The Ramsey Show - App - Draw a Line in the Sand and Say “I’m Done!”

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Live from Ramsey Network, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by my good friend, Mr. Ken Coleman, and we're here to serve you in whatever's going on in your life. Maybe it's the job that you want to quit. Maybe it's that side hustle thing that you want to go do. Maybe it's how do I move up in my career? How do I get out of debt? We're here to answer those questions and help you take the right next step. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Dante is going to kick us off in Chicago. What's going on, Dante?

Hey, guys. I just have a quick question. So I'm $68,000 in debt, credit cards and loans. Fifty of it has already been charged off from the bank. The other 18 I'm still currently paying off. So my question to you is, what do I do with the 50 grand that's been charged off? I don't know if I should do bankruptcy or like debt relief program or what are my other options. None of that.

And here's why. Number one, you're not actually going to change any of the habits that got you here. So we got to dig into that part of what caused me to go $68,000 into debt with money I don't have. And the other piece is it will destroy your financial life for the foreseeable future. So what I'd rather see you do is go, what do I need to do with my income and my spending in order to climb out of this thing in the next 18 to 24 months? If that was the only option, then you'd start getting creative. You'd go, all right, what can I do with my work? You know, what are you making right now, Dante? I do landscaping. So all this debt came, I bought a landscape business

and I bought a bunch of equipment. So all this debt is mostly used equipment. And so we do landscaping, but the last year or so, we went kind of down. And then winter, we do snow removal. And when there's no snow removal, we went down even some more. So that's what ended up getting us into debt with work expenses. How much value does landscaping equipment hold? In other words, let's say you paid X amount of dollars for the equipment. How much can you get for it now? I could get maybe $20, $25.

They're all used, and then the other one was just like running expenses. Half of it was used equipment, half of it was running expenses. How much equipment could you get away with not having? In other words, if you sold it, it wouldn't put you in a tough spot given your current business load. I mean, I could maybe get 20 now and maybe still move forward. Bro, there's the answer.

Without hurting the revenue for the business? Yeah. Dude, 100% go do that. That's the 18 right there, plus some. You don't need... Who put this idea of bankruptcy in your mind as a way to get out of this um i just i just been doing my research myself i just been googling and trying to see what i can do and then i like that was one option was bankruptcy like i had 25 000 in the

credit card 25 000 in the line of credit and and then $10,000 in a personal loan. And then I have another, and that's $50,000. Those $50,000 have been charged off. And then the other $10,000 is on another credit card that I'm still currently paying. And then the $8,000 is another credit card separately also, and I'm also paying that down as well. Now, you said you were using it for business expenses. So your business wasn't profitable and you were artificially propping it up with debt? Yeah. Was it profitable now? Where does it stand? And now where it's profitable? Yeah. What's it making every month? What's the net profit? We are net profit. I'm not sure net profit at the top of my head. It's roughly like 120 gross. I'm paying myself like 40 grand off my head. And I have like one part-time employee. That you pay out of the 120 gross? Yeah. Okay. So how do we

get this business to where you can pay yourself 60? What must be true? I'm not sure. No, no, no, no, no, no. You know the answer to that. You may not know how you're going to do it, but what's the answer? Is it charging more clients? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Are you working 40 hours a week? How many hours are you working right now in the business?

I'm working a lot, like 50, 60 hours a week. Yeah, it's more clients. I mean, you know the answer to that. I think it's a great question that George asked, and I think you cannot let yourself cop out. Now, I understand the emotion behind your answer. So I'm not picking on you, but I'm actually trying to encourage you that you actually know the answer. Because if you and I went to lunch today, let me tell you who doesn't know the answer to that is me. Because I've never run a landscape business, George. However, I've run businesses before. And if I were to sit with you long enough, Dante, I then would be able to answer the question, true or false. True. If I understood your business, the way you understand it, I could figure it out. And so there, I want to make sure that the mindset right now is all right, I started out in this deal. I got over my skis a little bit, didn't have the business with all the equipment. I went through downturns. By the way, that's the

nature of business. I don't care what it is. Okay. And so you've learned a lot, but you've got to make sure that you've got a mindset right now that you are not a victim. And so, George, I don't know why we're not talking about selling this equipment. We just brushed right past this. That, to me, would be a resetting of the business. Yeah. And then going forward, we're going to cut up these cards. We're not going to put a dime on credit for this business or in our personal life.

Can you draw a line in the sand today and say, I'm done? Yeah. You know what I would do? If he's got $20,000 worth of equipment and he owes $18,000, I would pay off the credit cards, cut them up, take the $2,000, and that becomes the retained earnings that we teach in Entree Leadership. And let's get that part going. Let's go. We've got at least $2,000.

Our goal is to not touch that unless it is an absolute four-alarm fire emergency, and I'm going to build on that $2,000 and have a goal to have $20,000 in the bank and then have a goal of $50,000. That's how you build a business. You go one month at a time, and you take everything that you've learned to this point, and you go, okay, now I know actually how I'm going to increase revenue. And I'm going to keep the revenue in the form of retained earnings and then paying yourself more, as George was saying. And in your personal life and in your business life, here's the number you want to focus on is margin.

It's the gap between what you're taking in and what's going out. So in your personal life today, what are your monthly expenses? Probably about $4,000 a month. Well, you just told me you're making $40,000 a year, which means you're in the hole by $8,000. Yes. That's why these other credit cards are the way they are. So here's one lesson. We got to go, what is causing us to spend $4,000 a month? If that's cost of living, we need to find a different place to live. We need to get a roommate. If it's eating out, we need to cut off that whole piece and go, we're going to meal prep. It's going to be rice and beans for the next few months, maybe a year or two. So you're going to do an audit. I'm going

to help you with this by giving you our budgeting app called EveryDollar, and you're going to list out your income for the month, list out every single expense, and then see where you actually stand. And if you don't like what you see, change it. I got to spend less. I got to make more. Because here's the math on this. Instead of filing bankruptcy, what if you made a goal to say, I'm going to be debt-free in two years? I'm going to sell 20 grand worth of equipment. That'll get me out, right? Now we're down to 48 grand in debt? Yeah. So that's another question. That's charged off already.

What can I do with that? Well, you're going to need to settle eventually, right, with the creditors? Yeah. So they're going to be coming for you. I'd be proactive in saying, hey, I'm trying to figure out a way to get this paid off. It's going to go into your debt snowball. And maybe a year from now, they're willing to settle for 30 grand instead of 50. We don't know. It may not be new enough. You may need to pay the full 50, but this is not going to go away. This is going to take you busting your butt

two grand a month toward the debt. You're debt free in two years. That's the math on it. If you do what Ken and I said. So bankruptcy is not the only option. You've got a ways to go. Call us back if you need help. Hang on the line. We'll send you every dollar. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything. It's a fun story, and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets, our own workout routines, our own jobs, our own social media feeds, everything. It's easy to forget that no one can do life alone. And I don't care if you're an introvert, an extrovert,

or whatever you want to call yourself, we all have to have a community and a support system to do life with. It's time to shift the focus from doing it all by ourselves to knowing that we can only be well and whole when we ask for help. Therapy can be a great source of help and support for any area of your life. And if you're thinking about starting therapy, try BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy, so it can fit with your schedule. To get started, just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist. And if it's not the right fit,

you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost. This month, start to build your support system with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Ramsey Radio to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Ramsey Radio. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Exciting day around here because we are launching our Investing Essentials event. It's a two-night virtual event hosted by Dave Ramsey and yours

truly, George Camel. We know investing can be overwhelming and confusing. It's not something that you can pick up in a 60-second social media post. So at this virtual event, Dave Ramsey and I will walk you through how to maximize your retirement plans, how to pick mutual funds, how to invest with confidence. And it's the only place to get Dave's personal playbook on real estate investing. And Dave will explain how he made hundreds of millions in property investing debt-free. And Dave will explain how he made hundreds of millions in property investing debt-free. And he's going to go, this is nerdville. All right, we're going to be, we've got charts and graphs and formulas. It's going to blow your mind,

stuff we have never covered here on the show. So join us, Investing Essentials. It's happening virtually March 4th and 5th, and you can watch from the comfort of your own home, wherever you are. Tickets start at 199 bucks. Get yours today at ramseysolutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes if you're on podcast or YouTube. What's a recommended snack for that, since people can watch that in the comfort of their own home? You kind of know the content. We went deep into the cookie jar at the event,

and so I'm feeling it's going to be a cookie kind of evening. Yeah. Kind of a comfort food. Yeah. That's in March. You're kind of just like be a cookie kind of evening. Yeah. Kind of a comfort food. Yeah. That's in March. You're kind of just like, get me to spring already. Yeah. So yeah, get your favorite snack and post up and watch for two nights.

You are famously gluten-free. I think America would love to know, what is your favorite go-to gluten-free cookie? Oh, well, you know, you got Tate's. That's a standard. Feel like a crispy cookie. Okay. Chips Ahoy did come out with one recently that hits. Okay.

And Oreos now, gluten-free as well. So there are a lot of options for us gluten-free gladiators out there. There's the bonus content you didn't know you came for today. Thanks for thinking of us, Ken. Well, I'm always thinking of the people. Man of the people, I've been told. I love it. Well, let's be men of the people and let's go out to Christy and see if we can be of service.

Yeah. In Grand Junction, Colorado. Christy. What's going on, Christy? Hi. Hey. How can Ken and I help? So I am wanting to buy a new car.

I want to be financially able to buy a house. And I am also needing to get out of debt. So I have about $7,000 in debt from school loans. I just recently graduated with an associate's degree. And so I've been working a lot. I also have a four-year-old. I'm a single mom. And I make roughly $2,000 a month.

And by the end of the month, I'm left with maybe like $100 to $80 to do things that I need to do, like get an oil change and buy clothes and stuff like that. And I'm just really struggling financially and I'm done. I don't want to be this way and I don't want to do this the rest of my life. Love it. Christy, that's a great place to be. You know, being done is an awesome place to be. Now, I know it doesn't feel that way, but George, can I get an amen on that? Oh, absolutely. So we can help. So Christy, what are you doing for your job? I am a medical assistant. Okay. And you're making what per hour? 19. Uh-huh. And what did you get your associate's degree in? Science.

My associate's in applied science. And what was the purpose of that? What were you thinking? What are you aiming towards? What are you thinking about? The original plan was to get my associate's degree to help me get a foot into the door for getting my bachelor's in nursing. Nursing is very competitive, and so having that on my record makes me look a little

better, I guess, than most people applying. Did you want to do nursing? So you want to be... Yeah. Okay, so if we could fast forward your life, you're a nurse right now. Okay. Right? I'm asking. That's, you're a nurse right now. Okay. Right? I'm asking. That's what you want. What kind of nurse? Do you have any idea?

I eventually would like to get my master's in OBGYN and become a midwife, but that's like four years down the line. Okay, but let's stay. I love that. No, I love it. But if we could be a nurse today, you would be a nurse, a labor delivery nurse? Yeah. Okay, great. It's really today, you would be a nurse, a labor delivery nurse? Yeah. Okay, great. It's really important that you visualize that and write that down. So the question becomes, how much money and time is it going to take to get the other two years

so that you get the nursing degree and you're ready to go? To get my master's, there would probably be another two to three years. No, no, you don't need the master's. You don't need the master's to become a nurse. I'm asking, what is it going to take for you to be qualified to be a labor delivery nurse? I'm not sure. Okay. Hey, fun homework assignment number one. You got it? You started this call. I'm done. So before you lay your head on the pillow tonight, you need to know the answer to how many more years of college do I need to get a nursing degree? The second thing you need to know before you lay down your head tonight is in your area, where are all the institutions, like a list of the schools that have nursing

programs? If there are some online programs that'll help you get certain amount of, I mean, I don't know. I want you literally to have a list that if George and I knocked on your door tomorrow morning and we said, Christy, what are our options in the future to get that nursing degree? You could hand us a piece of paper. There it is, George, right there. And we would say, okay, great. And it has the cost. It's really important for someone who's in your position that's really frustrated with where you are in life to have a clear picture of what it would actually take to do the thing that you actually want to do, because it takes away all of the fear.

Right now, you're in an emotional state that is probably frustrated and intimidated by what it takes to get where you want to go. Is that true? Yeah, a little bit. And I understand your question a little better. So to get my nursing degree, I would need two more years. That's what I thought. Two years of the prerequisite courses.

That's what I thought. So two more years of school. I'm kind of just waiting. Great. How much money do we need to complete that two years worth of coursework? So I signed up for FAFSA, which here in Colorado is a program that you can sign up for, and it like signs you up for every single scholarship grant, anything that you can get. Yeah, perfect. So I think that I could get enough scholarship money to pay for my entire schooling, seeing as how I'm a four-year-old and I'm a single mom.

Christy! I think that I'll be okay there. Christy! But until then, I'm like... That's awesome news! So here's the deal. I want to hand it over to George to kind of pour through your expenses. Cause I think you got to do some work there too,

but here's what I want to tell you. I want you to aggressively be looking for something that's paying you 25, $30 an hour. Okay. Okay. Because it doesn't matter what you're doing now. It doesn't even need to be the medical assistant or medical. Like it's anything anywhere that pays you more money than you're making right now. And the reason is to create some margin. Okay. And then George is going to talk you through paying off that $7,000, which is going to also free up more money. We've got to get you a raise through income and expenses.

George, tell her how we're going to do that. So Christy, my first question is, why are you paying 40% in taxes and deductions? Because you told me you're making 19 an hour, it's about 40 grand a year, but you're only taking home 24,000 a year. Are you investing right now? No. So I am trying to pay back my school loans. I have $7,000 in debt and school loans. I just recently bought a phone too, cause my old one broke. And so that's about $800 to pay that off. And then my son is in school and I'm paying $300 a month for that.

And I'm also on scholarships. So that is $300 with scholarships for paying. And I'm also on scholarships. So that is $300 with scholarships for paying for my son's school. And then just normal. I got food, rent. So when you said take-home pay, this was after all of those other expenses were paid? Your debt payment for the phone? Okay. Got it. That makes a lot more sense. Yep. So you actually have more margin than you think, but you're saying after all that's paid, I have a hundred bucks extra I can throw at the debt.

It's not going to make a dent. And that's where Ken's advice comes into play. Think about it this way. For every extra dollar an hour you can go make, that's $2,000 a year at 40 hours a week. So if you can go make $25 an hour, you're going to get a $10,000 raise. Can you get out of debt a little easier if you had an extra $10,000 a year laying around? Oh, yeah. Exactly.

And this might be a side hustle. Yeah, you might do your 40 hours and then do another 10 hours doing this. I don't know your family life, and I want to respect that, but this is going to be some sacrifice and hustle. But to Ken's point, if we can get you out of the student loan debt, free up a payment, get your emergency funds so you never have to go into debt again, now we have a foundation to where we can step forward from a place of strength into that next piece of education. And then once you're a nurse, goodness gracious, sky's the limit. Yeah. And now you're going to cash flow the master's degree. That's your next goal. So car and house, love that for you. That's going to have to be on the back burner. Down the line. I wish we could do it all at once, Christy. With the car, I am kind of in dire need of a new car.

My car right now. Then let's pause everything and stack up money for this car. And then we'll push play on the debt snowball. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and at the baby steps for renting. But you don't want to do it forever. Because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up,

never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. 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.

NMLS consumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee, 37027. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ramsey personality, George Campbell, joined by bestselling author, Ken Coleman. Hey, George. We are here, Ken.

We're live. We're doing it. Call us up, 888-825-5225, and you'll be blessed to talk to Ken today. Wow. I'll tell you that much. It's a blessing. I don't know if I – boy, you're really setting me up there. Blessed? We'll see what Grant thinks.

He's in Chicago. Boy, now I've got to bless Grant. Grant, how are you doing? All right. Hey, George. Hey, Ken. Thanks for taking my call, guys. I'm really excited to say that right before Christmas, I paid off my house.

So I'm officially on babysitting. Way to go. Strong golf clap for that one right there. You got how many kids? I got six kids ranging from 12 years old all the way down to 10 months. So I got eight of us living in this beautiful paid off house. Good for you. My question is, I know I could save up for another eight years and pay cash for a bigger, better house.

But by then, my kids are going to start graduating. They're going to move out. Then you'll be downsizing. Would it ever make sense under the Ramsey plan to upgrade to a bigger house with another mortgage, or is it better to just stick drinking this debt-free Kool-Aid and eventually pay cash? Well, in a perfect world, if Dave was on air, he'd say, well, I wouldn't want you going back into debt, but also it's not a sin to revert back to baby step six for a few years and knock out the mortgage. And so as long as you're doing it, you know, 15 year fixed rate, the payment's no more than a quarter of your take-home pay. And with all the a hundred percent equity you have in the house, roll that into the next one, plus any savings and try to minimize the mortgage and then knock it out quickly.

So what are we talking? What would it take for you guys to upgrade to a home that's like, all right, we got room. Six kids. We got room for all eight of us with room to spare. For all eight of us, it looks like if we hit something in the $400,000 range based off of our location, we'd be stepping up from 1,800 square feet to somewhere approaching 3,000 square feet, like 2,800, 2,900. How many bedrooms? That's what our market's looking like.

Four bedrooms at least. That's what we've got right now. There's tiny bedrooms. But do you need five bedrooms, six bedrooms? Well, you got multiple boys? No, one boy. The rest are lovely girls. Oh, I was going to say, because if it was mostly boys,

you just pile them on top of each other. They don't care. They live like rats anyway. I got two boys. I can say that. I can make them live under a bridge. Yeah. Yeah, I literally was going to go that direction.

But the girl thing, I only have one girl, and I don't know. I feel like I'm on thin ice if I recommend that. But, you know. But I think you're still going, all right, for the house that we would want, what's your current house worth? Our current house is worth $270,000. $270,000. And let's say the next house was $450,000, right?

And let's say you want to do that. How long do you have? Is this a year from now what's the urgency you know the urgency yesterday i'm living my best life now it's just close quarters you're very cheery for a guy with six kids i'll be honest with you how do you have time to make this call i got i got no payments okay yeah but you also don't have any sleep either are you oh here's a question amer wants to know. I know this. Are you done having kids or are there more on the way?

No, no. If the Lord wants me to have more kids, I'll have some more. God bless the Catholics. There we go. Whoa. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Wow.

Thank you, Grant, for that. You just dropped Catholicism on him. I just thought maybe, you know, they're like, let's have more babies. More and more. But I'm happy for you know, they're like, let's have more babies. More and more. But I'm happy for you guys. He's living his best life. So you think there's a possibility that more kids are coming? Well, everybody tells me, like, you know what causes that, right?

And I say, yeah, and I'm not willing to give it up. Well, you've got a 10-month-old and a 12-year-old. There's a big gap. Partial information. No one says you've got to give it up, but there are other things you can do. Maybe you should seek a family planner as a side of this call. Ken will give you advice off air for that one. Hang on the line. I'll give you a couple of tips when we go to commercial break. Thank you for that. All right, Grant. He's not willing to give it up. That's the best

thing I've heard in a long time. You're in baby step seven. Do you guys have a bunch of money in savings outside of your emergency fund? So not a bunch of money in savings outside of your emergency fund? So not a bunch of money in savings. Why? Because I got a little gazelle intense on paying off the house there at the end. I have three to six months of expenses because I have no expenses. But yeah, so savings are a little low right now. I've got $6,000 in the bank.

How much could you save up in 12 months as you know and is it kind of a down payment plus your equity plus plus equity i would be approaching 285 so you could save up you're saying 15 grand in the next 12 months i think so okay so just set a goal and uh and you're married. You have a wife. I am. Okay. You didn't know the answer to that? You never know.

Thought we had covered that earlier. But I would set a goal with her and say, hey, here's what we're wanting to do. We want to upgrade about a year from now. Here's how much I think we can save. We're going to take all of our equity plus the savings and throw it at the next one. And then there likely will be a gap of, let's say, $50,000 to $100,000. And here's how we're going to tackle that. We're going to attack that for two years or three years, whatever it is. Just set a goal and don't let this linger and don't do a 30-year with as little payment as possible. Get aggressive and get rid of it and get back to

baby step seven in no time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you have Ken and I's blessing that you're not, it's not going against the Ramsey plan to get another mortgage and to be temporarily in baby Yeah, yeah, by 40, we're going to be debt-free again, back in baby step seven. The house will appreciate. And so I would go down that path. That's a lot of kids to bunk in a 1,800 square foot home. He's a better man than I, I'll tell you. You'd be out of there? Well, I reached my max capacity as a father at three. I readily admit that. I'm glad we have three. I do think people are hardwired for a certain number. There's no question. That guy right there was born and created to father a lot of kids. He's very, very bubbly. A very positive young man. I'm a curmudgeon with

one child. No, you're a curmudgeon without children. We were hoping that your sweet little princess knocked off some of the mudging. She has. She brings me joy. She's a sweet girl. Wow, we got through that one, Ken. Let's move on to Federico, just down the road in Nashville.

What's going on, Federico? How's it going, guys? Good afternoon. Big fan of the show, just by the way. Thank you. Dave Ramsey in high school, so it's been a little while. Yeah, so my situation, I'm 23. I recently graduated college out of Middle Tennessee University,

and debt-free, I was able to pay it out of pocket between what I was making and scholarships and stuff. So, yeah, I have my degree in engineering, and I started being a, in May, I started as a NASCAR engineer for the number 25 truck. How about that? How about that? How about that? That's really cool.

Was that a dream of yours? Yeah, pretty fun, Joe. I'm sorry? Was that a dream of yours? Yeah, so I've always been in the automotive field or whatnot. I used to be a technician, and I mean, now that I have my degree, being able to use it for NASCAR, I mean, it's definitely pretty cool. Oh, yeah, you can write your ticket.

I've always watched it on the TV. Yeah, good for you, man. That's great. So what's your question? Yeah. So downside, um, it is a 1099. It's my first year ever being on 1099. I've been on W2 since I was 15. Um, with this being said, I was able to get a lot of money from not having any debt. I was able to save $15,000 on my savings. I have about $3,000 invested in dividends yielding stocks and the S&P 500. But with that $5,000, that big chunk of money, I didn't want the, in better words, I didn't want the government to take it. I didn't want to just sit in, not compounding any interest or anything. So my big question was, should I invest into maxing out my 2024 IRA, making that a deductible for next year, for last year?

You could. I don't think it's going to be that much of a game changer. I mean, and if you did that in a Roth IRA, you wouldn't be able to get a deduction on your taxes because you've already paid taxes. It's going to grow tax deferred and you can withdraw it tax free and all that. So I don't think it's worth doing it for the tax deduction. I would do it because of where you're at in the baby steps, which is if you're debt free with an emergency fund, invest 15% of your income. And because you don't have a traditional retirement plan, the Roth IRA would be a great place to do that. Okay, so I do believe – so I have my Fidelity.

I believe it's a traditional IRA. And I was reading up that you can – if your employer doesn't give you retirement, you can deduct up to 100% of it, which is $7,000 for one tax period. That's on the traditional side. Yes. And I'm saying, if I were you, I'd do Roth side. I wouldn't do it for the taxes. I'd pay whatever taxes are owed. And I'd rather be tax-free. At your age, man, that's all going to grow tax-free till retirement. So that's what I would do personally. But it's a great point. You can still max out your Roth IRA for 2024, people, until tax day. So get to it. 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, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981. And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They'll also help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when 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. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by YRefi. Student loan debt is a swamp thousands of people find it hard to escape from. So don't be another statistic in the student loan swamp. For distressed private student loans, there's YRefi. We trust YRefi because they help you with a low fixed interest rate you couldn't get anywhere else

to help you stick to your budget and get out of debt. Learn more at YRefi because they help you with a low fixed interest rate you couldn't get anywhere else to help you stick to your budget and get out of debt. Learn more at YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. May not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Maria in Connecticut. I recently received my license to practice architecture. I'll be having a conversation soon with the management at my current job about a new role and the responsibilities that come with it. I also suspect that with those

responsibilities will come a pay increase. My employer has always been generous. However, I would like to go into that meeting with an idea of what a fair salary looks like. I understand there are nuances to salary, such as your years of experience, geographical location, and specialty. I want to manage my expectations of what their offer might be so that I can be grateful to my employer if it's generous. Oh, that's fun. If it's generous. I want to be grateful if it's generous. On the other hand, here's the other one. If I'm offered less than expected, I want to be prepared to find out why, prove my value, and prove my value. Where can I find accurate salary data to know what fair is?

Well, there's no Bible on this. So let's start with that. There's no one source. There are multiple sources. I would be checking job sites. And again, I'm not going to say names because I'm not endorsing, but you can go look and try to get a range with research. You can also, I would consult LinkedIn, you know, reach out to people that, you know, have similar experience. There are ways to get a range. And what you want to do is get a range. And you already laid out in your question, Maria, what we're looking at here geographic region you start with that because that's very very different you know what region you're in you look at years of experience qualifications etc etc and because this is a new qualification that you will be getting you are

going to be at the bottom rung of the experience ladder. And so you've got to take that into account. So I think you've got enough markers to be able to do pretty good research and have an idea of the range of what you want. But do not lose sight of the fact that this employer has, by your words, always been very generous to you. And this is an opportunity to make a nice pivot. And even if it's not exactly what you want, you can't get lost in the number being absolutely ideal. You have to focus, George, on the fact that you've made the switch. And now you're in the line of work you want to be in, and you got a chance to get experience, which sets you up for your future. So mindset and

prioritizing your focus is the key here on how to handle this conversation going forward. Yeah. To your point, Ken, the initial number is less important to me. It's more about how quality is the leadership at this company? What does a growth track look like in the role that I'm in? That's what I'm more interested in versus what am I making day one when I just got my license? Right. And she knows these folks. She feels valued by them, it appears. So that's a pretty good situation to be able to make that pivot. Yeah. But I think having a range in your mind is good. It's not going to be $30,000. It's not going to be $300,000. So having a range is good. I wouldn't plant on one specific number. And if it's a dollar less, I'm going to leave. That feels unhealthy. I agree with you there.

All right. Let's go out to the phones. Thomas is in Sacramento up next. What's going on, Thomas? Hello. How's it going? Great. How can we help? So my question is, my wife, not recently, but a couple years ago, was diagnosed with cancer and had a hysterectomy. And so we're trying to have a surrogacy to have a biological child. And we're just trying to find out the best, smartest way to get that much cash. Because it's around, it depends on how we do it but like 80 to 100k um and so we have like 40 saved up but um yeah i just don't know if we should sell our stuff like our house like our other house what do you mean what do you mean by other house? Tell us about an investment property. Well, we were both in the military and then I got out and then she piece moved. So now we live in California. So our old house in Arkansas, we just rented it out at the time. What's it worth and

what do you owe on it? We owe like 170 and zillow says like 270 um i think we just found our answer man there's the answer i think this baby trumps having an investment property are you guys going to be financially okay losing the rental income yeah i mean we only make like 100 bucks after because we don't charge that much rent. Um, man, but the other issue too, is she's in the middle. They're going to kick her out of the military, uh, because of the cancer has reoccurred now a couple of times.

So then we're losing. She's primary bet breadwinner. Um, what does it mean? They just medically separate, like they look at her and go, well, she's can't deploy.

She can't do her. Um, she can't do her and go, well, she can't deploy. She can't do her, she can't do her job. I mean, she could still do her job, but she can't deploy. So they're going to medically separate her. Essentially, we'll get to keep the health insurance. That's good. But, but the. And is there any income that will still come in? Yeah, she, we don't know exactly how much she'll get VA disability,

but they won't give us that rating until kind of the final steps. That's like right before they do the deed. They pretty much tell her, okay, you're going to get this. But we're estimating, I mean, with cancer, she should get 100%, but you can never be too certain. So what would your income need to go to to make you feel comfortable after all of this? We've already figured out how to fund the surrogacy. Yeah, I would have told you to sell this house even if this wasn't the case. I agree. Just to not be a long-distance landlord and be done with it.

So we have one thing solved. Sell it, take all the profits, and use it to fund this surrogacy. You've already got $40,000 in the bank. And so let's say you walk with, what did we say? You said it was worth, what, $280,000, you said? $270,000. $270,000. I mean, I take Zillow with a grain of salt. It could be way more than that.

I feel like it's over on Zillow personally, but I mean, I don't know much. You still stand to walk with about a hundred thousand or 80,000, somewhere in that range, something like that, which on top of your 40 is more than enough to cover. That takes care of that. Plus emergency fund. That's right. So what kind of income would you need to, how much would you need to increase your income to make you feel, uh, calm at night, not knowing what that military number is going to play out to be that's like the big issue is i don't really know because right well sure she's definitely going to lose like two she's going to lose like two to three thousand a month in income but um

once she gets kicked out we don't have to live where we live because the military is making us live here. But what's a conservative number? Can we say $36,000? If you increased your income by $30,000, if she's going to stand to lose $3,000 a month, I'm being very conservative because I'm thinking ahead. I'm thinking rainy day, what's the umbrella? So what I'm asking you is, does that make sense? If not, give me another number. Yeah, that sounds about right. Probably another 20 to 30, somewhere in that range that I would have to supplement to be comfortable living where we're at. I mean, we could deal with,

because we already dropped like 3,000 in savings each month right now. So I mean, we could- You've got margin. Theoretic. Which is fine. Yeah, we would be fine, but then we wouldn't be able to be because we're already pretty tight with our money. But don't do that. Don't accept that.

In other words, I appreciate what you're saying from a number standpoint. From an attitude standpoint, I'd prefer you go, I'm not going to deal with anything. I'm going to happen to something. And so I'm going to go make an additional. I'd like to see you to go make an additional, I'd like to see you try to make an additional $2,500 a month to come up with an additional $30,000 a year. I don't care how you do it, but if it was me, George,

that's what I would be doing. I don't know if you have a different thought on that, but I would be wanting to pad my stats, if you will, on that situation. Then if it's extra and we don't need it, awesome. We got gravy. We got the college fund started. There's many things you can do with that extra 30 grand, but I would be trying to do that. Yeah. I think that'll give you a lot of peace during this chaotic time is just control what you can control. Control your spending, control your income. And we're wishing

you guys the best with the surrogacy. And I mean, what a blessing to have this house that we can just sell to fix this problem. It's a beautiful problem to have. So, and I, again, I think this baby trumps the investment property, especially when you're essentially losing money on the deal. That baby will trump it all. So wishing you guys the best with that. Thank you so much for the call. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Thank you to my co-host, Ken Coleman, everyone in the booth booth keeping the show afloat. And you, America, will be back before you know it. From Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships.

I'm George Campbell, joined by Ken Coleman. And the number to call is 888-825-5225. Ken is the man. If you need help getting that income up, he's the man when it comes to getting your income up. We say your income is your greatest wealth-building tool. A lot of people are going, I've got to make more. Ken is so good at guiding you through, coaching you through,

how do you make more for your current state in the short term and in the long term. And I'll be alongside to answer all of your money questions and whatever else is on your mind. I thought you were going to say something else because you were telling me I was the man. I thought it would make you feel good, too. Well, I appreciate it. It's a little disappointing. Wow. But let's help some people, shall we?

That's the goal. Who do we have up first? We've got Rob in Columbus, Ohio. Rob! What's going on? Hey, guys. Hey. Hey, so I'm looking for a little guidance here.

You know, back in 1980, long before I became a Ramsey disciple, I purchased two Northwestern Mutual whole life policies. They have a cash value of $96,800 and a death benefit of $150,000 now. I'm just looking for a little guidance on, you know, is it worth my while to cash this out, pay the taxes and reinvest it? Or is the train too far down the tracks with that significant death benefit. How old are you? 69. Okay. And you're wondering, hey, if I cash this out, I'll get $96,000 that I could invest minus some surrender fees?

I would deduct the basis. I would probably end up, my calculation, I'd end up with about $78,600 to invest. Okay. $78,000 that you can do what you want with. Or you go, I'm just going to keep paying this monthly premium and I'll have $150,000 death benefit, the face value of the policy. Right. Currently. Okay.

What's your financial situation? I'm very financially secure and no debt at all. Well, I mean, what does that look like? What's your retirement look like? Do you have $10 million in the bank? What's the nest egg? About $3.7. Amazing. So you're self-insured. You don't need life insurance. Probably not. So the question is for you, why in the world would you continue to pay that monthly premium knowing what you just told us? Well, I mean, last year, interest in dividends, it came to about $4,000. So, and that, you know, after I paid the interest in dividends, it was just, you know, do I set that up? What are you paying per month to keep this policy going? Well, it's $741 a year for both policies. Okay, so here's my question.

$741 in the grand scheme of things, not a huge amount of money, but it's still $741 for a benefit that you don't need. You don't need $150,000 upon your death. You're right. Okay. So when you think about the purpose of life insurance, which, by the way, we only recommend term life insurance instead of these whole life policies because of how expensive they are and because of a whole host of other issues,

the goal is to replace your income if something should happen to you so that your loved ones won't have to grieve financially. And so are there people in your life who rely on your income today? No. Okay. Just my wife and I. And on top of that, you're self-insured. If something happened, she's got $3.7 million sitting there, right? Correct. So the $150,000, that's cute compared to the nest egg you've been able to build up. And so that's the point and the goal of having that term life for 15 or 25 years. Over that time, you follow the baby steps, you pay off your house, you've been investing consistently for decades, and here you are with this policy. So if I was in your shoes, just because it would pain me to keep making this payment for this crappy product, I would be done with it. I'd take my 78, invest it,

go on vacation, do what you want with it, but I wouldn't continue paying it. Yeah. I agree with George. You just got $78,000 wealthier. That's the way I look at it. Well, we love that. Now, if you were destitute financially, you had no nest egg, this was all the money to your name, and you were in ailing health, I'd go, okay, I'd probably just keep paying the policy because it's going to be more helpful than it is harmful. But man, you've done such a great job regardless of this crappy product that it's impressive. There's a 25-year-old listening who says, I'd like to have $3.8 million. What do you tell that person? What was the key to your success? You know, I mean, I've worked hard, I've invested well, but also, I mean, I got to give some credit

to Ramsey. I attacked my mortgage first, and I did not spend money that I didn't have. That's simple. Live on less than you make, get rid of your debt. The things my grandmother taught me. I mean, it was very, very, very simple. And, yeah, I've done well with it. Yeah, good for you. That's amazing. Thanks for the call, Rob.

I'd be planning a $78,000 spend party. I'd be like, let's get together. What do we want to do with $78,000? Divvy it up. Have fun with that. Yeah. You know? Give a little.

You know, fund the kids or grandkids college fund. Go on a nice vacation. And then maximize that money. That's living like no one else. All right. Aaron is in Youngstown, Ohio. Up next, what's going on, Aaron? Hey, George. How are you? Great. How can we help? So, first and foremost, thank you guys for taking my call, man. It's such an honor to speak to you guys today. I'm excited.

Secondly, a little bit about me. I'm 22 years old. I work for All Team Sales in Lorisville, Ohio. I make around $90,000 a year, including profit sharing. And the only debt that I have is my mortgage. Awesome. What's your question? My question is, given the circumstance, how would I diversify my portfolio given right now?

My company also does a 10% match. Amazing. I'm only investing in the Roth right now. So are you investing 15% of your gross income regardless of match? Right now, currently, I do 50% of my income after taxes, so that would be the Roth right now. I'm not doing anything towards the 401k. Okay. So you've got a Roth IRA that you're contributing to? Correct. Do they have a Roth 401k option through your employer?

No. Okay. I would check in on that, but here's the strategy. Match beats Roth beats traditional. So you're investing, you got the match, it's 100% return. Next, do all the Roth you can. For you, that might just be the Roth IRA. And if you still have money beyond that, in that 15%, go back to your traditional options in the 401k. And as far as diversifying, what are you invested in right now? What funds did you choose inside of your retirement plan? Right now, I'm currently doing American funds, just a couple of different growth index funds, a few different mutual funds. I think right now, I have a couple separate stocks I'm also investing in as well. I would avoid single stocks because of the risk and volatility.

I would stick to those funds that you mentioned, mutual funds, index funds. And there's four types you want to diversify across. And it basically is like a large cap, mid cap, small cap, and international. Because that will diversify even amongst those funds. And to help you do a deep dive on this, jump on to ramseysolutions.com slash guide. We have a free investing guide where we walk through exactly how to choose those funds. Appreciate that.

You should invite him to your live stream. You and Dave. Join us for the Investing Essentials live stream. The ticket is on me, Aaron. So hang on the line. It's on us today. Thank you so much for the call. He may have planted that to get a free ticket.

I don't know. I'd like that move. Appreciate that. Smart move. This is the Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 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 NetSuiteuite and you should too. Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. With one unified business management suite, there's only

one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Ken Coleman. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Andrew's up next in Pittsburgh. How can we help, Andrew?

Hey, guys. Can you hear me? Yeah. Loud and clear. Hey, great to talk to you. A huge fan. I'm calling today about my parents. My dad has Alzheimer's, and my mom had a pretty significant stroke about four months ago.

Oh, no. So they're not able to live independently much anymore. Fortunately, my sister has been able to take care of them at her house most of the time, and I'm taking them to their cabin on the weekends. But ultimately, we're looking to build them like a small residence next to me with lots of grandkids to drop in on them through the day and stuff. We're hoping to keep construction costs under $250,000 and pay cash for it. My parents have done an awesome job at living well within their means,

but we're looking at their statement from their financial advisor, and it's kind of like a mixed bag of things that don't give us a good feel for exactly how much is available or liquid, at least at this point. So I guess our question is if or how we try to consolidate all these accounts to keep it simpler and have enough money to cut checks for the home they're building in the next few months. And I have the list for you when you're ready. Okay. Are you like a financial power of attorney? Can you make financial decisions on their behalf? Fortunately, no. It's my sister. She has all that responsibility right now. Okay. And you and her are working in tandem to figure this out? Yeah, as well as my

other sister, yeah. Okay. All right. So as you dug into the numbers, what do you mean parts of it may not be liquid? Well, they have traditional IRAs, each of them. And so my mom has $150,000 in hers. My dad has $580,000 in his. They also have a $47,000 investment. It sounds like a blend of mutual funds. Um, both, both of the IRAs are set up with annuities. Okay. Um, they also have a Pacific life. Paul, it sounds like a whole life policy. It shows a value of $31,000. Okay. They also have a bunch of gold, probably at least $20,000. And they have about $90,000 in their checking account. All right. And you're going, okay, what's the...

And I'm intentionally leaving out the $80,000 worth of long-term care insurance coverage because that's a whole other nightmare that we're going through. Was this an advisor? Was this the one who got them into all this? Yes. Oh, boy. I might find a new advisor. Yeah.

They've been selling them crappy products for a long time. Yes. All I heard was, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, more commission for me, more commission for me. Here's a whole life. Here's an annuity. These are some of the most complicated and expensive products that your parents honestly didn't need with this level of wealth. That was my initial thought also, so I'm glad to hear you guys say that.

Neither here nor there. But here's what I would do is figure out which of these has the least impact tax-wise. So think through some of that tax strategy because the traditional IRAs, they haven't paid taxes on the funds. So if you just withdrew 250, no, you're going to have to pay taxes on that as they file their taxes.

So I would sell whatever else, like the gold. Again, you're going to have taxes probably with anything that's not just straight liquid cash in a checking account. The cash value on the whole life, that's $31,000 worth of cash value? Right.

I might get rid of that before I dip into the retirement accounts. You're going to need to dip into the retirement accounts anyways with a project this big. Right. And you guys need them living on the same property with you? Yeah, I actually have a couple other lots next to me that are mine. Oh, nice. And we're going to set them up on one of those. How many square feet is this potential build? We're trying to keep it under a thousand. It's just going to be a single level, you know, the basics. Okay. But you're still thinking 250 grand is what this might cost?

Yeah, we have some grade to deal with on the properties. Okay. So you've done your homework. It sounds like this is not a wet finger in the air. No. Okay. You're right. Yeah. So if that's the case, I'm going to go strategically through a prioritized list of what I would liquidate first. And I would honestly get a second opinion. And if you want one, you can jump on to RamseySolutions.com and click on Trusted Pros. And you'll see a network of investment pros that we trust to help you out in this situation. And they're not going to sell you garbage products.

I can guarantee you that. What are your thoughts, George, maybe on a tax advisor as well? Yeah. Tax pro as well would really help going. Here's what's going to have the minimal tax impact based on what you sold, what the cost basis was, what the capital gains tax, all the nerdtron stuff as you dig into this. But it sounds like your sister is going to have to be very involved too. Right. Because she's making all these moves happen on your parents' behalf. But the good news is the money's there. It's not going to decimate.

You're probably talking about liquidating a quarter of their nest egg to make this happen. Right. And then what's the ongoing cost to take care of them? They need 24-hour private care? Well, we're trying to work that out. No, I don't think they do need 24-hour round-the-clock care, but being that they'd be living next to me, we'd set them up with cameras and things like that. You know, in case of an emergency or something, we'd be pretty handy to go over and see what's going on. But, no, we're trying to get home care to come by, at least for some of the basics.

But my sister is able to handle that right now. And I think that's probably one of the problems we're running into with the long-term care insurance is they don't want to pay because it seems like they can, you know, we can handle it. And we're just, you know. So you're having to fight that and go, no, this is something. This is exactly why we got long-term care insurance, so that if it got to this point, they could have care. That was covered. Yeah, Andrew, I would encourage you to talk with their doctors. Also get some advice from people who may have walked this road a little bit. I'm only saying this because my brother-in-law is dealing with this right now.

And I will tell you that, unfortunately, the Alzheimer's situation is not going to get better. It's going to get worse. With your mother, it's probably limited on what she can do depending on her symptoms post-stroke. At some point, assisted care, assisted living is something that you need to at least kick the tires on. I just don't know how long your sister or you with cameras can, you have to think about you guys and your ability to step in and do what you need to do while your life is moving. And I'm not trying to be sober, but I am trying to give a bit of wisdom, just a little bit of observation I've been able to take in as my brother-in-law walks through this. They're just not, that situation is not going to get better for your mother.

Yeah. Well, my dad's actually the one with Alzheimer the one with all time i know yeah we i know but she can't she can't take care of him it's all you guys and i'm saying before i spent 250 000 on a home i would really look at this from multiple angles to see you know how long that solution that you're describing and and I understand your heart. I'm not trying to talk you out of it. I'm just trying to give you another perspective because I've got no emotion attached to it,

but I would really be playing that out with your sisters as to how long that model is sustainable. Yeah. I would also just come up with a game plan with whoever's involved. Is it more than just your sister involved? My other sister. He's got two sisters. Okay.

I would get together with all three of them and go, okay, here's where we're going to lay this all out. Here's how we're going to fund this project. Here's what the ongoing care is going to look like. Here's the priority in which we'll spend this money. And that way everyone's on the same page. Because this is the kind of stuff that will destroy relationships. That's right. When there's surprises, things weren't communicated.

That's right. I expected this. I was supposed to get this. That's right. And I want to at least savor these relationships. And that's what I'm cautioning, Andrew, is look at all of the possibilities and how this thing could go so that there are zero surprises. Do they have a will in place?

Yes. Okay, good. Sorry you're going through this too, Andrew. Yeah, you're carrying a lot. Whew. Thanks. It's not going to be easy, but you're doing the right thing. Yeah, you're a good son.

Very knowable thing to do. And I'm wishing your parents and your whole family the best through this process, man. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Ken Coleman. Hey, if you're ready to get your finances in order once and for all in 2025, you've got to join us for our free live stream. It's on January the 23rd.

Take control of your money. It's hosted by Dave Ramsey and Jade Warshaw. And you're going to learn how to stop living paycheck to paycheck, how to free up more breathing room so you can pay off debt fast, finally get ahead with money. Plus, Rachel Cruz and I will join at the end for a Q&A where you can ask your money questions live. And if that didn't sell you, here we go. When you sign up, you'll be entered to win into our cash giveaway. Five people will win four grand each. Oh, wow. And again, this is a free live stream. When you sign up, you'll be entered to win into our cash giveaway. Five people will win four grand each. Oh, wow. And again, this is a free live stream.

So go sign up, ramsaysolutions.com slash live stream, or click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. You know, I was thinking about that when you said that. That means four people or five people? There will be five people who win four grand each. So 20 grand total will be given away. Five people are going to sign up for this thing for free and get a massive boost into their baby step situation. 4K is 4K.

Worst case, you get information and motivation to help you get at it. Best case, you might get a little cash to speed it up. I'll take the odds on that one. All right. Judy is up next in Tampa. How can we help, Judy? Hi there. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. So I am 65 years old. I have zero savings right now. And I wonder if I should start, instead of building up a savings account, build up an investment account, like mutual funds, as you and Ramsey speak about all the time. Yeah, we say you can't save your way to wealth. The thing is, I'm 65, and nobody knows how long they're going to live.

So, like, 65, what if in five years, you know, it's not going to move a lot? Sure. Well, if you're not here in five years, it won't matter. That's true. So you can't use that line of thinking right you gotta you gotta plan for the best you know and hope for the best but you know once the worst happens it really doesn't matter because this is for your long-term play do you work right now i work part-time yeah i work um i make about sixteen hundred dollars a month are you single married i'm

i live with my boyfriend he covers most of the expenses most of my income is um disposable as i said i hate that term but yeah what happens if uh and boy i'm sure that's nothing but bliss with you guys well what happens if you guys have a breakup? He's been your sugar dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How old is this young fellow? Oh, wow. He's my age.

He's your age. And did you just slip in there that you've tried to break up with him a couple times? We had, well, yeah, yes. What happened? There was a big difference. Well, the last time his drinking was out of control, but he had stopped drinking, and so we're back together the last two months.

Okay. He's been two months sober. That's good. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, really, really good. I really appreciate you sharing all this and I'm glad we know this now because I think it really, it's, it's really,

I'm really, really passionate now about making sure that you stop relying on him. Now I'm happy you guys are back together. Hopefully that sustains, but you've tried to break up with this guy twice this is a relationship that we could at least say has not been stable so well it is 18 years okay but my point is is uh you guys aren't married there's no right there's no legal involvement he doesn't want to marry me that's i get it and you're broke but i'm saying it put he's saying it puts you in a precarious situation financially because you don't have any legal financial protections so you need to treat your finances on a home i do own a home that i am that i mean as i said as as you know i live near

tampa so the home just got uh flooded so we so that put me back in the not in a hole i'm not in a hole i'm not in debt But it wiped out any savings I had. Are you living in his home? Right now I'm living in his home, but I was in my home. Okay. And what's going on with your home? Now we're going to rent out my home. Oh, boy.

What's your home worth? Well, the good news and there's bad news. The good news is we bought it at $50,000, and it's probably anywhere between $200,000 and $300,000 now. Is what it's worth. And is it paid for? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We bought it together, and we paid cash for it at $50,000 during the hosting market. You and your boyfriend did? Yeah. So what happens if you guys split and you wanted to sell it? It's my name.

It's in my name only, only. But you said you guys bought it together. Well, he gave me the money. He said, well, here you go. Wouldn't he want to write to some of the money? Hold on, hold on, hold on. I need to hear the voice. What did he say? Give us the whole voice treatment on that.

What did he say? I didn't do voice treatment on that. What did he say? I didn't do it very well. Do it again. Well, here. We will get married, but you can have this house. And if anything happens, you always have this house. Wow. This is delightful.

I feel like you guys are a reality show waiting to happen. You know, 65-year-old's been dating 18 years. This is interesting, George. This is a Netflix series. I can't force him to marry me. No, Judy, no. You want to hear something even worse? Yes.

You do? Yeah. My work, I work for him. Oh, boy. He has a small business. You're right, Judy. That was worse. See, George and I are on team judy

okay we're wearing team judy t-shirts right now and i love that good and and so you need to accept this that you have got to get a different job a full-time job that's not paid by this guy and you need george i want you to step in on what you think she should do with that i'm just wondering what's it like when you ask for a raise from your boyfriend that's got to be awkward i said he said he's a woke kid i love this voice i could talk to judy i could talk to judy forever yeah this judy you're nominated for my favorite caller ever uh okay george let's let's help. Let's answer your original question. That's a high bar.

I'm flattered. You've got to save money. You can't save and invest until you make more. So here's the deal. There's a foundational savings you need before you ever put a dime into investments, and that's an emergency fund. So you need three to six months of expenses. She doesn't have any expenses.

Let's pretend like you do have expenses. So what would it be? Okay, well, I do have any expenses. Let's pretend like you do have expenses. So what would it be? Okay, well, I do have to pay. Now I'm on Medicare, so I have to pay that, and I have to pay for my phone, and I have to pay for my car insurance. Great, okay. And I get a Social Security check, so that kind of eats up my Social Security check. What's your Social Security check?

Well, it was $1,000, but now they take Medicare out of it, so it's a little less than that. It's basically nothing. $875. Okay. That's not enough for you to retire on. So our game plan is, hey, when and if Judy can't work anymore, how is she going to survive if sugar daddy's not in the picture? The other stream of income

I have is that we're going to rent out the house for approximately $1,300 a month. Yeah, but that's not enough to live off of. Would all that money go to you? Yeah. He wouldn't take a dime of it. Well, as soon as I pay back some money that I borrowed from him.

See? Do you see how this gets messy and complicated? I really do. The house is in my name. What's Team Judy going to do when she doesn't have the ball? I'll tell you right now, if Judy doesn't make some changes, Judy's going to have to find another sugar daddy. And I don't know how many of those are left, sweetheart, when you get to your age. You know what I mean?

I mean, just keeping it real. I don't want one. I don't want one. Okay, great. So then how do we exist without a sugar daddy? The answer is more income. As George was taking you down the line... Get your own savings in place, then you can begin investing, and all of that is going to take more income, because you don't have a ton to throw at any of this right now. Okay, so if I have $5,000 to $10,000 saved, then I can start investing? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, I would say $10,000 minimum, and then you can begin investing. And, you know, we'll send you our investing guide. Go to ramsaysolutions.com slash guide. And we have a whole guide showing you the right way to invest, what to invest in. You don't need to be risky. I got that. The mid-cap, the large cap, and the small cap. Sure.

And the international mutual. Yeah, index and mutual funds and tax advantage accounts. The problem is you don't have any money. You need to make some money and start taking care of Judy. If this guy wants to keep... I mean, I did. I lost some money twice. I mean, I had some money, but... I know. I know, Judy, but that doesn't matter.

Like, you know, the hurricanes. The hurricanes. I get it. The hurricanes. As I said, that cost $20,000. I know, but we're talking about the future. George, let's put her on hold. Christian, let's get her a free ticket to the live stream investing event. Yeah, that'll be great. I think that'll also help her.

Join us March 4th and 5th, Judy. You can watch with your boyfriend. I don't know if he's going to like it, but he can be there and hang out. But he can make that voice the whole time. It'll be great. Best impression I've heard today. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.

The moment you've all been waiting for. It's here, guys. What is? The Ramsey Show annual listener survey is now live. Ken can stop texting me every day wondering when it's going to drop. When's it going to drop? I feel like you oversold that one. That was a good tease.

That was the goal. Yeah. I'm a real pro. We do like to know what people think, though. No, really, this is our biggest survey of the year. And we want to know your favorite parts of the show, what you like, what you don't, what you want to hear more about,

whatever it is. We want to hear from you. And we actually, our team pours through this data and uses it to craft what happens on this show. And to tell us what to stop doing. Exactly. They go, Ken, don't do that. They don't like it. It's usually a long list. So there you go. Enough with the YouTube comments. Let us know in the survey and we'll take it to heart. Oh, there we go. Two ways to participate. You can just text the word survey to the number 33-789 or go to ramsaysolutions.com slash survey.

And if you're listening on podcast or YouTube, show notes, just go to the show notes. It's Ken's favorite place to hang out. It's my favorite place to send people.

Ken loves sending you because it's all there. Everything you could ever want on this show is in the show notes. What was that link? It's in the show notes. What was that?

It's in the show notes. There you go. I can answer every call that way. I can just go next, show notes,'s in the show notes. What was that? It's in the show notes. There you go. I can answer every call that way. I can just go next, show notes, next call, show notes. I could get through a record amount of calls. I'm impressed. And here's the deal. If you sign up for this survey and you actually complete it,

you'll be entered to win a $500 gift card. As a little thank you. Enter to win. You're not guaranteed, but there's a chance. Nothing says I appreciate you more than cash exactly yeah i don't know where the gift cards too but i'm i'm excited to find out where would you like a gift card to george if one practical asking for a friend if one was to get you a gift card that delighted you where would it be oh man uh my my practical come on says amazon or costco love it. Because Costco, that one $500 gift card, that's one trip to Costco, if you're lucky.

I'll be honest. That's a disappointing answer. Someone's buying you a gift? Where do you want a gift card to? Pick a specific brand. Huh? Where do you want one to? I don't know.

Academy, so you can get more pickleball gear? Yeah, maybe Ralph Lauren. I don't know. J. Crew. I'm going to pick a lot of specifics. You gave me Costco. They have everything. What do you want? Like the show notes. know. J. Crew. I'm going to pick a lot of specifics. You gave me Costco. They have everything. What do you want?

Like the show notes. Exactly. All right. Let's get to the phone. Raymond is up next in Portland, Oregon. What's going on, Raymond? Hi, Ramsey. Thanks for having me. Sure. I was wondering, would it be worth for me to finance a vehicle? My vehicle is in the shop right now. It has a blown head gasket and it also

has a timing chain that needs to be replaced. It's going to cost me $4,000 to replace and they can't find an engine for that vehicle because it's so old. Okay. How old is the car? It's a 2012. That's old? Oh my

goodness. They can't find an engine? 2012 what? Nope. 2012 Chevrolet Colorado. They said the engines are discontinued. All right. Let me ask a question. Are there other Chevrolet trucks or SUVs where that engine is compatible? They said they can find one, but it's going to be a used one. Right. But I would be barking up that tree to see what that's going to cost. Well, the question is, you put $4,000 into this thing.

At that point, what is it worth? By now, it's probably worth $4,000. Oh, I see. So it's worth $4,000 right now, but if you did this repair and put $4,000 into it, what would it be worth? Probably the same thing, $4,000. That's what he's saying. Okay.

That changes my answer, I guess. And how much money do you have saved right now? Right now, I got $600 in savings. I got $11,000 in retirement. Okay. We're not going to touch retirement. So you're down to, in liquid cash, you got $600? Yeah, I got $600 in savings, and then I got just a little over,

right now just right about $1,000 in checking. Okay. So you don't even have the money to do this repair? No, I do not. And your solution is to go finance a $25,000 car? Well, the thing with this vehicle is I have a warranty on it. I bought a warranty package when I bought the vehicle. The vehicle is paid off cash.

I have the title in hand. But I have an extended warranty on it. And right now they're going through to verify if they will cover anything on the vehicle under that warranty. Okay, so let's play the scenario out. Let's say they cover it, and they cover all $4,000 of the repair. Now you have a drivable $4,000 car? Right.

Okay, and we'll drive that while continuing to save up, and then once we have enough money to... What I have the problem is, is if they're going to say it's going to need a new engine, and they tell the warranty company that, where are they going to get an engine at? I don't know. Well, they'll put a used engine in it, and you'll ride it out. Yeah, you already said, we already covered that you could get a used engine. Okay.

This isn't your forever car. We just need to go, there's a gap right now. You're broke. And I would imagine the warranty is going to cover the engine, the gasket on it, unless you didn't put oil in it. Nope, I put oil in it. I do my regular maintenance on it. All right, so I've got to believe that it will be covered. How long have you been living paycheck to paycheck, Raymond?

I've been living paycheck to paycheck since I was born. You want to try another way? Would you be open to that? I'm actually on your guys' system right now. You're calling me asking if you can finance a $20,000 car. I don't know what system you've found out. It's on the back backside of the page. If we have to make the repair to get by, we make it happen. We pause all of the baby steps. We save up aggressively, sell anything we can to avoid debt. So that would be the game plan for

you. And the question is, how can I build a habit where you learn how to save up 500 bucks or a thousand bucks a month to pay cash for things versus turning to payments to solve problems. You see the difference? I hear you. Right. So that's where, if they can't fix it and you need to get rid of this, if it's undriveable, then we need to go, we'll sell it for what we can, plus use any savings we can to buy a car from Facebook marketplace. And whatever car we can afford in cash, that's what we drive for the time being. And the goal is that you're not doing this for very long. It might be five months. It might be a year. So what is your income? I make about $54,000 a year. And what other debt do you have? I have a mortgage. I bought a house for the first time. My mortgage is $342,000.

What's the payment on that? $22.78 a month. And what's your take-home pay? Right about $4,000. Wow. Dude, you're not even living paycheck to paycheck. I got my mom helping. She lives with me.

She co-signed the house with me and she's paying her portion. She pays me $1,000 a month for her portion. I pay the rest. What's the long-term game plan? Well, you get married, kick mom out, but she's still

on the mortgage and has to pay? No. No. She just pays... She lives with you and your wife and chips in? I'm not married. I know. He's asking you what the long-term play is. I think I'm the only person thinking about Raymond's future right now. I am. I'm just enjoying your version of it. Okay.

So I'm with you. Anyways, I'm kind of role-playing here, Raymond, to go, we've got to make different decisions. This house was a mistake. I'm not telling you you need to go sell it tomorrow, but this is a glaring problem in your life as you try to get out of this paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. And this car is one symptom. This is one Jenga piece in this mess. Can you make more money? What are you doing full-time right now?

I am a field driver for Amazon. Okay. Can you work more hours? I can, yeah. I can request overtime. I would be doing that. It's just you and your shoes. Yeah, it's just you and mom at the house.

I'd be working a lot if I were you. And my car's in the shop, and I'm desperate for a better car. Dude, I'd be working as much as I can, selling anything in that house that's not tied down to get out of the situation. You have no other debt other than the mortgage? Well, come back to the work part. I have a problem with that because my mom works too.

She works on the days that I don't work, and then she goes to work on the days that I don't work. Why can't you guys work at the same time? Did I miss something? So I have a 13-year-old daughter. Oh, so someone needs to be there? Yeah. So when I'm at work, she watches her.

And then when I'm at work, when she's at work, I watch her. Man. Is there a special condition? I mean, why does the 13-year-old need to be watched? I think we might need to figure out a child care situation where you both can work at once. But man, that's messy. Hang on the line.

I'm going to send you a copy of my book, Breaking Free from Broke. And hey, if you want to catch the rest of the Ramsey show we got more where that came from head over to the ramsey network app just search that in your app store or click the link in the show notes if you're on radio stick around the show will continue From Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by my friend Ken Coleman, and we are here to serve you, to help you take the right next step with your work, your career, your money, your relationships, whatever's going on. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Ryan is going to kick us off in Baltimore. Welcome to The Ramsey Show,

Ryan. Hi, thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? So my wife and I, we use the EveryDollar app. We follow it very strictly. And my question is whether it would be okay to use my fund money to invest in crypto and day trade on an app like Robinhood. Sure. You guys are in Baby Steps 4 through 6? Yes, sir. Baby Steps 6. How much money are we talking? Like $50 to $75 a month. Go for it.

Yeah. Which one would you do? Both or just one? Crypto or the Robinhood? Honestly, yeah, just Robinhood and whatever I'm seeing at the top of the charts, just throw a few dollars at it and see what happens. I mean, my thought is I'm going to lose it one way or the other with my fun money, paying for food or coffee, so why not try to make a little bit of fun money off it? Yeah, I like that. Yeah, it might be a shock and people are like, wait, George, you need to go after it. No, here's the deal.

I'm not even anti-crypto. I'm not anti-Robinhood, although it's not my favorite app. There's a time and place to burn money on the table and not be stressed about it. And that is once you're debt-free with an emergency fund, you're already investing 15% into retirement, into mutual funds and index funds. And money beyond that, like you said, some people spend 500 bucks on a golf membership. If you want to spend some money and have fun with this app, that's fine. Here's my one warning to you is that it takes up a lot of brain space. Crypto is 24-7. It's going up and down.

And so at 2 a.m., you can check and it's up a little bit, down a little bit. So my one warning is that it's going to eat up some brain calories. It might be living rent-free in your head. And there's an addictive mentality when it comes to day trading and crypto, where it kind of consumes you. And so that'd be my one cautionary tale is don't let it affect your wellbeing, your mental health, your relationships, any of that. Got it. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. I love that call. I talk about this in my book, Breaking Free from Broke Count. I do a whole piece on day trading in the Investing Traps chapter. Here's my hot take on it. Here's little spark notes. Day trading is a great way to decrease your wealth and increase your anxiety.

It's just, I'm already an anxious person. I don't need to add day trading to it where every single day within minutes and hours, those numbers are changing drastically. I've seen it take over people's lives. So on top of making them lose money. It's kind of a sister to gambling. There's definitely the dopamine with that. And I think it's a good point. But in his case, I don't think he's up at 2 a.m. I think he's going to put a little bit of money in and see what happens. And it seems like this guy's got a level head. So that was a fun call. I mean, look, the bottom line is that fun money, we used to call it the blow envelope, blow money. I mean, look, what do you want to spend it on?

You know, as you said, you know, playing a sport or some other kind of hobby or this, you know, as long as you've got discipline, that's the key is to control your money and know where your money's going. Yeah. If you start sneaking money from other places and dipping into the savings account, that's where it starts to become a huge problem. That's where the addictive nature comes into play. So, start with caution. Yeah. All right. Let's move on to Carlos in Portland.

What's going on, Carlos? Hey, how are you guys doing? Good. Great. My question is, in three months, my wife and I will finally be ready to start putting money, additional payments into our mortgage. Right now, only $334 is actually going to the principal monthly when we looked at the statement. How much more should we be putting into it so that we're not paying a mortgage for 30 years? Okay. So you guys are in baby steps four,

five, and six. You're debt-free with an 30 years. Okay, so you guys are in baby steps four, five, and six. You're debt-free with an emergency fund. Are you investing 15% of the household income right now? No, we're literally just in this time limit, you know, for financially, so we're ready to go. We're ready to, you know, finally get this debt paid in terms of mortgage. Okay, but are you investing right now? Just what's it called?

The match? The 401k. Okay. Match, yeah, for work. So the time, baby steps four, five, six, they can happen simultaneously, but they have to happen in that order. And so the order is invest 15% of your gross household income into retirement accounts. So if you're just investing

up to the match right now in the 401k, like 3%, we got to ratchet that up to 15% so that we can retire with dignity. Okay. So any money beyond 15%, what do you guys make? What's your household income? Total, let's see, it's 4,800 plus 2,800. No, your gross household income for the year. Oh, mine's 89 and my wife is just shy of 30. Awesome. So you guys are bringing in about 120 grand. And so 15% of that is $18,000. So that's how much should be contributed to retirement accounts over the course of the year.

Any money beyond that? Do you guys have kids? No kids, just two fur babies. Awesome. Love it. They don't need to go to college. They'll be fine. So then you can leapfrog five for now and move on to six, which is pay extra toward the mortgage. So what is your mortgage payment every month? $19.64. That's including the escrow, insurance, everything. P-I-T-I. Okay.'ve, once you ratchet up, you're investing to 15%, there's probably going to be less remaining to throw at the mortgage and that's okay. We don't want to mess with the 15% and then go, all right, I'm going to sit down with my wife.

We're going to use the Ramsey payoff calculator on our website to go, Hey, if we did $500 extra a month, we could do that. If you sit down and make your budget, here's how much we have left over. Here's how much faster we would pay down the mortgage. And then set a goal and say, all right, we're both agreeing, spit shake, four years from now, the mortgage is paid off. Okay. And then make it a consistent habit to throw extra at the mortgage. You guys have consistent incomes or is it variable or commission? Okay, great. So this one should be easy.

Make your every dollar budget. See how much room is left over after all those expenses are paid, investing 15%. And if it's 500 bucks, let's commit to that. And that means we got to stick to the budget if we want to hit this goal. So there's no, we talk about moving from intense to intentional once you get out of baby step two and three and into four, five, six. And that means let's not be lackadaisical. Let's be intentional.

But we also don't have to be as aggressive as we were when we were getting out of consumer debt. That gazelle intensity. We can enjoy life. We can upgrade the car, set aside money for vacation, increase our giving, and let's have an intentional goal for the mortgage. Okay. That sounds like a plan. Love it. It's a great question, man. What are you aiming for? How fast do you want to pay it off? I mean, best case scenario, if I had all the money in the world one year, but we are aiming for like the five to seven year mark.

Okay. Awesome. Man, you are right on target. We found, Ken, that when people follow the baby steps, they paid off their house in about seven years. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. And in our millionaire study, we found it was 10.2 years it took them to pay off their mortgage. And so it's a great goal to have. I can't imagine the people out there with their 30-year mortgage just hanging on to it until they're 59 years old, just still making that payment to the lender. And remind me what their income was. 120 grand.

Yeah. Here's what I want to point out. I was listening to that, and I see headlines, I feel like, on a monthly basis where young people, they're certainly young, talk about the fact that they don't make enough money to buy a home, much less pay one off. And those numbers aren't crazy. I mean, that's good money, but that's not a lot of money. Not in today's world. So I just want to point out that Carlos and his wife, the American dream is alive and well,

to own a home, but also to pay it off. So I was struck by that. We see headlines, and then we see real stories on Main Street every day. Way to go, Carlos. You represent a lot of hope for a lot of people who don't believe your story is possible, and it is. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.

I'm George Camel, joined by Ken Coleman, 888-825-5225. That's the number to call if you want to jump into the conversation. Rachel will join us up next in Denver, Colorado. What's going on, Rachel? Hey, I'm doing well. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Awesome. Yeah, so I'm a new listener, as I was about four months ago. My question, yeah, my question today is, what should my boyfriend and I do together first? We're kind of thinking marriage, baby step one, baby step two, or perhaps another priority.

I've kind of been listening. So I know y'all's general responses. So to give you a background, we've been together since April 2023. He's 25 and I am 28. And we bought a new home together. Unfortunately, I didn't, you know, I just found you guys. But March 2024, so we've almost been there for a year. We've talked about marriage and we both want to.

We're very on board. We trust each other very, very much. We're very open with each other. However, we don't want to rush it because we are already out $32,000 in debt collectively, consumer, not including our house. So we're kind of both thinking, why buy a ring and throw a party we can't afford since we both have agreed that we don't want to borrow anymore. So I kind of wanted just to know what y'all's take is on that. All right, let me throw a scenario at you. I love your reasoning about the big wedding and the ring and all that,

but what if you went down to the courthouse and you got married legally and then you planned that fun celebration at a time after you're debt-free? Or what if, and we're not, but what if George and I were, what do we call this? You get the online ordained. Oh, like the officiant? Yeah. Ordained minister? Yeah.

What if George and I could get you and the boyfriend married today? Would that stop you? I am very about it. But, I mean, my boyfriend and I talk about it. I think both of us are both kind of confused on this. I don't know. I really don't know. He's not here today.

I was being silly to make a silly point that you're saying we don't want to get married just because of the ceremony in the ring. And I'm saying you don't need a ceremony nor do you need a ring but you guys have already bought a house together you've completed the largest financial transaction of your life together he was here he would definitely scold us and i know so you guys just a nice guy a ring feel that's too much but we'll buy a house together so i feel like you've made an excuse that doesn't even hold up. So go down to the courthouse tomorrow and get married. Yeah. Cause I know that you guys kind of say when you start the baby steps, especially one, or really, especially days at two,

it goes faster when you do it together. And I kind of knew that you guys were going to say this as though I was expecting it. Um, but I, and I kind of came on here so that my boyfriend could listen to this later. Oh, perfect. What's his name? His name is Ivan. Okay.

So Ivan needs to watch this on YouTube so he can see our faces or whatever. He listens to the podcast. He listens to Ramsey. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, I've been incorporating it slowly, trying to ease it in. But I mean, I would just talk to him and go, why are we delaying this? Yeah. The party and the ring have nothing to do with the marriage license and all of that

business. Nothing. So if we were to do that, let's say like in a week or two, what's next after that? So here's the deal. Good question. Until you're married, keep all finances separate as much as you can. Clearly, we're already a little commingled here. So you pay off your debts with as much extra as you can.

He pays off his debts with as much extra as he can. You both do the baby steps. You're going to do them simultaneously, but not together. Once you're legally married, now we can go, we're going to combine income. We're going to look at all of this debt as one giant pile and do the debt snowball that way. Which it likely will go faster because you got two people work on this thing together, two incomes attacking the same debts. And so it likely will go faster and it'll honestly help you guys grow in your marriage.

And so as a pre-marital counseling, would you guys go through Financial Peace University together if it was my gift? Yes. I've been trying to ease it in for the past four months at first. We're both not very financially literate. Our families really didn't teach us the best, both of us. And so I've kind of been trying to, you know, I really love Dave's ideology about everything. So I was on board with it and I kind of knew that I needed to talk about this slowly with him. And so he's very about it now and very intrigued. And he's watched an episode. So, yeah, it's been good.

So watch all nine lessons and tell him, hey, if George said if we don't actually watch all nine lessons, he's going to charge us for it. So we have to watch all nine lessons. I'm going to give you guys 90 days to do this, okay? Okay. That's the plan. Thank you. That'll get him fired up. I really appreciate it.

And hopefully we can get this guy to commit. I mean, he's already committed to the house, but he sounds like he's kind of now on the fence about, you know. Well, we have great news. Yesterday he just found out he's getting promoted again. Ooh, wow. Yeah, he's 25 years old, and he's almost making, I think on February, he'll roughly be making $100,000 a year.

Amazing. Good for him. Yeah. I just don't understand what his cold feet are. If you frame it the way that I framed it with you, hopefully he's going to go, oh, okay, that makes sense. Because usually it's the woman who cares about the ring and the ceremony. And I do, but at the same time I've been listening so much now

that I'm like I need to swallow my ego or my pride about it. Oh, you're amazing. I think it might be on him to do that because it's on his reputation when they go, well, where's the ring? Well, I mean, do we really think he's ready to commit? I don't know. Huh? Oh, I mean, do we really think he's ready to commit? I don't know. Huh? Oh, I think he is, yes.

Well, then he needs to do it. Yeah, okay. Thanks for the question. For the financial momentum, if nothing else. If nothing else. But, Rachel, you sound— He bought a house with her. I assume he's ready to commit.

That's shocking. Do you see this— I know that we could tackle this in, like, less than a year. I really do. I mean, I could tell you, Rachel, I'm less concerned about your debt and more concerned about the relationship. I am too. The debt's going to get paid off quickly. It's getting you guys to the place where you're committed in a legal way with legal protections as you step into this next chapter of your life. Yeah. You know what? Let me ask a quick question. I've never done this on the show, but I genuinely want to know, and this is not a trap question, Rachel. I'm curious. What goes through your mind? And if you know what went through Ivan's mind,

tell us. But what went through y'all's mind as single people legally, but you're in a relationship and you decide to buy a house together with marriage kind of just out there. Does that not concern you at all? Did it give you pause? No. It was quite interesting, my relationship with him. The moment we met each other, we really knew that this was it. That type of feeling just between us. Nobody else can kind of see that or was it. Um, that type of feeling just between us, you know, nobody else

can kind of see that or feel that. But when, when we, when we felt that we, I was actually rooming with like other girls, it was going terribly, you know, he's kind of like, Oh, let me help you. But at the same time, I didn't want to get a house. And he, we actually just moved in with his family for six or seven months prior to that. Right. Also in Denver. And we actually just moved in with his family for six or seven months prior to that. Right. Also in Denver. And we lived with them and had a wonderful time learning about family. You know, our relationship grew.

So quick question. So there was no fear of risk. What would happen if for some awful reason you guys break up and decide you're not supposed to be together and now our names are on this house? That never crossed either of your minds i'm just curious no we talk about it a lot like hypotheticals and all of that too all right thank you for letting me ask okay of course yeah we um we have talked about it actually past week really too because you know hiccups bumps in the road things pop up that um you know you reassess your relationship, but we really both are very open and honest with each other.

So it's very nice. We know that we want to do this together. We just didn't know how and like what, what would be the best approach to it. And I know that it seems, which we are essentially playing house together, but I'm kind of, after listening to you guys, I'm like, man, I need to grow up. I need to understand how to do things properly in order to, because I want a future with him. We want a family, and we, you know, we've really thought about this now, and I'm very grateful you guys took the phone call today.

Yeah, you bet. Thank you for listening. Welcome to the community. I appreciate your honesty. Thank you all so much. I wish you guys the best, and we'll send you Financial Peace University, and we're going to call it a precursor to the community. I appreciate your honesty. Thank you all so much. I wish you guys the best, and we'll send you Financial Peace University, and we're going to call it a precursor to this marriage. So there you go, George.

I think she represents a lot of young couples who go, there's no risk here. They don't think that things could blow up. Well, it just seems like a smart financial transaction, because why waste money on rent? We could do this together. We love each other. Everything's going to work out perfectly. Yeah.

And I hope it does. But the calls we take on the show, Ken, are when it's gonna work out perfectly yeah and i hope it does but the calls we take on the show can or when it doesn't work out perfectly yeah so we we have that risk in our minds and it's a real risk but hopefully this is a different situation get on it ivan this is the ramsey show welcome back to the ramsey show i'm ge George Campbell, joined by Ken Coleman. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Hey, there's a lot that goes into buying and selling your home, and all of those decisions can feel overwhelming, and you shouldn't have to do it alone. And that's why we created Ramsey's Real Estate Home Base. It's a place with all the tools and resources

you need to get prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence. We've got calculators, start-to-finish guides, how-to articles, a podcast, a book, and even a video course, all packed with actionable steps to help you navigate this buying and selling process. So if you're ready to take the next steps toward your home goals with peace of mind, go to ramseysolutions.com slash realest, or click the link in the show notes. Boom. It's that easy. I can't make it any simpler. Thank you for that, Ken. You were so excited to chime in with that. Well, I'll be honest. I didn't know it was coming, but man, you cued me up and boy, you know how much I love the show notes. So I'm always ready.

It was a soft toss, as we say in the biz. Yeah, nice assist. All right. Jimmy's up next in Durham, North Carolina. What's going on, Jimmy? Hello, guys. I went through a financial hardship period through to being unemployed for 18 months. I just recently started with a firm in December. I had a good pay. The problem now that I have is my credit card debt went up and I think I can sort of manage, well, if you guys have any suggestions on that, that'd be great. So I guess the first problem is in terms of what I need to pay to become current, it's not something I can pay right away. So it's about $7,500 just to get current.

And then from that point forward, there's about, call it $60,000 of credit card debt. Right now, given sort of that hardship period, I don't think I can apply to a consolidation loan. I don't think I'm going to get it. I wouldn't recommend it anyways. So I'm glad. Okay. And so, you know, if you guys have any thoughts as to how I could sort of manage that, I am now making a good living, and I think just, like, to have a good plan for the next six months after that life gets easier, and I don't mind sort of tightening the belt in the meantime. So if you ask me any questions you have, I just, you know,

I've been trying to do research online, and I'm kind of lost. Okay. So what is your new income? It's like in the $150 per year. Amazing. And what are your monthly expenses? So right now, I've really, you know, because of what life was like before the job, so I live in a place where I just rent a room, so it's not really home.

And so I'd like to stay here for at least six months so I can truly reestablish myself. What's your rent? It's $800 a month, and that includes all utilities. Great. Okay. That's very low, considering your income. What are all of the other expenses add up to? So if I have to pay all of Jimmy's bills for one month, what would it take? And this is, we are living bare bones here. We're not eating out. We're going to cut the subscriptions. We need to get out of this nightmare. Yes. So the things that are, that are, you know, sort of monthly, you know, it's rent $800 when it's used utilities. The mobile is $100.

The car payment is $770. Well, you didn't tell me about the car. What's left on this loan? So I moved from New York City to North Carolina, so I needed a car for work. I needed something dependable, and so that car I needed something dependable. So that car, I just bought in December.

Jimmy, don't justify it with I need a reliable car. What did this car cost you? It cost me $25,000. And that's what's left on the loan? No. Well, I just got the loan in December. It has an APR of 22%,

but I think that's because... 22%? Oh, my gosh. My head hurts. How did you walk out of that room and sign that paperwork? Like, that guy must have been the best salesman in the world. Again, it was just trying to put one foot in front of the other, and this felt like one foot in front of the other. You probably need to sell this car immediately.

There are so many reliable cars that are way less than that. The used car market is flush with cars. So you've got $60,000 in credit card debt. You need another $7,500 to get current, and you have another $25,000 on this car loan? That is correct. And any other debt you want to make known at this time? No, that is all the debt that I have. Okay. So you make $150,000, you are about $90,000-something in debt. Yes. So the question I was asking of what are your monthly expenses and then what is your new take-home pay, and there's a key here, you're not going to be doing any investing.

The only thing you will be doing other than paying your normal bills is attacking that debt. From smallest to largest balance, no consolidation loans, leave them all separate, make minimum payments on all the ones that you can, call your creditors and tell them you're trying to get current on all these debts, and within a few months, you'll get current, right? You're making 150 grand. Yeah. So let's say you can keep your expenses down to $2,000 and your take-home pay is $9,000, right? Yep. Well, there's a $7,000 gap of margin that we can use to get current on those credit cards, right? Yep. And the next month, we can throw $7,000 gap of margin that we can use to get current on those credit cards, right?

Yep. And the next month, we can throw $7,000 at our smallest balanced credit card and knock that out, right? Yep. Do you see how quickly this is going to go if we just do it with focused intensity? Yes. If you can throw $7,000 a month at this thing, it's all gone in a year. Think about that. One year from now,

your life is completely different. You have no debt payments in your life. You make 150 grand. You're going to have a fully funded emergency fund soon after that. Then we can invest for the future. And you sound like a young guy. How old are you? I am in my 50s. 50s? You fooled me. You got a lot of life ahead, and I want you to start, you know, stacking away cash for retirement one day. Yes. Do you have a nest egg currently? No, I used it all up for kind of that period, long period of unemployment.

Man. Okay. Well, you got your homeworks, Jimmy. I mean, it's not going to be fun. You're going to be living like a broke college kid. But this is the only path out so that you don't wake up at 60 in the same situation. I have a question. I spoke to like a nonprofit credit counseling agency earlier today.

Okay. And they were saying that I can join sort of a program where I guess I pay them, and then they pay the credit cards. Yeah, here's what happens. They say, you make the payments to us instead of the lenders, and your creditors will start coming after you, and then we're going to settle, and we'll get rid of this for you. Sounds like a great plan, right?

It's not. You're going to get hosed. You're going to make these payments to them. They're going to tank your credit, ruin your financial life, maybe be unable to settle, not save you money, and you're going to be in the same situation. So here's the key, Jimmy. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. If it looks like a shortcut, run the other way towards hard work. Okay. Jimmy's going to solve this. Don't reach out to another company will you promise me that don't fill in out another form for a debt consolidation or a debt relief or credit counseling none of that george i jimmy i really think you got to get rid of this car this will give you some momentum

george walking through that i think he needs to grasp this income i mean if you just said hey i'm gonna pause save up for one month seven grand you sell this car, probably for what you paid for it, and go get a $7,000 car off Facebook Marketplace. Gives you a massive raise in your monthly totals and in what you're spending. And then you just knock $25,000 right off of this total. You just got your life back. You just got 800 bucks back in your life to throw a debt on top of this new income. Are you tracking with what I'm saying, Jimmy?

Yeah, I hear you guys. Yeah. And here's the thing. You're worried about reliability. Get a pre-purchase inspection on whatever car you're looking at. It's going to cost you $100, $150 from a quality mechanic of your choice. That way you'll know, hey, this thing's got no issues. It's in good condition.

And again, this is not your forever car. This is your, I'm going to drive this for the next year, year and a half until I'm in a much better situation and I can afford the next car in cash. This is, I'm in my fifties and I got to play catch up. And the only way I'm catching up is to go absolutely gazelle intense. Like we teach you can do this, but you got to believe it. You got to believe that it's going to actually work for you or you won't work the plan. That's what I'm hearing. I hear you. I hear you. Alright. Alright, Jimmy. We did what we could, man. It's up to you now.

You got to do the hard work. Ken and I just get to sit here and rattle off all the hard things you get to do. But man, you're going to be in a different place a year from now with this amazing new income of yours. Take it as a giant blessing, a second chance to live a very different life. Yeah. We're looking to get a call from him in the future. We're like, Jimmy, Jimmy.

I love a Jimmy. I got a brother named Jimmy. I got a lot of love for Jimmy's. Thanks for the call, man. This is the Ramsey show. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Ken Coleman. Our scripture of the day, 2 Corinthians 9 verse 8, and God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. Richard Branson said, train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to. That's good. I'll take that. All right. Danny is up next in Dayton, Ohio. What's going on, Danny?

Hi. Can y'all hear me? Yes. Hi. So my question today is, what are your thoughts on what account type is best for a stay-at-home mom for retirement? This is my favorite question of the day. So we're trying to do what is like maxing out a retirement, but I don't have access to a 401k, of course, because I'm a stay-at-home mom. So I'll just go ahead and go through the questions I know you're going to ask. Okay. We have the emergency fund. We have no debt. We have the three to six months saved. We're doing 15%. We have two kids.

We are putting some back for college. We travel full-time for work. So we technically don't have a mortgage, but we technically put a mortgage payment back for ourselves every month to be able to continue to save for that. And then we max out our Roth IRAs and we max out my husband's Roth 401k. So we're looking for 2025 for myself of where to put the best money for us. Advise me, please. When you said we're maxing out Roth 401k, that's his. You said we're maxing out Roth IRAs. Is that multiple or just his?

That's his and mine. Oh, good. Well, that's what I was going to suggest is the spousal Roth IRA, which where a non-working spouse can max out a Roth IRA every year. We did that. So I'm optimistic that we can still do the 23.5, or I guess once you put the 23.5. So 23.5 in the 401K, 7K in his Roth IRA, 7K in your Roth IRA.

That still doesn't get you to 15% of his income? Well, it does, but my mindset is if we're letting it sit there and fly away, I would rather put the money to work. Does that make sense? Are you saying you want to invest more than 15%? Yes, absolutely. Okay. Well, and because you don't have a mortgage, you're like, hey, we don't really have a baby

step six. We're putting money away there. The other option, if he has access to it, is a health savings account. If he has a high deductible health plan, he may have access to one of those. We max that out as well. You're doing everything. Beyond that, the other thing you could do is just open a non-retirement taxable brokerage account and just put money away there. Okay. But if I'm in your shoes, do you know if you're going to be wanting to buy a house in the next two or three years, or is this travel full-time for work, like an ongoing thing? He's been on the road for 20 years. Oh my goodness. How many kids do you guys have? We have two, but I imagine we'll continue to be on the road for a long time.

However, that's kind of what we've been doing the past several years. Instead of putting money back for me, we really stuffed a lot of money into a home, a mortgage account. So we put money there, you know, a sinking fund for that, but we haven't necessarily, we're not ready to pull the trigger on that. We assume we'll get property at some point down the road. Okay. If that's the case, if this is like a five plus year goal, it's that long term, then just parking it in a taxable brokerage account, you can do low cost index funds over there. And the S&P over the last several decades has returned% to 12%. And so that money will grow at a nice clip for you beyond inflation. And then you look up one day when you're ready to buy a house and you go,

hey, we got half a million sitting in here from just being diligent. The other question that I was curious what your thoughts were on, he has access to an after-tax 401k. I'm sorry, my toddlers are in the background. But an after-tax 401k, yes or no? That's a great option. I mean, I would juxtapose that with your goal of also wanting to save for a house because you're not going to be able to access those funds until 59 and a half. And so if you're saying we want to buy a house probably in the next 10 years,

and you're already investing 15%, I would rather you use that money for this down payment in that taxable account to help you get there. Great question. You guys are so on top of it. Ken, it was like we're sitting at the adult table. You know what I mean? Like, she knows what she's doing, and I'm so glad you brought up, you know, stay-at-home moms out there. If you don't know, bug your spouse and say, we got to open up a spousal Roth IRA. We got to start funding that. You do have options. And I absolutely think stay-at-home spouses should and can be investing for the future. Yeah. Really exciting to see that. By the way, when you said we were at the adult table, it very much felt that way because we could hear the kids screaming in the

background. They're at the kids' table. They're at the kids' table. God bless. And we always enjoy moving from the kids to the adult table. It's a big deal in life to get there. That's huge. Yeah. And I get it. You know, kids in the background. Yeah. That's fun.

That's life. We love it. It's real life here on The Ramsey Show. Real life. Not staged. I should scream every once in a while just to keep the audience kind of on their toes. Please don't. Okay.

I might pass out. All right. I won't. Let's take one more from Crystal in Spokane. Yeah, let's go to Crystal. Love Spokane. How's it going, Crystal? It's going pretty well. How are you guys? Great. What's going on?

Well, my husband and I recently sold our house, bought a fifth wheel cash outright, so we don't owe anything on it. Good. We do have a loan out on my truck. It's a 2012 GMC Yukon wheel, about $7,500 left on it. We are making an attempt to reduce our overall outpouring of money so that we can save up for a piece of property. The idea is to build on that piece of property, do a fair amount of homesteading to the point where my husband can retire and be able to work part time and the farm provides our food and anything else we might need. Maybe we have a property side cottage goods stand to sell surplus. Love it. So go full little house on the prairie in retirement. That's the goal. Yeah. And where are we at now? He works full time. Right now we're living in a fifth wheel. We've got three kids at home.

Two are grown and out on their own. I stay home with the kids. I homeschool them. He works full-time. He pulls, between his two seasonal jobs, he pulls about $70,000 is what we're making right now. Okay. And our monthly expenses, not counting food, are about $2,600, not counting the $100 a week I have reserved for things that come up, things we might want to get, whatever. It's kind of our weekly...

So what's your all-in monthly budget? Are we talking $3,500? Including food and weekly whatever money, that would be about $3,900 to $4,000 a month. We are on food stamps right now, unfortunately, because he's making $3,000 a month with the winter job, and so we wouldn't be able to afford everything all at once. We do have $400 in an emergency fund when he had a summer job and he was making substantially more, we were able to sock away $3,000 towards a property or a down payment. What does he do for a living? So in the summertime, he works for a high-end trust company,

and in the wintertime, he is one of the head groomers up on the local ski resort. The trust company? I just don't understand. Roof trusses. Oh, truss. Okay. I think he's got to increase his income. I'm a little bit struck by the fact that I thought you said he makes $70,000 a year and you're on food stamps. For the winter only because his income dropped significantly with the winter job. Yeah, I think he's got to get something that's 12 months a year and we've got to get that income up as a part of this if we're talking about buying

land. I just feel like I don't hear a budget problem as much as I hear a income problem here. Yeah, you guys, your expenses aren't out of bounds, but with your income, you're talking about you want to save up and buy land, build on that land, do all this homesteading. That might be a far cry if we're going to be on food stamps half the year and we're unable to save enough mom for a couple of years. And then he directed us to Georgia for four years. And then he directed us back home to Idaho. So we are all the profits you put into the fifth wheel to purchase that with cash. There's no more profits, no savings. Right. Okay. Your A1 is to get rid of this truck loan. A2 is save up an emergency fund. A3 would be start investing 15% for the future. Any money beyond that becomes our saving up for the dream fund. But that might be further away than you think unless we can get this income up.

Got to get a better job. That's the solution. Thank you so much for the call. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Thank you to Ken Coleman, the folks in the booth, and you, America. Until next time, spend wisely, save intentionally, and give generously.