirement assets are over a million. We're incredibly fortunate and in some cases, unfortunate because of why we got to that point. But, uh, at the same point, we're really trying to balance out exactly. Yeah, it's easy to say, let's just live off the returns, and the two of us combined make about $165, $170. How old are you?

I'm 42. Okay. All right, good. Good for you guys. Well done. Millionaire, huh? And so I take it you inherited some of it the way you said, the way we got it. I guess you lost someone?

Yeah. We lost some family at a very young age, relatively to where they should have been. I'm sorry. That way. I'm sorry. Thank you. But some of the work was obviously on our own as well. We didn't start and just go from zero to a million without doing any work ourselves.

We're definitely proud that we were at least a chunk of the way there on our own. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, Rachel can speak to this. She does a lot of work on contentment. The two things that Sharon and I do is, one, we had to learn to look at ratios because your emotions can't keep up with your wealth building. I mean, look at you'll look up in a few years. You have five million dollars. You don't feel like you have five million dollars. You feel like when you had 50,000,

your emotions don't keep up. OK. And so to circum circumvent that we had to say all right we can afford a ten thousand dollar cruise how do we know we can afford that the and we use the burn it in the middle of the floor test if i took that much money and i made a little fire in the middle of the floor and i burned ten thousand dollars would my life change no yours wouldn't either by the way okay so so i can go on that or sharon can go on that cruise and i get to go with her so um uh so you know we can make that decision then because basically we're burning that money right it's gone poof we enjoyed it we experienced it it's a good thing i mean it's why we work you work we live like no one else so that you can live

like no one else so that's ratio i look at ratios and so if we're going to buy a car for 50 000 or 60 000 or whatever 100 000 whatever it is if i drive the car off a cliff with no insurance does my life change no then i can afford the car it's a non-issue mathematically does that make sense and so that helps me to spend money that my emotions don't feel like i should do like because your emotions say things to you like you used to say to other people like no one needs a car that nice nobody ought to drive something like that this is what people say right and that's where i came from is that neighborhood right you know who needs it you know but i had a guy making 15 million bucks it's a friend of mine pull up in a dad blame whatever ferrari or whatever the flip it was 400 000 bucks okay but he made 15 million last year so him getting a 400 000 car is like okay if you made 150 000 you bought a four thousand

dollar car it's the same ratio it's a non-issue but it's just hard to get your head around a $400,000 car. I can't grasp it, but it helps me grasp it if I look at ratios. That's what I'm always doing. What's the ratio on this, and can I burn it in the middle of the floor? The second thing that has helped me is we make sure at all times we are doing three things, and Rachel and I taught parents to do this with their kids. At all times, you should always be increasing your generosity as your income goes up. You should be increasing your investments as your income goes up, and you should be increasing your enjoyment, your lifestyle spending, as your income goes up. And we at – Sharon and i use a percentage on that every time i get a big check from the

publisher for total money makeover i get big old checks on that because that thing still sells like crazy and when i get that big old check in i've got an automatic percentage 40 for taxes 10 per tithe so there's 50 gone okay then i've got another 50 how am i going to allocate that i'm going to allocate it among those three things, a percentage that we have set in our formula. You make up your formula. We made up ours. But a percentage of that 50 towards lifestyle,

a percentage towards investing, and a percentage towards increased generosity beyond the tithe. And so we're always giving more. We're always enjoying more. And we're always investing more. And that keeps me in balance too. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's well said.

And I think too, Brian, what's helped, I would say my husband and I over time is I'm like, we've learned to live so significantly below our means just because it's almost like this litmus test of like, we're fine. We don't need to continue just to consume and consume and consume, even if the money's there. So we do though, look at percent, what he's saying about percentages. And we've upped,

we up our percentage, a few percentage points. It's not a ton, honestly, you know, maybe per year, every two years as we're doing our budget month to month. And we look to say,

okay, because we want to be able to enjoy it. Cause I hear what you're saying. You're like, if we're working hard and we have the ability to month to month. And we look to say, okay, because we want to be able to enjoy it because I hear what you're saying. You're like, if we're working hard and we have the ability to enjoy some of it, we want to. And so for me, I find more enjoyment personally in more of the day-to-day stuff. When I can like up the grocery budget a little bit

and go to Costco and buy a few more things or go buy more clothes or like whatever it is, like these like very small percentages in our budget month to month, that's where i seem to enjoy you know that baby step seven life but it's a but it's a very small percentage because over time too you're gonna learn like stuff is just stuff and there's not like you know spending an outrageous amount of money not that it's right or wrong but there's a point that it's like it doesn't get you what you think it will over time. Enough lobster tastes like soap.

Yeah. So, I mean, like there's that. But then the big purchases is another thing, Brian, I would say is for you and your wife to still have a goal. Always be saving for something. And Winston and I, it was our house. We moved in in 19, November 2019. And we went probably like I'd say probably six, seven months without anything that we were working towards after that because we were so tired. It had been years and years and years of that goal.

And honestly, it was funny because we got to this point like six months after we moved in and I was like, I feel sloppy with our money a little bit because we're not working towards something. And so now it was a pull and we're just now starting that conversation for four years, three and a half years in the making. But always have a thing that you're kind of looking towards because it just keeps you with those guardrails especially on baby step seven that's what that's what I found so upping your percentage of lifestyle month you know throughout the month and your monthly budget per year a little bit I think it's great

to enjoy some of it you have to build the emotional muscles yes by intentionally doing all three things with some kind of a system and because the people that we see that get in trouble are someone that does only one of those and abandons the other two they're so generous they give everything away and they kill the goose that's laying the golden egg or they put they put everything in investing and they have no life and their wife leaves you know or yeah because they're cheap you know because they're cheapskate you know or we spend it all and we put nothing in investing and nothing for generosity well that's most people and that that you know that that's not one you have to train people to do usually but it is normal when you have been very disciplined to have trouble letting go of money for enjoyment.

That is a normal human reaction. And it has helped me that I'm increasing my generosity. That kind of gives me emotional permission to enjoy some of it on the other hand. And it's helped me to do the burn it in the middle of the floor amount. It's a small ratio. And do your budget still, Brian. I mean, Winston and I, every month, and we still track our transactions every dollar. Like, keep a pulse on it because that also allows you to see, okay, we have X amount and not to eat.

We're going to go on a really nice date night, right, if we have some money there. So that budget also gives you that permission to say, we're okay. We're not going crazy. You know, nothing's out of control here. This is what we've allotted. So I would still encourage the budget, even on Baby Step 7, because day-to-day decisions, it allows you to give yourself permission to spend. And it works, Brian. I've even gotten Rachel's mother to where she can actually spend money now. She's the world's biggest tightwad. This is The Ramsey Show.

Thanks for hanging out with us, America. We're glad you're here. I'm Dave Ramsey. Rachel Cruz is my co-host today. Courtney's in Boston. Hi, Courtney. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, how are you guys?

Better than we deserve. What's up? I just wanted to get your opinion on something. I am currently living in my grandmother's home, and I may potentially soon have the opportunity to purchase it. But at the moment, I have been working on the baby steps. I'm fairly new. I've paid off credit card. I've paid off my car, and I have my student loan debt. It's about just under $33,000.

And I do have savings that I've been working on for a down payment on a house in general before I knew it was a possibility I could purchase the home I'm living in now. And I have about $56,000 in there. I was going to just pay off my student loans. Good. But people very close to me and people I trusted, they've been telling me

it's not a good idea. I'm sure the people you trust are sweet, but they're broke and it is a good idea. You should pay it off now. Immediately. Even if, let's say, next week the opportunity

comes for me to purchase the house i'm in you shouldn't buy a home while you have student loan debt okay and the home at corny is it your is it your grandmother's home that you're talking about purchasing yeah so so there's no is there a major timeline rush in that yeah it's uh it a confusing situation. I suppose no, but she may need nursing home care soon. And she actually transferred the home about three years ago to my father and his sister, my aunt. And so if she needs a nursing home in the next couple of years, the home would still begin the Medicaid five-year look-back period, so they would have to transfer it back to her. It would have to be sold for fair market value, those things.

So I can't buy the house yet unless her condition keeps worsening and she needs to go to a nursing facility. Why is she going to Medicaid nursing? Why is she going on welfare? I'm not sure. Is she broke? She has. I'm not that I'm not sure she broke she has she does not other than her home if she were to transfer back and I were to buy it from her she doesn't have much assets or income is my

understanding okay um you're you're not gonna like this but I'm going to tell you anyway, okay? Sure. You're buying this home at fair market value, and it's not a home you would have bought. You're only doing it because of the situation, and it got thrust right in front of you. If you were just walking around living in a one-bedroom apartment, you would have not bought this house. And if you're paying fair market value, there's zero reason for you to buy it

it's a it's a nice house but darling what i just said is true isn't it i i i no i don't i disagree because it is an area i'm looking to purchase in it has two bedrooms and it's what i'm looking for so i think that i would purchase it okay and what will be the value it's valued at about 450 000 and what do you make i make about 120 000 a year okay well so i the the thing that we teach folks is the shortest right way to wealth. And that would be have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses and be debt-free plus your down payment before you purchase a home. And then if you're purchasing a home that way, you would take out no more than a 15-year fixed rate loan where the take out no more than a 15 year fixed rate loan where the payment is no

more than a fourth of your take-home pay i'm not positive that formula fits in your situation it might but that's a lot of house you're single and how old i'm 28 okay i i mean you you certainly can do all of this but i would never do it unless it met those guidelines that I was talking about. And you do not have a down payment plus an emergency fund plus being debt free. Because you'll have $23,000 left, Courtney, after you pay off your student loans. So I would kind of figure out, okay, what would an emergency fund be for you? And yeah, I mean, I would say if you have a stable job you're single no kids you know you're in that situation i would lean more on the three month side and save up three months of an emergency

fund you got 55 now minus 30 is 25 so you probably got your emergency fund yeah you don't have an emergency fund debt free and a down payment and the down payment so if it's the house you want i mean you're not gonna buy it well not today but i'm saying if she's if her health doesn't decline and she doesn't have to move. If you've got two years to save up a down payment. That's right. Yeah, that's right. That's right. But right now, we wouldn't encourage you, regardless of the situation, a family or not.

Yeah, you're not in a position really to to buy that. And there are some guidelines on the Medicaid look back on on the five-year look back, and the fair market value. There's also a certain number of dollars that she is allowed to keep out of her principal residence. It used to be $78,000. I don't know what it is now. But so you guys need to get some – it sounds like you've gotten some information. I mean, you might have gotten it from the law firm of google and google but you might want to talk to an actual elder law attorney and actually find out what you can do

because my guess is fair market value i'd want to know what the definition of that is in this situation because is it because that they should transfer the house right you can't move assets out of your name in order to look like you're broke to qualify for welfare. Medicaid is welfare. And if you go to a Medicaid nursing home, it's for broke people that have no money. And you can't be sitting on a $400,000 house and act like you're poor. Okay? So that's the principle on the law.

And if you transfer it to your kid, which is what Granny did, she moved it to her son and daughter, in order to hide it, they have a five-year look back. And if they prove you did it with intent to hide she moved it to her son and daughter in order to hide it they have a five-year look back and if they prove you did it with intent to hide it it's called fraud so it's a big problem i know because in an ideal world what you she if if you do if you are in the situation and you have a parent that is needs help then you sell the house and take care of take the 450 000 and go in a great nursing home. Because with rare exceptions, there's a difference in a Medicaid nursing home and a regular nursing home. Right.

There's a difference in government-provided housing and housing. I'm just saying for people listening out there, if they find themselves in that situation, the right best thing to do for the parents. Is take care of them. Is to sell the house. And take care of them is to sell the house and take care of them and and use that money to go into put them into a nursing home yeah it's not it's not a not about medicaid look back and how we can hide our granny's assets so that we can put her on welfare and we're not saying courtney that that's what you guys did no but that's why the medicaid

look back is there that's why five-year look back is to keep people from fraudulently hiding assets and uh and they can if they find it they can undo it and what she's saying is her family's going to bring it forward they're not trying to hide it right they're not doing it fraudulently they're going to say okay it's within the look back period so we have to honor the guidelines of the program and that's the proper thing to do and then you have to use that money before Medicaid kicks in. That's the way it works. So this is why you get long-term care insurance and why you build wealth. So, but Courtney, I always resist situations where the timing of the whole thing from a family perspective is good for everyone but you.

And this has got you right on the bubble and so if it works out to where uh your grandmother's a couple more years and you've got time to pay off your student loan have an emergency fund and have a down payment and the payment on a 15-year fixed is no more than a fourth of your take-home pay and you like this house then go ahead but um i i and i won't argue with you i'll take your word on the fact that i was wrong about you being forced into this thing but um it's it's if it was a six hundred thousand dollar house you'd be out it's not an option for you even if you liked it i mean you you could qualify for it on 30 year but I would tell you don't do it.

You can't afford it. So that's where this is. I mean, everything in this story is on the edge. It's all on the bubble. Bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble. And usually we find, Courtney, too, just in general when you're making big purchases, like a house, I mean, it's usually the largest purchase

that you're going to make in your lifetime, is when things feel rushed or there's not a lot of options. Sometimes you can make a bad decision. One of the most peaceful ways to go about, you know, a big purchase like a home is that there's lots of options. You have the right to be out if you don't want it. It just gives you a lot of freedom and a lot of power, Courtney. And I think what you're saying, Dave, is when you start to get pushed in this corner of like, this is the only thing that I can do. Sometimes you don't always make the best decision.

So just give yourself the permission to be released from it. Do the numbers, figure it out. And if it works for you, then that's great. But just don't be forced into something. Don't buy this house with a student loan still on the books. Pay that loan off today, and then this works or it doesn't. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Rachel Cruz. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey,

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