The Ramsey Show - App - Don’t Become a Victim of Your Circumstances

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Welcome to the Ramsey Show America. This is where we coach you to win in your life. We want you to win with your money, win in your profession, and win with your relationships. The phone number to jump in today is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Alongside George Camel, who's looking natty and just looking sharp, man. Thank you. The apparel today, the corduroy coat.

Well, we got a big event tonight, Ken, so I had to pull out all the stops. That's right. Our live stream tonight, it's in the lobby right now. Rehearsals are happening as we speak. I hope everyone listening joins us. Oh, I like that too. If you're listening to the show right now, you have no excuse not to join us. It's free. Go to RamseySolutions.com

slash live stream and you'll be entered to win some cash. What if they have plans tonight? Well, they can always re-watch it, but if we sign up, we'll send you all the info. We'll get the email to you, the replay, all that good stuff, and you'll be entered to win. That's what I want to make sure of is that they can be a part of that. I'm Ken Coleman, by the way, and we're here together for you today. George will lead out on those money calls, and I want to help you on the income side of things, and we'll work together.

So let's get to it. George, you ready to go? I'm pumped. All right. Portland, Oregon is where we're going to start. Charles is there. Charles, how can we help? Hey, guys. Thank you so much for taking my call. You bet. What's going on?

Hey, so I'm about 10 months away from graduating college. I want to become a state trooper immediately after I graduate, and this would require that I move. The state would have the final say of where I would have to move. And my girlfriend, who really likes her job, I'm trying to get her on the same page. You guys have any advice? Where is she right now? I get the same page thing, but what's the actual conversation,

the latest status to her emotion, her openness? Give us a better picture. Yeah. So we live together. Uh, she's super, super supportive of the idea of becoming a state trooper. Um, but again, she really likes her job. So leaving, uh, our town that we live in is, uh, she's not excited about it, but I think she is willing to do it for about two years. Oh, she gave you an ultimatum, two years. That's how long the state would require that I stay in one spot. Aha.

And then after two years, would you have the flexibility or the freedom to say, all right, we want to move back to the town you're in now? Yes, sir. Yeah, that's how, yeah, you can request your transfer after two years. Well, listen, I've been married almost 27 years. Based on what I'm hearing, it feels like she is on the same page. She's not thrilled about it, but she's willing. And I think that willingness, she gets to determine willing, you know, and it sounds like she is unless I'm missing something. Yeah, I think you're totally right. So then take it.

So it's almost like you needed some confidence today. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, listen, the more you waver with her willingness, it could affect her willingness. And so in this situation, the fact that you're a young couple, you're engaged to be married, you guys are playing house already, have you proposed yet? I have not proposed, but it's in the works.

I must have seen the works. I just assumed that. Thank you, George, for correcting that. But I just think the fact that she said, all right, I'm willing to do it for the two years. She's not thrilled about it. This is a sacrifice that couples have to learn to make. And I would tell you there will be a season or two or three, who knows how many seasons, that you're going to have to sacrifice for her as well.

So this is a good woman on the surface here that she's willing to do this because she really likes what she does. And to the extent that you can be supportive of her and help her figure out, how can I do something that's very similar to the work that I love right now in this new town? That would be great too. But George, I would not waffle on her willingness. I would say, okay, thank you, sweetheart. Let's go. Two years from now, we come back. What do you think? I'm in for this plan. I'm just, I'm wondering, does she need you financially? Are you supporting her in any way or are your finances completely separate? Yeah. So right now my, uh, we live together in an apartment and, uh, she works full time and, uh, I, um, I'm getting supported by a 529 plan because I am a student. Okay. So you need her more than she needs you. She has money. Okay. I'm just wondering,

you know, how far away is this new town you'd be moving to? Is it 45 minutes or five hours? It totally depends on what the state says. I haven't gone through the process yet. Okay. There's a lot of unknowns. So what I would do is say, hey, I don't know where I'm going to end up. What are you thinking when this does happen? Are you going to live on your own and stay here for a while for a season? And we try that out.

And if it becomes too, you know, unbearable, then you can move closer. Or do you want to wait it out till I'm stationed, you know, planted somewhere, and then we figure it out. I don't know that I drag her with the ultimatum of you're either coming with me or it's over, you know, to this new phase, because who knows what's going to happen? You know, I've, you know, we hear the stories of people who move for a significant other they're not married to and things don't work out and now there's extra resentment because she moved for your job that didn't pan out and now it affected her career and her life but i don't sense that i don't sense that that's happening because he's calling us he already has the green light from her to say sure i'll go am i right it's a reluctant I'll go. I think Charles is a little bit scared. Should I do this?

Is that right, Charles? Yes, sir. I love her very much, and I really want her to be very happy. Well, the fact is she's a good woman, and you're a good dude. The reason that you're thinking through this is because you really do have a sense of the compromise that she's making. And I think George is right. I think you guys as a couple need to figure out what our future is. You need to put a ring on her finger

soon, and you guys need to start playing this out. What does this look like? What kind of money does she need to make? What's the job market look? She's got a head start on this. So the fact that we have a general idea of what she loves helps. What we don't know is your location. And when will you know that? Before I start the academy. So I'll graduate with my bachelor's in about 10 months. And then I'll be working on the application process in my last quarter. So she has about, so I'm trying to figure out what her, about a year lead time on this. How much lead time will she have when you can say to her, hey, we're moving to this town? So, yeah, I'll know before the academy, and the academy is about 16 weeks. Okay.

So, you know, it's not a six-month lead time, but it's enough time to do some work and figure this out. And I think that you guys got to start this marriage with this, hey, we are going to bend together so that we don't break. And she's showing a willingness to bend. And so you want to help her get back into the work that she loves, return that favor. And I think if you do this with a lot of sensitivity, but also with confidence, then I think you guys will be okay. Sensitive confidence. That's how I've always thought about you, Ken. I like it.

Well, I'm trying to get to the sensitive part. I'm working on it, George. Yeah. Well, you know, I don't want to get hokey. There's an element of, hey, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. If you live apart for six months, you're going to survive. And so if it's 40 minutes away, she doesn't need to uproot her whole life and job for this for a season.

That's kind of where I'm going. I agree, but they may be married. So if they're married, she's coming with them. I'd hope so. I think within these 10 months, let's figure out a plan. Let's put a ring on. I'm expecting him to put a ring on her finger. And at this point, we're moving together and starting the life off that way. But anyway, appreciate the call, Charles. I think you're a good young man and appreciate the fact that you want to serve your state. Yeah, and if I ever get pulled over in the Oregon area, I hope Charles is there. I hope so, too.

Don't give me a ticket. Sir, if I need a chance, is your name Charles? Yeah, I like that. All right, quick break here on The Ranger Show. We'll be right back. Rachel, do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like, hey, you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you didn't order? Yes, I have, George. Sketchy and never trust them.

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hours of time. It's incredible. Absolutely amazing. And Winston and I now get fewer texts, weird emails, spam calls, all of it. I love it. So you got to be sure to check them out. Ramsey fans get 20% off their annual plans. Just go to joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. That comes out to less than nine bucks a month. Super affordable. It's amazing. So again, that's joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. Make sure to check it out, you guys. Welcome back to the Ramsey show alongside George Camel. I'm Ken Coleman. Excited that you all are joining us today. 888-825-5225. Let's get back to the phones. Timothy is joining us in Erie, Pennsylvania. Timothy, how can we help?

Hi, Ken. How George? How are you guys? We're having a blast Pennsylvania. Timothy, how can we help? Hi, Ken. How, George? How are you guys? We're having a blast today. What's going on with you? Great, man. Well, I appreciate everything you guys do. I've been phoning you since I was 18.

I just turned 19. That's a long ago. So I'm freaking out right now. Uh-oh. What are you freaking out about? Everybody likes to share a little bit of details of, you know, their input on life and everything that's going on. And I'm really, really, really trying to get, like, you know, a place to live. I'm going to be proposing to my girl soon.

So I'm trying to figure out whether I'm renting or buying. I'd really like to buy, but I'm trying to follow you guys as much as I can. And, like, I don't want to have a credit score or a credit card, but I've called two places, and they've given me two different answers. I've tried with Churchill, and there's just a lot going on, so some advice would be great. Yeah, my guess is you get some cooks in the kitchen that are on the family side and friend side weighing in as well is my guess? Yeah. Okay.

What is the urgency to buy a house now at 19 yeah yeah like i said um i'm proposing to my girl soon so um that's uh the main one i mean i have i have like a year to figure this all out but i'm just trying to figure out is there a law in pennsylvania that says you can't rent if you're married? No, there's no law. No, no. I just don't know. Like, I want to be putting as much as I can into savings, right? So I don't know if I should be, how long I should be renting for if I should.

Like, I know I'm okay to do that, but. Let me free you. There's no timeline for this. The right time to buy a house is when you're financially ready. If that's at 19, you're crushing it. If that's at 25, you're crushing it. And so I just want to free you from this idea that this has to happen now, and I've got to propose in the next two months, then I have to buy a house five months later. I can feel that on you of just the aggression toward your goals. And I want to redirect that towards a healthier approach.

Yeah. And Timothy, just full disclosure, my wife and I spent three years in an apartment, one in one city, two in another city before we bought. And it was because of what George said. We were renting until we were able to buy a home. So tell us about your financial situation. Sounds like you're debt-free. Yeah, yeah. I'm debt-free. I'm working for an amazing company that they'll pay for me to go to school if I want to. I'm going to pursue a career in like home adjusting and they'll pay for me to do that too. Great. What's your income? Income right now is about like $35,000. I work two jobs. I work at a restaurant. Okay. And how much do you have in savings? Savings right now, I have about 15

grand in my regular savings fund. And then I have four grand in retirement and a couple thousand in my emergency fund. Okay. What's the 15 for? Is that for a ring or other stuff? No, that's just for the house. I actually have a fund for a ring. Okay. But you don't have a fully funded emergency fund. We got this twisted. We got to get the emergency fund first, then we can start saving for the house. Okay.

So how much would a three to six months... Yeah, what's three to six months of expenses for you? Right now, I know it's lower, but I mean, right now, it's about like a thousand and some change a month. Okay. Well, let's pretend like we're in the real world. You got rent to pay.

You got bills. As you move into this next phase, let's call it 15 grand as your emergency fund, and you have four grand for your down payment. Is that more fair? Sure. We could do that. And we also need to buy a ring for this lovely lady, right? Right. But he says he's got a ring for this lovely lady, right? Right.

But he says he's got a ring fund. How much is in that? Yeah. Yeah, I've been saving up for that one for a while. I have about like $3,000 ready for that. Perfect. That's all ready to go. You're crushing it.

Okay. So if I was in your shoes, and I've been in your shoes, here's what I would do. I would pause and I would rent. Maybe it's for a year. Maybe you renew for two years and you stack up a nice big down payment as you get to be married and experience all of that joy and chaos because it's going to be a wild ride. So to add on home ownership on top of that, that's a lot at your age. But I love where you're going with it. And I also know you don't have a credit score because you're debt free. And you're saying, are you worried about not being able to buy a house because of that? Yeah, I'm terrified. I like they, there's, you know, I mean, I keep hearing

stuff. Like people keep telling me like higher interest rates for, you know, even though I can do manual underwriting, but then they'll be like, yeah, I expect higher interest rates. Okay. Can I ask you this? Have any of them actually done it? No. Okay. Can I tell you this? I've actually done it. So would you trust my experience over theirs?

Georgia, I trust you any day. That means the world. Yeah. So let me tell you this. There are a few hoops to jump through, one being verification of income. You have that for 12 to 24 months? Yeah, coming up on it. Yep. Great. You'll need rental payment history, on-time rental payments for at least 12 months. You'll have that once you've rented, right? Okay. You have a 12-month history of your bank statements and saving

statements. Your debt-to-income ratio is amazing because you don't have any. And then you have something else you're paying for, like a cell phone bill or an insurance bill regularly? Yeah, insurance. Great. That's all it takes to do manual underwriting. So anyone else who's saying otherwise has not done it. And if you call Churchill, I'm sure they told you that. They said, hey, you do need on-time rental payments. Was that the one that threw you off because you didn't have that? Yeah, yeah. And they suggested what I could do is I could, you know, pay a little bit of money. I had a track record to my mom and dad, and, like,

they could put that in the savings account for me. You could pay your parents $400 a month for 12 months, and that could count. Yeah. And so just rest assured it's not as scary as you think. The rates aren't going to be astronomically higher. I've done it myself. I had a great rate when I did this back in 2019. It was a very easy process. Churchill makes it super easy. They'll walk you through everything you need to know. But I would not let that be the stress point. You got enough

on your plate right now. I would continue saving. I'd propose, get married, pay cash for the wedding, rent for a year or two, and then you guys will have a fat stack of money and you'll be able to do it from a place of strength and the key there timothy is what george just laid out for you the time it's going to take to save up the down payment the right kind of down payment uh you're going to have all of those qualifications taken care of so deep breath exhale and and and don't listen to all the voices that want to throw an opinion at you. George just gave you the absolute truth. There is no other opinion you need to be considering. Period.

Okay. You got it? Yeah. Would you recommend what they were saying with living at home for a little bit and then giving them money? Or would you say get on my own? I mean, you have a salary. I'd say it's healthy and independent for you to get on your own. If you want to stay home until you have the next step of proposal or engagement, that's totally fine. But I would start making payments to your parents just so that you're not caught

off guard, you know, come six months from now. But I do think it's going to take more time to get a down payment, you know, 15 grand is not going to cut it in today's housing market. And so we've got tons of resources for you, Timothy. Log on to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate. We have an entire home hub for you there. And I'll even give you Ramsey Plus, which will include my video course on how to buy a home the right way. And watch that. You can watch it with your soon-to-be fiance and go, hey, this is going to be on our radar in the next few years. I'd love to watch this and get prepared and see what you think of it. And Timothy, the only thing I'd add is I don't want you to take some of this nervous energy and let's put it into making more money. You're working two

jobs and pulling down 35,000. I want to see that change. You need to be, you need to be getting more money for your time. And so put all that energy into increasing your income right now. You have everything else under control and that focus on making more money will help with your nerves. George gave you a lot of clarity and the clarity that George gave you should give you confidence now, right? So we want confident Timothy going out there. He's got a plan and let's go make more money because more money allows us to advance the plan quicker. That'll increase your savings rate. That's right.

Help you get that down payment faster. That's right. So it's a great call, Timothy. Thank you for that question. You're far beyond most Americans at 19, so I want to encourage him there. And to that, the interest rate question. My interest rate, I actually ran the numbers with the folks at Churchill. And they told me, if you do our plan, 15-year fixed rate loan with at least 10% down,

you will get the same rate as someone with excellent credit. So he disproved it with facts. But, you know, people don't care about facts in the face of their feelings a lot of the times. Well, it's just people don't know what they're talking about. And so that's why they come here. And George just dispels the fake news, folks. Buck the system. I'm all about it.

There it is. That's why he wrote the best-selling book, Breaking Free from Broke. Go get it. Listen to the man. He's wearing corduroy. That's credibility. That's all you need to know. It's all the credibility you need.

All right, quick break. More of The Ramsey Show coming right up. 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. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely. Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment will be a consistent, manageable part of your monthly budget. Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest expense. Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards turning you into a baby steps millionaire. So get started on the American dream of home ownership

today at churchhillmortgage.com. That's churchhillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show alongside George Campbell. I'm Ken Coleman. The phone number is 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225. What are your money questions? You need to know what to do with it. You need to make more of it.

Well, you got the duo today. We want to help you make more money and keep it. Let's go to New York City where Rob joins us. Rob, how can we help today? Hey guys, appreciate you taking my call. I guess I've got kind of like a decent problem to have, but it's kind of a problem nonetheless. I think I've kind of been, I'm 25, I've saved about like 200 grand. I don't know what for, and i'm making about like 120 a year um but i kind of like i kind of like live like a rat because i don't need too much like every time i

move i get a place with a cheaper rent and then i've gotten promoted every year i've been there and i make more money but for me it's kind of like i've been very removed from the present i feel like i i don't know why I'm saving the money. I'm kind of from out in the sticks. I don't really like New York City. I like fishing and eating wild plants and stuff. I kind of don't have much reason to be in New York. But it's like a really good job.

But I'm not present. Rob, I feel you. i'm so glad you called today i i feel like i walked into the studio today in large part to get to talk to you um man this is first of all kudos uh the first half of your description of you george is like you're the poster child for george but then you start talking about eating wild plants and fishing, and then you lost him. But the fact that you've saved $200,000 at 25, George, you haven't let lifestyle creep crush you. I love that. You've stayed a very sane person. That's right. And you're self-aware enough at 25 to go, this ain't it. Most people, Rob, it takes 20, 30 years of a career to finally admit that. So I'm proud of you. So Rob, you're a young guy. You may never have heard this phrase

before, but I'm going to introduce it to you because I think it's a great metaphor for where you are. There's an old phrase called the golden handcuffs. And it's referring to somebody who had been in a company for a long time. They make good money. They got great benefits, strong retirement, and they don't want to be there, but they feel the golden handcuffs because it's good money. And there's an emotional handcuff there that says, if I were to leave this, it would be foolish. Those who don't have what I have would think that I'm crazy. And I think you're experiencing that rarely enough at the age of 25. Does that feel right to you? Yeah, exactly. And like you guys also mentioned

the term lifestyle creep, but for me, it's kind of like, maybe I've, maybe, maybe that should happen. I can be like a little bit more present. I think you should probably enjoy life a little bit more. Um, and, but the good news is George is on today and George can speak to that because I am in a fun way. I play with you a little bit on this because George does very well, but he really is the most frugal person and he will say things sometimes in conversation. We sit right next to each other and he will say things sometimes where I literally look at you and I go, bro, like you've earned it. Live a little bit. So I want you to speak to that mindset in a minute.

But I want to first focus on this biggest issue. Rob, you don't need Georgianized permission today. But I think you need to hear us say it is okay for you to leave New York in a really good paying job to go do something somewhere else that is more in line with the way you want to live. And you can still make that 120K and more. And I think just acknowledging that, I hope will set you free today. That doesn't mean you leave today and it doesn't mean you walk in and resign and just go, we, but if there's anybody who could, you could, because you got $200,000 in the bank. That's financial peace right there.

And so my question is, is what's the work that you're doing? What field are you in? So I work in like financial services. I work in risk management at one of like the brokers in the city. Very, very prestigious is my guess. Yeah. And that's like another thing. It's like, you know, that probably attracted me to it. And I prestigious is my guess. Yeah, and that's like another thing. It's like, you know, that probably attracted me to it.

And I do like my job. Like I actually, as far as jobs go, like I enjoy it. But I also kind of burn myself out. Again, I kind of like pathologize the kind of like live-to-work thing. Well, you know why? You know all that. You know why? You're trying to prove something to somebody. Probably to myself.

There you go. Hey, by the way, the voice in our head is the most damaging. The hardest person to please. Yeah. So here's what I would say in short order. You enjoy doing work in the finance field. So there are lots of ways you can do that somewhere else where you're close to fishing, where you're in an environment that you enjoy and the hobbies and

the things that you need to be healthy distractions from this voice that you're dealing with that says, I've got to prove, I've got to prove, I got to prove. And boy, you're talking to a guy who is currently in recovery from that kind of stuff. Okay? I'm as serious as I can be. I get it. I've been living my life with a chip on my shoulder because of something that happened to me when I was 14.

I relate to that. Listen, I'm in the middle of recovery. I'm being as vulnerable as I can be. I'm uncomfortable right now, James, how vulnerable I'm being. But, Rob, so what has helped me is to go, wait a second, there's this voice in my head that is constantly asking, am I good enough? So I don't know what your voice is, but I think at this stage of your life at 25, the fact that you resonated with something

that I said, and it's in your story, and I'm not going to unpack that on the air. I think you know what it is, but can I tell you, I would go get some therapy and dig on that now at 25. And I think that will be the bridge that you build mentally and emotionally that will lead you out of New York, lead you to where you need to be, and doing similar work that you're doing. And I think you'll be more fulfilled than you can ever imagine. George, I want you to weigh in on that because you also have a unique point of view, and I think you resonate with this as well. As you guys are talking, Rob, I think you've got somewhat of a flat tire. Your financial life and your career life, you're crushing it. I would

assume, prove me wrong, that relationships might be struggling, social life might be struggling, spiritual life might be struggling, and I think leaning more into those areas right now can help you realize, oh, I actually like New York. I like this job. I just needed a better community. I need to get plugged into a local church. I don't know what that is for you, but I realized that at 25, you kind of have this quarter-life crisis of like, what did I, I just followed this path that was laid before me, and here I am, and they told me it would be amazing, and it's not. That's great insight. You know, that's a great insight, Rob. Maybe it's not New York. Maybe it's just you and functioning in New York, but just for a fun exercise,

if you could snap your fingers right now and you're doing similar work and you're making similar money with a nice path to making more money, is there any place in the U.S. that you would just go, okay, if I could transplant from where I am to here, Ken, I think that would be a fun adventure to see if that was awesome. What comes to mind? So my favorite states are like Vermont and Maine. The thing is, like, I think I could go like an hour up the train line from New York and be like,

I've been up to like Tarrytown and like Sleepy Hollow up there. And it's awesome. Like it's trees and rivers, all that junk. Not junk, but all that stuff. And my concern is like, do I overdo it or underdo it? So I felt like I've been not present for like five years after college or four years or whatever. And now I'm kind of like, do I like yo-yo and like live in a van for a year and like start a YouTube channel and go fishing? No, no, here's the deal.. So, Rob, the answer is never to yo-yo. And when any of us yo-yo, we're not healthy.

And never YouTube in the RV, please. Yeah. Just keep it to yourself. You know what I think you ought to do? And I'm going to be super, super practical here, George. Please. Tell me what you think. I think you need to spend a weekend. You've got all kinds of money.

I'd like to see you rent a cabin up there in Sleepy Hollow and see if you can find Ichabod Crane while you're up there, you know, the headless horseman, the whole nine yards. Go full hatchet, full castaway for a long weekend. Yeah, go fish, go hunt, and practice this idea of being present. I think you've self-diagnosed pretty well, George. I think he knows he's not present, and I think he needs to feel something. And that's when you see, is scratching the itch enough or is this a full-time move? I need to get out of the city completely forever. That's right. And we can't decide that

for you, Rob, but I hope we've given you enough next tactical steps to get there. Yeah. Rob, listen to your heart. I'm just telling you, listen to your heart. Listen to your heart. And then engage the brain. The logic, it can move on its own, but the heart and the head must be connected on big moves like this. But I think you're a sharp young man, and I think you're going to do great things. This is The Ramsey Show. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies and there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet.

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Zander is the real deal, and that's why they've handled all my personal insurance for over 25 years. I trust them and you can too visit zander.com for instant online quotes or for a more personal touch give them a call at 800-356-4282 welcome back to the ramsey Show alongside George Camel. I'm Ken Coleman. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. Let's go to Jessica, who is joining us in Knoxville, Tennessee,

just on the other side of the state. Jessica, how can we help? How do I insulate and separate myself from my husband who has a massive spending addiction. Oh, no. Can you describe that briefly to us? Yeah, it's super easy. He spends and spends and spends.

He has had to empty his 401k three times to pay off debt that he has accrued he takes out consolidation loans without my consent he bought a car without my consent the payment for that is almost a thousand dollars a month oh my goodness and it just like it just goes and goes and goes how long has this been happening oh um years and in this entire time you have always said stop doing this i'm not in favor of this this scares me yeah yeah he has no like no concept of it have you guys been to therapy yep Yep. And? And he won't go. Well, then you haven't been.

Do you go on your own? So I've been going, and then I started doing the snowball method. So I have been spending the last five years, like, doing anything that's associated with me. And I have, like, simultaneously been paying off and saving. And I've paid off, so far, $31,751.84. I have $19,391.17 in cash saved, and I have $6,005.43 left in debt, like on credit cards. Pay off your debt today with the money you have. Okay. And do you have any debt that's in your name beyond that, or is the rest in his name only?

The rest is only in his name. Okay. So that's going to be his problem. But my fear is always the stuff that he's buying, like cars and all this stuff, because they were obtained during marriage. Am I going to get stuck with these? Your name's not on there. So you're not going to be liable for that loan. Okay.

So here's the deal. You've already separated finances. This is heading clearly towards divorce because i i can't does he does he know this sustainable i've already explained this is he in la la land like does he shut down when you bring any of this up yes okay he thinks that because he is the breadwinner and he makes all the money and because i'm on disability that he should be able to spend whatever he wants whenever he wants and i so he doesn't understand that his decisions affect you financially emotionally maritally okay yeah he's made that very clear on where he stands and he's and he's not he's not participating therapy. So I think we've got some real clear gates that you have walked through here,

and I think certainly separation is of order here to see if there's a wake-up call. And that's why I've gone through therapy. Like, I've been doing therapy. So, like, that's not – this is not like I need to go to therapy. I need to, like – Oh, no, I'm sorry. You're right. I think, yeah.

But when I asked that question, I was talking about you two as a couple to see if we've actually fought for this. Yeah. And you can't do it for him. I know. You can't do it for him. Right. And it's to the, you know, that whole you can lead a horse to water. Can't make him drink.

So we're past that part. So I've just been trying to figure out like how do i separate and insulate myself from that and then with what i have saved and what i have like investment wise like in theory i know that a judge or whatever would maybe do some type of spousal support, but I know that's not guaranteed and it's not for forever. But I have an income of $1,054 a month from disability. And that's my question. Does your disability prohibit you from being able to make a steady income? I think I can make like $600 a month

or something. Why? Because you'll lose the disability payment? Disability. How much is the disability payment? Hold on a second. But you missed my question, Jessica. I'm saying, is there an end to this physical challenge that you will be able to get through through medical care? Or is this a, I'm trying to understand what you can actually do. Forget the benefit payment. Oh, no, it's permanent disability. So you are unable to work from home, do a remote job, and work 40 hours a week? Correct.

Okay. That's what I wanted to understand. So you've got a, this is George, this is a fixed and a very low fixed income. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's what I wanted to understand. So you've got a, this is George, this is a fixed and a very low fixed income. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Like I've had five separate spine surgeries, like just that part of me. I'm so sorry. I'm a mess. So sorry, Jessica. And I've accepted that. I wish I could, you know, have my rose colored glasses on and tell you the three steps to solving all of this. I can't change people. I don't have a magic wand. And so if you've made it very clear of, hey, this is what it's going to take for this marriage to work, and he's unable to fulfill that, I would be talking to an attorney

and figuring out how do I at least protect myself? How do I begin a phase of separation so that you don't get dragged down with him? And I would say, Jessica, George told you, I hope you caught it. Pay off the debt today, your debt. Go ahead and do that. I know that cash is very attractive sitting in that savings account, but one of the best things you can do to protect yourself on a very low fixed income is to have no debt. So I'm glad she has that, right, George? Yeah.

That's what we want. Saving grace. Quickly. Get that out now before your brain talks you out of it. Reduces your expenses so that you're going to be able to hopefully survive off of your fixed income, even if there isn't spousal support. That's where I would go sit down and make a budget for yourself based on, here's what my expenses would be if I was doing this on my own.

Yeah, man. So sorry. That's a tough, tough call. Today's question of the day is brought to you by WhyRefi. WhyRefi refinances defaulted private student loans. Defaulted means when the borrower can't make the required payments. So if that's you and your private student loan, contact Y-Refi. They can offer a low fixed rate loan built for you.

Go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey today. That's the letter Y. R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. It may not be available in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Camilla in Hawaii. My husband and I are on baby steps four and six. We have no kids. He's in the military and I'm a lawyer. Our gross annual income is $250,000 and we have no debts except our mortgage of $350. We have a fully funded emergency fund and we invest 15% of our income and we still have $3,000 left over at the end of every month. Is it a mistake to put all the extra money towards paying off the house early? I'm wondering if we should be investing a portion of it and taking a more balanced approach. Now that's a fun question of the day, isn't it? Really fun. So here's the deal. Do you have to throw every single penny at

the house? No. Baby steps four and six, you're moving from intensity to intentionality. I'm a nerd. I might be throwing all of it towards the house. Oh, it's a no question. If that's you, every dime is going. But you also might want to go, we haven't taken a vacation in five years. We should probably save up for that. So what I would do is set up sinking funds for things that you actually enjoy, like a vacation, or hey, it's really time to upgrade that car. We're in four and six. We make 250 grand. We don't have any debt with the mortgage. Let's enjoy life and upgrade a little bit with a reasonable approach. And that's where the sinking funds in the budget and planning for that fund money help me let loose of the reins of I got to pay all, every penny should be going towards this. You don't need to live like you're on fire because nothing's on fire here. But I would set a goal and say, hey, if we put a grand extra on the mortgage, we'll be done with this five years early. Let's make that a goal. The extra two grand, let's put towards these other things for now. And you can always change it as you enter different seasons of life. A quick follow-up question for new folks that are joining

us all the time. We have so many people joining us all the time that are new to the show, George. When you say sinking funds, are those separate savings accounts or is it all just clearly earmarked in one savings account? I like to set them up separately. So there's a car savings account and we're going to put 500 bucks a month into that account. That helps delineate it so you don't go, oh, there's a big pile of money for Lord knows what. That's where it gets dangerous. And you don't have to have an Excel spreadsheet for that when you've got the separate account.

Nope. And you can set it up in your every dollar budget. I love throwing George the questions like that. I try to get in the mind of the people. One of the people. One of these days you're going to catch me, Coleman. I don't think so. I think you're too smart. All right, fun hour.

This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Camel is alongside, and we are here to help you win with your money, win in your profession, and win in your relationships. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. 888-825-5225. Chris is going to start us off in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Chris, how can we help? Hi. Thanks for having me on the show. So recently my in-laws have moved back in with us for a second time. They've made plenty of poor financial decisions and, you know, again, wound themselves back up living with us again as of the beginning of this month. And we're kind of trying to figure out what we can do to, you know, we tried helping them and they don't really want our help. What was the attempt? Describe the attempt to help. Yeah. So without providing any financial, you know, help to them, we offered to sit down and

help them with the budget. My wife and I have taken the financial peace courses. We're trying to, they did actually say they're going to attend it with me as we are going to re-attend it again. So they're interested in it. We'll see if it happens. I'm in school for finances, so I feel like I'm pretty decent at making a budget. So I'm trying to help them with that. And they shut us down immediately and get pretty upset with us. Why did they shut down?

I think it's just they, you know, they've struggled with it for so long and they don't feel like they need the help and they can figure it out on their own. Well, then have them move out. Why are you enabling them? You're right. If they can do it on their own, say, hey, we've been happy to help. Sounds like you guys have it figured out. Best of luck out there.

Sometimes that's the best thing you can do for someone, even though it feels harsh in the moment. I agree. And Chris, I have a question. Did they ask to stay with you or did your wife offer? They kind of assumed at first, and then my wife finally did offer, but under temporary circumstances of, you know, Hey, we can, we can help you for like a month, get you situated, get you going. Um, so we're still, we're coming up at the end of that month. It doesn't seem like they're going to get out. Um, they recently refinanced a payday loan,

refinance their car. Um. Are they both working? My father-in-law works, and his take-home comes out to about $60,000 a year. And so is the mother-in-law able to work? Does she have a past work history? She is able to work, yes. But she's just not. She's just putzing around the house. So it sounds like there really were no conditions of them living here,

other than, hey, let's aim for a month. Yeah. I would have a lot of strings attached. When this happened last time, how long did they stay? And was there a same kind of a deal? This is a certain amount of time, or was that not the case? Right. So when they moved last time, they kind of followed us when we relocated across the state because they wanted to be closer to grandkids. They had a house. They couldn't make payments on it and move at the same time, so they decided just to let it foreclose and moved in for a couple months so they could find a new place here after their foreclosure of their house. If you said to your wife today, hey, babe, I think I need to be the man of their house. If you said to your wife today, Hey babe, um, I think I need to be

the man of the house. I know they're your parents, but this is, I'm the man of the house here. And to a lot of people that may sound archaic, but I'm going to stick with it, George. And you said to her, I'd like to have a respectful conversation, but say, Hey, the month is coming up. We agreed to a month and we think that you guys need to move out. It's best for everybody. And we can't, we've tried to help. You've met it with resistance and I'm enabling you. Some form of that speech in Chris's words, if you suggested that to her, how would she react? Obviously, I think she would be upset in the fact that it's her parents. She doesn't want to just throw them out, but she has come to understand that we're enabling them by doing this.

They're not willing to accept our help, even if they were to stay longer, but allow us to help them with a budget so they can get going in the right direction, it wouldn't be as bad. But the fact that they won't even allow us to help. I definitely think she would understand that. All right. But my point in asking that was if she's not comfortable with you doing it, is she comfortable doing it? And we brought that up and she's getting a lot more comfortable with it. That's what I would do. I'd let her lead, but I would keep saying, babe, I'm here to support. You got to have this conversation. If you're not comfortable, I'll be the bad guy. But you've got to kind of, you've really got to keep that thing

going. You cannot, because it's going to end up affecting your relationship. It probably already has. And so she needs to be leading this. It's her parents. And so for the son-in-law to get involved, it's just too sticky. Unless she's not willing. That's why I threw that out there. It sounds like she knows they're not going to care what she has to say. And so that can be a conversation you guys have together, the four of you, and say, hey, we love you guys. We want to help you get back on track. Here's what it's going to take. Here's the conditions. We want you to be financially independent. You're going to start paying rent. We're going to show you how to budget. You're going to take FPU.

And we're going to help you get out of this thing, but it's not going to be by bailing you out financially. It's by showing you the steps. You've got to be willing to do the work. Otherwise this situation can't work. I think it's not already. Sorry, George, interrupt. I apologize. I, I think that thanks. I want to point this out and tell me if you disagree. Uh, cause I want Chris to hear this. I think his wife needs to hear this. I don't see a scenario where this doesn't really ruffle their feathers. It sounds like the parents are like, look, leave us alone. We'll figure it out on our own. Obviously, they don't know how to, and they're not interested in leaving anytime soon. And there is a sense of entitlement.

This is now not an entitled, spoiled teenager. These are entitled adults. That's scarier. Who aren't mature in their finances, and they are leveraging their parental position over their daughter. And I don't see how this goes well. Well, it's unfair. It's manipulative. It's immature. My point is that I think this is a rip the Band- bandaid off. Respectfully, I don't mean like, you know, slash and burn, but I don't see how this goes well at all other than it frees up Chris and his wife and creates a boundary that needs to be in place.

Do you agree with that? Absolutely. I don't think they should be living with him. I understand you guys tried it. You tried to help them once. I think at this point, he makes good money. He can figure it out rent. He's going to have to figure out these payday loans and you can always be there to support with resources and say, hey, show up to this course with me, show up to this course. But intermingling them with your personal life in your own house, I think that's not going to work anymore yeah and you know what's interesting

too uh george what i heard i appreciate that chris and his wife wanted to help him do a budget but you know what showing somebody how to do a budget is not enough if they don't want to do it no amount of instruction or yeah they're not experiencing enough pain right now because they're living rent free but when you need a roof over your head, mama's going to work. She has no option. Oh, yeah. What is she doing? And so I don't think this is going to lead to them actually living on the streets.

It's just going to lead to them saying, all right, we got to figure this out. And asking your kids to bail you out is just a gross injustice to me. You know, I was just sitting here thinking, because I have 19-year-old to 16-year-olds. I don't want my kids coming back to live with me. I love my kids. I'm brokenhearted with my oldest at college for the first time, right? But at the same time, it's natural. It's normal.

And I don't want him to come back and live with me. The only thing worse than your kids coming back to live with you are your parents. Can you imagine if you and Stacy... Unless it's a health situation and you're their caregiver. That's the asterisk. And generationally and different cultures that are going to come at us, Ken, is to go, you don't understand.

I get it. But this is a very different situation. That's what I'm talking about. Enabling misbehavior versus living generationally with grandma. Thank you for clarifying that. You bailed me out from all the hate. What I'm saying is if your parents come back to live with you because they can't support themselves financially because of their irresponsibility, that's what I'm saying. Oh, wow. Not easy stuff. Tough stuff, Chris.

But you and your wife, you got the right instincts. Follow them. This is The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should too.

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Camel. I'm Ken Coleman. So excited you're with us. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. Let's go to Des Moines, Iowa. Monica is there. Monica, how can we help today? Hello. Thank you for taking my call today. You bet. I am just extremely worried and hope that you can help me break down what I currently have in retirement to maybe give me some peace of mind that at the age of 67, I may be able to retire frugally.

How old are you now? I'm 56. I'll be 57 in April. Okay. Give us the numbers. George has got his handy calculator ready to crunch. Great. Great. Well, I'm going to tell you the salary that I make currently is $47,840. I currently have an IRA that has $47,702 in it, and I contribute $200 per month to that IRA. I have a CD that I locked up for 13 months at 5% interest. It currently has $36,022 in it. I have a Roth IRA in a job I started a year ago. It has $2,581 in that. I am contributing 8% and set it up for a 2% per year increase until I reach 15%. And then in my savings, I currently have $12,237. I put 20% of each check into that savings account. I do not have any debt.

I'm debt-free, but I do not own a home. I went through a divorce in 2018. It took years to pay off my debt to get to where I am now, debt-free. What would be three to six months' expenses for you? Very minimal, because I live with my significant other. He doesn't have a house payment. So I just pay utilities. We split utilities. We split groceries. So, you know, maybe $1,200 a month. Okay. So you have more than three to six months in that savings account with the $12,000. That's

what I was trying to get to. Oh, yes. Yes. So you're doing 17 things at once, Monica, and none of them are inherently bad. So let me encourage you that you're in a good spot at 57 being debt-free. You've got a little nest egg going. You've got some savings going, but we're doing like seven things. You got the CD over here. We got some savings here. We're doing a little investing here. What's the deal with increasing it from the 8%? Why not just go, I'm going to invest 15% with the Ramsey plan. I'm going to do the Roth accounts and see where I go there. I am so open to that. That's why I wanted to talk to you today.

Okay. I am completely, I live very frugally. The only thing that I spend a decent amount of money on is good organic produce and grass-fed meat. Love it. Look at you. Which means you need more in retirement because you're going to live to be 120 at this rate. an amount of money on is good organic produce and grass-fed meat. I want to stay healthy. Which means you need more in retirement because you're going to live to be 120 at this rate by eating so healthy. Monica, quick question, George, before you get to your crunching of numbers. Do we expect to marry this significant other? I would love that, but the significant

other is 60 years old and never been married, never had children. I'm working on that. We're both Christians, and I'm not feeling comfortable with the situation that we're currently in. I was going to say. Living and we're not married. Not sure what church is good with that situation, Monica. Correct. No judgment here.

So working on that. I love that you're working on it. She's working on it. She's working on it. She's working on a lot of things, Ken. A lot of irons in the fire here. But see, that changes the equation a little bit, George. I wanted you to have that information. That's good to know, because you don't have a mortgage, and you may not ever.

What's his income? He is $100,000 a year, but he retires next July. What kind of nest egg does he have? I think he said he'll be able to, with what he has in his pension and retirement, he'll retire with like $50,000 or $60,000 a year. So it's not a ton. Yeah. Okay. All right, George, take it away. You guys have separate finances? Correct. Okay.

So I'm going to pretend like this is Monica's situation through retirement, is that she's doing this on her own. Okay? Yeah. So I crunched your current numbers. Here's what I found out. You got 50 grand in retirement accounts. Let's say from 57 to 67, you invest 15%.

You never get a raise. It's about $ bucks a month, right? Of your $48,000 salary. And assuming a 10% rate of return, you'd have 258,000. Now, that's great. That's not enough for me to retire on. I don't know about you. I'd want a bigger nest egg. So what does that tell us? We need to A, get our income up and savings rate up, and B, we might need to work longer than expected. Okay. If our body allows us.

So you might need to do both of those things, and I would recommend it. Because if we can get your income up, get your investing rate up, have you work a little bit longer, now we can go, okay, we might retire with half a million. The other piece of this equation is you're going to have to pay rent the rest of your life if we don't get into a house with a fixed expense. And so that's the part that worries me here. I hope you guys are together a long time. I hope you get married because that changes this equation completely. But this idea of you sort of just not having anything, not

building towards something at your age, it gives me some pause. Yes. Have you had this conversation with him that just how you feel about your own finances? Yes. How does he react? And I'm going to tell you, to be honest with you, I have so much anxiety over this that it's been a year that I can barely sleep because it takes the enjoyment out of my life because of this constant fear and worry.

Now, I know none of us know about tomorrow, but you still have to have a plan. Yeah, well, and George is addressing that plan. So when George hits you with that, what is your reaction that you can do tangibly when it comes to income, saving more? What immediately comes to mind? Because you've got to stop worrying and start getting busy. Part of this challenge is you didn't have a clear vision of what you need to do. George just gave it to you. But now the second thing is, is we start getting busy. And the busier I am attacking something that is a potential problem, the less I'm worried about it. Do you resonate with that? Yes, I do. Okay, so what can

you do tactically coming out of what George just told you? Well, first and foremost, immediately I can increase my Roth to 15%. Good. Maybe get a second job. Good. Or look for another job with a higher salary. Yeah, can you make $60,000, $70,000 in your field doing something similar with your experience? I have a pretty decent amount in Social Security right now, which probably won't be there. But for years, I made six figures. It's just the rigorous travel in the sales that I was in. I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I was on the road, you know,

four nights a week. Who told you there's no sales roles that you could do without traveling all the time? No one. I get it. You downshifted i i get the downshift but hey you downshifted now you're on the other side of this and you got a lot of experience my guess is your resume is very impressive yes let's go get it monica you can sell you are a six-figure earner let's go you want to attack this worry and sleep well at night? Start making some more money and putting more money away. Agreed.

Come on, Monica. Do not let this fear happen to you. You need to happen to it. Let me tell you something I've learned. I've had the privilege at ramsey solutions not counting the ramsey show but on the ken coleman show george i've coached over 10 000 people and they're trying to make more money or experience more meaning and work and monica here's what i want you to hear there's a formula that i've learned because people call me and they're

paralyzed do i take this job do i stretch out to this do i get a degree you know they're trying to figure out what do i do to make my life better through my work. And here's what I've learned, George. You've heard me say this. And Monica, I want you to catch this. Clarity always breeds confidence. And confidence breeds courage. And I think that's what you need today. And George just gave you tremendous clarity. And you got it. You repeated back exactly what we would want. And George just gave you tremendous clarity. And you got it. You repeated back exactly what we would want you to do. There's your clarity. Let that clarity, that action plan that you laid out for us so clearly,

let that be the thing that you focus on. And watch what happens, George. Your confidence is going to go up. And then the confidence gives you that courage to keep going, keep trying, get a new gig here. The income then goes up along with confidence. There we go. Savings rate goes up. The nest egg will start to grow.

And you might need to work until you're 72. And I hope you're able-bodied with all those organic foods that, you know, you're still very limber. Monica's eating clean. She can work. We can learn a thing or two from Monica. Monica's eating clean. She can work. We can learn a thing or two from Monica. Hey, Monica, hang on the line. Jump on ramsaysolutions.com slash guide. We've got a free investing guide.

It's going to walk you through this. Oh, I love it. Much more detail. Anyone can go get it. ramsaysolutions.com slash guide. Monica, you're going to be okay. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. I'm not a fan of the big banks, and you probably already know which

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I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me, and we're thrilled you're with us, 888-825-5225. So this is fun. We get to do this every once in a while. We got John on the line, George, and John is from the Miami area and he's 46 and he's single. That's what I know. And John reached out to us and he said, I need some help with my budget. And we love this. So we're going to go through the numbers we got i mean the budget man right next to me that's like cracking my fingers i'm ready to go i love it

the people heard you crack the knuckles that was real life no sound effects so this is real so i've plugged it into our budgeting app every dollar so these are john's real numbers here and we're gonna see what his situation we're gonna walk through it right now all right let's go john are you there yeah hi guys how are you well we go. John, are you there? Yeah. Hi, guys. How are you? Well, we're great, man. How are you feeling about this live on-air budgetectomy? Well, I'm happy to be on the show.

I recently started to watch some YouTube videos, and I came to explore your show. And I thought to myself, why don't I reach out to you guys and see what's my options? Am I completely bankrupt, or am I going to be able to get out of this? And if there is a way, maybe you can show me. I got good news, John. I don't know what the bad news is going to be. George is going to let you know shortly. The good news is you can get out of this, and boy, oh, boy, do you have the man to help you.

He's wearing corduroy today, so he's got a little extra credibility and confidence. All right, George, take it away. Let's do this. Every dollar. So, John, I've got your numbers here, and confidence. All right, George, take it away. Let's do this. Every dollar. So, John, I've got your numbers here, and I have them in every dollar. But for the people's sake listening out there watching, what is your total debt load? Combined, about $96,000 between eight cards. Wow.

All credit card debt. All credit cards. Oof. Wow. And what is your income? So I lost my job beginning of last year, which was $175K. I was able to find temporary projects with consistency, anywhere between $6,500 to $7,500 a month.

But it's only been like four months last year, and I have about two months this year, which is ending next month. So you're going to lose all of that income next month? Correct. What field are you in? I'm in operations. And you're just, what would you say is the reason why you're having a hard time finding full-time employment? I'm not sure. I don't know if it's something to do with economy. I don't know if it's something that's in my search, maybe combination.

I don't know. Are you getting opportunities and just not winning the job, or is it a lack of interviews? Lack of interviews, I would say. Okay, and when you look at the field, are there multiple opportunities that you see out there that you are qualified for and are in the range of salary that you're used to making? Not really, to be honest. It's more diluted right now. Yeah, well, that is

true. I mean, the white-collar jobs right now, we've seen a slow, slowing, what they call a softening in the job economy. So that's real. But let's go stay on the budget, but we do got to talk about income here. Go ahead, George. Well, that's the big key because your budget with every dollar is income minus expenses. So I've got it on the screen here. Our team's going to throw it up for you. And here's the deal. I'm going to assume $6,500 is coming in this month, right? So I'm going to show you an example of what it would look like to get on this money plan.

So you've got $6,500 coming in and you've got no savings? Correct. All right. And then you're not, are you paying rent or mortgage right now? I'm staying in an apartment for free for two months until end of, actually in mid of next month. Okay. So we're going to need to figure out where we're going to live and how we're going to afford that. We need income before that happens, of course. And then I see here, it says car rental $1,000. What's going on there? Well, that's only for two months, actually, for this period, just because the project is very far away and I don't have a car.

So what is your plan to get around once this project's over? Probably not having a car and just using Uber whenever I need to, which will cut it probably by half. Okay. We'll keep going here. You've got groceries, 200, restaurants, 500, correct? Correct. I think I see a spot we can cut right now. Could you just not eat out and increase your grocery budget a little bit? I mean, I could probably cut it by half. I would say some of it is also to meet some people, talk about some maybe connections about work. Can we do a cup of coffee instead of a fancy dinner?

That's great. Sure. Okay, that'll cut it down. So I'm going to cut this down to $100 for restaurants. We'll increase your groceries by $100 to make up for it, and so we'll save some money right there. Then you've got a phone, $65 a month. Correct. We could do a little better there. My friends at Telo, $25, unlimited everything. So that one, you could shave off $40 a month right there. And then the rest is all of your debt. I mean,

I'm staring at, let's see here, every dollar adds it up for me. You have over $3,500 in just minimum payments on these credit cards? Yeah, it's crazy. Oh, I need some Tums. I know. That is wild. So here's the deeper question. This is not the point of the call, but what got you here to where you ran up $100,000 in credit cards? I think it was just accumulation from like two years before.

Maybe it was like third or maybe close to 40%. And I think last year was just a lot more than that. But a guy making $175 has no need to go into credit card debt. So what was going on in your life that you were spending this money on? Well, as I said, I think it started before that. I had probably at least 35% to 40% just being irresponsible in the way of thinking money is still going to flow for a long time. So has that spending addiction ceased, or are you still adding to this credit card debt? No, the cards are maxed out, so even if I wanted to, I can't.

And you know it's bad when even the credit card companies cut you off. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Anything that we can sell? I wish. Did you purchase anything on these cards that was a physical item that you can go sell on Facebook Marketplace? No, I did not go into luxury items.

So was this experiences? Uh, it was, I had to relocate, um, to another city, another state for the project last year. Some of it was paying for accommodations. Um, it was just, yeah, I think it was just months of doing that. Okay. Um, yeah. Well, here's the deal. We need to get income in our life ASAP, and that's where Ken's advice is going to come into play here because without income, this whole plan is moot. The budget needs income in order to cover the expenses and attack the extra debt.

So here's your goal is cover your four walls. That is your priority. Before any credit card company gets paid, cover your food, utilities, shelter, transportation. Keep it all to a minimum. Okay. Okay. Beyond that, you're going to start attacking these debts from smallest to largest. So I see here your credit card number one, the balance is 2,600 bucks if I click into it. Yes. So that's going to be your first one to tackle. You're going to make minimum payments

on the rest. So you've got to make at least $3,500 of payments then anything beyond that throw toward card number one yeah once I've done I actually was paying all the smaller cards but the big cards I wasn't able to three cards already being closed by the bank okay they're in collections? I'm pretty sure that I'm already starting to get calls. Okay. So three cards already been... I called them also to let them know that, you know, after years I'm unable to make payments on two of the cards, and

I guess they already closed three accounts. Two for personal and one for business. Okay. And are you able to make all of your payments currently on the remaining cards? Yeah, just the small ones, correct. Okay. So, yeah.

So with this debt snowball, as you clear each debt, it's going to also clear up that minimum payment, which frees up more money to attack the next one. Are you getting that? Yeah. Which means once you get started on this, it feels overwhelming now. But, man, if you can get that job making $150,000 again, we can get rid of this debt. Think about it. If you can throw $50,000 at this debt per year, you're done in two years,

and we're never going into debt again. John, that's what we're talking about, a short season of sacrifice. Is this contract work remote? Right now? Yeah, the work you're doing on on these you told us you had these contracts are is that remote work it's a project that moves around um in that case they're actually here in florida so it's uh all right here's my point uh the white collar world the kind of jobs it is tightened it is a softer market so you're working really hard to replace it however you're also at

home depot or lowes's or Walmart or whatever. You are working. You've got operational experience. You've been a manager of processes. That is extremely versatile and valuable. My point is you aren't waiting for another contractor job while you're looking. You are working, working, working to knock these credit cards down. That's the key to winning on this deal.

George, tell people how they can get every dollar just like we recommended to John. We're going to send it to John as well. We're going to give you a premium for one year so it connects to your bank account, has all the paycheck planning features to help you along this process. Everyone can go download it in the App Store. All right. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. You know, I think back, George, by the way, I'm Ken Coleman, George Camel with me today here.

I think back to that last call with John as you were walking him through every dollar. You know, the theme there is, John, you've got to take control of your money. He's been very successful, but he's never really had control of his money. And by the way, you know, no judgment or shame there. We've all been there before. And the idea of taking control of your money, that thought leads to an action, George, that again, can turn anything around. And we've seen some extreme turnarounds here in our time at Ramsey Solutions and as a co-host of the Ramsey Show. And it just makes me think again tonight why tonight's live stream is so important. It's a free live stream event. We've got over 400,000 people registered to join this free event.

It's free. Live on YouTube, 7 Central, tonight. And if you're one of those people right now, you're listening to us or watching us, you're going, I've never truly taken control of my money. I really think you ought to tune in tonight, George. Absolutely. Yeah, I'll be a part of it along with Rachel Cruz. Dave and Jade will be leading off,

teaching you all the things you need to be doing to get ahead financially, to start building wealth. And then we're going to have a live Q&A where Rachel and I will join answering your questions. We're taking questions live from Zoom. We're taking questions live from email and social. And so this is your last chance to sign up if you want some life change this year, tell your friends, tell your family. Again, it's free. Sign up for the live stream at ramsaysolutions.com slash live stream. You'll

be entered to win for a chance to win for a grand. We're giving away $4,000 cash to five people, which is going to be fun. And make sure you create a free every dollar account. You'll get a bonus entry in the giveaway for doing that. We're going to be using EveryDollar in the live stream to show you practically, just like I did with John, how to find more margin, how to speed up the progress. So 7 p.m. tonight, central time. We'll see you there, RamseySolutions.com slash live stream. Now, you don't want to miss a minute of this, obviously, because every minute is planned out. But people are at home. Life happens.

And for people who love you, George, because it's a growing number. We're up to 10? It's really a large group of people. Do you have any idea about what time you're going to appear if you look at them minute by minute? I believe the first section with Dave and Jade is probably about 45 minutes. And then we're

going to do about an hour of Q&A. We really wanted to make it about what people are really experiencing. If you're going to have to get up and go to the restroom, you want to be back in your couch around 745-ish. Yeah. And here's the good news. Are you wearing the corduroy on that, too? I am. I didn't want to have to wardrobe change. I want the American people who are listening today who haven't seen this corduroy. What

did you say? I missed that. I said I don't want to have to do a wardrobe change. So I thought I'd just wear what I'm wearing. I like that. Well, it's fantastic, Jack. Thank you. All right. So you don't want to... By do a wardrobe change so i thought i'll just wear what i'm wearing i like that well it's a fantastic jack thank you all right so you don't want it by the way i'm gonna i'll have a bucket of popcorn i'm gonna must be nice to be ken coleman on his couch tonight well watching us do the heavy lifting listen i didn't i'm not starting tonight all right tonight's the night i'm not starting it's not my night so it's gonna be awesome i'll be in the pajama pants uh watching you i appreciate that a little bit of popcorn several hundred thousands and it's gonna be great later on your mom and dad are gonna be very proud

my mom has always texted me during these saying you need to smile more mike thanks mom very helpful feedback you know i don't like your attitude exactly i think your mom's probably right she's right well you know you're why don't you do what your mom says you're listening to questions you're focused it's hard to smile i gotta myself. I've never noticed that about you. You strike me as a very joyful person. Thank you. Worried, but joyful. Appreciate that.

Steven is up next in Little Rock, Arkansas. Steven, how can George and I help? Can you all hear me? Loud and clear, sir. Okay. So I'm trying to get out of debt, and I lost the best paying job I ever had. I was making $100,000. What happened, and what were you doing?

I was driving a truck, and due to unforeseen circumstances, I lost my job. Okay. And so my new career, it's still driving a truck, but I got a huge pay cut. How big? Like, now I make about $35,000. And that's because that's the only trucking job available to you? I can't really go over the road. I hate saying that, but my anxiety is really bad.

Okay. All right. Do you need to find a new career field? No, this is the only thing I've ever been good at. Is what, driving? Yeah. So the question then becomes, and again, before we start talking about, you know, you don't have enough money to pay your debt, we got to figure out how we get more money. And that's why I kind of interrupted here to figure out where we are here. So I understand the anxiety.

No shame in that. Don't be embarrassed by that. That's real. But a couple things on that. Number one, that's treatable. Would you agree? Yes. I am on medicine for that. Okay.

But regardless of what you're doing to treat that, I would be looking mentally at I've got to do the hard work. If it's a chemical thing, I'm doing meds. I've got to get to a point where I can get back on the road for a season if that's the best money I can make. Or I've got to expand my horizons and my thinking to, all right, I can do more. What jobs do not require me to be over the road for long amounts of time? I'm thinking UPS, driving for one of the beer companies, Coca-Cola. I mean, these jobs have higher pay than $35,000, and they also have a nice path in these large companies. So just trying to ideate for you to go, man, you can't accept whatever happened in the past.

It's got you here. It's going to be a lot longer and a lot harder, and George is going to walk you through this, the debt snowball, but you need more income and soon. Would you agree? Yeah. Okay. Your hourly rate right now is about $17 an hour. I'm not getting a second job.

I don't know, but I must have done my math right. I'm making $18. Okay, you're making $18 an hour. So what we're saying is if you can go make $20 an hour temporarily, you'd get a raise right now. Yeah. Which wouldn't be that hard to find. So give George your debt picture. Me and my wife together have around $24,500. In debt?

Yes. Break it down for us. Okay. The credit card's around $1,500. The two personal loans, one's $2,500, the other one's $1,500. The two personal loans of one's $2,500, the other one's $1,500. And there's a car that's I think around $1,500 and a building that's around $1,500. The rest is the student loan of my wife. Okay. And is your wife working outside the home? Yes. What does she make?

She makes $24,000. $24,000 a year or $24,000 an hour? $24,000 a year. What does she do? She is an occupational therapist or something like that. Is she working 40 hours a week? Activities director. Got you.

Yeah, she's an activities director at a nursing home. All right. You see that there's potential for her to be doubling her income as well with not a whole lot of effort? Yes. My man, that's the conversation tonight over dinner. We're both looking for jobs. Like one thing I do on the side that I'm really passionate about is on Sundays

after church, I go and preach to elderly at nursing homes because you know, they're lonely and need people to talk to. Yeah. That's another reason I don't want to really go over the road too. What's that pay you? It don't. It's a, that's voluntary. I don't want to really go over the road too. What's that pay you? It don't. That's voluntary.

And I love that. I love that, Stephen, but that's not a job. And right now you need to get out of debt. You don't have a ton of spare time to be putting towards a lot of volunteerism. Use that passion to fuel your debt-free journey to say, man, I hate that I can't do that right now because I'm out working three jobs. I want to get back to that, so let's get rid of this debt fast. You see how you flip the script?

Yeah. So you guys are making about $60K. You've got about $25,000 worth of debt, and it's going to take the debt snowball method. And so any money we have beyond our expenses, which, by the way, should be minimal, we're talking about no eating out. Are you guys doing any of that right now? No, sir. The old post-church lunch isn't happening? No, he's preaching.

All right. Hey, real quick question. Super quick, Stephen. I just heard something. You said one of the reasons you don't want to go back out on over-the-road truck driving is because you want to be there preaching to the old folks, and I love that. With the medicine that you're on right now, are you able to drive without the crippling anxiety that got you out of the cab before? Yes or no? No.

All right. I'd be working on that. I'd be working on getting to a point where you can manage your anxiety, because that's $100,000, man. Quick. They need truck drivers. It's the number one need in the market, George. I just wanted to because that's 100 grand, man. Quick. They need truck drivers. It's the number one need in the market, George. I just wanted to throw that out.

No, that's true. And this income will change everything to clean up this 25,000 of debt. It's not on fire. We've seen much bigger numbers. That's right. That's a good news. It feels like it is right now because of that lower income. You get that up, this problem will solve itself, man.

This is The Ramsey Show America, where we coach you to win in your life, winning in your money, winning in your profession, and winning in your relationships. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Alongside George Campbell, I'm Ken Coleman. We're here for you. So let's go out to Los Angeles, California. Joey is there. Joey, how can we help?

George, Ken, so great to talk to you guys. Good to talk to you, Joey. Cool. So my question is, I left my job as a software engineer about six months ago to homeschool my two kids. My wife's still working, but I don't know if I'm just struggling, feeling like I should contribute more financially. So I just wanted you guys to kind of dig into it and tell me if I'm crazy or not. All right, let's first, is there any financial pressure that could be causing this, or you guys got plenty of margin? No. I mean, so we did make similar wages. We were like at $350 combined, and so now we're at $150.

And are you comfortable? Yeah, yeah. We're comfortable. We have no debt. So we've done the Ramsey, the baby steps all the way through. So we have the house paid off. We've got no debt. College funds are funding.

Retirements, all that stuff like that. And we still have margin at the end of the month. So it's not really like... Great. I don't know if it's just like this... So there's no reality to the numbers of what you're feeling and that's okay but there's no math here that you're going here's why it's really just an emotional thing well it's brand new to you let's be honest you six months

you never i mean like oh go ahead no no i mean i'm trying to so we figured that out okay so what we're trying to do is when you present the question the way, you know, should I be contributing? I'm wondering, should I be, then that means you're dealing with some emotion, which is creating a narrative and it's made you a little uncomfortable. So what we're trying to do as coaches, quite frankly, is just get to the bottom of what's creating the voice. And so some of this, yeah, go ahead.

It just feels like I'm just like, like, I don't know. I grew up in the, in the world where it's like, Hey, you're the guy you go out of the voice. And so some of this... Yeah, go ahead. It just feels like I'm just like, like, I don't know. I grew up in the world where it's like, hey, you're the guy. You go out of the cage, you hunt stuff, you kill stuff. And now I'm like stuck in a cage. Well, take us to the rhythm. And that's very, and it's very fulfilling. I love that work. Okay. But let's talk about your rhythm during the day. Are you hands-on or are they doing video classes where it's just largely you making sure that you're kind of floating, or are you actively teaching the courses to the boys? I'm very hands-on. They're both special needs, so they require a lot of direction to go forward.

And apparently it was probably you felt like this was the best decision, you and your wife, to do this. This was a joint decision that the boys needed this attention as opposed to what they were doing, correct? Right, yeah. Is it playing out that way? Was your hypothesis right? Yeah, I mean, like,

everything is improving, the relationships and stuff like that. I don't know. I guess the way that you're saying it makes it sound ridiculous what I should be feeling like. I don't know. I guess the way that you're saying it makes it sound ridiculous that I should be feeling like insecure is the word that kind of springs to my mind. 100%. That's what we wanted. All I would want out of this call is that you get to the root

of why you're asking us this, insecurity. Now the question is, is this just in your head, or are you actually hearing this from other people from family friends have there been snide comments have there been passive aggressive no i mean like everybody jokes you know i'm the stay-at-home mom now so and which is funny i mean that's just like a you know like my wicked friend circle um let me ask you this i mean like did you and your wife like it's what did you and your wife decide that you were the best equipped to do this of the two of you oh yeah 100 that's something else to keep in

mind so the other question is this so i'm always going to approach this what would i do if i was feeling what you're feeling and boy it's hard to deny that you guys were right about this change for your boys and they're thriving, which is great. The question becomes, if you were to go back to work full time and that income gets back up into the threes, mid threes, could you hire a former teacher who, you know, they don't want to be back in the school system. They'd like to make a little extra cash. You know, there are a lot of people out there that tutor. And I wonder if you didn't hire a tutor. And while it's a little bit more expensive than maybe the homeschool situation, it's not that much. And it allows you to engage the way you've used to engage, but your boys still get the hands-on attention that they need. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think that was an option that my wife and I discussed. And I think we came to the conclusion that it was much better for our children that a parent was there, somebody that actually cared. Okay, then. Then that's your reality. This is the life that has, A, been dealt to you on one hand, and then you've chosen on the other. In other words, the boys and their special needs, you have no control over that.

You're dealing with that, and dealing with it seems to be pretty well. But you're now also choosing, instead of the tutor, you're choosing that we think it needs to be one of us and we believe that I'm the best one. So this is the reality that you've chosen and it's for a season. And I think you've got to rest in that. George, am I missing anything? Yeah, I just keep thinking to myself, he's got to make peace.

You've got to make peace with the decision that you guys made. And it was the right decision. You've already circled back to that. It's a decision you made out of the decision that you guys made. And it was the right decision. You've already circled back to that. It's a decision you made out of the values that you have as a family. And now it's just the shift is a hard, it's a very left field turn for you. And you're feeling this sense of, is this what I'm supposed to be doing? This feels crazy.

And I also want to keep my skills fresh, you know, like, is there something that I can do? Like, is this an emergency if I need to spring to action? All right. So that's what I wanted to go to next. So let's deal with that. I think it's the right question. So there's that fear part. All right, so let's address that. How many hours a day are you in school with the boys? We're doing stuff pretty much until mom comes home at five.

But could you? Pretty quickly. I'm thinking like most of the stuff, it's kind of play around after noon. Okay, so my point is, could you tighten that schedule? And are there four hours a day? I'm making this up. This is something you can solve off the air. But are there four?

How many hours a day uh even in the evening if necessary when mom's back how many hours a day could you give to your previous career in the form of contract or um george escapes me it's going to come to me in a second it's uh um uh freelance freelance work right uh that is a very vibrant part of this economy now companies that couldn't hire you uh full-time would be willing to pay you on a freelance level you've got a lot of experience so i would be looking for that to a keep the skills fresh and up to date but also let's bring in some additional income on this deal there's no need to sacrifice all the money is really is secondary to it because we're doing, it was weird.

Like after I left my job, it was like net loss of zero. It was weird. Okay. But my point is, is that fear you have, it's only if you, first of all, you're not going to lose all the experience and the skills that you had, but if you want to keep them sharp, keep working on some level. Yeah. You guys have a fully funded emergency fund, right? Oh, yeah. You got minimal expenses. So the idea of there being a financial emergency that you guys couldn't cover,

having the right insurance in place, the emergency fund, I would take the financial part out of the picture and just go, I just want to do it because I want to do it. And it makes me feel whole and it makes me feel like 100% Joey. That's a fine enough reason to do it. I think that's a great word, George. It really is. And listen, it's always good to stack a little extra cash.

You guys have gotten your place. And George, this is a great example of the freedom that the baby steps. Living like no one else. Well, they can do what they need to do for those precious kids. This is a luxury problem to have. It can really do what's best for the kids and not be stressed i love that joey you're a hero you and your wife both this is the ramsey show alongside george camel i'm ken coleman this is the ramsey show where we help you win with your money, win in your profession, and win in your relationships.

888-825-5225 is the phone number to jump in before we get back to the calls. We've got a Ramsey Network app question, and this is from Austin. My wife and I are on baby step four. I have two active pensions with my union. My wife insists that we put 15% in my 401k. Also, contributing that much is leaving nothing in our checking account after we pay our bills. She wants me to get a second job in order to be able to invest.

I already work a lot of hours, and she works part-time also. I mentally can't calculate where I'll have the extra time to get a second job. I keep saying we can cut back on the 401k because the pensions are there. What is your advice? Wow. A lot of blame at his wife in this question. My wife insists. Is there a reality to this? I mean, are they about to retire broke? I would crunch the numbers and I would also get a third party opinion. I would work with a smart investor pro and sit down with an actual financial advisor and go crunch the numbers. What does retirement look like at this stage of the game if we continue down this path? Well, George, I mean, when I read this, I go, if you're putting

15%, we don't know how much he's doing to this pension. And you can't, there's no money left and you've got other issues. This might be an income problem. Or it could be other issues. I don't get it. I know they say they're in babies to have four. It just doesn't compute to me. Yeah, usually these pensions require you to put a certain percentage away. So here's the advice on pensions, which might help our friend Austin. We would say if your job requires you to, let's say, put in 10% into a pension, we would count that as half.

So we would count that as 5%, and there's a good reason. Pensions have terrible returns, about half of what you'd get investing on your own, and you also don't have control over a pension like you would an IRA, for example. So that's why we'd count it as half. So if he's investing, let's say, 10% forced into the pension, count it at 5%. So we've got another 10% to go to hit that 15 parameter for baby step four. So there might be a compromise here where I go, hey, your wife is half right. You do need to invest more.

It may not be a full 15%, but we might need to invest a little more. And there might be a budgeting problem here with their expenses and income as well. I agree. Or I'm going to say about that. All right, let's go to Heather in Chicago, Illinois. Heather, how can we help? Good afternoon, gentlemen. It is an honor to be on the phone with you both.

I'm so excited. Well, I can tell you, you've got some enthusiasm. That makes me excited to talk to you. So what is going on, Heather? Well, my husband and I have the opportunity to buy our dream property. I am 47. He is 55. We have four kids. We are debt-free, thanks to Dave Ramsey and taping the baby steps over every door jam of my home. Love it. All to remember them and getting the budgeting app for my four kids and my husband and I and being intentional

with our money. So we are so grateful to the Ramsey team for that. Our question is that if we have this opportunity to buy this home, it's a million dollar property, which is a huge price tag. And is it crazy to think about going back into debt at our age? And we don't have a ton in retirement, but we're definitely intentional with it and working as hard as we can to continue to save. And that's my question. I want to know if you could help us.

Do you have no debate? Because one of us feels one way and one of us feels the other way. And it's something, yes. And I know when in doubt, you're not supposed to do it. Dave says when in doubt, don't, and we've lost sleep over it and had many, many, many Let's see if we can get you guys aligned. Yeah. So number one, you're not crazy. You know, if you're in baby step seven and you go back to baby step six and you still

do it 15 year fixed rate, no more than a quarter of your take home pay, let's get rid of this thing, you know, early. It's not crazy to do that. That's fine. Dave is always going to say, Hey, I'd prefer you to be debt-free, but I'm not going to yell at you. You know, that's what he would say if he was sitting here, but let's crunch the numbers and see if this makes sense. What is your current home worth? Uh, about as it sits right now, about 340,000. And we are actually redoing our master bathroom, which will put another $20,000 into our home value. And I'm going to say on our five acres, what we could probably get at the end of it is about $450,000. Oh, wow.

When everything's done with it. Okay, so $450,000 minus some fees if you sell it. Let's call that $420,000, and that's what you can roll into the next one. So are you talking about taking on a $600,000 mortgage or do you have other savings? Correct. Yeah. Well, the savings that we do have, we do obviously have our emergency fund. We have my husband's retirement. I just was able to start retiring a retirement savings and plan. How much is in the nest egg total? My husband has $187,000. I only have $16,000. We have $50,000 in savings, and then we have liquid $40,000. Okay, and does that include the emergency

funds? You have about $90,000 liquid cash? Yep, that includes our emergency funds. That $40,000 is that emergency fund that's set to the side. So the only money you're going to be putting into this new home is the $420,000 that you're making off the current home. Correct. Yes, correct, sir. So here's the deal. Taking on a $600,000 mortgage, that might not be feasible. I don't know what that's going to become out of your take-home pay. What is your take-home pay every month? My husband makes $10,400 a month, and I do $10,000 a month.

Awesome. $20,000 take-home. Yes, sir. So we'd be looking at no more than a $5,000 payment. Have you crunched the numbers on a mortgage calculator? Yep, we did. It would be $5,012.75. That's with taxes and insurance escrowed out. And you could still invest 15% of your total income on top of that with no issue? Yes, correct. Okay. And is he okay working into his late 60s? That's where the caveat of this is. Not really. He would like to be done working in seven years. He would like to be retired and done working, at least in that aspect. We have two family businesses, and so that would be something I'm sure he would

help step up more or maybe direct his time more towards helping in that area. So I'm seeing two dreams here. One dream is own a million dollar home. The other is retire at 62 after a late start. I think we're going to need some compromise here. I don't know that I would feel good moving forward until I crunched all these other numbers to go, okay, we're still going to retire with a million dollars and we're not going to have to, you know, our home is the retirement plan at this point. And also getting this thing paid off before you retire, which doesn't seem feasible at this stage of the game. Well, that's why I'm calling.

So here's the deal. If you guys made a spit shake agreement and said, we're both willing to work into our 60s to make this dream happen, then I'd say go for it. But if there's this caveat of, well, at 62, I'd really love to pump the brakes. You might not be able to retire for another 30 years off of that. That's my fear. Right.

And just looking at the numbers, Heather, George, correct me if I'm wrong. Just looking at the numbers, their retirement's pretty, they got a ways to go. They're going to have to look at working a little longer regardless of this house. Yeah. They don't have a lot of numbers in those accounts. His is only one. He had 187. At 62, if he invested even a thousand dollars a month going forward, it'd be less than a half million, most likely. How do we get on track to make that a million then? More income.

More savings. More income, and the mortgage is going to slow you guys down. Right now in Baby Step 7, you guys could just funnel money into retirement. Here's my trigger, Heather. Whenever I hear someone say we have an opportunity, usually what they're saying is we have an opportunity to do something stupid financially. All right, let's do this really quick. So where did this come from, this opportunity? Is this a deal?

It's a client of ours that is moving and it is worth $1.2 million, but it was something that they were going to sell to us for one. And it just happens to be that they came across their dream property and that approach, we were talking to them and it ended up being, hey, we would love to live here. This is my dream. Of course. But Heather- We're smart. I want to be smart. Okay.

So let's do this super fast. Okay. So you guys bring home 20 net. What are your hard expenses the max give me a rough $4,750 a month oh my gosh so George in the calculator okay listen George really quick because we got 40 seconds George if they're only spending let's round it up to five they got $15,000 a month they can put away is that what you're thinking yeah they're gonna have a $5,000 mortgage in homeowners no no no, no, no. She's not buying the house.

I'm saying they stay where they are and shoot. $15,000 a month? Oh, do a $10,000. Alright, you're going to have $2.2 million in that one account if you do $15,000 a month. That's at a 10% rate of return. That makes me feel better. Heather, I'm not saying you've got to do $15,000 a month, George, but looking at their budget, if they're bringing

home $20,000... I'm going to pause on this opportunity and use it to stash the nest egg. We're saying no, Heather, is what we're saying. Stay in the cash house and just stack money. And go on dream vacations instead. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.

I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell is alongside. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Boy, we're doing a lot of virtual stuff, and I love that, George, because we can get to the masses. And we've got another. This is a part two. It's the sequel, if you will. You and Dave did a really popular event last year.

Yeah, we had, i don't know four thousand plus people joined us for that pretty amazing and so it's coming back this is a two night virtual event it's called investing essentials hosted by dave ramsey and george camel and listen we understand that investing feels like trying to untangle fishing wire at times. And so you can't get it through an Instagram reel. So this is a two-night deep dive event. We're going to cover how to maximize your 401k and mutual funds to get the most out of your money. And this two-night event is the only way

to get Dave Ramsey's personal playbook on real estate investing. And so it's really, really valuable. And again, George is joining Dave. Tickets start at $199. So, I mean, you get what you pay for. This is a premium event. And so you don't want to miss this March 4 and 5.

March 4 and 5. You can watch it from your home. Tickets are $199. Two-night event. Get your ticket at ramseysolutions.com slash events. ramseysolutions.com slash events. George, having done this last year, I know it was a wild success. You were on the stage for that as well as you and Dave are preparing for this next one.

What do people need to know beyond just the details of how to enjoy it? What are you looking forward to? Night one, we're re-looking at it. We're going, hey, here's all the questions that came through last year. We're going to integrate that into night one, which is really focused on maximizing retirement, non-retirement, how to pick mutual funds. How do you actually go into your retirement plan with confidence to know you're investing in the right things? Night two, Dave has a masterclass on what he's actually done with his own real estate portfolio, how he breaks down, is it a good real estate investment purchase, the right way to do it,

how to make sure you're getting the right returns, maximizing it. And it blew my mind. I mean, it was like beautiful mind math up there with Dave with real properties that he owns. So this is not theoretical, like you're going to get on some dude's course this is dave ramsay himself unlocking the keys so if you want to be a real estate baron or baroness uh you don't want to miss this event so by the way two words i don't mention baroness yeah they're still out there they still do that i believe they are okay they may be more in the european area i'm not sure all right let's go to atlanta Georgia, where Dayo is joining us. Dayo, how can we help? Yeah, good afternoon, guys.

Good afternoon. I wanted to just, first, I want to thank you for putting this out there, and it's really helpful. I wanted to ask about the best life insurance for a 40-year-old man. I want to see what your thoughts are on IUL. And then if you agree with having IUL, do you also recommend having that alongside with an IRA or 401k account? Great question. I'll tell you how I feel about IUL, and it's exactly how you phonetically say it. That's how I feel about it, Dayo. It's that disgusting to me. And I dug into this. And,

you know, Dave has been against permanent life insurance forever, since the first day he's been on air. And this man knows the ins and outs of insurance. And there's a good reason. It's a really crappy product. It's super complicated. It's super expensive. And so we only recommend term life if you're going to get life insurance. Okay. Do you have people that rely on your income right now? Yes. Okay. And what is your income? $170,000. Awesome. So we recommend 10 to 12 times your salary in a term life policy, and you're 40 years old, which it's still going to be affordable, way more affordable than any of these IUL policies you see out there. And so you're looking at, you know, probably about a

$2 million policy. Does that sound fair? Yeah. Okay. And so if you log on, you know, jump on Xander.com, they'll pull a quote for you. And my guess is, are you a healthy guy? I like to think like that, yeah. Okay, good. Well, you know, you're going to get a better rate if you're not a tobacco user, you land in the kind of preferred plus health class, so all of that. So I'd jump on there. I think you're going to be shocked at how affordable it is to get that in place.

But I'm curious, why were you steered toward this IUL? So I have, you know, I just right now do what my company offers as far as life insurance goes, right? So I've been seeing some of my friends acting as, you know, marketer for this IUL and they say good things, but I did my own just research. You know, some of the things I saw was that if you miss paying your premium, you just lose everything you've paid. That alone just puts me away, right? So I was trying to get some professional recommendation as to what direction to go to. So that's what prompted my question.

You know, term life is meant to do one thing, replace the income. All of these permanent life insurance policies, whole life, index universal life, you name it, their goal is to have this cash value portion as well that builds over time. And so they start touting it, the salespeople, they tout it as this investment, and you can borrow from your money tax-free, and there's a floor, so you're not going to lose money. They have all of these slick marketing tactics they'll pitch on you. And here's the funny thing, Dio. I've never heard anyone speak positively about Index Universal Life

that wasn't selling it. Isn't that a red flag to you that the guy telling you about this sells it? Say it's not so, George. Say it's not so. Let me tell you how it works. So you pay a hefty monthly premium, probably 10 times what you would for a term life policy with the same policy value, some of which goes toward paying for the life insurance,

more of which disappears in fees. And the leftovers are added to that cash value portion of the policy. So with an index universal life policy, the cash value will grow based on a stock market index like this S&P 500. You've heard of that? Right. Yeah. And so let's say it did what it did in 2024, 24% return. Amazing. And here's the deal. Your cash value is insulated by a 0% floor there. So if the S&P goes up, the cash value increases up to a cap.

So you're probably not going to get 24%, which is frustrating, but there's a cap that it can go down. So they pitch this as, hey, this is a much safer investment than doing it on your own. Well, here's the deal. They ignore the existence of dividends, which is like the bonus profit that you'd get out of these investments. And so with a normal investment account, you'd reinvest the dividends. They don't actually do that. They only look at the net change in that price. And so you're better off investing on your own.

You're better off getting term life on its own. Never combine insurance and investing. Right. Okay. Good. So I hope that helps just explain the heart behind it and not just IUL bad. And here's the deal. I'm going to get blown up by the insurance folks out there.

They're going to be clipping this video out and be like, here's where George is wrong. But they're out to get your commissions. I'm out to make sure that Dio's family is taken care of if something happens to him. I got no skin in the game. All right. For those that are cynical, George, and I don't want any hate, but I really don't care. Ken don't want that smoke. I like when you talk that way. It's kind of fun. Thank you. Are you making any commission with this advice? You just gave Dio. Zero. dayo zero okay okay interesting you can use whatever company you want i'm just telling you xander's the folks that i use they're the folks that i trust across the board for all types of insurance but i got my term life policy through them super affordable and with term life the

payment is going to be exactly the same and here's how they do it they take the risk of a 40 year old guy named dayo and they go, all right, well, it would be cheaper when he's young. It's going to get more expensive when he's older. So they take all of that. They divide it over the 20 years and they give you a level policy. So you're going to pay $50 a month every single month. And Dio, the purpose of insurance, I hope we never have to use it, right? I hope the policy lapses and you still are living 20 years from now and you go, all right. But by then you're self-insured because you followed the Ramsey plan, right? You've gotten out of debt. You paid off your house. You've been investing for 15 or 20

years. Your nest egg now replaces that life insurance so that you're self-insured. And Dayo, you called us today. Both of us do this. We do not have anything but the term. And we got kids. So we're only telling you to do what we do. Okay. There you go. And I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

You bet. Absolutely. By the way, I think you have such a fun name. I don't know if you hear that often. Dio. Yeah, I want to know the origin of that. That's fun. Dio.

Daylight coming, we want to go home. I was hoping you weren't going there, and you went there. And I'm not mad about it, actually. Okay, because I like that you thought immediately when I sang that that that's maybe where I was going. He probably gets that a lot. We've known each other too long. I don't think he's had anybody sing that to him before. If he wasn't hung up on, he'd have different thoughts right now.

I would apologize to the audience, but I thought it sounded pretty good. I'll be honest. I'm glad you said it and not me. Yeah. I don't care. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Alongside George Campbell, I'm Ken Coleman. Phone number to join in is 888-825-5225. Our scripture of the day, Romans 828. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. Our quote of the day from Mark Twain, the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. That's a Ken Coleman quote if I've ever heard

one. Which is why if Mark Twain were alive, he would really endorse the Get Clear Assessment and Find the Work You're Wired to Do book. It all comes together, ramsaysolutions.com. How about that for a promo? Right out of the quote of the day. I'm not sure I'm even allowed to do that. Smooth, man.

But what's done is done. And we're going to get right back to the phones. Let bygones be bygones, like I always say. You always say that one? I'm known to say it. Let bygones be bygones, like I always say. You always say that one? I'm known to say it. You should write that down. I think that would catch on.

I've got to figure out what a bygone is first. You do. All right, while you're figuring that out, I'm going to go to Robin, who's in West Palm Beach, Florida. Not a bad place to be from. Robin, how can we help? Hi. Thank you, both of George and Ken, for having me and taking my call. Of course.

I'm trying to figure out whether or not I am in a position to retire. I'm a government attorney. I've been a federal government attorney for 20-plus years, but with the federal government, 34 years. I have a portfolio of about $1.2 million in my TSP with a threat savings plan. And I have a mortgage of about $450,000. I have relatively low interest at 3.5%. The house is valued now, and I suspect it will probably go down a little bit, at about 1.1. I have, in addition to that, a debt of $65,000, which is primarily credit card debt. And I got a couple of other things, home improvement related, and that I'll explain if you need to know about that. I did pick up recently a HELOC, $50,000 to pay off the high interest

credit card debt. So I do have two beautiful children, ages five, actually they have turned six and nine this month. So they are adopted. And so I do get Medicaid and I do have college waivers for each of them. So I'm not too concerned about health and education as, you know, because of those two programs in place. Okay. So I'm hoping that you're going to tell me that, oh, you're good. You said you can retire, but I'm afraid. So that's the backdrop. How old, you're good. You're set. You can retire, but I'm afraid. So that's the backdrop.

How old are you? 62. Wow. Bless you. Well, you've done a good job with your investing. I mean, you got 1.2 million, and the last seven years, there's been about 100% return in the stock market. That's not to say that's a guarantee for the next seven, but if you just left it alone, you would have 2.4 million. Now- I did do one thing because I thought I was going to be retiring. I did pull probably about 80% and put it into bonds just to be safe. I probably should not have done that, but I did. Yeah, that's a bad idea. Your money's going to stagnate and not even beat inflation,

which means you'll run out of money way faster. Now, I understand you're scared of market volatility, but you've still got a ways to go. So here's the good news. You're doing great on the investing side. You have been adding liabilities to your life, which is taking you backwards from your stated retirement goal. So how much do you make? About $180,000.

So making $180,000, why have you been resorting to credit cards and HELOCs and all of this to cover life and expenses? I'm a single mom, and as a result of being the head of a household, I take care of everything in the house. So it's just adding up. But you've been spending more than you've been making, it sounds like. And you make a lot of money. I mean, that's an incredible income. And so here's what I would say. I don't think you're ready to retire today.

I would aim to get rid of this consumer debt, and I would aim to get rid of this mortgage before you hang up the hat. And that might mean I got to work for another four or five years. And alongside that, that TSP is going to continue to grow for you. But you got to get out of those bonds and get back into equities. Even if the return is like 6%? I mean, it's not significant, but I don't lose. I mean, the S&P 500, the U.S. stock market, returned 24%. And so I don't think you're going to be able to keep up with the returns and retire with dignity if you keep this money in bonds.

Right. And so I would be connecting with a financial advisor. You can jump on to ramseysolutions.com to get connected with some folks that can help you with this. But I would have them sit down with you, crunch all the numbers, and give you a very realistic picture of where you're at. Nothing's on fire, but we got to clean up this debt if we want to retire with dignity. Of course, reducing your expenses is what's going to allow you to retire sooner. And debt is an expense. And so we can get

rid of this HELOC, get rid of the credit cards, and even get rid of the mortgage. Well, now a million dollars goes a whole lot further, right? Right. Absolutely. So you're on the right track. I mean, you're very smart. You work very hard. You're doing a lot of good things. I would just focus it and say no to debt and get rid of the debt that you got. All right. Thank you, Robin, for the call. Let's go now to Louisville, Kentucky. Caleb is there. Caleb, how can we help? Hey, I have a question about retirement. I'm 22 years old. I've been listening to Dave Ramsey since I was 17. I'm wondering, because my workplace, I work for the state of Kentucky, I work in the school system, and they offer Roth IRA, 457B, and 403B, and I will be allowed to invest in one or more than one of those plans come springtime. I'm wondering, should I invest in more than one, or should I only invest in one? Which one's the best? If I should only do one,

that's kind of what I'm wondering. Great question. I love this question as a 22-year-old. Are you debt-free? Yeah, and I have an emergency fund. I did hit an emergency. I used to have $17,000 in an emergency fund and now I still have $7,000. Okay, so we got to restock the emergency fund.

So let's get about that business. Then once we're done with that, we can begin investing. And you said you've got a 403B, 457. The Roth IRA, you would do outside of your employer? Yeah. They wouldn't be offering that. Well, the person that comes, they come to the school system, I think, every year, and they offer these options. And from what I understand, the other two are through the state of Kentucky, but the Roth IRA is more of the private plan where if you do leave, you would still be able to invest. That tracks. Okay, what's your income?

About $27,000 a year. $27,000? Yes. Okay. And is that a starter salary for a position like yours? I think I make just a little bit more because I already had a year experience in the school system before I moved away and moved back. I'm a custodian. Okay.

I'm just thinking overall we need to get this income up just compared to the averages across the country. Even for teachers, it feels like it's a little bit low. And so that's going to help you when it comes to investing to have a higher savings rate. But the key is invest 15% of your income at your stage of the game. I would choose the Roth 403B is a great option for you. You can do all 15% in that Roth 403B, which is going to be about $4,000 for you this year. Yeah, okay, yeah. I was wondering because, like, I was trying to think.

I know with the Roth IRA, it's private. With the 403B, it's more of a state-offered thing. And I was kind of wondering, on average, kind of how much I'd end up with. I don't know if you all know that kind of question. Yeah, you can use our investment calculator on our website. It's completely free at RamseySolutions.com. But here's the deal. If you invest in the same funds inside of the IRA or the 403B, it's going to have the same account balance when you retire. Okay. And so the key is that Roth thing you mentioned, that means it's going to use after-tax money,

so you're not going to get a deduction come tax time, but that money's going to grow tax-free, and you can withdraw it tax-free in retirement. So that's why we love that word Roth is a beautiful thing. And Caleb, you're 22. Love, as George said, that you're asking this question. Keep in mind, what does the latter look like for you? If you want to stay in the school system, the county or the state system and their situation, what does the ladder look like for you to make more money?

How long will it take? And as you continue to make more money, you're investing more and you're going to be fine, young man. Even just that $4,000 a year, if he just does that to $67,000? Listen to this, Caleb. Listen. $3.5 million if you never get a raise from $22,000 to $67,000. That's a lot

of cheddar there, Caleb. And even at 60, it's still 1.7 million. Not bad. You blew his mind. He needs a drink of water. Just invest consistently. This is The Ramsey Show.