The Ramsey Show - App - Debt Is Never the Problem, It’s Always the Symptom

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

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. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, author of the number one best-selling book, Breaking Free from Broke. He is my co-host today, and we're here to help you guys. Also, check him out on YouTube. That show's going to Zoom Zoom.

Phone number here is 888-825-5225. Darlene is in Philadelphia. Hi, Darlene. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm great. Thanks for taking my call. I feel blessed today talking to the both of you. Well, we're honored to have you. How can we help? So I just wanted some financial advice or thoughts. I'm 54. I've never been married. I have no children. I live in a different state than where I grew up. And as I'm aging, I'm realizing that I will likely move back to my home state to have that support in aging in about 10 to 11 years when I retire. But a job opportunity came up this past fall that I applied for and wasn't expecting to get, but they did offer me the job. And I just have some financial concerns about it,

not sure if it's wise for me to move back now. So one is the salary there. And this is through negotiation. They're offering me what I was making last year at my current employer. Currently, I have a pension. If I leave now, I make, right now I make 104, almost 105. But I also, we have a lot of overtime. I work in healthcare and I'll be making like gross about 11,000 in the overtime this year. We have a pension. If I leave now, it'll be about $400 a month as opposed to possibly,

like I think I figured out, possibly $1,800 a month. The overtime, they're 403B. They don't start matching. I have to be there a full year before they start matching. What are they going to pay you? What. What are they going to pay you? What? What are they going to pay you, Bache? $102,500.

And where is it? It's in upstate New York. It's in Binghamton, New York. I'm guessing less expensive than the Philadelphia area that you're in now? It really isn't. About the same? It really isn't. Housing is.

And I go back frequently because I have an elderly father and my family's there. Really, it's not. There's a lot more taxes. Income tax is going to be more than what I pay here. Utilities, I was just looking at my dad's utility bill, and they tax a lot compared to what they do here in Pennsylvania. Can you afford to live there comfortably? Are you debt-free with an emergency fund? This wouldn't really cramp your lifestyle too much?

Yes. The numbers are fairly equal. You're not giving me – you're not telling me – It's not a 50% pay cut. Yeah, it's not like $150 versus $100. It's $102 versus $104 versus a little bit of difference in cost of living one way or the other, a little bit of taxes one way or the other. So the question comes down to where does Darlene want to live and where does Darlene want to work?

Okay, because I was concerned about the pension, losing that money for the pension, as well as the overtime that they don't give. Like I wouldn't make overtime there. I wouldn't have to work as much. What does Darlene want to do? Okay. Does Darlene want to be working overtime? What do you want to do?

You know, I'm used to the money, and I've got to be honest, Dave, everything that you speak is how my parents raised us. I mean, it's to a T. So I just want to make sure I have enough money going, you know, moving back. Am I what? Are you a nurse? I'm in rehab. I'm a speech therapist.

Okay. So you can pick up side hustles, too, if you wanted to. I can, but I did side hustle for like 22 years. No, I'm saying if you're going to do overtime, overtime is called side hustle. It's the same thing. Yeah, yeah. So if you were up there and you picked up a side gig doing some tutoring, so to speak, then you could offset the overtime difference.

So it really does come down to quality of life because the numbers you're giving me aren't like, whoa! You know, there's not a real thing that breaks the camel's back here. So no straw here. Okay, that's what I wanted to get clear, because the thing with the pension and the overtime, that was kind of throwing me off. Yeah, you're a very analytical person, and I am too. But I want you to just say, okay, God, which of these two things gives me peace?

Right. What causes you to exhale? And as Deloney says, your shoulders drop. Is it staying or is it going? And that's the answer to my question if i'm you what do you think yeah well i i think there's more than the numbers here that she needs to dig into of what is is it the fear of just change at 54 is it is it going to be she's going to do it anyway is the grass greener on that side what if i move and life isn't different and so that's the stuff you got to grapple with on top of just doing the budget and i think the numbers are going to work

themselves out it's more the other pieces that I think the numbers are going to work themselves out. It's more the other pieces that I think she's really concerned about. There's no grass that's green up there this time of year on either place. It's going to be cold either way, Darlene. So just make the move, be closer to family. And you're a hard worker. You're going to be fine financially. Yeah, you're going to be okay.

And nothing's set in stone. And by the way, if you don't like it, you can change it. But yeah, I think that's a good idea. You know, it is real smart to look at cost of living because everyone automatically assumes, and she's very wise to have done the research she's done, they automatically assume if you're going to a different area that it's going to be a lot more, it's going to be a lot less.

And sometimes it is, but main factor in that, as she recognizes, is usually real estate. Oh, yeah. Usually that's the main difference. I mean, the difference in Los Angeles or San Francisco and small town USA is gas prices, little bread and eggs, little housing, a lot. That's the one. Yeah, that's the one that throws you, and it just changes everything.

In Tennessee, we have no income tax, so people don't realize if you get a job in Tennessee, even if a pay cut, it might be equal comparatively to California or New York, where you have a lot of income taxes. Yeah, I was noticing an article this morning, a million people have left New York and California. Wow, because we've been covering this since COVID with the migration. In New York and California. Wow. Because we've been covering this since COVID with the migration. In the last 12 months. And it just has continued. Yeah, it's continued. And they're landing in income tax-free states. Texas and Florida are the two primaries, and Tennessee falls in there too. But they land in income tax-free states, and they land in states that were open during the draconian shutdowns,

and so freedom issues. Financial and political. I mean, some million people have been displaced. Wow. A million. And left those two states and went somewhere else. So, yeah, that does enter into it. It turns out you can't tax the rich.

They leave. They will just peace out. I'm gone. They leave. They have options. So much for your theory on that. I'm done. You know, load up the U-Haul.

Oh, wait, I'm rich. I'll let someone else load up the U-Haul. That's the real flex. Yeah. That's where I want to be in life. No movers ever again. I'm not doing it. I'm not lifting a finger.

Yeah. And also, you need to even, somebody said, Dave, you have a pickup. Do you have those friends that ask you to help move? And I said, no. They wouldn't be friends. No one's ever texted you? I'm not moving anybody. Saying, Dave, can I borrow the truck?

You want me to help you move? Do you mean you want me to pay your mover? You want me to help you move? Is that what you mean? I would rather support a GoFundMe for you to get movers than me help you load up that truck. I'm not doing either one. If you need a GoFundMe to move, you've got other issues. Don't ask Dave to borrow his Raptor. He will not allow it. No. Get your own Raptor. Or my 64-year-old back, either one. You can't have

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Is Sharon the online shopper in the family now? Apparently. Wow. Apparently that happened. So there we go. I love a good deal. So Cyber Monday, one-day sale. Prices as low at Ramsey is $4.99. Our best-selling hardcover books.

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This is like real. I'm impressed. So, I mean, you go from a negative net worth to a millionaire in less than 10 years, you should talk about how to do it in here. For $12, that's good information. Man, amazing. All right, RamseySolutions.com slash store. You can actually buy gifts for people that have meaning, not last year's ugly tie.. Man, amazing. All right, RamseySolutions.com slash store.

You can actually buy gifts for people that have meaning, not last year's ugly tie. Come on, people. Yeah, listening on YouTube or podcast, click the link, or you can go to RamseySolutions.com backslash store. Jared is with us in Oklahoma City. Hi, Jared. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, how are you guys doing?

Better than we deserve, brother. What's up? I know that. So I'm 23, and I'm saving up to buy a house, and I was looking for guidance because I'm the first time buying, and I have no idea where I'm going. I've almost got my 20%, and that's where I'm at. Good for you.

What do you do for a living? I do pest control. Good for you. What do you do for a living? I do pest control. Good for you. How much have you got saved? Killing bugs apparently pays. Yeah. I've got $26,000, and I'll have the rest of it by mid-January. Wow.

What's the rest? About $4,000 or $5,000. Yeah. Good for you. What do you make? $70,uary. Wow. What's the rest? About four or five grand. Yeah, good for you. What do you make? 70. Yeah, you're single obviously. Yes, and I do nothing but work. 60, 70 hours, sometimes

80 hours a week. Right now, it's grind time. Jared is no fun, but he has money. That's fun. Jared's going to be a homeowner in his early 20s that's fun way to go about living like nobody else now you're doing it or all that i i'm just working like a dog right now so i can enjoy a little bit of my food so you have any debt uh no good and you have an emergency fund in addition to this down payment? That was going to be my next.

Your next? I'd say roughly my next, after I buy it, I was just going to pick up a side. No, we'll take some of the money and make it the emergency fund, and then we'll save up the down payment. You don't move into a house without an emergency fund, because houses are an emergency looking for a place to happen. Yeah. Yeah, like crap breaks like as soon as you move in it's like murphy's law a repairman at my house today and it was and it's brand new they don't make them like they used to well i mean it's just part life

it's just like stuff you got the more stuff you have the more repairman you have to know it's an exposed wooden box stuff's gonna happen so you need the emergency fund three to six months of expenses so add up what your expenses are for one month multiply it for a single guy like you you could lean towards a three to four month mark anything above that becomes your down payment and 20 down is a great goal because you'll avoid PMI, which is private mortgage insurance. Which means you're now looking at March. Okay. That's reasonable. But that's still okay. Yeah, that's good.

Listen, dude, you're killing it. I'm so proud of you. Way to go. Who taught you to be this smart? Honestly, nobody. Okay. I'm just like, and it's not like a bad thing. I mean, kind of you i took

your class was in our high school there we go and i kind of remember and then i i had we had this class called deca it's like a oh yeah it teaches you how to present oh yeah i think rachel did rachel was in deca yeah i was student i was the president of the class senior year and i went to nationals it was supposed to be in nashville but covid hit tragically so i was first in the school way to go jared way to go so man you are doing so good the only thing i would coach you on is to do that what we talked about let's have the down payment plus the emergency fund which which puts us into March. And then when you are getting ready to buy, do not buy a project,

something you have to work on all the time. No, that's a definite one. Okay. And do not buy and buy something that's easy to resell, which means it's kind of boring. It's not like some kind of weird. Do what? My price is between like $150 and $200.

That's a good price range. But when you're spending the money, don't buy something that you look at it and go, oh, I got a good deal because this is weird. Because when you get ready to sell it, somebody's going to get a good deal because it's weird. And you're going to sell it when you get married because you will find out you bought the wrong house when you find her. So that's okay. Go ahead and buy the house, but buy something that you can resell and make money on fairly

easily. And you'll, you know, you'll be sitting there at 27 with a big grin on your face, having made a bank on this $150,000 house that's now $300,000. You don't experience that exact same thing. Yeah, our first townhome. You buy in a good area with good schools. You start to look at the stuff. And it was a nice place, but in terms of it wasn't like super special or unique.

It's nobody's dream home. It wasn't weird. You know, it was just like, okay, boom. That's one. That's right. Three-bedroom townhome is all it was. And, yeah, and during the time you owned it, it went up how much? Oh, my goodness.

I mean, three years we lived there, it went up over 200 grand. Yeah. That's what I just said. And we bought it at three. And so you're talking almost 100 percent i just did that so 150 to 300 just like i yeah when he's 27 in three years that's amazing so do it the right way you want this to be no more than a quarter of your take-home pay on that mortgage and make sure you choose a 15 year yeah because you're too young to have a 30-year mortgage

sitting around your neck 15 year fixed because a paidoff home mortgage is one of the keys to being a baby steps millionaire. Caden is in Greenville, South Carolina. Hey, Caden, what's up? Hey. Hey, Dave. How are you doing today? Better than I deserve. How can I help? So I just wanted to come on and just ask a quick question. You know, I took your class last year with a Sunday school class, but I'm a recent graduate from Clemson. I just graduated in May. Thank you, sir. And I wound up in a pretty good situation financially with my present work. But I'm pursuing medical school in the near future.

You know, I'm looking at possibly starting in about two years from right now um but i'm just wondering you know how is the best way to save up for something of that magnitude aggressively okay um i mean how much are you making you said a good situation what'd you land in um i'm making about 60 about 60,000 salary and then, but I, but I think, um, with, when, when overtime comes, which is I'll get salary and overtime, um, I could easily, you know, working, we're working extra hours, probably wind up in the 70 to 80 range. Good. Okay. And just live like a college student and bank all of it, right? Yes. So would it be best to try to knock

that down it like pay off all of that or take out a take out a you know a loan for the four years of medical school caden you went through our class yes yeah you never heard me ever tell somebody borrow money have you no sir probably, sir. Probably not going to start today, brother. Dang, that would have been amazing, though. Caden was the first one ever. He said, all right, I'll make it. I want you to save like a maniac, and I want you to go to a medical school that you can afford. And I've got a feeling you're going to be almost ready to pay cash for it if you watch what you're doing.

Now, the problem with medical school is people get so excited when they get accepted, and sometimes they get accepted to a place they can't afford. And very few times do you go to your doctor and go, wait a minute, doc, before we do the exam, where'd you go to school? No one asks. All they ask is, do you have that MD? If there's a frame on the wall, I go, all right, I'm good. I'm assuming to start with that you have a clue. An M-D. Do your research. That's what you're after.

Find out what these schools cost and choose an affordable one. It's a big difference out there. Huge spectrum. It's mind-blowing what some of these places charge. It's like all college, for that matter. And what some of them don't charge. This is The Ramsey Show. For free tools and resources to help you reach your home goals,

go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate or click the link in the show notes. Hey, George Campbell here with a not-so-fun fact. Every American social security number, including our children's, has been hacked and is now on the dark web. And this is not a scare tactic. This isn't fear-mongering. It's a reality that could turn into a nightmare for a lot of people. And believe me, I've been a victim of identity theft, and I would prefer it never happen again. Because once the bad guys have your social, it's the lifeblood for all of their activity. Think of all the places you use your social. Your banking, your employer, government offices, utilities, cell phone companies, everywhere. And once they've got it, thieves can open new accounts, drain existing ones, steal payroll, and wreak havoc all in your name. Not

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Hi, Lauren. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Well, hello, Dave. How are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay. I have a question regarding long-term health care insurance.

My husband and I, back when we were married, bought whole life insurance policies because that's what our parents did for us. So we changed them over on and on. Our financial advisor is suggesting that we cash those in and invest in a long-term care insurance for nursing home and that in the future. Just wondering what your thoughts are on that situation. Well, cashing the whole life in is a no-brainer, assuming you have enough life insurance to take care of you. What's your health's net worth? Right now, about $600,000.

Okay. And how old are you guys? We are 62 and 64. Okay. If he dies with no life insurance, are you okay? Yes. Yes. I mean, financially.

Yes. Yes. I would be fine. Yes. Because that does not include what his um um so he he's a minister and he would get like a retirement to to there also um that survives him yes yeah um he cannot collect that till he's 67 and a half but you can you can collect it if he dies yes i can okay all right so you're okay to eat you don't need life insurance so dropping the whole life is a no-brainer okay right now um

long-term care insurance uh what you want to do there is you want to shop it among several different companies okay and basically um try to get the best deal, in other words. And so I don't know what's your financial advisor. If they're selling only for one company, that's a problem. Do they sell only for one company? No. She suggested several different ones. Good.

Okay. That's good. Here's what you get today. You get three years of coverage, and that will cover that will cover 90 some odd percent of the cases. Very few people live three years. Once they get to a nursing home, statistically it's 2.8 years. Okay. On average. Okay. Now what normally happens is mom and dad go along like you guys have, and you've got a good nest egg here. And 75% of you ladies outlive their husbands. I don't know exactly what's going on there, but we'll talk about that later.

And so Papa goes into a nursing home, burns up $300,000 or $400,000 because it's $100,000, $100,000-something a year. And if he's there three years, it's $300,000 of your $600,000. And then dies and leaves Mama with the nest egg having been scrambled and fried. So I think you guys are a real candidate for nursing home insurance. The three years of coverage that you probably can buy and it's fairly reasonable if you shop around. And, you know, you want to, you know, the to look for a feature that has in-home care as well because it's sometimes cheaper and oftentimes a better quality of life

to have in-home care. And so, yeah, I think you're getting good advice. Okay. No red flags here. Yeah. I think you're getting good advice. Okay. No red flags here. What our concern was, it would swing us up to quite a big payout every month for this insurance. And so just, you know. How much are they quoting you?

$679 a month for both. That would be $200,000 long-term care policies. Yeah, and how much are you getting out of the whole life policies? What are they valued at right now? Yeah, what's your cash value you're going to get when you close them? Between the two of us, around $52,000. Yeah, so it pays for it. But the cost seems very reasonable. I mean, I'm seeing the stat here in 2023, average 60-year-old man paid $1,200 per year. That's about right. For a level policy. So I don't hear anything that your financial advisor is saying that's like shooting rockets off wrong. It's all correct. The only thing you need to do is get down in the details and understand it and get comfortable with it. You're to use some of that 50 grand offset your first year of costs

to move that in maybe some of the second year and you know then you've got to decide how far out you want to stretch this now you are 64 if you don't touch the 600 by the time you're 71 you will drop the long term because you'll have a million two to a million five. So you can stomach the risk at that point. Exactly. That's the point of insurance. It'll transfer risk to the insurance company instead of you. And right now you guys couldn't stomach that with your net worth to take a $300,000 hit. Yeah. So George, it suddenly occurred to me, I've told people all these years, don't buy long-term care insurance until you're 60. And I really haven't talked a lot about uh if you build substantial wealth that you self-insure until i just woke up and went dadgum i'm 64 so what

happens if sharon or i are in a situation where we're incapacitated well i get you know we've got money and so i don't mean that in a bragging way but you know what i'm gonna do uh get like a bed that lets up and down and hire somebody to live there and take care of one of us. Dave's not leaving the house. You know, you think I'm, no. You don't want to play bingo? You can do that at home. Yeah, online or something.

But yeah, no, I mean, it's just, I can hire a dadgum medical butler and not think anything about it. You know, full time. Put them in the house. Take care of us or her or me or whoever it is. And the other one, just equip this, create the same exact environment, but better in your own home because you got the money to do it. You're self-insured. And I just determined, well, that's what we'll do. So we're not a candidate

for a nursing home under any circumstances i can think of i mean i guess there'd be some extreme thing maybe but um uh i mean i at this moment in time financially we don't need to do that well think about the cost 350 grand so think about that as part of your net worth as the listener if you can stomach that from your nest egg without it affecting your life, you could self-insure. That's your average. That's the average. With the average stay, which means that some people don't make it that long and some make it longer, right? And so, you know, you've got early onset and good health. You could be there 10 years. Yeah. I'm seeing the stat here. 20% will need it for more than five years. Okay.

So one in five people will have a longer stay. Yeah. But like you said, most people, it's, you know, two years. Average is 2.8. Yeah. So good. Christina is in San Francisco. Hi, Christina.

How are you? Hi, Dave. Pretty good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I'm a disabled veteran. I got my disability in 2020, and I got a sizable check and wanted to buy a house with that. And I make about $4,200 a month on that disability, which is very good. So I ended up just buying a piece of land

because the whole process of like trying to find a good real estate agent didn't work out well. And, and then I waited to build. And then here I am four years later and I have not built a house yet. There's no utilities on the property yet. I'm living in my travel trailer on the property legally, but I still don't have a house. And we're trying to work through the process. My dad is now helping me. I cannot afford really to build on my own. I need him to help me. I need a co-signer.

And you can't afford to build. Yeah, I can't afford to build. You yeah i can't afford you bit off more than you can chew pretty much yeah and so the property it's in a city you know it's a half acre it's a so it's a great size uh i bought it for 250 with 25 down which was required by the lender. So now I only owe about $160,000 on it, and it's worth $265,000. Or it's assessed by the county at $265,000. Then it's worth $365,000 or $400,000. It would probably sell for more than I bought it for. Oh, I think so.

You need to sell it and buy something you can afford. There's no point in keeping it. If you can't do it without a cosigner, you don't need to be doing it. You're going to get yourself and your dad in a pinch, okay? I wouldn't do that. Well, but yeah, the concern is that right now I'm paying about a quarter of my monthly income for just the land loan. Yeah, so sell the land. Yeah.

And go buy something you can afford. You can't afford to build on it. That's what you told me. And I don't want you to do that. I appreciate you serving your country. And I don't want you to get handcuffed to a bad deal. And I don't want your dad handcuffed to a bad deal. Let's don't do this. There's a time in your life and the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage.

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George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. The Ramsey question of the day is brought to you by YRefi. We trust YRefi because they help people who have defaulted private student loans to refinance with low fixed interest rate that they couldn't get anywhere else. Chris had a student loan, and he cut his payment by over 40% with YRefi. Go to YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states.

Today's question comes from Glenn in New York. Should I change my investing strategy? I'm 50 years old and debt-free with an emergency fund. I currently put 10% in a Roth IRA and another 5% in my 401k from work. Should I contribute more to my 401k to max it out or get with a financial advisor and start investing in individual mutual funds? Currently, I have around 600 grand in my 401k and the Roth out or get with a financial advisor and start investing in individual mutual funds. Currently, I have around 600 grand in my 401k and the Roth has about 20k. All right. So we're debt free. We're 50. That's good. We're investing 15%. So the question is,

does he have a mortgage and is the house paid off? If so, I would continue to invest more and max out those accounts before working with the individual mutual funds outside of retirement. Yeah, if you're in baby step seven, meaning and your house is paid off, we don't use the 15% rule. We say max out all available retirement accounts. Everything you can put in a 401k, everything you can put in the Roth. If your company has a Roth 401k instead of a traditional 401k, I would shift to that too. That would be my plan. Um, but I'm with you, George. If your home is not paid off, then you need to be working and pay off your home and

leave this at 15%. You're fine. You're in good shape, dude. I mean, when you are 57, you're going to have a Megan too. If you don't add anything to it, when you are 57, you're going to have a million too, if you don't add anything to it. When you are 64, you're going to have 2.4, if you don't add anything to it. So that, you know, if you're invested in good mutual funds, it sounds like you are. It sounds like you're doing the right things here all the way around. But no, I don't think you need to move to individual mutual funds. The only reason you would move some to that is if you were going to quit work before 59 1⁄2. I don't see that happening here.

I didn't hear anything in this email that made me think that was going to occur. If that's the case, you would need to do what we call bridge investing, which is have some money that's not in a retirement account that you can get to before 59 1⁄2 to have something to eat with. That's always a nice plan too so um that eating thing is good um the um so yeah i mean you're that that's that's it and george that's the second time in this hour we've used that so here here's a little quick lesson boys and girls um there's a thing called a math anomaly called the rule of 72s. And if you take an interest rate or a growth rate on your mutual fund,

divide it into the number 72, it will tell you how long it takes a lump sum to double. Okay? And so if you're making 10% on your mutual funds average into 72 is 7.2 years to double. And so that's what I just did. I'm assuming he's going to be making at least that. If he's 50 at 57, he would have not 600, but 1.2. At 64, seven more years, he would have 2.4.

And we could go all the way to 71 and have him sitting there at almost $5 million. And this played out in real life, Dave. I went back and looked at the actual stats. Under Trump's presidency, the first term, three and a half years in, the stock market was up 53%. Under Biden, three and a half years in, it was up 50%. So 103% return in exactly seven years. Exactly what you say. The stock market doubled in those seven years. Yeah, and that that's about what it'll do so this is not just an opinion or a math formula it plays out in reality and that's the averages i mean you know and so we don't know what's going to happen from here exactly but that's that's you know that's a good thing to kind of coach yourself along and go i think i'm going to be okay the key is to be investing. Raj is in San Francisco. Hey, Raj, what's up?

Hi, how you doing? First-time caller, long-time listener. Glad to be on the show. Well, thank you. How can we help? Okay, so I'm a tax professional. I'm an enrolled agent. Recently on the news, I've been hearing that in order to reduce government inefficiencies and the Trump and team might remove income taxes and replace them with tariffs. That's all good. You know, that's okay. But for a tax professional, how would I, I'm 33 years old, I have like about five years experience in the field. How would I facilitate a career change if that were to happen?

I don't think it might happen, but, you know, just in case it does. Well, you figure out what your talents and passions were that drew you into this in the first place. So I'm guessing you're like me. You're a bit of a math nerd. You're quick with details. Your mind grasps decision-making flow charts on things like taxes. And so, you know, that tells me you need to move towards accounting. Yeah, maybe some other things in accounting that are not taxes, like maybe audit. Exactly, exactly. Something in private accounting. Yeah, and or finance of all kinds.

And so your mind naturally goes there. And you know what? I'm with you. I don't see this as a high probability in the near future. There could be a trend in that direction. It could take a while. The chances on, you know, three days after he is sworn in that you don't have a job are zero. So you're okay.

We don't have to worry about this today um but what it does do it's interesting for you personally is it kind of gives you that wake-up call to go hey maybe i want to do something with my life that's more than just taxes maybe i want to broaden my horizons yeah i've been in the field and um my the whole time i've been in field, I was thinking that there's only two things that are true is death and taxes. Well, now we know one of them might not be true. Well, it might be true. It'll just take a different form. But again, the talents that you have, the way your mind works,

easily for you and hard for others, it takes you towards detail and towards finance and accounting and so i you know you might sit for your cpa dude you might you might move might go ahead and this is just a thing it says hey time for me to take the next step in my career regardless of trump regardless of what they do that that we're not going to sit and wait around them with white house to fix or destroy our lives either one we're just going to go with our lives what's the right thing to do and so maybe this is just god giving you a little nudge say you need to get some education some skills and maybe expand the horizons a bit i would i think it'd be good for your practice anyway

because right now you've got a very seasonal thing that you you work like a maniac, and then you're off the rest of the year, basically. I mean, 90% down. And so it's not like September's big in the tax prep business, you know. So, you know, we do a little work around this time of year in the tax prep business because people are getting ready for year-end stuff, especially small business people. Those kinds of things are some moves you can make right now. You need to check with your tax pro right now, baby. But by and large, you know, you got this sprint in the first quarter, takes you down to April 15 or so, and may spill over into May with

some late filings and stuff. But after that, you're just kind of out. So I'd be looking for something to supplement anyway. Absolutely. And maybe find a niche. You might find you like working with a certain type of client, and that might be your specialty that you dive into. Yeah. We've got tax ELPs, people that we endorse to do taxes, endorse local providers, thousands of them all across America. And we are not advising them to prepare for their business to end. Yeah. I'd turn off the news if you're getting paralyzed by that. Yeah. Again, I have no idea any more than anybody else what the new president's going to do, but it's going to be a bit. It's going to be a bit. Things move slower than that. I don't think you're going to get a call one day and go, whoop, there's no income tax.

Although on a personal note, it wouldn't piss me off at all if there was just suddenly no income tax. I'd be going, oh, wow. You mean all the things that the money that I make helping people, I get to keep the money that I made? That's right, and it's not triple taxed. Instead of sending it to you people? Have you ever thought about that, though? When you're taxed on your income, you then's right. And it's not triple taxed. Instead of sending it to you people.

Have you ever thought about that though? When you get, you're taxed on your income, you then use that money, it's taxed again. And then the person who gets that money pays taxes on the money they get as the business owners. It just keeps going. And then when you die, they tax you again. The death tax on your estate. So just an endless taxation of the dollar.

Yeah, it's just, yeah. I have thought about it. Am I turning into a boomer? You are. Is it happening? You've been sitting next to one for too long. It's rubbed off. The spirit of rage is leaving my body and moving into yours.

Oh, no. Soon I'll be yelling at kids to get off my lawn. Yeah, that happened to me this week, actually. But, oh, well. It was your grandkids, Dave. It's different. No, it was my neighbor yelled at me to get off his lawn. But, yeah. There you go. It's different. No, my neighbor yelled at me to get off his lawn.

There you go. It's a bold move. Yeah, bold move. He was sort of kidding. Maybe. This is The Ramsey Show. 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. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke, on sale on Cyber Monday right now at RamseySolutions.com. He's my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Ann is in Phoenix. Hi, Ann. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Hi. What's up? So my question is, is it worth dipping into our emergency fund while we fight insurance to make sure I'm okay medically? A little more into that, I think I'm having an ectopic pregnancy, and my husband's all for dipping into the emergency fund because he's already done the math. He's 20 steps ahead.

And instead of fighting insurance, he would rather just make sure i'm okay literally thursday and then fighting insurance for a month and i have to go in for emergency surgery um well i think your husband is a hundred percent right it sounds like an emergency to me it's urgent it's necessary and it's unexpected yeah yeah checks the boxes and what are you a navy seal you don't think you need to do this i mean no you tell you need to take care of yourself girl to me it's the insurance's problem like that we have he's military i think it's your problem you're sick yeah okay i think you fight with them i would argue with them up and down and i would i would go all you know i'd go all in right now and be tearing their freaking heads off but

but at the end of the day we've been doing that for about two weeks yeah well don't stop yeah don't stop just keep keep doing it up until the day of but yeah you need to go and take care of yourself okay sounds like your husband's worried about you yes he is he's very worried okay what's the cost out of pocket um it would be initially just for the ultrasound it's um five hundred dollars and i i am i was a i had a really bad spending habit. I love shopping. I get it from every female I'm related to. So spending money now feels like a heart attack in my chest. Oh, because you've overcome impulsive shopping. Well, listen, an ultrasound when you're having a baby is not impulse.

Okay. Now, I would do this. I will tell you that if you will shop around the wonderful town of Phoenix, you will find that you can probably get that ultrasound done for $250. There's lots of places to do ultrasounds. And their price range, again, if you say no insurance, cash when I walk in, what's your best deal? Like I want a coupon, like you're a shopper.

You're going to find that we find this all the time. I've actually advertised for a few ultrasound places over the years, uh, in certain cities and not one in Phoenix and not lately. So I don't know the name of it, but I remember this concept. They came to us and go, Oh, the reason everybody charges 500 or 600 bucks is because insurance will pay it. But if you walk in there with cash, you can get it for 200. And that's what that company told us that does ultrasounds so and they advertised that for a while to try to steal business from the insurance ultrasound people or whatever but yeah shop around get a better deal but take care of yourself kiddo okay husband's right you're worth it by the way

give him a good hug he's a good maning up on the scene, taking care of his wife. Salute. Yes. He's a fantastic husband. Yes, he is. They're out there. There's also an app. They're all taken, but they're out there.

There's an app called, yeah, that's true. There's an app called Billy Dave. They're not a sponsor of ours, but they have this cool app where it shows transparent pricing for procedures, so you can type in the CPT code. It'll tell you in your area what the cheapest facility is for that specific procedure. It's pretty cool. So it might be something you can check out as she does her research. I've never tried it personally, but I've heard good things. So it might be an option to at least know you're not getting screwed. See, I have a concept and George has an actual technical hack. There's an app for that, Dave.

George has always got a technical hack for my good concept. I've got about 400 apps on my phone. I didn't even know that. That's so cool. Way to go, George. Yeah. Billy. We've talked to them.

What's it named after? Bill Clinton? I don't know. I don't know if it's Billy as in the bill, like the medical bills. Oh, it is. That's what it is. I don't know. Billy Goat.

We'll find out. But it could be. I'm all about transparency because I'm the one who hates getting screwed, feeling like I overpaid for something. So just to know I'm not getting screwed and this is actually a good deal makes me sleep better at night. I've been paying cash for medical stuff for a long time out of pocket. And all you got to do is just go, hey, I'm paying cash.

It's not insurance. And most of the time it's like, boom. I used to work at a doctor's office when I was 14 years old as the receptionist. And if they were cash paid. Oh, wait a minute cash paid yes can you imagine walking in and seeing me george how tall were you at 14 about the same height over the desk i maxed out at five and a half that was it you were the receptionist i had to lean up a doctor's office i sat on a pillow 14 that's right things i learned while i'm on the air in front of millions of people about George. That was my first real job, Dave.

12 bucks an hour. Wow. Yeah. You can pay big money back then. That was good money back then for a 15-year-old. Are you kidding me? Well, I mean, they were seriously overpaying you. But I remember we'd get the bills for the procedures, and if they were cash pay, the

doctor would have me note it, and it would be a severely discounted rate. You got that at 14? At i figured that out this is how george ends up with a book called breaking free from broke he knows about billy and he knows about i can't mow a lawn to save my life but i know a cpt code george learns the hack for the medical system wow not on your bingo card i did not see that coming today george answering i'm a renaissance man dave you answered the phone did you have a little headset no i mean it was you know people walking up it was more in person i'd answer the phones which i was really good at so i mean seriously folks uh and babies are one of the things that we've discovered this with the most.

And this was all the way back from the early days doing the show before health care was what it is now, good or bad, whatever you want to call it. But in those days, sometimes people did not have labor and delivery coverage on their health system, on their health plan. And what we learned was if you go to the hospital to have a baby, it's one of the few times that people want to go to the hospital it's a good thing to go to the hospital most of the other times you're at the hospital it's a bad thing right and so uh labor and delivery is like good pr for hospitals so if for some reason you find yourself not covered go to the hospital in the first trimester and say i'm going to choose a hospital based on the deal that you give me for labor and delivery and i'm going to pay cash and i will pay 50 of it up front before we get here and the other 50 on the day we arrive so you will not be trying to collect and it's cash on the barrel head and you will see a 50 to a 70 reduction and that's

what that's what we normally see from hospitals again because they really like babies to come to their place because it's the time that people come to the hospital everyone involved the visitors are smiling the participant is smiling everybody right and so families all visiting there yeah it's a good thing so you know take keep in mind they this is business they want in other words um and so and you know you're a cash buyer you don't have insurance this is how it's going to be they don't have to chase you for the money they got the money up front they like that serious discount that works in a lot of stuff out there, ladies and gentlemen. But yes, if you are pregnant and you're having trouble with your pregnancy,

that is by definition an emergency. If you need to use some of your emergency fund, that's what it's for. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. DJ is with us in Austin, Texas. Hi, DJ. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Thanks for calling. Sure. What's up? Ironically, I'm a longtime listener, all right, and didn't know it, but I followed the steps without formal introduction to those steps, all right? I didn't realize. You had common sense.

I guess, because by accident, as I look back on it, all right, geez, I said I've been doing exactly what you're talking about and what you outlined. Great, great advice. I agree with 90%, 95% of everything you said. Cash is king. My question is, once we get to your level or we get to the level that you would think is the top, what's your thoughts on maintaining that?

A whole lot harder to compound at this level than it was to get here. I'm just amazed at what's going on in our world today and the leaks and the shots that everybody's taking to take

it away from you. Okay. Well, the hard thing is not the actual compounding because a million dollars invested in mutual funds does the exact same that 10 million does, does the exact same that 100 million does. It's the exact same compounding. A million dollars invested in good real estate does the exact same thing $100 million does in good real estate.

So the compounding is not the problem. The problem is the stink in taxation and estate planning and maintaining your sanity as you manage more and more assets in terms of not letting it drive you bonkers, because the more stuff you own, the more repairman you have to know kind of thing. And so maintaining, actually getting peace from it rather than anxiety from it. You know what I'm saying? Yes, sir. I know very much what you're saying. So the spiritual aspect of it is more challenging.

The tax and estate planning is more challenging. And because, as you said, more people are taking shots at it. And really risk management becomes a thing because, you know, all of a sudden somebody wants to just sue you because they got a hangnail and they think it's easy money. So you got to have risk management. So those are things that come that I've noticed have come into play. And I think you just manage those things as if they're individual sciences.

That's what I've done. I've said, OK, risk management, here's what we're going to do. We're going to study that. I'm going to learn about, you know, how to, how to split up the pie into small enough pieces that it doesn't have a big target on it. And it doesn't, it's not as attractive to everyone to sue. I'm also going to not settle with anyone. I'm going to destroy them if they come after me and try to get easy money. Um, I'm going to make an example out of them and their jack leg ambulance chasing attorney. And I've done that. Um, I um I'm going to I mean I just set some policies in place um and said okay here's what we're going

to do and obviously we buy insurance and obviously I don't own anything anymore everything's in some kind of a trust or an LLC or a C Corp or S Corp one of the two and and uh then estate planning I've spent you know a couple of hundred grand over the last 20 years on estate planning maybe more uh to save 20 or 30 million in estate taxes um and so um and then the same thing on income tax which is just an ongoing thing so i mean all i've done is i've just had to get better at those things as the size has gotten better but the compounding is really not any trouble with the money making money it's kind of bizarre well you don't have debt attached to it all that real estate cash flow is way better yeah yeah and if you just leave the investments

alone it'll grow yeah and so it's just it's it's one of the things that comes with the you know i'm a christian a person of faith, and so I believe I'm not the owner. I'm managing it for God. And so if God asks me to manage something larger and more sophisticated, then I have to grow my skills, including the size of my backbone to handle whatever anxiety or stress comes with well and to fight if i need to fight including um the uh uh just growing my brain about some of these subjects that i didn't know before and that kind of thing is part of becoming a manager of you know if you're going to manage

you know one restaurant it's different than managing 500 restaurants it's a different skill set you know and so even if you're a manager and you don't not the owner you're working for someone else which is how i view it also by the way dj i'll just throw out again my faith journey with that has really really kept me from uh most of the time from being stressed out about this stuff because i just go uh god you got a problem you have a problem i'm the manager what do you want to do with your thing over here they got this situation you know and in prayer i just say okay lord what do you want to do with your deal here and sometimes he says you want to fix that for me god because i i don't know what i'm supposed

to do here and uh it's your thing so what do you call the owner and go the heat and air is out the renter called and said the heat and air is out, you know, call the owner. And so I call the owner sometimes. And I remember it. I'm not God. I don't have to have all the answers. I'm not perfect. I'm going to just do the best I can do with what the next right step. And that's released me from a large percentage of the stress that a lot of people feel in those situations where your wealth has come. You feel like you could just screw it up overnight. Yeah, I'm not going to screw it up overnight because I'm not going to make one single thing

that blows the whole thing up. I'm not doing anything that's that reactionary or that risk. I'm not that I'm too risk averse to do that. But yeah, it's just it's interesting. good stuff all right jennifer is in portland maine hi jennifer how are you i'm doing great thank you so much for taking my call dave i've been following you for about 20 years and when i first heard you i became debt free and we moved to maine we paid off our home in 10 years, and it's given us financial freedom, so thank you. Well, thank you. The reason I'm calling is I have an older cousin. I'm her

only living relative. She has left everything in her will to me. She has a home that's paid for that's worth about $150,000. She has a $30,000 HELOC on there that's variable. She owes back taxes for last year of $4,300 and she's going to owe another $4,300 come due in January. She has $30,000 worth of unpaid credit cards that she stopped paying on about three years ago. She did have somebody convinced her to lease a Jeep, and she paid that off, but then she went back to them and took a really high interest loan out. And we're just kind of sitting here wondering what we should do. If she lost this home, she'd have nowhere to go. She's got bad credit and no money. How old is she?

77. And she's not in overly the best of health. She does have an income of $3,500 a month that we've been trying to convince her to budget all these the last three years. Yeah. And she has not done anything really to help herself. Right. That's her problem then.

Well, we're wondering, would it behoove us to pay the taxes and the HELOC off, knowing that we're going to... Knowing that she's going to go borrow it again in summer? Yeah, I would hope to. Well, this woman has a track record that's abysmal. It's like every time something gets cleaned cleaned up she messes it up again right i don't want to be a part of that right right she i mean okay so you pay off the heloc and then the jeep gets repoed and they sue her and so she goes and takes out another heloc to

pay the lawsuit that's what that's what's coming coming. Yeah, I hate to say it, but I don't think she's smart enough to realize she could even do that. She's smart enough to get the HELOC the first time. Well, her husband, who is deceased... Did he do the Jeep? No. Did he run up the credit cards?

No. I wouldn't do this, Jennifer. Jennifer. Okay. You're throwing good money after bad. I would coach her. I would love her. I would be cheering for her.

I would write zero checks. And the estate will pay off her debts and whatever's left. If there is anything, you'll get it. I doubt there will be. I wouldn't have any expectation there. No. No. I think she needs to.

I would scare the P. Wadden out of her. Hey, you guys, I'm not a fan of the big banks, and you probably already know which ones I mean. But I do like credit unions because they're nonprofit organizations that focus on their members. And I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously. In fact, they design products to help keep you from going into debt in the first place.

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That's Fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. George Campbell, Ramsey personality is my co-host. It is that time of year. In a few weeks, we're going to be doing your all's favorite show here on The Ramsey Show, The Giving Show, where we hear from people who have received gifts that were life-changing or given gifts that were life-changing. And for three hours, we talk about that to inspire you to live like no one else so later you can live and give like no one else.

So we need to hear from you if you want to be part of that show and share your story of giving or receiving. That'll make our eyes leak and inspire people. Love it. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash ask. Put giving in the subject line. Leave us a little bit about your story. Team will get with you and set you up to be part of that program.

It's going to be on December the 18th, so you need to get your submissions in now. We do want to hear your story. Please go to ramseysolutions.com slash ask, put giving in the subject line. Brady is in Houston. Hi, Brady. How are you? I'm good.

How are you, Gordon? Hey, David. Good. How can we help? Hey, I appreciate it. So me and my wife have come to the agreement that my current position as a, I'm a business owner and it's not likely to get us to the goals that we want to end up in our lives. And my question to you is, my wife is not willing to move away to find the right job that does that. She wants to stay close to her family. She's very close with them. They're

close with her. And I'm close with them as well. But I'm more willing to go out and find that job, you know, far away from here, if that's what it is, and she's very resilient to making that change. And there's not much job offers nearby where we live, but there are, you know, an hour, hour and a half away from here. You're in Houston? I'm in Brenham. It's about an hour and a half outside of Houston. So Houston's my nearest big town.

What kind of job are you looking for? I'm a mechanical engineer. I've got experience in oil and gas, and I've got experience in manufacturing and aerospace safety systems. I'm actually looking right now for a role potentially in oil and gas, but also I know that there's a lot of space exploration that is making up. So what would you be making in the new role approximately? I would be a fourth-year engineer, so somewhere between $80,000 to $90,000. What do you make now that you're a small business? It's a carpentry business. That was a

passion that I jumped into. And it's very, it's very, of course, based on the job I've been able to maintain around 65 to 70 a year. Uh, but that's, uh, starting to show we've got kids, uh, boy, and we want to have more kids. and that's starting to show that there's something else that needs to kind of take care of the expenses than just what i'm making now in the job uh how long have you been married we've been married about three years now and she's funny enough she's actually a german citizen with a green card and so there's um it's funny i talked to her about finances and stuff and there seems to be a disconnect where obvious things to me are not so obvious to her uh and and i see it as from her german background it's like very different there and there's not

you know not as much of her her fan German family is in Brennan, Texas? Part of the German family, yeah. She's got family all over the world, but her sister, who she's very close to, they were her sponsors coming over. I met her through her family, and so I ended up marrying her, but we're close to her family who's here in Brennan, yes, sir. Her family is her sister? Her sister and her brother-in-law. They own that's the that's the whole family hold no she's got a mom in Germany that's what

I'm asking why in the heck you're staying in Brennan her sister is why you're staying in Brennan it's not exactly your mom it's not exactly her mom and you got the grandkids you're running off with this is true, very true. Her background with her family is very rough, a lot of bad stuff with her parents. Yeah, okay. Her sister was her mother, acting mother kind of thing. Okay. So here's, you know, you guys have just got to sit down and talk about, okay,

these things all don't go together. There's not a $90,000 job for me here. Right. If you are in agreement that I need to get a different job, you are saying we need to move closer to Houston. So instead of being 10 minutes from your sister, you're going to be 45 minutes from your sister and I'm going to have a 30 minute commute.

You're going to move between the two. Sure. Yeah. That's reasonable. Yeah, absolutely. But if you can't communicate that kind of basic stuff, you got other issues like marriage issues.

Oh no. Yeah. And, and that's, uh, it's not so much. She willing to move uh no she's not that's why you called me she's faithful as a wife but she also has this that's not the point i didn't say she was unfaithful you called and said she's unwilling to move but we're in agreement

that i need a new job that's exactly what you said right here. I heard you. Right. Yeah, okay. So quit changing the story. And if she can move across the world, I think she can move an hour away. From her sister. She'll be okay.

You can visit her on the weekends. Yeah. So I think there needs to be some compromise here. Yeah. I mean, and again, I'm not saying move to freaking New York City. You're moving closer to Houston where you have a a 30 minute commute instead of an hour and a half and then she when she sees her sister on the weekend for god's sakes you drive an hour over there i mean you know it's this is not he wants to be in he wants to be a rocket scientist so here

we go i'm kidding this is i kidding. It just flies through my head. I almost said it. We have a problem. No. I mean, you are in the hotbed if you want to be in the space world. My God, you're in Houston. There's nowhere else other than Cape Canaveral that you can do better. But you're going to not commute an hour and a half so she can be near her sister.

That's asinine. I think we're going to FaceTime for hour and a half so she can be near her sister. That's asinine. I think we're going to FaceTime for a while. Yeah. It'll be okay. Whatever. I mean, again, I'm not suggesting you completely disconnect, that you never see them again or whatever. But if you actually add up the number of hours that you spend with them during the week versus

the number of hours you spend at work during the week, these two things are not compatible. So it's illogical it's silly and we're both in agreement that me working all the time as a carpenter my passion job i think he said yep is not working out so okay good so get you an engineer job up towards houston move your butt up there and then you know for god's sakes hire her a driver and send her down to her you know to the sister if you have to whatever you got to do it's not really not this is not hard it's not hard so you can't have this both ways you can't say oh you need to make more money we live in a dinky town that doesn't have a whole list of mechanical engineers now if there's mechanical engineering you can do remote in the oil field you might be able to do some remote work there. I don't know.

I don't know how that works. I was thinking about that. Then maybe, maybe you can land that and I'll just shut up and you just stay there, but you need to go find some actual jobs and make her turn them down. Not theory, especially if it's, it means a 50% pay increase. Well, that's what he's looking at. That's what he's looking at. Going from 60 to 90. It's serious. That's what he's looking at. So, yeah, that's it.

All right. Open phones at 888-825-5225. There's a reason, folks, from an economics perspective. One of the classes I took way back in college when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was getting my real estate degree, urban economics. And urban economics are different than rural economics. There is more opportunity in a metropolitan area with a larger population. There is also the downside of a higher expense for real estate typically. And there's a downside of there's a dadgum many people and not all of them are fun and so you know you move to the city if you're gonna if you're gonna move into some careers and you know and if you're gonna move out towards the country you're gonna get cheaper real estate a more rural setting i love that personally but you're gonna have a

commute in if you're gonna be involved in the economics of the opportunities that are available that's what he's finding so you got to pull all the different levers and find the one that works for you 5,000 person town i don't know how big that town is he's in i'm making this up but i mean if you got a 5,000 person town it's different than a town of what it was freaking houston 12 million or something i mean you know it's huge of course it takes seven hours to drive across the whole thing but yeah yeah brenham's got 17 000 people okay not not a crazy big town yeah there we go look at you with your quickness on the google this is the ramsey show the best way to build wealth is on purpose.

Reporters often ask me, Dave, what's the number one mistake Americans make with their money? As if they think I'm going to say a single thing. Don't they ask you that? Oh, yeah. That's like a classic. That's like a magic thing. That's like a journalism question. They got that in first year journalism school. What's the best advice you've ever gotten?

Yeah. What's the best advice you give? What's the number one thing that people... well, I finally developed a really good answer. You know what the number one mistake Americans make with their money? They don't freaking pay attention. They just drive with their eyes closed and then wonder why they hit the dadgum ditch. You know, I'm just going to spend everything I make and I'll get to retirement and go, I sure hope the government, which is well known for its ability to handle money will take care of me that's dumb i'll just

buy now pay later and swipe my life away and hope for the best just karna karna keep karna that's right karna karna karna then karma and affirm i want to be affirmed i want to be affirmed with karma karna then karma comes karna karma oh credit karma you're killing me here i i was buying a t-shirt with a smart aleck saying on it can you imagine that they offered me payments on the t-shirt george i can't this is the problem okay so let me tell you how you how you build wealth you pay attention you're intentional you make your money behave instead of wondering where it went. That's called, one of the things you do is you do a budget. You sit down, you go, okay, I manage freaking $100,000 a year and I have no idea. That's dumb.

If you work for somebody and that was your job, you get fired for being incompetent. If you're in the government, you get promoted. Well, we're not talking about that. You just get me mad now. Don't do that. Sorry. We're talking about real people, not people these are these are not bureaucrats these are humans and we just don't pay attention pay attention write it down agree on it with your spouse give every dollar

an assignment before the month begins and then crack the freaking whip on those dollars and make them dance a jig so you end up with something out of it i mean get the chair out and the whip you remember the old cartoon the lion tamer this money it's going to eat your butt if you do not take care of it you know why other people have more you know why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because rich people keep doing rich people stuff you know rich people stuff. You know what rich people stuff is? They pay freaking attention. They learn about investments. They invest. They do a budget.

They agree on spending with their spouse. And it keeps working, and they keep doing it over and over and over and over and over again. And, you know, you can't say, thank God it's Friday. Oh, God, it's Monday, and end up anything but broke. Spend everything on the weekend. That's just short-sighted lack of vision. You need a written budget. This is why we named EveryDollar the world's best budgeting app, EveryDollar,

because you give EveryDollar an assignment. You make EveryDollar freaking behave. You can download EveryDollar for free in the App Store or Google Play or click the link in the description if you're on podcast or YouTube. By the way, those of you listening to the show right this second, this is the last segment in this hour before we move to another segment. That last segment, the third segment of the show that's coming up in a few minutes, is only available on the Ramsey Network app, and it's completely free.

But if you haven't downloaded the Ramsey Network app yet, you need to so you can get the third element of the show, third segment of the show every day, video and audio. And you can search it by call, subject, and you can send us an email and all kinds of stuff. So download the Ramsey Network app for free in the App Store. Download the EveryDollar app for free in the App Store. See, now you're just all apped up as if you were at uh applebee's or something and you just order the sampler platter got all the apps don't tease got all the apps i'm just saying i'm sure i'm sure somewhere robert kennedy just passed out okay abigail in tallahassee florida hey ab, what's up? Hey, I was just needing some help trying to get my husband to be on board with the debt snowball.

We're about $70,000 in between a car loan and then like credit cards and other loans. And then we make like 113 together so i've got it i outlined the budget of how to get it like we can get this done in probably about you know two years yeah but he just keeps like blocking me and i'm like why let's we don't it's i i don't know why yeah you, you do. He told you. You know him better than we do. What do you think is behind this? He didn't just say, I want to be broke.

I'm going to block you. He didn't say that. What did he say? Why didn't he want to do it? When I tried to talk to him about it this weekend, his response was, well, just hand me over the finances and we'll get separate accounts and I'll pay what I pay out of my paycheck and then you pay what you pay out of your paycheck.

So that was the most recent reply. Okay. Then basically he's saying, yes, we have a problem, but I have a different solution than you. Yeah. Yeah. That's different than he's saying yes we have a problem but i have a different solution than you yeah yeah that's different than he's blocking you well he's didn't agree with you and his solution is to venmo you like a weird roommate situation yeah yeah okay all right well um so here's the thing how long ago did you start listening to our stuff uh it's only been like a few weeks that's what i thought okay so here's what happens you came

running in all excited with a brand new thing with your hair on fire and he went oh god she fell for a scam she's joined a cult didn't he that's why you laughed i got you yeah yeah i appreciate your enthusiasm i appreciate your enthusiasm but you ruined it yeah so what you need to do is go in and say hey listen i owe you an apology because you do by the way um you had information that he didn't have and you tried to cram it down his throat. And you didn't mean to. You were just excited, enthusiastic. You found some hope for the first time.

And I don't blame you. I'm happy you got excited. I'm glad we were able to do that for you. I also want to do it for him, okay? And so let's start with, I'm sorry I went at this wrong. I really need you. I know you love me, and I know you care about our future, and I really need you to listen

to what i've been learning and listen to this stuff and then tell me what's wrong with it and then turn on a youtube debt-free scream and turn on turn on this segment of the podcast which will be posted today and that kind of stuff and then you know uh because what he is prescribing there's no data that said there's zero research that says what he's suggesting works matter of fact there's a lot of research that says what he's suggesting won't work um but he is at least he is at least wanting to try something yeah yeah yeah and we've never had everything separate we've always you don't want it to be separate separate it needs to be together and we need to be together

and i need uh i need you as my man to hear me and i need us to get aligned on where we're going because this is scaring me to death where we are yeah and separating everything makes me feel like a divorce i know i don't want a divorce yeah yeah and just start talking about this stuff and asking questions and draw him in and because you know you just unload you he went up to a water fountain to get a drink you turned on a fire hose because you were excited and i'm glad you're excited i don't misunderstand that that happens a lot though and then if you're not careful you keep at it and you'll turn my name into a cuss word okay that's the next step yeah oh yeah that got cult leader over there that bald guy yeah

and that's that's what happens it happens all the time and so um which is kind of weird because very few cult leaders are actually bald but the. But most of them have really nice hair. It could be a wig. We don't know. But anyway, so what we'll do, let me give you every dollar, and I'm going to give you Financial Peace University for free as our gift, and then say, hey, let's open these up and watch one of these videos together. And then you tell me if this is right or

not. You tell me what's wrong with what they're saying. Because I got some hope out of this, and I got really excited. This is you talking. Because hope is powerful, girl. It's wonderful. And so I'm so happy you got that. But he's not a bad guy and he really doesn't want a divorce he just you just swooped in there pretty heavy on him yeah yeah so i think if you back off a little let's um approach it calmly don't take a machine gun into a fishing tournament right that's the idea here right don't spray and pray That's not what we're doing. So we're actually going to use a little bit of finesse here. Finesse. You're the wife.

You know what finesse means. Husbands don't know what that means. It's usually the husband. So you can do this. This is The Ramsey Show. 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Baroque and YouTube Sensation.

He is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. If you've not checked out George's show, George Camel with a K on YouTube, oh, you should. You will laugh. Listen, if you enjoy snark the way that I do, you will notice that George has the spiritual gift of snark.

It's a love language. It is. I think it's a sixth. They added one for snark. I think so. I'm sure. I'm sure of it. Rob is with us in Rockford, Illinois.

Hey, Rob, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure. I am 55 years old. I have $274,000 in my Roth slash 401k at the company. And I have $64,000 remaining on my mortgage. I have $66,000 in a CD, about 5%. I have about $12,000 in my checking account.

That's kind of my spending money, emergency stuff. And I do have one credit card at $4,700, which I'm trying to pay down. I just financed a trip to the Dominican Republic. I was wondering if I should take my payoff on mortgage at 2.5%, and with that CD, pay that off, then start getting emergency fund back up and then start investing that in a, uh, an IRA.

And am I going to have enough to retire on? You say you're 55 or 65? 55. 55. And what do you make? I make, uh, 70,

75,000. Mm-hmm. Okay. So what I would do for starters is stop borrowing money. There was no need to finance this trip. You could have paid cash. Right? Yeah.

So the first order of business is to pay off this debt. You've got the money sitting and checking. If you don't need all $12,000 sitting there to cover your monthly bills, I'd go ahead and pay it off today. And cut up your stupid credit cards. Yeah. They've been such a blessing to you. You're paying 25% interest on that card probably?

I'm not sure exactly what it is. It might be more than that, but you need to cut that thing up. It's not going to help you retire, which you stated is your goal. Right. Yeah, a maximum of 10 years, I hope, to work. So at 65, I'd love to see you with a paid for home and a sizable nest egg. And you're on your way there. I like your thinking of getting rid of the mortgage. I would wait until you've got some more in savings and then knock out the mortgage. Because as soon as you pay that thing off, there's going to be an emergency and you won't have the money to cover it. I would take $45,000 of the, I'm sorry, I'd take $40,000.

I'm sorry. Let me try this again. I would leave $15,000 in your CD or $20,000, and I'd throw the rest of it at the mortgage today, and then I would pay off the house in the next, you know, five months or so, six months, knock it out. I don't want you with no, I'm with George. I don't want you with zero mortgage and zero emergency fund.

So I'm going to hold your emergency fund. I'm going to throw the rest of it at the mortgage and then i'm going to aggressively attack the mortgage first and foremost once that's gone then we're going to jack up everything we can towards retirement and that's roth iras and 401ks and max them all out and then you're going to have plenty for retirement and with no mortgage and maxing out retirement and never touching debt again, you can definitely retire in the next 10 years. You'll probably have a million-dollar net worth or more by the time you get to 65.

That's the best things ever. I got a kind of late start in the 401K, but I'm putting in as much as I can. Yeah. I only work about eight months a year because I'm seasonal real construction, but I still put 28% in. What are you doing with the other four months?

Nothing. Going to the Dominican on the credit card. I'm only going for a week there. No, we collect unemployment. You can work if you want, but I mean, I do snow removal and stuff, but that's just on the side. Okay. I would be working.

You don't have to break your back, but sitting on your butt is not necessary either. You've got skills. And so, yeah, I'm going to gear up some kind of a business. Who knows? Your business might end up making more than your real job. I'm going to get something going on the side there during during that four months that's a wonderful break you've got um and then i'll be straight with you dude i hear kind of a um i don't know i like uh like you're not really intense about this at all the opposite of intense like i'm pretty, whatever. I think you need to lean on this

because people that I don't want you to become obsessed with money or worship money. That is not what I'm saying, but you need to pay attention because you're kind of just like, well, you've kind of wandered into this and done pretty good. If you were to dial up the heat about three notches from where you are right now and focus and intensity on this money thing, you're gonna have a lot of money. You're you've done a really good job overall on this money thing you're gonna have a lot of money you've done a really good job overall but the way you're discussing it sounds very yeah whatever yeah i'm all four months i don't do anything yeah you know yeah went to dominican got a credit card i want you to quit that once you start focusing on what you're doing. Do it on purpose.

And then if you want to go to the Dominican, fine. Just freaking write a check, go to the Dominican. You earn the money. You have the money. You're not broke. And that's great. Go do it. But don't act like, well, I just kind of just woke up this morning and I did that.

No. Let's have a plan. Let's execute the plan and let's enjoy our money. Let's be generous with our money and let's raise this wealth level because you have the ability with where you're sitting right now to turn this into a million to two million dollars by age 67 if you'll if you'll just turn it up about a notch and i know you have plans to work till 65 which is great but in your line of work i mean your body might say nope and so i want you to be prepared before then and work your tail off and save like you can't work until 65.

Because in construction, I mean, that's a tough job. It's not easy to be doing at 65. Yeah, it is. It is. And again, I'm not picking on you. I'm just telling you what I'm hearing because you called here and I love you and I want you to win. Okay? And you have done overall a very good job.

You are in the top 5% of Americans right now. You're not broke. You have money in the savings. You have a job, and you've done really well overall. So we're giving you some fine-tuning here to the whole situation to a guy who's really, I mean, you're about 8 out of 10, and I'm just trying to get you to a 10 out of 10. Yeah, nothing's on fire here.

We've seen a lot worse late starts. So to have a late start where you've got a quarter million in retirement and your mortgage is almost paid off and you got money in savings, that's a great place to be. Now, let's remind you that a lump, remind everybody, if you're invested in good mutual funds and if they average at least 10%, the lump sum is going to double every 10, every seven years. Okay. So again, again he's 55 at 62 he's got a half million at 69 he's got a million that's and he's got and he's got a paid for house that's going up too so it's pretty easy for me to predict that if he'll lean in just a little bit he could have two million dollars there and that sets you up for a really sweet like dominican whenever you want to go retirement

maybe two weeks instead of one i'm thinking warm warm sounds good to me right now yeah my mouth's kind of watering too i think i could have some food yeah that would work this is the ramsey show cyber monday one day sale is happening right now prices as low as four dollars and 99 cents your chance to get our best deals of the year on gifts that'll actually make a difference in someone's life grab some of our best-selling hardcover books and assessments like the total money makeover building a non-anxious Life, or the Get Clear Assessment for only $10. They're on the go. How about audiobooks for only $4? This is such a deal.

And 99 cents, my goodness, $4.99 for an audiobook. Serious, today only, guys, today only. And George's book, Breaking Free from Broke, the cheapest we've ever sold at $12 today on Cyber Monday. RamseySolutions.com slash store. Click the link in the show notes, and it'll get you there. Carrie is in Grand Rapids. Hi, Carrie.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, George. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, so my husband and I are baby step millionaires. We are debt free.

And my brother, who is flat broke, has no money, is in debt up to his eyeballs, called me the other day and said, I've made you the executor of my will because if I die or when I die, you will be responsible for paying all of my debts. And I think he is under the impression that I would be paying them out of my pocket Not out of his estate because there is no estate that he would leave. Yeah Well, I guess you get to call him back and tell him how life works Because you're not liable for his debts, nor will you be paying them. Okay.

And if you say, I don't want to be the executor of the estate, that would be okay, too, by the way. Yes. This is normally a question you ask someone, not something you tell someone. Well, and I think he is assuming that because we would have the money to pay those debts that if he just tells me i'm his executor i can't do anything about it well he's ignorant yeah yeah i don't know why he doesn't have knowledge okay not not that he's a that's not that how the executor works the estate will pay it it doesn't just go to whoever the executor is and they have to deal with it they deal with the estate but if you want to untangle the mess you can and that would be the

executor but you're not responsible for the debts and i guess somebody ought to tell him i don't know where he got his information but um what was this relationship like before this conversation well it's never been a good one yeah And he's always taken advantage of parents and anybody who is willing to give him money. Is he single? He is single. How old is he? He's 63. Okay.

All right. So I guess there's two parts to the conversation, and you and your husband sit down and say, okay, do I want to untangle this? I'll tell you, if you're the executor, here's what it will look like, okay? Okay. You will get a copy of the death certificate, and you will send it to all of his creditors, saying there's no money in the estate, you're getting nothing. Okay. And that's it. Okay. Then they're going to bark and scream and flop, but whatever. Yell at the dead guy. I mean, that's it okay then they're going to bark and scream and flop but whatever yell at the dead guy i mean that's all you can do so there's he has no money you can't get anything

from him uh he doesn't own anything right he rents a room from a friend and he has a car that my parents gave him probably 15 years ago that I'm sure is worth zero. Yeah, me too. I probably would have to have it hauled away. No, you don't. You just leave it, sit there until somebody hauls it away. Because otherwise you've got to pay for it to be hauled away. Or you call the junkyard and tell them to pick it up.

I'm the executive of the estate. You can pick it up. You can have it if you come get it. And they'll come get it for the salvage. And just that cleans up the poor guy that he rented a room from but so if you want to take on that job of sending the death certificate to the miscellaneous creditors and you usually would file a notice to creditors in the newspaper or some some other form of legal notice of his death it's a fairly short process, and that ends it. It's over.

You don't take on any of the debts in any sense of the imagination. So that's decision number one. Decision number two is you just need to tell him that you're not liable for his debts, nor will you be paying them. Wonderful. So if you and your husband, if you decide you want to take on the mailing of the death certificate, which is what the executor's job will be here, if you want to take that job on, you can call him back and say, all right, I will take on the executor's job.

I will mail everyone a death certificate and tell them they're not getting paid because you don't have any money. That's what the executor does in your situation because you're dying broke. Okay? We will not be paying your debts. We do not owe them, nor are we legally bound, nor does making me the executor make me legally bound, and I will not be paying them.

So I want you to know what's going on. Or you can call him up and say, we will not be paying your debts, we're not legally bound, and I'm not going to be the executor. If you make me the executor, I'm going to not do it. Okay. And the whole thing's just going to lay out there in oblivion, floating around, okay?

And it will end up probably some of the collectors will end up on your parents' doorstep or something like that if they're still alive. So, I mean, that's what you're dealing with. So you just decide what the conversation is going to be. And you can be kind, but just informative. Okay. Making me the executor does not make me liable for the debts. I'm not going to pay your debts on, not at your death and not before your death, either

one. And so, um, if you need some food or something, you call, we'll make you a meal, but, um, you know, we're not paying your debts. And I've decided I don't want to be the executor. So you can take me off. If you don't take me off, I'm still not going to do it. Or I'll take care of cleaning up the mess and letting everybody know you're dead and they're not getting paid.

Depends on which one you want to do. You and your husband decide that together. I don't care which one. Get creative. Make it fun. Yeah. But, you know, it's – and the interesting thing about these – like you honed in on this quick, George, and that was wise of you,

that the relationship strained anyway. It makes like your heart rate changes when you dial the phone because you know this is conflict and you know it's not going to go well. And that's just a normal thing with anybody that you've got an ongoing tear in the relationship or rift or whatever we want to call it. So most people don't do conflict well, and here's a little coaching for you. If you feel your heart rate going up like that, one of the things dr john deloney

talks about and we also talk about it when we're teaching entre leadership and dealing with conflict inside an organization is it doesn't take a long time to address the situation you have to go through this flowery it all began in 1967 when the sun came up you don't have to go back we don't go back through everything don't have to go back through everything. All we got to do is just start where we are, and it's a 30-second. It's two sentences. Here's the problem. Somewhere you got the impression the executor has to pay your debts,

and I don't know if you misunderstood or I misunderstood you, but I'm not responsible for your debts, nor am I going to be responsible for your debts while you're alive or when you're dead. long did that take 10 seconds but I mean we didn't talk about your feelings and that time when you were six years old and you tied me up or I mean whatever you know you know meet older brother or whatever it was right all that stuff right we don't really get in all that and remember that time mama said I don't care about Mama. Just deal with the thing. Don't stir up the past.

Real two sentences. And then the other sentence is, my husband and I have talked about it, and I don't want to take this on, so I'm not going to be your executor. So get somebody else. Yeah, we're uncomfortable to take this responsibility on. Yeah, or I'll take it, take care of it, and here's what it's going to be. I'm going to send a death certificate. My financial advisor told me I need to send a death certificate to everybody,

and they will get not paid, and that's what's going to be i'm going to send a death certificate my financial advisor told me i need some death certificate to everybody and they will get not paid and that's what's going to happen and that's it if you want me to do that i've decided i will do that for you yeah it reminds me of the old quote choose guilt over resentment i'd rather feel guilty that i had to say that versus feeling resentful that i took it on and shouldn't have yeah to avoid the literally 37 seconds of discomfort of those two sentences. People will take on two years worth of pain of dealing with something. And so I prefer the 37 seconds. And, but the,

the, the problem is we get nervous. All of us, when we're doing conflict or our heart rate goes up, we get, you interpret it as anger or fear. However you want to interpret your eyes, dilating a little sweat in the palm of your hands, whatever that is, heart rate goes up, you interpret it as anger or fear, however you want to interpret it, your eyes dilating, a little sweat in the palm of your hands, whatever that is,

heart rate changing, however you want to interpret that. And then we go into drama mode and story mode. No, it's two sentences, 37 seconds, in and out. This is SWAT team. And it's not going to be perfect. Clear the room, Leave no one alive. I mean, SWAT, it's just clear the room. Get in and get out.

You know, and move on. And that's the hardest thing for all of us to do. But I'll tell you, the more you practice that, the better quality your life's going to be. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Jared is in Pittsburgh. Hi, Jared. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. So I'm 21 years old. I'm a computer science major, and I have $100,000 in student debt. About $32,000 of that is federal, and $68,000 is private loans, and those are at about 14% interest. And another problem I'm struggling with is the school I originally went to shut down, so I had to transfer, and that pushed me back about another two years.

How much of this debt was at that school? About $90,000. Almost all of it. Was the private loans with that school? No, it's through Sallie Mae. Sallie Mae is not private. Sallie Mae is government. Oh, really? I Mae is not private. Sallie Mae is government. Oh, really?

I thought they were private. Okay. So you don't think they're government-insured student loans? No. No. Okay. Yeah, but, okay. yeah but okay a private student loan means an individual institution holds the note not sally may okay gotcha like a bank or the or the college you went to before okay so i'm i might be wrong i might be wrong but i'm kind of thinking these are all federal. Looks like they privatized more recently.

They picked up some private loans? Yeah. So it could be. I'd do your research on that, Jared, and figure out which loans are actually private, which ones are federal. Here's the two answers to the student loan question. Number one is if it's federally insured student loans and your school closes those loans are forgiven you have to apply with the feds and go through all the crap dealing with the federal government but those loans are forgiven they do not hold student loans that on a on an institution that closes or especially one that they shut down due to fraud, okay? If you have a private student loan with the college that shut down,

you may want to talk to an attorney. I'm not paying that. Yeah. Because you got ripped off. Yeah. Okay? And I think you can get that forgiven that way. If you have a private student loan that is not with the college

and it's not federally insured, okay, then you need to get in touch with our sponsor, YREFY, the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey, and they'll help you refinance those defaulted student loans and get them down to a good rate. Yeah. So another problem I was struggling with is the federal student loans for the closed school disbursement.

You cannot continue your education and keep your credits. What do you mean like i tried to apply for the uh closed school uh like forgiveness and the terms were like the credits i took at that school like no longer counted and i'd have to like start fresh like from the beginning. Okay. And you're doing a four-year degree in information systems? So I started out, it was a technical school and a three-year degree in IT. And now I'm at a traditional four-year college for computer science.

How many more credits do you have? I have about three semesters left. Okay. And how are you paying for that? Taking out more loans. Oh, God. What a mess. What are you getting at the end of this?

What's the degree? BS? A bachelor's. Yeah, a bachelor's in computer science. Okay. I'll also have a minor in accounting as well. Okay. I have never heard that, but I'm not doubting that it's true.

So you're saying if you use the credits from the school that went broke, they won't forgive the loans? Yeah. Yeah, that was the figure. I don't't know that i want you to check into that a little bit more um yeah but if that's true then that's just true you've got a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt you're going to come out with a four-year degree in computer science and you're going to go get a job hopefully making 90 or 100 and you're going to kick butt and continue to learn because i got to tell you most of what you're learning right now by the time you get out and start using it is not even

going to be used yeah that degree that degree does not age well yeah because the tech world moves at lightning speed of change so you're gonna have to get right on the edge of everything and get out there and really be on top of this and so what i do um are you working uh right now i'm not but i plan to take an internship over the summer i would take a paid internship in tech where you can get your hands on this stuff and actually get caught up for what you're not learning in a four-year degree in this because i got to tell you we got 400 and 500 uh folk here on our tech team software engineers platform everything project managers uh dev one two threes all of it we got it all here and um the current certifications programs are much more valuable than a three-year-old, four-year degree in information systems because those guys don't even know what's going on anymore.

It moves that fast. If you started here three years ago in our company and you haven't kept up, haven't continually studied, you're behind already because things are moving really, really quick. So you've got to really get on top of this. So the intern is a really good idea and get paid some serious money and let's get this thing moving ouch that hurts there's no there's no good snap your fingers let's find a solution here but i would do all the digging i can and find all the loopholes to get out of this mess because considering it was basically fraud what this college did it's a ninety thousand dollar part-time job yeah to find a way to find

a hack and the company goes bankrupt and what i'm saying you have you owe 90 grand if you don't fix this yeah so i'm gonna be like making a hobby out of some bureaucrat in washington and try to get some kind of relief there's got to be other people in his shoes too going to this school so i'd figure out what's going on yeah that's um if you use the credits we don't forgive the loan so the math is it's going to cost him to redo all those credits so it's not and it may not be worth him another two years exactly yeah he's almost done he only may not be worth taking the forgiveness if he loses the credits it's not if that's the case and it sounds like it is i don't know that i've never heard that before but that doesn't not mean it's not so just because i haven't heard it um so yeah i would but i'm i tell you what i'm gonna be a hundred thousand dollars

worth of pissed off and up in somebody's stuff so i do know that um and you know bothering some bureaucrats about this for sure that's like your, your congressman there in where you live. You know, I'm going to be, hey, can you help me with this? This is crazy. This company, this place went broke, and federal guidelines are messing with me on this and this and this. See if you can get the needle to move. That makes a big difference.

It does look like Sallie Mae, they sold all of their federal loans off to different services. So now Sallie Mae, they sold all of their federal loans off to different services. So now Sallie Mae is all private now. Okay, so they're servicing privately held. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I wish everyone listening and watching could watch Borrowed Future to avoid this nightmare down the road.

We did this documentary. It's about 88 minutes. If you're an adult, if you're a kid, watch it with your kids, because we go into how we got into this mess, why we're here, how to avoid it in the first place. And I think it'll scare people away from going to spend six figures in debt to get a four-year degree. Listen, I'm a huge fan of the four-year degree in certain things, and I'm not a huge fan in certain things. And honestly, if I personally were 18 years old and I was going to go into technology and be a software engineer, I would just go get all the certifications. And I'd go to code school.

Which is way cheaper. Yeah, like $10,000. And you can cash flow that. $10,000. It's like going to a trade school. I'm going to go to code school and I'm going to go get a Microsoft cert. I'm going to get certs in this, certs in that. And I'm going to go run down those lanes and just pile those things up. And then I'm going to go get a job making a hundred

and a half. And I can do that at 18, 19, 20 years old all day long right now. If you can write that code and you know how to lay it in and you know the whole process, if you want to add something to that to make it really sweet and go to a quarter million, just make it all for cybersecurity in a world full of hackers. That's the field right now. Yeah. If you can do that, there you go. Ding, ding, ding. If you're in that field and that's what you want to do, I do that over a four-year degree

all day long in that world. If you want to be in business, you need to go get a four-year degree. Marketing, go get a four-year degree. Communications, go get a four-year degree. Our scripture of the day, James 14, 4. You do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Doug Larson said, people are living longer than ever before a phenomenon undoubtedly made necessary by the 30-year mortgage oh that's good and that guy was born in 1926 he was that's what it said far side 20 he died in 2017 so far side he saw some things in his day far side was amazing amazing cartoon

i never saw that one was a car a comic strip oh yeah just now you're you gotta look it up because you're the king of snark so you gotta look it up well i gotta find a newspaper from the 70s to see this now well you can probably find that on your little internet thingy over there there'll be some show up there just type in farsight it'll show up all right kristin is with us in greensboro north carolina hi kristin. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hi. So I first want to just thank you guys for your show, the platform, the encouragement that you guys have given me. I've paid off $168,000 in student loans. Way to go. Yeah. So really happy about that um and i just thank

you guys for everything i'm proud of you way to go thank you thank you um my question today is about my mom's finances um so over thanksgiving break i offered um to help her um create a budget and you know she expressed that she is overwhelmed with her debt and she wants to retire she's 60 years old she has three hundred and eighty thousand dollars of debt that doesn't include her mortgage um she on 300 is student loans. 30,000 is the car. And the other 50,000 is credit cards. Is she a doctor or a lawyer? She is a nurse practitioner.

Okay. Yeah. So she's making $100,500? Just about. Her take-home is she makes $4,300 twice a month or every two weeks. That's her take-home right now. And sometimes she works extra and makes more. She's taking home six figures. Yeah, yeah. But I think the problem is her expenses are so high. Her mortgage is about $4,000.

Her car payment's $1,000. And just with everything, when I laid it out and all her minimum monthly payments, she needs another $1,000 of income just to break even. Yep. Which explains the credit is she ready to change is she ready to go through the pain of change or is she going to sit in the soup i she seems ready um sell the car and sell the house me exactly that's what that's what i either that or she never gets to retire no she can't retire she can't retire she's just gonna die she can't i mean yeah it'll never work she needs to sell the car and sell the house and get a one-bedroom apartment and work 24 7

and clean up the 300 000 student loans in two years two and a half years yeah by the time she's 65 she'll be even right right um she wants to wait to sell the house to get more equity in it and i'm like no you need to sell the house now no you're broke you can't afford it and as far as the car um she is i guess a little bit underwater on it she owes 30 000 on it she can sell it for about 21 000 i think yeah she can scrape together the coverage scrape together the difference to cover it and the 21 000 is probably not right it's probably a wholesale because she looked it up as the high low number and doesn't want to sell it so it'll probably bring 25 and she's come up with range private party she needs to get a beater and a one-bedroom apartment and then she could

clean this mess up exactly yeah but i don't know if she'll do it or not do you i don't know um i mean this is like chemotherapy it's like the it's like the uh it's the the cure almost kill you you know i mean yeah you're gonna live but you're not gonna like it you know i mean it's like i am huh when i when i went through it i was really stressed out about her situation i don't think she's as she might just have her head in the sand and in denial well she may be she may be hopeless like it can never be fixed and it can be fixed it's just going to be very harsh yeah but either she chooses this or it's going to happen for her in the form of a repo and a foreclosure so i would make that very clear to her i would rather have this be on her terms

on her timeline versus someone else's because she can't make the bills so here's the thing mom you have made a mess you know that i love you and there is a price to be paid for the mess you have made you get to choose the price Price number one is you're going to be stressed out and broke for the rest of your life. Price number two, should you choose door number two, you're going to sell your car, you're going to sell your house, and you're going to live in a one-bedroom apartment, and in three years, you're going to be debt-free. In three more years, you'll have several hundred thousand dollars, and you'll be able to retire with dignity.

Choose door number two right there is a price to be paid neither one of these are pleasant one is less pleasant than the other that's how it goes i mean that's that's the that's the, and then, you know, and then, and you go, you know what? And I'll be your biggest cheerleader. I'll meet with you. I'll, you know, I, you, when you're tired, I'll come rub your feet, whatever it is, mom. I mean, you know, I'm going to be, I'm going to be cheering you on. I'm going to be helping you with your budget. I'm going to be holding you accountable.

I'm going to be here for you to whine to when you're tired because all you do is work overtime. But you have made a mess, and there's only one way out. Right. And you had about half the debt she had, so you should be a source of inspiration to her. Absolutely. If my daughter can do it at her age, I can do it. But what do you make? That's why she reached out to me for help.

Yeah, what do you make you reached out to me for help yeah what do you make me um i i'm not working right now i'm a physical therapist i'm pregnant um so taking but i mean what kind of income did you have to pay off 168 grand oh um it varied we had i think combined one year we had 100k um then it dropped to 50 you know and she's making 150 and she can pick up more yeah yeah she can do this yeah to the extent she has the physical stamina to work all the time she can do this really quickly compared to the trap that she's stuck in but so what you've got to pierce through is this hopelessness of i'm stuck no you're not stuck you are making a choice to stay stuck or you're stuck one of the two but you're not you're not this is not unfixable mom the only thing that might be unfixable is your choices yeah and so i'll walk with you this is hard we're gonna we're gonna the water's gonna be cold but we're gonna

jump in together here we go so for her to sell the car does she need a personal loan in order to cover the difference yeah you know five thousand bucks and get a four thousand dollar car so she needs nine thousand bucks or something like that but she makes nine thousand bucks a month and she could make another nine almost in overtime if she went crazy but she sits at home and watch net and binge flick or binge watches yellowstone and worries about her money go to work the beauty she has a fabulous degree she's so stinking employable it's unbelievable how many people will hire her as a side hustle in her field what city is she in um she's about an hour from boston i can't remember the name of the city oh there's 5,000

places she can go with this. I've got, my entire family are nurse practitioners in Boston, so I can tell you the confidence. No way. Yes. And so I'm telling you, they make very good money over there. And they can make more. Anytime they want. Some of the best healthcare in the country is over there, and so I would encourage her to take advantage of this

income, get more of it, and live on as little as she can. So, you know, the story is mom, there's a price to be paid. Choose door number two, please. And I'll walk with you. It's going to be hard, but it's going to be worth it. You're going to be glad you did it. And you're not hopeless. There's only hopeless people, not there's no hopeless situations. Wow. That puts us out of the Ramsey show in 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. Take care.