The Ramsey Show - App - Don’t Nickel and Dime Your Way Into Marriage (Hour 2)

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Dr. John Delony answer your questions and discuss: "Should I allow finances to stop our marriage plans?" "Should I allow my dad to be my financial advisor?" Is the $1000k emergency fu...nd reasonable? from the blog: Is a $1,000 Emergency Fund Enough? "I can't get my wife on board with the Baby Steps", "My husband refuses to get life insurance", What to do with an inheritance. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Take our FREE 3 minute assessment: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Live Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving, and storage studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today, number one bestselling author and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show. If you've not checked it out, it's on all things mental health and relationships and quite a lot of stuff going on on this podcast.
Starting point is 00:00:58 You should check it out. It's a lot of fun, and it's one of our more popular things we're doing around Ramsey networks these days, so be sure you do. Phone number here, 888-825-5225. Leon is in Philadelphia. Hi, Leon. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.
Starting point is 00:01:12 Hi, John. How are y'all doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? Hey, I was calling today to see if we should allow finances to stop my wedding plans. That's a broad question. Can you tell us more? Yeah, absolutely. So my fiance and I have been together for a long time. She's desired to get married more than I have or more time than I have. It took our return to faith and my fiancé's bravery during the pandemic to really open my eyes to marriage.
Starting point is 00:01:49 Our opinions diverge in one area, and that's our approach to marriage. I'm more pragmatic with my approach, and she's more idealistic. So, in preparation to get married, I did some math and realized that in getting married, some of our expenses will increase significantly, in particular, our health coverage. My fiancé qualifies for no-cost medical insurance right now through the state. And in the event that we do get married or when we do get married, that expense will increase significantly. It will go from about $104 a month to about $510 a month. My employer-funded health insurance to add a spouse, it jumped significantly. What's your household income?
Starting point is 00:02:49 We're at about $62,000 a year. You're not honestly asking us if her becoming your wife is worth $4,800 a year. Well, it's a little more than that. Yeah, it might be $4,814. Come on, super nerd. Really? Well, the deductibles will also double. You're killing me.
Starting point is 00:03:13 Listen, hey, here's the deal. No, you should not get married. You should not. No? Absolutely not. If you're going to nickel and dime your relationship with this woman that has suggested she wants to spend the rest of her life with you even the way you said i came around to marriage because i saw she was brave and um something that like i want the hounds of hell holding you back from wanting to be with this person forever and forty eight hundred dollars dude I've seen guys way, make way, like making stupid financial moves because they
Starting point is 00:03:50 were so head over heels. They were going to marry somebody that I had to say, whoa, slow down. $4,800 sounds like you are looking for a mathematical reason to not do this is what it sounds like. Um, it isn't. So we have a child together okay and um we kind of went went about our our family a little bit backwards um so we purchased the house we have a family together and it really is our plan to be a single single income household um with with me working and and she's staying home and helping to raise our son with me. So it's not just the, I know that if we pursued plans in a more traditional way. Leon, how old are you?
Starting point is 00:04:34 40. Are your mom and dad still married? No. Nasty divorce? No, I was young. Hurt you though? Yeah, yeah, it definitely did. And I do think it had an impact on my view of marriage in terms of, you know, what it means. So you're looking for a way to intellectualize a spiritual and emotional decision.
Starting point is 00:05:00 Yes. yes and um you're you're the john's point is the best thing you can do and it will actually cause the math to work out there's an odd odd piece of uh irony here but the best thing you can do is go all in it's time to get off the ladder time to stop painting painter get off the ladder it's time to do it dude you have a baby you own. You own a house. In every form, you're married, except in your emotions where you have finally let go of that last little piece of control and that last little hurt little boy named Leon from his mom and dad's thing.
Starting point is 00:05:36 And it scared him and it hurt him. And that doesn't make you bad. It doesn't even make you weak. It just makes you a human. And it's time to let go of all that and marry this woman and enjoy her and enjoy life together and enjoy a wonderful future and lean into the emotional relational spiritual part of that and then there is actual data that's called the marriage advantage that says that shows statistically that married couples end up with a higher probability of wealth and net worth
Starting point is 00:06:08 and a higher net worth than singles, particularly singles shacked up. And so the data is actually there. The research is actually there to back this up. That's right. And it goes back to you and I were having a conversation earlier on another show about Sharon's work at home allowed, I mean, whether it's somebody contributing directly cash into the account or whether somebody's creating a platform for somebody else to repel off the side into, man, it works out that way.
Starting point is 00:06:41 It just does. Yeah, you're going to prosper more than the supposed loss that you have identified. Yeah. And mathematically, that's going to end up being true. I can't, it's difficult to put actual examples in place today, but i do know that the research says that and i do know that my 30 plus years of doing this helping people with money shows that a fully committed couple in a marriage that have shared goals and vision and are both working towards the same thing and um one of them's neither one of them are dead weight. They both are contributors to the discussion, contributors to the dream, that there's just a, you know, the career is better, the health is better,
Starting point is 00:07:33 the obesity is lower, the blood pressure is lower, everything. And all of that, by the way, ends up affecting your dollars and cents. Absolutely. So there's a whole thing there and then of course this idea that that you know two horses pulling together in tandem one plus one equals more than two and we all know that's called synergy yeah that's right um and if you notice if you listen back to the call dave i it's an old counselor trick but when somebody comes and asks, like, I'm kind of stuck. I don't know if I should do this.
Starting point is 00:08:06 I should do this. If you'll just say, well, go ahead and break up. Sometimes they'll exhale and sometimes they'll come back and be like, I'm not breaking up. And there's your answer. Right. And so there's a push. It's just an old, then you're not ready to get married. And if the first impulse is, yes, I am, then there, now you've intellectualized it. You need to get on that track. And if it's, you're not ready to get married and if the first impulse is yes i am then there now you're
Starting point is 00:08:26 you've intellectualized it you need to get on that track and if it's you're right i don't need to get married then you've answered your own question yeah but you also have by asking these questions leon you've identified some things you all have the opportunity to work on some healing in absolutely that'll uh that'll release a lot of positive stuff in your relationships and in your money this This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer,
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Starting point is 00:09:41 they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Well, in one month, we're going to have our inaugural event at the Ramsey Event Center. It's a smart conference that has got about four tickets left, I think. It's just basically sold out. If you want to come, you can get one. But more importantly, we're going to use that same event center, which is really looking cool.
Starting point is 00:10:18 I was up there a while ago. We're excited because this is opening week for us with the thing. But we're going to do a money and marriage weekend getaway in Nashville at our event center, October 19th and 21st, with Dr. John Deloney and Rachel Cruz. It's going to be fun. It's going to be a blast. So communication doesn't always equal connection. And whether you've been married five or 25 years, not uncommon to get complacent in the day-to-day routine.
Starting point is 00:10:52 And so, Rachel and you, you're going to tear into this. That's right. And we're going to talk about getting aligned. We're going to talk about intimacy. We're going to talk about money, how it all works together. And I've been hearing all over the country, married couples have become roommates. Inadvertently so, just trying to deal with with covid the pandemic and jobs and moving all that and this is a chance to focus on yourself for
Starting point is 00:11:10 the first time in a long time october 19th through the 21st it's an entire weekend the money and marriage getaway weekend in nashville you'll not only get to enjoy our fabulous city and there is a lot of cool stuff here but uh of course get to enjoy our fabulous city, and there is a lot of cool stuff here, but, of course, get to enjoy this entire event. The entire weekend is $6.99 a couple, three full days of amazing content, food, and all the cool surprises that we've got waiting on you because we know how to do this, and it's a lot of fun.
Starting point is 00:11:39 This is a serious deal. It's a great, great deal. So, listen, only a limited number of tickets, so check it out today, ramsaysolutions.com slash events, the Money and Marriage Getaway Weekend, October 19 through 21 next fall in the brand-new Ramsey Event Center. And, again, an entire weekend here in Nashville, and you're going to have a blast. Looking forward to having all of you.
Starting point is 00:12:03 All right, up next is Christina in Cincinnati. Hi, Christina. How are you? I'm doing well, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, quick question.
Starting point is 00:12:14 I am expecting to be out of Baby Step 3 here in the next few months, and I don't know if I should be in Baby Step 3B or if I should start Baby Step 4 and 5. And also if I'm to start the investing Baby Step, if I use my dad who's a financial advisor who is well-known in the town or if I use one of your smart investor pros. Okay. How old are you? 26. Okay.
Starting point is 00:12:43 Why would you not use your dad? I've been hard set on following your ways, your baby steps, and just doing the Dave way. He won't go along with that? He does for the most part. I mean, he doesn't, like, follow your baby steps. He still uses credit cards, but, like, he pays them off. No, your financial advisor doesn't control your credit cards.
Starting point is 00:13:13 Right. Your financial advisor handles your Roth IRAs. Right. Christina, does your dad give you advice on a lot of things that you don't ask him for advice on? No. why are you it seems like the question behind your question is that you don't necessarily want your dad dealing with your money is that right or wrong i don't have an issue with my dad dealing with my money
Starting point is 00:13:38 i've been waiting to go over to his house to have him really like nitpick my budget really so i don't know like i it's something that i've been contemplating like do i go with my dad or do i use one of your smart investors just because like i'm very into if your dad will allow you to make your own decisions and will do what you tell him to do with your money you would use your dad okay unless he's not a person of integrity or you have some kind of a relational violation with him. But if he has control freak issues or if he's got boundary issues and he's going to tell you what you have to do and if you don't do it the way he wants, he's going to use his dad voice, then you would not use your dad.
Starting point is 00:14:20 Or if he's going to move you in funds and just let you know, hey, I went ahead and moved all this for you because i saw something in the market then uh that a trader like a smart investor pro would normally call me and say hey i'm thinking about doing this i want to recommend this what do you think um if he will let you be an adult and make your own decisions and he follows the fine he makes suggestions and then does what you tell him to do with your money after you've had his teaching and his advice and his suggestions then that's a healthy reasonable boundary situation you have no relational breakdown with him otherwise then i would use your dad okay that's how i would do it no question about it if he is if he's saying listen you need to buy
Starting point is 00:15:03 this whole life life insurance policy and you say no i don't use whole life life insurance and he has a fit and acts like you're 14 years old then you don't need to use your dad yeah but but i don't hear that here i i kind of think we're being tested to see if we send everybody to smart vector pros no matter what but um i don't i mean it's it's there's nothing wrong as long as your financial advisor is not confused about who owns the money but i mean financial advisors cfp sometimes means certified financial pharisee sometimes it means certified financial planner and they actually will teach you things uh but some people in that business they get like a doc syndrome and they're like i'm god now and you need to listen to me that's right uh whether it's your
Starting point is 00:15:51 dad or not right and so that's why we always tell folks you're looking for someone and while we vet our smart investor pros you're looking for someone that has the heart of a teacher not the heart of a salesman or a control freak because the first time one of these characters in the financial world or in the legal world tells me what i have to do with my life instead of suggest that here's a wise course of action then our that we just we're done yeah i'm done yeah and i my my smart investor pro is an old friend and i said hey i don't i don't you don't have to do your spiel I just want you to do I want you to do this and he said I don't do that I teach and it was a it was a this is like I'm not going to do business with you if you want me just to run your life my job is to teach you what's going on with your money and I really appreciated the pushback it was good well
Starting point is 00:16:38 that's because he doesn't do it the other way that's and there there really is only two types of people in the financial world and that's the two types so yeah i mean it's perfectly fine to do that but what i often run into is is there's a you know like you know dad pouts or something like that and i'm like you know and so uh you know that they follow dave and that somehow is a judgment or an indictment against you dad and i don't ah man you use credit card points i'm not i don't want to deal with i don't i don't want to deal with that that world i'm not going to argue with you about it i'm just going to do what i'm going to do exactly yeah that's the thing hannah's with us in uh grand rapids missouri
Starting point is 00:17:18 grand rapids michigan i'm guessing what's up hannah hi d and John. It's great to talk to both of you. You too. How can we help? So I drank the Ramsey Kool-Aid about a month ago. Welcome. Welcome. Yeah. And I keep drinking it too.
Starting point is 00:17:36 So I am on Baby Step 2, but I actually have a question on Baby Step 1 because I have the $1,000 emergency fund for a little bit. I was trying to continue to save for a house while trying to pay off that, and you know how well that worked out. That was before you took the last sip of Kool-Aid. Yeah, that was. And poured it all over your head. so I ended up having three thousand dollars in car repairs done this last week um which is obviously over the thousand dollar emergency fund and thankfully I had that house savings quote-unquote to use for these car repairs but I'm wondering if you have a more reasonable
Starting point is 00:18:20 starter emergency fund while I sit in this paying off debt phase because man I can't go through that if I only have a thousand dollars left in there how many times do you think you're going to have three thousand dollar car repairs well I think we can agree that's statistically highly unusual that is true but, I have, I'm a single person, one income. I, you know, I don't live with roommates. I have two dogs that are very expensive if they ever go to the vet for an emergency situation. What do you make? So I pre-tax $62,500. And how much debt do you have? About $8,200 in student loans. My last one. Your $1,000 emergency fund is not supposed to be reasonable.
Starting point is 00:19:09 I want it to burn. It's supposed to be unreasonable. It's supposed to be like, I'm a little scared, so I'm going to get my butt in gear and pay off $8,200 really, really, really, really, really, really fast. Let's have a garage sale this weekend. Let's take three jobs. I want this done in two or three months.
Starting point is 00:19:24 And then build up your emergency fund to what it should be. Yes, it should be uncomfortable. It should be unreasonable to you that you're sitting in debt. That's what's unreasonable. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, is my co-host today. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Our new sponsor for our question of the day, we are so proud to have Neighborly, your hub for home services, sponsoring our question of the day. The question is brought to you by Neighborly.
Starting point is 00:20:01 When something in your home breaks, neighborly is the name to remember and with a neighborly done right promise you'll get great service from their network of local home service providers people like mr rooter mr electric molly made these are names you've heard of they're all part of the neighborly hub so be sure and check them out at neighborly.com today all right today's question comes from dan in the Ramsey Baby Steps community. Daniel writes, I have a problem I'm hoping you can help. My wife is not on board with doing the baby steps. In her head, it's basically your debt, not mine.
Starting point is 00:20:39 I've tried talking to her, but she always ends up getting mad and not wanting to talk about budgeting or financial goals. Yikes, man. You already are. Yeah, exactly. You're alone and you're dragging somebody along with you. Dave, any time this conversation needs to happen way ahead, way before budgeting or financial goals. This is not a baby steps or financial.
Starting point is 00:21:08 This is a broken marriage. Yeah, exactly. This is, um, somebody who's either because of childhood stuff or because of recent stuff or because of the way Daniel's does communication. She has created her own little universe inside this marriage,
Starting point is 00:21:23 inside this house and does not want anybody coming in or out of those walls and that's the conversation that needs to happen yeah but it's not like i'm getting a divorce because of the baby steps no um you know you're if your marriage ends it's because you refuse to work together on anything i, I'm sure baby steps is not the only thing. It's just the latest place it has shown up. Right. Daniel, the way you are describing your wife is,
Starting point is 00:22:00 you describe your wife as belligerent and immature and um which tells me that there's a level of contempt for her and uh as uh les parrot talks about in his marriage stuff and he's quoting gottman the uh four horsemen of the apocalypse uh one of the four things you cannot recover from in a relationship is contempt right and uh you know when your wife pops into your head you kind of have an eye roll like you've lost all respect for her the way you're describing her and then you walk into the room and she feels that. And every defense mechanism she has spins up.
Starting point is 00:22:49 And then you get in this weird dance where she's defending herself against you and you're defending yourself against her. Crazy cycle. Right. And that's like I will often say somebody has to be the adult. Stop the music. Stop the dancing. Turn the lights on and say, what are we doing?
Starting point is 00:23:04 We are choosing misery at this point let's let's choose something different are you in right yeah and sometimes like man i found myself like daniel getting frustrated over time with the way my wife was responding to things until i realized oh she's responding to me the way i talk the way i communicate the way i announce what we're going to do instead of sitting down and coming to the table and i've also run across people who's um get dragged around by their wives and others so i mean who knows what the actual root here is but they need to sit down and be adults and say what are we doing yeah i think you're way overdue to sit with a marriage counselor yeah way overdue and um you need to sit down with them. Um, but, uh, I, I'm, I'm going to venture
Starting point is 00:23:48 and say, I'm, I, we don't know any details except what is said here, that this is a, uh, a young marriage, uh, with young people and, um, could be old people that are just doing dumb young things. But, um, but that that's, uh, I I'm going gonna put it on you daniel you said i've tried talking to her but she always in i think that tells me that you've tried talking at her right like a parent to a child yeah like this is what we need to do and we're gonna sell your car here's yet another scheme i've got for yeah here's something else we're gonna do this and instead of saying all right i'm worried i'm scared about money and i'm scared about our relationship if we don't get on the same page about what our dreams are and what our future is going to look like if we don't start dreaming
Starting point is 00:24:35 together again and then discussing how to get there this stuff around baby steps and budgeting and financial goals and all that has woken that up inside of me that i want us to have a shared vision shared goals shared fears and we don't have that and it's worrying me what have we got to do to get that going and that's a that is an honest question coming from a coming from your need and if that gets her angry now you got real problems right right but that probably is i think the reason she's angry she's tired of being talked and if that gets her angry, now you've got real problems. But that probably is, I think the reason she's angry is she's tired of being talked at. And, yeah, there's something different between I'm scared versus here's how you're going to budget. Those are two different conversations.
Starting point is 00:25:18 I'm putting you on a budget. Yeah, yeah. That'll fly. Those should be filed under things to never say to your wife. Yeah, lead weight balloons. That one's not going anywhere. Nope, nope. So if some simple things like that, Daniel, like re-approaching this and going, look, I'm sorry, I came at this wrong, but it's scaring me,
Starting point is 00:25:37 and it's a big deal to me that we learned to work together on this. And you getting mad and stomping off the other room, I can't deal with it. It's freaking me out. And so what can we do to where we can sit down and talk about our future and how we can win together on life? And it does show up in our checkbook. And if she says, screw you, then, you know, you may, you know, then you really have to sit down with marriage counselor. But it may just be on how to end the marriage. Right.
Starting point is 00:26:03 Because it may admit that it already ended um but that's the thing so yeah you're pretty much going it alone right now son so i think you got to make some moves to fix that one way or the other either you get her to the table or you get her to a marriage counseling table or if she won't go you go without her go talk to the marriage counselor and let them teach you how to talk yeah and and before we we move on from this, Dave, I think this is important to call out. He writes here at the end, at times it feels best if we parted ways. I always think about carrying a whole bunch of groceries up and I'm a guy that likes to carry all the groceries at the same, just make one trip.
Starting point is 00:26:39 And I've got 14 bags on one arm and something on my head and something on my other arms. And I always overload myself. It always gets too heavy. And I always think I need to set all this stuff down. And if I just set the groceries down, it's going to feel good for a minute. And then I'm going to have wasted all these groceries. We're going to have no food upstairs. I'm going to have two loud kids who are hollering at me. Sometimes what feels best right this second is not the solution long term for your relationship you got to take the hard path you got to do hard stuff and sit down and have uncomfortable conversations if you're going to get to a place of peace on the other end
Starting point is 00:27:14 craig rochelle pastor craig's new book he talks about one of the things that causes people to have positive change in their life is when they choose the right hard or the hard right the hard right the hard thing that's the right thing yeah choose the hard right the thing and um choose the hard thing that's the right thing and that's what you're talking about here and it's choose to push through this choose to get to the bottom of it choose to own your part of it and apologize repeatedly and choose to move okay what is going to get us to the place we really want to be when we're 85 years old emily is with us emily is in illinois champaign to be precise hi emily how are you hi how are you guys we're great we're right up against the clock go for it
Starting point is 00:28:00 okay i wrote this down to keep it quick so I am a certified financial coach for a local credit union, and my husband let his life insurance lapse. So it's been two months, and it doesn't matter what I say, he won't get life insurance. How come a certified financial coach is not doing a budget with your husband where you knew that it wasn't being paid? So it comes out annually. And this is our, we've only been married for nine months.
Starting point is 00:28:30 So this is our first go around with that. And I was like, hey, you need to check that. It hasn't come out of the account that was supposed to come out. Can you check that? And he was like, no, I think it's bumped in with yours. And I'm like, that's not how that works. And this has been the last two months. So why does he not want to take care of you with his life insurance? I don't know.
Starting point is 00:28:55 Well, I think that's the issue. That's what I'd get to the bottom of. Yeah, I think that conversation sits down and you look across the table from him and say, I'm terrified and scared to death of what happens to me when you die. Will you please help me here? That's what that's for, to take care of you. It's not for him. He doesn't need the life insurance.
Starting point is 00:29:13 You do. If you're the beneficiary, that is. This is The Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America. Open phones at 888- two five five two two five greg is next in oklahoma city hi greg welcome to the ramsey show hi dave thanks for taking my call sure um let me start out i'm 61 dave um and my dad passed and he left the kids, each one of us, some money. Okay, I have $50,000, Dave.
Starting point is 00:29:49 I'm late to the game, and I lost a lot in the divorce, but my savings is $20,000. My 401K is $70,000. My emergency fund is $10,000 my house is I have a balance of $85,000 so do I go towards the pay the house down or do I need to invest that money
Starting point is 00:30:19 what do you make Greg? $50,000 here here's our goal okay the two things that will give you stability in your later years okay is a paid for house and a nest egg so we need both and as you, you're late to the game. You're running behind on both of them. The good news is you didn't have an $850,000 mortgage. You got an $85,000 mortgage. That's really good news.
Starting point is 00:30:54 And you don't have a bunch of debt, I hear. No other debt other than the house? Right. Yes, sir. Good, good. All right. So what I would do is pay it on the house with the idea that I'm going to get the house paid off the rest of the way very, very soon. Lean in on that.
Starting point is 00:31:14 And while you're doing that, let's get that 401k jacked up and get it going. You've got to throw money at it. got two big goals massively fund the 401k and knock out that final 35 000 so that when you get to 65 or 70 you've got two or three four hundred thousand dollars in your 401k and a paid four house that'll set you up but you've got you're gonna have to do all of it because you're you got some catching up to do you're're going to have to lean in. Nothing to panic about. It's very doable. But you need to save all you can into your 401K and clear the rest of that house with great urgency.
Starting point is 00:31:59 You know, because you basically got four, five, six, seven years to finish this deal up. Because if you can go into retirement with enough of a nest egg that you can live off of the income and have no debt at all, including your house, that's a very stable, you know, anxiety-free retirement. Okay, right. How far, how long can you do your job? Is it a manual labor job you've got a couple years left, or can you do this for the next eight, nine years? Eight, I can go. My goal is eight, but I'll just go part-time at eight
Starting point is 00:32:32 just to keep doing it so I have some money. And what do you do? Part specialist. Okay, all right. That's cool. And you know what I would do probably if I were you? I like the idea of getting a head start and kind of getting this kicked off. So I probably would say I'm going to commit to 24 months of unreasonable work
Starting point is 00:32:55 and just, you know, go see if you can double your income for 24 months by kicking some side hustle in the teeth. I don't want you to do that forever and you've worked hard but i would like to get to where i'm a you know because that right there would clear the house and you could load that 401k full you see what i'm doing and if you're you said you're 60 so if you're 62 and you got a paid for house and now we've got 140 000 in your 401k heading towards 3,400. I feel really good about your situation then, don't you? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:33:32 Yeah, I was afraid you were going to say that. But you're right, you're right. I would rather you do it now and get all of that oomph going, get that momentum going, get the rock rolling down the hill then have to do it at 70 or can we can we can we do an uncomfortable exercise real quick greg yeah yeah and this is for the benefit of the listeners imagine yourself the next 24 months working really hard you're driving uber in the morning you're driving uber in the evening after you get off of work you're're tired. You're going home.
Starting point is 00:34:05 Your 60-year-old joints ache. You've got that. And also imagine at 70, you're sitting in your house, and you pick up your landline, and you call your brother, and you've got to ask him for some money. It's either or. Do you see how it's either or here? Yeah. And one of these is going to leave you with dignity, with your head held high.
Starting point is 00:34:25 I went out on my shield. I put my pedal to the metal. And the other one is, can you come rescue me? Because I didn't have the courage to go make it happen. And we're doing this with a sense of urgency towards ambition and succeeding and prospering, not a sense of desperation. Right. Because you'll get desperate after a while if you don't do it now with that sense then it'll that the emotional turn on it and it'll feel like terror is driving this and i think if i think back to the last 30 years of you
Starting point is 00:34:57 asking congress nicely and increasingly with louder and louder volume we're going to deal with this at some point we can deal with intentionally, or we can deal with it when it drops on our head. We're going to deal with it. Exactly. Aaron is in Rochester, Minnesota. Hi, Aaron. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. It's good to be on here. Good to have you. How can we help? Hey, I'm a 30-year-old pastor. I'm married and I have two kids, and we're on baby steps 3B with four and five also being worked on.
Starting point is 00:35:27 And I've been going through your financial piece, university for pastors. And I really appreciate that. Oh, good. Yeah. We live in a Parsons though. And a small house immediately behind us will be coming up for sale in the
Starting point is 00:35:37 next couple of years. And we were wondering if we should buy it and rent it out for additional income because we'd like to buy a house in the country, but we feel like we should have a little bit bigger income before we take that step. So you're buying a rental property to hedge against the fact that someday you're going to walk out of a parsonage and you want to have participated in the real estate world.
Starting point is 00:36:01 Exactly. Okay. Are you going to pay cash for it? No. We would have to get a loan on it what denomination do you serve in baptist okay is it fair am i accurate my perception is and i work with 50 000 churches over the past um 30 years my perception is that parsonage with a Baptist church is fairly unusual. It kind of depends on where you're at. It's becoming more unusual, which is kind of nice for the pastors anyway. Yeah, I mean, because you can do housing allowance.
Starting point is 00:36:41 You can do all kinds of things in the pastor world from a tax perspective uh and how you receive your pay if you don't have a parsonage and i just don't know that many baptist churches have one anymore i see i see a parsonage a lot more often with a old school presbyterian or methodist than i do with baptist by the way just as an aside yeah but um yeah yeah so it's much more common there because again methodist they'll turn over a pastor and move them around more than Baptist does. Baptist, you're there till they run you off. And so or vice versa, you run them off.
Starting point is 00:37:11 But are you but you're not senior pastor or you said you said youth pastor? No, I'm a senior. You are a senior. I've been here for nine years. OK, so you're going to be there a while, probably. OK. All right. Hey, that's why I was trying to think through that in general, is are you really going to be in that situation the whole time and you may be you may be right i'm going to move yeah i mean if you want to do that and say that's my house in a way uh because
Starting point is 00:37:40 that gets you participating the real estate market you've got to do some kind of an investment plan long-term that we call your house fund. Yeah. We call when the parsonage ends, what am I going to move into fund? Yeah. And we've got $8,000 saved up for that right now. Yeah. And if you throw that at that house, if you throw that at that house,
Starting point is 00:38:02 and you keep building it up between now and the time you purchase that house and then get that house paid off even if that's not the house you move into that is an investment that we can liquidate to be your fund for buying your home when the parsonage ends so i'm okay going that yeah i probably would do that cool yeah all right thank you very much yeah but the the the idea, the good news is you're being very intentional on the whole idea of housing after the parsonage. And a lot of pastors, a lot of missionaries we work with have not made plans for how they're going to live in retirement because you've got to have a physical location to live in. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:38:39 And you've been living in someone else's housing for decades in some cases. So you really, really, really have to plan for how this is going to end well or it doesn't. So good for you, Aaron. Pastors out there, we are having free pastor's classes for Financial Peace University. Check it out at RamseySolutions.com. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started
Starting point is 00:39:07 on the Ramsey baby steps, go to ramsesolutions.com and click on the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. That's ramsesolutions.com and click Get Started.

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