The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Carry a Mortgage Going Into Retirement (Hour 2)

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

Anthony ONeal, Debt, Retirement Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR 

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Bianca is with us in New Mexico.

Hey, Bianca, how are you? Good, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my husband and I, we're in the middle of baby step number two. We just finished paying off $13,000 to our active debt, and now we're looking at $20,000 in collections. Okay.

My question is, how do I go about this? Do I list it smallest to largest? What do I need to tackle first? It's a little bit complicated, but let me walk you through what I suggest you do, and let's see if we can get there together, okay? So you don't have any active debt at all. You're not paying payments on any of these collections. No.

Good. And how old are the collections? The oldest is about nine years. And the youngest? It's taxes, so it's current it's probably um i don't know about a year taxes like irs yeah well it's not the irs it's the state tax and how much is it 800 okay pay that one okay then we'll move on we don't want to do we do not deal with the government, okay? They got a lot of power, and their fees and their interest rates are ridiculous.

So just get that one done. Now we'll move on to the rest of them. So the others are, what's the next youngest one? That's probably it. The other ones were probably all done within the same time, maybe a. All eight or nine years old. Yeah. And what kind of debt are they?

So there's phone bills, there's one credit card, and then there's two repossessed cars. Okay. All right. So the bulk of this is the repos? Yes. Okay. Repos will take somewhere around $0.10 to $0. cents on the dollar, especially if they're that old. Okay.

Okay, so we're not talking about $20,000 here. We're talking about 7,000 bucks is going to clear this whole thing probably. Yeah. Okay, now here's what we're going to do. The first thing we're going to do is list them smallest to largest. We get rid of the tax bill. That one's gone. Then we're going to list the rest of them smallest to largest. We get rid of the tax bill. That one's gone. Then we're going to list the rest of them smallest to largest. And you're going to have the money in the account saved up

to pay what you think the balance was back when, okay? Okay. All right. And so let's use an example. Let's just pull that credit card. What's the credit card one? The credit card is $664. $664? Yeah. And what's your household income? So last year we brought in $80,000. However, my husband does pay $800 a month in child support. Okay. I would go to that credit card and say the last information I have is I owed you $664.

If you will accept $664, I will send you a check today if you will give it to me in writing that that is the confirmed balance. I wouldn't negotiate with one that's small. Okay. Okay. Let's say there's one of the deficits on the repo, okay, and it's showing what? So the smallest one is $7,800. Okay, that's a good example. All right. You would call them up, and maybe you've got $2,000 saved at this point before you call them. Okay? You call them up and say, I've got $2,000.

You want it. If you want it, I'll give it to you as settlement in full on this. And they say, well, we can't do that. We can't do that. Listen, I have another card repo here, and I have another credit card here, and I have a whole bunch of stuff from nine years ago, and I'm trying to go through and clean them up. And the first one that takes my money is going to get my money.

I got $2,000. Do you want it? If not, I'm moving to the next person on the list to see if they want it. Okay. Is that you saying you want me to go to the next list? Because right quick before I hang up, I want to make sure, because if you want is that you saying you want me to go the next list because right quick before i hang up i want to make sure because if you want this it's yours i won't call anybody else and we'll do a deal right now but if you want me to call the next guy on the list i will because that's what you're going to do you're going to call the next guy on the list it's not a bluff yeah okay and eventually you'll have to beat around and go around the barn

and yeah yeah yeah and all the garbage they go through because you know you're not dealing with intelligent life usually when you're talking to these people. And so you finally get it nailed down. Whatever the amount is that you settle on that they're going to accept and you have that much money. Don't make them a promise if you don't have the money, okay? But you're going to settle on that amount. And let's say it's $2,200. Okay, send that to me in writing, and I will respond to you as soon as I get it in writing instantaneously with payment. So two rules.

You do not have a deal if it's not in writing. You can tell the people in this industry are lying if their mouth is moving. You do not have a deal if it's not in writing. That's rule number one. Got it? Got it. Even if it's a paying off the balance you're showing in front of you on a nine-year-old one, you've got to verify they'll accept that amount as the payment for that debt, that $664 or whatever.

You've got to get it in writing. It didn't happen if to get it in writing. It didn't happen if it's not in writing. You pay them $664, they're going to send you a bill for $6,000 in back payments and interest. Okay. And you're going to have to start over again with them. So get it in writing that they're going to take what the balance was, what you're showing the balance, or whatever it is, in writing.

Second rule is no, never can people like this have electronic access to your checking account. It's okay to have your electric bill or something like that come out of your checking account. Do not let these people have your checking account. They will lie and they will clean you out. It happens all the time to people we're coaching. It happens quite often, disturbingly often. So how do we pay them then? Well, you can pay them with a prepaid debit card that just has the exact amount on it that you owe them in that one account,

and then you cut that one up, throw it away, and get another one, and do one for each one of these. There's not that many of them. You can have a separate checking account that you do allow them to have access in, but any amount of money that is in that account is in danger. So don't put more in there than you've agreed to because they'll take it. And then what are you going to do?

Because you owed them more than you settled for, even though you got the settlement in writing. You'll go before the judge and go, they promised to settle. You end up spending $10,000 trying to chase two. So now get it in writing and no electronic access to your checking account under any circumstances.

And that'll do it for you. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping, new promos they run every month. You'll save even more. Use the promo code Ramsey. Kasha's in Indiana. I'm currently on baby step two, working off my

debt snowball. My end goal is to be able to build wealth travel. I almost have my credit cards paid off, and I plan to cancel them as soon as they're paid off. Awesome. But I signed up for one because it has no foreign transaction fees. A lot of debit cards don't, Kasha. When I've traveled before, I like to have a card for emergencies.

A debit card's good for emergencies if you have money in your account. If you if you have money in your account. And if you don't have money in your account, you shouldn't be traveling because you're running up excuse to run up debt again. Stop it, Kasha. Stop it. You're falling right back into the same crap that got you into debt the first time. Do you not think it's a good idea to keep a credit card with no current transaction fees? Darling, I'm overseas more than you are. I can promise you that.

And I don't have a credit card. My debit cards work just fine, and I don't have any big foreign transaction fees. And there's plenty of money in my checking account, so if there's an emergency, I just put my butt on an airplane and fly home. This is what you do. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM,

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That's chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Got the busiest man in America in here on my radio studio right now. Ramsey Personality, best-selling author Anthony O'Neill. It's book tour week starting next week. Next Monday, you'll be on the road touring the new book, Debt-Free Degree. Street date is Monday, right? Yes, sir. Monday, October the 7th?

October the 7th. We'll be shipping all of you that have pre-purchased the book. By the way, if you pre-purchase the book anytime before October 7th, between now and then, we're going to throw in $40 worth of stuff. If you want to learn how to go to college debt-free or you want to learn how to send your kids to college debt-free, this is it. Debt-free degree step-by-step guide to getting your kid through college without student loans.

And Anthony's been doing press all morning. I did Fox & Friends this morning talking about the subject of student loans. It's a hot topic press all morning i've been i did fox and friends this morning talking about the subject student loans hot topic right now it's a hot topic and i'm excited because tonight you know day we get to do our debt-free town hall you and i and i'm just really excited about i don't know what you're excited about with me i'm excited about the normal people coming and they're saying hey i went through school 100 debt-free from their bachelor's degree all the way up to their PhDs. Yep.

Yep. And we've got experts on the stage with us. Yes, sir. And we're taking questions from our audiences. Our first live event inside the new Ramsey headquarters. Man. That's a big deal. And it's beautiful.

And it's going to be a great night. We're excited. Everybody around here is excited. If you want to watch the town hall, the debt-free degree town hall tonight uh you can do that by texting the word town hall to 33 789 text the word town hall to 33 789 uh this morning we unveiled to unveil to our team that today is the launch date of the new borrowed future podcast and it has come out of the gate. Zoom, zoom. Zoom, zoom. And I can tell people this one.

I had the opportunity to interview Mark Cuban and just a lot of other different experts and what they're bringing to the table, Dave. There's just it's amazing. So I would highly recommend everyone to go to their Apple podcast or Spotify and download it because there's a wealth of information who agree with what you and I are teaching, what we're spreading out there. It's an eight-episode podcast, a little different endeavor for the Ramsey Network team. Most of our stuff is real personality-driven. This one is more like almost a documentary. You and I are in it. Rachel's in it.

A lot of the Ramsey personalities show up in it, but Seth Godin, Mark Cuban in the first one, and many, many other voices in America joined with us on this. Get it ready to hear the truth about student loans. Yeah. It's a big deal. The Borrowed Future podcast and whistleblowers, university leaders are in there. People that used to be inside the industry will tell you how scummy it is. You're going to learn stuff about the student loan industry.

You thought it was an innocent thing where a bunch of little kids went to school and they got themselves in a problem and it didn't it's been predatory for some time and it's out of control but dave the good thing about this podcast we're not just screaming what is the problem about the problem we're also bringing solutions and so i even deep dive into podcasts but hey here's how you do it so you hear the problem but here's how you avoid student loans we go really deep dive into this, but hey, here's how you do it. So you hear the problem, but here's how you avoid student loans. We go really deep dive into this podcast. So it's going to be amazing. Yeah, it is a lot of the same stuff you covered in the debt-free degree book.

Yes, sir. There's some overlap there for sure. It's not like one of them's got it, the other one doesn't. There's about five things you do if you want to do this. If you do them all, you've got a really good shot of going to college debt-free or sending your kid to college debt-free. And it's a mix of all of those things. We also have teamed up with folks at Speedy Prep

and the Ramsey team and Speedy Prep are giving away $10,000 in college scholarships, the debt-free degree scholarship giveaway. And spoiler alert, it's not the first time we're going to do this. We're going to make this a regular thing. Yes, sir. figure i mean i don't know if speedy prep will be with us the whole way but we're going to give away money yes we're going to be part of the solution that way too and that's tied into the scholarship search uh tool tool that is now on your website thank you anthony o'neill that thingy that thingy on your website what do you call the scholarship search tool and that thing's pretty cool.

It is real cool. But, you know, Dave, you're on the phone every single day talking to people. I'm traveling the world talking to young people. And the number one question that I'm asked is, hey, where do I go to look for scholarships? And so we came back and said, you know what? If we're teaching people to go to school debt-free, we need to have our own scholarship tool that is just literally scholarships. So you won't get uh any sales ads in there you're not gonna get tricked into any loans it's the cleanest scholarship

search tool out in the world right now and dave is free and and notice you drove right by that almost all the other scholarship tools there's all kinds of ads in them yes and we've we've done the research on the space we know what we know's in the space and what they're doing. We've even told you some of the names over the time. You have and I have. Yeah. And we're not mad at those folks. But the problem is they don't think that much about a loan, and they'll present you a loan as fast as they'll present you a scholarship.

You can be sure with a Ramsey deal, we're not going to give you a loan. No. We're going to show you how to get a loan. We're going to tell you to stay away from loans. We don't even like the word loan. We think loan is a four-letter word. Yes. Yes, love your future we want the very best we want a solid foundation for our young people so i encourage everyone go to anthonyoneo.com check it out the scholarship is available right now and so they can go in there and apply for it and it's going to be great yeah and the scholarship search tool is there, and the cost of college calculator is there.

That's a neat, very neat tool. All the major colleges and most of the minor ones are in our database, so when you enter in where you want to go to school, boom, it starts calculating what's going to cost you. You don't have to look it up. Yeah, you don't have to look it up. You put in your university of such and such, and boom, it's going to start popping up there, and you're going to start knowing what the tuition is going to be we'll pop in some uh estimates for living expenses and then how much have you already got saved how much have you already gotten scholarships

put that in there okay this is how much is left and you start divide that by 48 you're going to be there four years 48 months we got to figure this out and we got to start figuring out how we're going to make a budget man make a budget and we give it a plan so one thing that we just all went through today what i love is we're not just talking about the problem we're bringing solutions to the problem that's a big deal that's a huge deal because nobody and you know i started screaming on fox and friends this morning about it the intellectual dishonesty dishonesty the illogical idea that we should be forgiving student loans when we continue to make them. And that's just, it's dishonest. It's dishonest.

You're continuing to make the loans, and yet you want to talk about forgiving them. And that's a presidential candidate that doesn't really have someone's best interest at heart. They're just trying to buy your vote. And so if they wanted your best interest at heart, they already would have stopped the dadgum program because it's an epic plague on America. And so when I said that, you know what happened congressman started calling my voicemail already already today that's why you're dave ramsey though no i mean you call them out call them out and there's a few of them are actually good folk i'm friends with several

of them i make fun of them all the time and they're like every time i'm seeing them they're like dave you're too hard on us man i'm like yeah but y'all are such an easy target easy you're so easy to make fun of very very very easy it's just like yeah well yeah and but hey you know maybe we'll get a bill up let's get a bill up before congress and cancel this dadgum mess cancel it and so we can get our young people you know going to college debt free but if we cancel the that student loans dave then the cost of college is going to come down because we've had this endless supply of money which has driven it up it's supply demand that's it that is it we're gonna say that again tonight in the debt and the debt-free town hall let me tell you that oh yeah people get upset but still

call his cell phone don't call mine i'll give him your cell phone tonight i'll just i will broadcast number put it on put it right there on the screen in the lower third call anthony right here oh because you know my cell phone ain't out there i'm just saying wait a minute i'm excited dave tonight we're changing we're giving people the tools necessary to change their lives and their kids lives and i'm very excited about that you know i've had three people tell me this weekend, friends of mine, just people I was bumping into. I was playing golf with a local business owner yesterday afternoon, a friend of mine. And he goes, I love the football helmets that Anthony O'Neill is putting out. And they're putting up on your Instagram.

And I'm like, this is an old guy. He's like me. He's like a 60-year-old guy like me. Because tell them about the football helmets. It's a big hit. It's a really big hit. What we're doing is we're just comparing all the colleges. So whoever plays, for an example, if Vanderbilt plays Tennessee,

we'll just look at the cost of college, and we'll just compare it out. A football helmet with Vanderbilt, $52,000. A football helmet with Tennessee, $10,000. And just to let you know, Rice is playing Texas. That was one the other day. It was $50,000 over about $11,000, a football helmet with Tennessee. $10,000. Yeah. You know, and just to let you know, Rice is playing Texas. That was one the other day. It was $50,000 over about $11,000. $11,400. Yeah.

So, we've got to compare. Nobody looks at this stuff. They don't. Nobody talks about what it costs, and when you just put the cost up there, you go, you've got to be kidding me. Yeah, and Dave, you say this all the time. $11,000 tuition a year if you stay at home, eat at home, that's $833 a month. You can cash flow that. Yep.

You can make that delivering pizzas, baby. Yes, sir. We'll say that again tonight. The debt-free degree town hall tonight. You want to watch it free on the internet, we'll send you a link. Just text the word town hall, town hall, to 33789. 33789. Anthony, proud of you, man. It's going to be a busy, busy month. Hold on.89. Anthony, proud of you, man.

It's going to be a busy, busy month. Hold on. Thank you, sir. Thank you, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. Graham and Jennifer are with us in Orlando. Hi, Graham, how are you? Doing good, Dave, how are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, Dave, we're calling in to let you know that we are debt-free. Woo-hoo! Way to go, you guys! Congratulations. How much have you paid off? Dave, we've paid off $25,000 in nine months. Good for you. Very good. And your range of income during that time? We were making between $94,000 and $96,000. Cool. What do y'all do for a living? I work as a program manager for an insurance company working in specialty risk. And I'm a brewmaster for Orlando Brewing Company.

Very cool. Good for you guys. What kind of debt was the $25,000? We had a car loan because I had to get the Honda Pilot right when I got my big-paying corporate job, right? Credit cards and finance cell phones. Oh, really? Wow. Okay. So you're kind of just bopping along fairly normal. What happened that interrupted all this nine months ago? Well, we just realized our son was getting ready to start high school. So in four years, we were going to be empty nesters and we didn't have

a house and we make all this money but have nothing to show for it. And I was just like, we have to get out of debt. And then what happened? Then I just started searching how to get out of debt. And then your name had popped up and it was familiar to me because one of my friends had told me about you. So I went to Graham and I'm like, look, this guy, Dave's got a plan. i think we should follow it i um googled uh d ramsay baby steps on youtube and i found like a 45 minute video of you going over the steps because i felt like he would sit down and watch it so we did we watched it together and he was like well that makes sense we'll just follow these steps and we just said enough's enough we're going to do this so graham the brewmaster got

poured a a tall cold one and you got to watch a video huh yeah she brought me the video and i watched it and everything made sense to me and it was about time for us to just buckle down and start doing something how long you guys been married uh 11 years we've been together 16 but married 11 all right very cool have you ever been debt-free during this time? Never. How's it feel? Amazing. It's real nice.

What was it that you guys saw in that particular video that made you think, I think we really can do this? Just how easy the steps seem to be. It's definitely a lot of hard work and a lot of sacrifice, but we always kind of felt like we were good with money. I was always kind of Dave-ish with money without even knowing about you. And then just listening, it's just everything just was so clear. How we look at money now is completely different. What we say no to now is like completely different. If we don't have the cash for it, we're not going to get it. We're just going to wait and save.

I mean, it's so incredible to finally be on this side of it. Yeah. Wow. So what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Make a budget and then definitely do it together. Yeah, it's a lot of compromise together, but every week we get paid, we'll sit down and we'll do the budget to the dollar and we stick to it. And it's a lot of compromise, a lot of back and forth.

But you've got to do it to make it work. Yeah, especially the first year you do this, especially the first three months. But after that, it gets easier. But even the first year, you're still in the first year right now. And even then, you're still, you know, you haven't gotten in the rhythm completely. And so there is always a discussion. There's always some compromise, always some discussion back and forth. now and even then you're still you know you haven't gotten in the rhythm completely and so there is always a discussion there's always some compromise always some discussion back and forth what was the toughest one the biggest the biggest fight you all had

um not really because we worked it out but i would say the hardest thing for us to do was just stop eating out because we loved to eat out and that was hard to be like okay we're going to eat more at home well i don't like the cook he does all the cooking so well and and gram you're kind of around that that world i mean you're in the in the entertainment hospitality world food the food world right yeah a little bit i don't really get into it that much i just have to go in and brew the beer that That's what I mean. Okay. All right. But, I mean, the matching and whatever.

Okay, cool. Well, very fun, you guys. Very fun. We're very proud of you. Who were your biggest cheerleaders? Definitely my mother-in-law, Graham's mom, was a huge supporter of us. My friend Jennifer, who actually went through your plan, so when she found out I was going through it, she was pumping me on and then also my best friend sarah she totally thinks we're weird but she's like go for it

yeah yeah push it through yeah absolutely even if you are weird we're cheering for you huh yeah that's good i like that that's cool well we're proud of you at ramsey solutions we can tell you that and uh very very proud proud. Good job. Very good job. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires, How Ordinary People Built Extraordinary Wealth, How You Can Too. That is the next chapter after you're debt-free, because the only reason to get debt-free is to increase the quality of your life and your generosity. And now you're going to be able to do both, making really good money. And you don't have a payment in the world, but a house payment.

You're in great shape, guys. Congrats. Thanks, Dave. All right. It's Graham and Jennifer, Orlando, Florida, $25,000 paid off in nine months, making $94,000 to $96,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. We a debt-free scream three two one we're debt-free yeah this is how it's done i love it you guys i love it we are a little busy around ram. We're right in the middle of our fall schedule, which always means that we're speaking and teaching all over America. Lots of things going on. We have Financial Peace live events scheduled. Next Tuesday, there'll be one in Tacoma, Washington. And the following Monday, Anthony O'Neill will launch his book.

I mentioned earlier he's going to launch it this coming Monday. It's not this coming Monday. It's a week from this coming Monday. Unless I'm – am I doing this wrong? No, no, no, no. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm so confused. I am so messed up.

Tuesday – Tacoma is this coming Wednesday. It's day after tomorrow. Completely sold out, so it doesn't matter. Chris Hogan, Anthony O'Neill will be in Tacoma, Washington doing a. It's day after tomorrow. Completely sold out, so it doesn't matter. Chris Hogan, Anthony O'Neill will be in Tacoma, Washington, doing a Financial Peace Live event. Sold out. October the 10th is Phoenix, Arizona. That's in the middle of the book tour, which is next week as well.

And so that's the process. I'm trying to get this figured out. Thursday is when that's going to be, a week from Thursday. It's sold out. Phoenix, Arizona. Thank you, guys. Charleston, South Carolina. I will be there with Chris Hogan doing a Financial Peace Live.

November the 20th, it is not yet sold out. If you want tickets to that, you can. And we're live streaming that. About 10,000 of you have already bought tickets to that. If you're a Financial Peace member, meaning you are a member and have gone through the class and you're signed up for our annual membership on that the streaming of our live events are free to you and so uh you're gonna be able to get that streamed event then we did financial peace accelerated which is a new thing we haven't done in years and years and years

it's cram course we do the whole nine weeks of material in one day. And we did that Saturday in Orlando. Anthony O'Neill, Chris Hogan, and I started early in the morning, finished up about 6 o'clock Saturday evening. It was a long day for the audience and a long day for us. We worked hard making sure you get all of those lessons in one day in Orlando. That was a completely sold-out event as well. And we redid and taught some of the lessons over in different ways and videoed them, and we'll be introducing those into that product soon. So very, very fun stuff.

Good things happening there. The Business Boutique Conference is not yet sold out. It's October 24th, 25th. That's Christy Wright equipping women to make money doing what they love. It's a four-day event and a vastly incredible thing. Entree Leadership Master Series is in November. It's sold out. The Ramsey Right Start event, I think that one's gone as well.

That's here in Nashville. The SMART Conference in Sacramento is not yet sold out. And that's November the 16th. We'll be over there doing the day-long event with uh me hogan ken coleman anthony o'neill dr mcmeker dr les parrot on marriage and parenting uh john o'leary george camel will be with us and um several other wonderful speakers it's going to be a day-long event on the smart conference the money and marriage event is february the 14th the live like no one Else cruise is sold out, of course. It's been sold out for a year.

It's in March. Entree Leadership Summit's in May. That's my full rundown down into next May that I've got right now. Bottom line is we're running around like our tails on fire around here. We're all over the place, burning up airline fuel and everything else, getting to your city. One of us or another is popping up everywhere.

The debt-free degree town hall is tonight. Text town hall to 33789 for Monday night's broadcast for free. You can watch it. We'll send you a link. Thank you for joining us, America. Mary is with us in Florida. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Mary. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? Well, I just recently sold my home and paid off almost all of my debt. But I'm 59, and I do not have any money in retirement so I was wondering what your advice would be instead of taking all the money that I have and putting it into a home I was thinking that maybe I should beef up an investment account. But I know that your steps say that's like borrowing money to invest. Right.

Okay. So how much debt do you currently have that you have not paid off? Well, I have a lease that has 30 months remaining and um it's 400 a month good lord so okay but it uh i just didn't think it would be wise to turn that over yet okay and do you have anything else? No debt, no. I am cash flowing my daughter's college right now, and no other debt. Okay. And how much money do you have that is in your account today with the sale of your house after you paid off some of the debts well i have um a total of 290 i put uh 10 000 in my emergency fund and i have uh about 5 000 in an account because i haven't done my 18 taxes yet and just get ready to do them gotcha but um if i was going to do a sap i'm self-employed and if i was going to do a SEP, I'm self-employed, and if I was going to do a SEP, I wanted to.

I've been waiting to figure out what to do before I. And what do you earn? What's your household income? It's about $70,000 a year. What kind of a business have you got? I do small business bookkeeping for private individuals. Very good. Yeah.

Okay. So it's fairly low impact, so you can do more of it and do it longer. That's the good news. Yeah. Okay. All right. So what price range was the home you sold? It sold for $518,000.

Got it. Okay. And what city do you live in in Florida? I am just north of Palm Beach, Florida. Okay. All right. As in the Jupiter market, like that? Just above Jupiter.

Okay. I don't know where you are. Okay. Well. I would like to stay in the $300,000 range for a home, and so I was thinking maybe invest $200,000 into the house and take a small mortgage for 10 years. Okay, here's where we've got to get.

Here's our ratios. Here's the three or four numbers that are the big numbers in your equation. Okay. ratios here's the three or four numbers that are the big numbers in your equation okay the by age 70 something okay 15 years 75 okay 15 years from now we have to have a nest egg and a paid for house we currently have 290 000 to do that with and we have 70 000 a year to do that with and we have $70,000 a year to do that with. Okay. And so that's you working to 75. Okay.

If we, you know, or to 72 or whatever, if we say 12 years, I don't care. But you've got $70,000 a year and $290,000 to accomplish that. Because if you do not have a paid for house when you're through working you're going to have a major problem because it destabilizes your whole situation to have a mortgage when you are retired you do not want to go into retirement retirement with no with a mortgage so we've got to clear the house the second thing then every dollar we pay into this house obviously means we don't have it in a nest egg. And borrowing it doesn't fix that. Because if you borrowed on your house and say, okay, I'm going to put $200 down,

and I have a $100,000 mortgage, well, then you still got to pay the $100,000 off. And that's still $100,000 that's not going into my retirement nest egg. So what would I do if I woke up in your shoes? Here's what I would do if I woke up in your shoes. I don't know what you'll do, but this is what I would do. I would buy a $200,000 house for cash, which in your area ain't much of a house. It's an okay house. It's certainly not a shack, but it's a pretty far step down from where

you were living i understand that when i'm saying this i'm going somewhere with this don't quit on me till we finish talking okay so i would start there and um i pay off my car today find out what the early buyout on it is it's probably12,000, probably $10,000, $11,000, something like that, and find out what the buyout is and just pay the stupid thing off and own the car, okay? Or sell it and get one that you pay cash for. I don't care. Spend $10,000 or $12,000 doing that, $20,000, whatever it takes. Let's get out of this car lease, no more payments.

Now, we got zero payments now in my little scenario, the world I just invented. Okay? And we've got $50,000 or so to start investing, start our investing process into good mutual funds. Then you load up a SEP, you load up a Roth IRA, and you do everything you can to increase the number of accounts you keep books for, and let's increase your income. And let's bust it for a few years. Now, if we can get you up to a half million dollars and let's bust it for a few years now if we can get you up to a half million dollars in savings for your retirement in a few years and you want to

move up in-house and pay cash for the move up that'll be okay that means we've gotten past the danger zone but you retiring with zero money or close to zero money and a nice paid for house is not a plan right and so i'm going to scale your house back to get the other stuff started and then you know in five years when you see that this is working and you want to move up in house again move up to about a 400 and pay cash for it and you know i think you'll be able to do that later in this plan, but I want you to make sure we first have got the wolf away from the door. So I would live in that $200,000 house for three to five years while I got my nest egg roaring. And when it's roaring and it's going big, it's on fire,

then I'm talking about saving up, paying cash, moving up in house a little bit, and we know we're going to be okay. I think you'll be okay if you do all of this and you live on a tight budget. But you have not done that to date. To date, you've not saved a dime in 59 years on the planet. So you've got some proving to do to yourself, not to me, but to yourself that you can do this. And you need to scale this house down with no house payment to enable that to happen,

and you need to get on the every dollar budget. So hold on. I'm going to do two things. I want you to go through Financial Peace University, and I'm going to show you how to be a millionaire in 14 years. And you can do that making $70,000 a year, and especially in your situation because you've got $290,000 in the bank. You've got a good start on this.

Okay? So you hold on. I'll have Madison sign you up, and that's going to hook you up with EveryDollarPlus. When you do the membership, it includes the class, EveryDollarPlus, all the other classes, Legacy Journey, everything's in there. So you hold on, and we'll give you that as our gift. The other thing we're going to send you is Chris Hogan's book, Retire Inspired, his first number one bestseller. And that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to take you at 59 years old and get you retiring inspired.

And that's what I would do if I woke up in your shoes. I don't know if you'll do it or not, but that's a really good mathematical system I just gave you there, and it will work. I promise you it will work if you push it through good question thank you for joining us a hundred dollars invested got a hundred dollars could you get a hundred dollars a hundred dollars a month invested from age 25 to age 65. Only $100.

Now, $100 is a lot of money. You hand it to me, I'll take it. I know what a C-note looks like. But most of you make enough to invest $100. From age 25 to age 65 in a decent growth stock mutual fund is $1,176,000. There's no reason that you retire broke in America today, except you consumed it. You made enough money, all of you out there, not just her, but all of you out there, you made enough money, and you've been consuming your butt off.

A hundred bucks a month, and you'd have retired a millionaire in your working life. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. This is James Childs, producer of the Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to the Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify? For all the ways to watch and listen, check out our show page at daveramsey.com slash show.