The Ramsey Show - App - Emergency Fund: How Much Money Is Too Much? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life, your money, your work, your legacy, your relationships. And if A.O. has anything to do with it, well, that's single life if you're trying to do it right

he's raring and ready to go today Anthony O'Neill my colleague joins me this hour let's talk man singles give us a call I'm going to help hey seriously money and being single

this guy is having a great conversation about the single life making good life decisions not just money decisions over on the table with Anthony O'Neill this thing is a runaway hit over on YouTube I've never been on the table with Anthony O'Neill. This thing is a runaway hit over on YouTube. I've never been on the show because I'm married, apparently.

And so I'm still waiting on my invite. But, no, he's doing great stuff over there. Please make sure you join it. He's on YouTube. Search the table with Anthony O'Neill. Also on your favorite podcast app as well. And don't forget the Ken Coleman Show. We spent hours and hours

coming up with that name. A lot of creativity poured into that AO, as you know. And you can check it out where you listen to podcasts, your talk radio station, SiriusXM, and YouTube. 888-825-5225 is the phone number to jump in. 888-825-5225.

Let's go to the City of Angels, Los Angeles, California, where Mike joins us. Mike, how can we help? Hi, Ken and Anthony. It's an honor to be speaking with you guys, and thank you for having me on your show. You bet. What's up? So my question is, and I'll get straight to the point, is is it possible to have too much money in my emergency fund?

And if so, what should I do with that money? Should I invest it? Should I dump it into my mortgage? I'm just kind of want to get your opinions on what I should do with that. Yeah, man. Yes, there are there will be times and there can be times when you have too much money in your emergency fund. We want our money to grow as much as possible. But then we also want to make sure we have enough money liquid to protect us from emergencies that may come up and to protect us from going back into debt. So what how much money do you have in your savings account right now? Mike, seventy five thousand dollars. OK, cool. Great. All right. Do you have any debt right now?

I have no debt except my mortgage. Okay, cool. Great. And you're in LA. So what would you say is three to six? Well, what do you do for a living? Let me ask you that question first, Mike. I work for the government. Okay. And what would you say your annual income is? Approximately $150,000 a year. Okay. $150,000 a year. How old are you, Mike? I am 41 years old. 41, you got that money. Okay, cool. What's your investment portfolio look like right now?

Are you investing 15% of your income? Yes, sir. I am putting at least 15% towards retirement between my 457B plan and my Roth IRA. So at 40, I'm curious, how much money do you have in your investments? Just short of $300,000. Oh man, you're living good. You're living good, Mike, man. I just love it. I'm just asking questions. It wasn't always like this. I made a lot of mistakes when I was young. Hey man, you and I both, and I'm still young and you're still young.

Let's be real. My Ken's old, but you and I, we'll be young. Oh man, I can't wait till you turn 40 man i'm gonna just rash you so hard but hey seriously um mike what is some of your goals are do you own a home right now i do own a home okay cool and um what what do you how much do you own a home uh i owe approximately 430 000,000. $430,000? All right, cool. And what is it worth? Close to a million dollars. Oh, yeah, man. I'm liking you right now, brother. I like you.

And you said you're married or you're single? I am single. Uh-oh, ladies. No kid. No kids at 40? No, sir. No, sir. You're a great candidate.

I need to get you on my show. Here we go. I can have him hooked up by tomorrow afternoon. Guy calls for financial advice and Ayo's going to get him married. I love it. Here's my advice, man. You're already investing 15%. You're already living below your means, clearly. I would take that $75,000 and invest that into your home.

I would go ahead and jump over to baby step number six because we're're going to skip over baby step number five, because you don't have any kids. If I invest $75,000, that won't leave me any money into my emergency fund. I didn't say $75,000. So I said I would take some of the $75,000 and invest it into your home. And so with you working for the government, whatever you're comfortable with, if I was you, I'm going to leave three months in the account because you have a very stable job with the government. And so I will take the rest of that and go ahead and invest that into the home. And bro, I would just really start attacking your home. If you're already doing 15%, there's really no reason why to start doing more. You're young, $300,000 in the account and your investments. You can leave about $20, you know 20 to 25 000 inside of your emergency fund put 50k towards your mortgage that's going to bring you below 400 with your

kind of income and your dedication you can be completely debt free on to babysat number seven building wealth and giving very generously uh within the next three years and so i would i will go ahead and attack it maybe four years uh but um I will go ahead and attack I might jump in here uh and and I'm stepping into AO territory here okay but he's he's single you said he's a prime candidate if he goes and gets himself an Anthony O'Neill woman debt-free and she's got the double income they could pay that house off even faster I mean absolutely so we're I just that's how we juice this So you're trying to say pay off the house, but also go get you a woman. Who's debt-free and working. Who's debt-free and working, so we pay it off even faster.

I mean, I'm sitting next to you, and I'm going, that's how you get it done faster. Trust me. I'm thinking the same thing. But, I mean, this dating world out here, and correct me if, I mean, it's hard. It's hard out here for us. You know what I'm saying? You're saying it's a- You've been off the market for what, 20 years?

23. 23 years. It's night and day from 23 years ago. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much. Been married 23 years. I don't even know what it would be like. I shudder at the thought of that.

Do you know what I mean? It's a minefield is what you're telling me. Well, I don't want to disrespect the ladies out there, but it is difficult. You don't have to. It is difficult. Okay. If you're a good person, good man or woman, it is difficult to find a good opposite sex. Do you think that you...

Now, okay. Oh, Lord. This is good. This is good. Do you think a guy like Mike, who's 41, debt-free, is he a target? Is he a target? Is he a target? And this isn't all about women, but the point is the same thing with women. If they're debt-free, are they targets for loser dudes who are trying to kind of take advantage of them

because they're so financially stable? Does that happen? Again, I am not the relationship personality or relationship expert. No, but you're the single man who's in good shape. Believe it or not, mike is not the target because i think a young lady will look at him and say if you're this guy why are you still single so there will be questions up front now once they get those questions answered oh they're gonna love that's what i'm saying the security oh yeah so you got to be careful is what i'm saying absolutely you don't want to take on a bunch of debt, a bunch of craziness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can take on some debt

if it's the right person, but you don't want to take on crazy who's looking at you as a ticket. But Ken, you've got to stop saying a single people debt-free can't date someone with debt. I didn't say that. Oh, okay. I'm not saying anything. Okay. First of all, I am not in the business of telling anybody who they can date, okay?

That's not my thing. I'm just saying you have to be careful. You do have to be careful. You got to be wise. You got to make sure that her or his money mindset is on the same as yours. But, Mike, man, that's a solid one right there. Ladies, y'all need to YouTube him. Look him up on Instagram.

Find him. Say, I heard you on the Ramsey show. Poor Mike is now going on all of his social media channels and changing his name. Hey, Mike, great job. Awesome job. Man, you are crushing it. You are on your way to being really, really wealthy. Really appreciate the call.

Good stuff. All right, don't go anywhere. Anthony O'Neill, Ken Coleman, sitting in on this hour of the Ramsey Show. Imagine a world where people never have to worry about money ever again. At Ramsey Solutions, our mission is to teach people how to get out of debt and build lasting wealth. And if that means we have to take on the toxic money culture that says you need debt to get ahead, then we're okay with that. We've seen millions of lives changed, and front-end technologies. Or if you're a UX designer or an SEO and content marketing specialist, we'd love to talk with you.

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That's insurance. Text that word to 33789. 888-825-5225 is the number. Back to the phones we go. Gina joins us in Boston, Massachusetts. Gina, how can we help? Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. So my question is, if it will take me a while to pay off my student loans, should I start putting at least something into a 401k now as opposed to waiting a couple years and having nothing in there? So, Gina, let me ask you this question. What do you think you should do, honestly? Well, I'm not sure. That's why I'm calling. I understand.

I was just wondering if you had to do your own little thought, what would you do? I guess I would put something there so that it's not at zero when I'm done with all the debt, but, um, another factor in is that, um, my company, my publishing house was just bought by a different publishing house. So we have a different 401k plan now, and now they are giving us 25% of whatever we put into our 401k, which was not the situation before. So, so now people are telling me that I'm throwing away money if I'm not putting anything into the 401k because I wasn't doing that before. So I have about $51,000 in loans and I don't know which way to go. Do you have any other debt or is it just the $51,000 in student loans? Just the student loans.

I graduated with $83,000, and I paid off $32,000. Good for you. How much money are you making, Gina? Well, my salary is $36,000, but my take-home pay is about $24,000. Okay, great. Wow, you're really crushing it. Yeah, you really are. Yeah, I'm trying.

Now, are you living with family or friends, or are you living on your own, Gina? I've been out of school for two years, and I was living with my parents, and just this month I moved into my own apartment. So that was another factor of, okay, I can't spend as much as before, but it just felt like it was time to be out of my parents' house and be on my own. What's your scheduled payoff date? If everything goes as is, when do you expect to be done with the $51,000? Well, if I keep doing the minimum payment, it says 13 years.

But that's not what you've been doing. Right. Right. That's not what you've been doing. Right. Right. That's not what I've been doing. But I haven't, this is a great question. I guess I haven't figured out because I've only been in my new apartment for a month. Okay. And I've never been out on my own before. I'm only 25.

And so I guess I need to figure out how much extra I need to be giving to my loans now that I can afford. There you go. Yeah, that's the first thing. You need to figure out how long it's going to take you based on gazelle intensity. You working a second job is maybe an option. How long is it going to take you to pay off the $51,000? You're asking Anthony a question on the 401k, and you don't even have a good idea how long it's actually going to take. It's not going to take you 13 years.

I mean, you crushed it. I know you're living with your parents, but the reality is that you were gazelle intense, and you've already knocked off 30-plus thousand, if I remember correctly. And so if you get after this at the age of 25, you can knock this out a lot quicker than you think. So let's start with that number and try to figure that out. And then, Ayo, why should she not

start investing in her 401k? Why are her friends and all these advisors wrong? Well, I'm going to tell you why. Because that 13 years is going to turn into about 20 years. And here's the thing. A lot of people think,

well, if I could put in, because what we see is when you have debt, you're only going to invest about 1% to 3% of your income because you're trying to get another 1% to 3% with the match. And I understand the thinking, but what I do not understand is,

well, why would you want to put an extra $100, $200 over there when you could put that same $100, $200 over here and get out of debt quicker? When you get out of debt quicker, instead of you investing 1% to 3%, you're investing 15%. So not only would you catch up, you were surpassed where you thought you could have been if you just honestly followed the baby steps. So what I'm telling you is, Ms. Gina, is I wouldn't worry about investing and missing out because what we're teaching you is not just how to invest and build wealth today. We're teaching you how to get out of debt.

So when you do build wealth, you can continue building wealth and building a lot of it. And so what I would encourage you to do is I want Ken to talk before we go to break real quick. So I'm going to shut up. Do not invest into the 401k. I want you to get on the debt snowball and put all of your extra income towards that. Now I want to challenge you bringing home $24,000 a year that is low. So we need to figure out how to get you an extra part-time job so you can put at least $10,000 towards your student loans.

And that'll go from 13 years to five years by five years in a couple of months, but it's going to save you about $10,000 in interest. So, Ken, is there anything we could do to get an extra $10,000 a year? Well, there's a couple ways to do it. I think the part-time job and making some additional money, and even if you can do it in your particular field that you're in to get some additional experience, you've got this expertise, you're out of school. A lot of times people think, well, I've got to go drive Uber. Well, that's certainly a possibility or any other part-time

job, delivering pizza, whatever it is. But sometimes we forget to look for opportunities in our field that get us that valuable experience. I've already got this expertise. I've gone to school for this. I'm in this field. And could I offer that in other places where you can call it consulting or whatever you want to call it, but it'd be contract work where you can really rack up some money. I would continue to do what Anthony said, which is just put every extra dime you've got into this, and then there's going to be plenty of time for you to invest. But right now, the reason we don't want you skipping the baby steps is because we want all of that money getting you out of debt, and then you will catch up. You're actually not going to miss out. If it takes you three years, I think you could pay off the $50,000 in three or less.

I really believe that because we're not even taking into account you're in your first job, essentially, or early on the ladder, and you're getting a promotion. I'd like to see you making $50,000, $60,000. What needs to be true for you to get promoted? And then the additional job. I actually think someone of your age can pay off that $51,000 in three years or less. I really believe that. And then the amount of money that you're supposedly leaving on the table, you're going to catch up.

All of that. Because you have no debt and you're still going to be in your late 20s. I mean, I'm looking at a 27, 28-year-old payoff. I think you're that old. I think you're 25 now. I think you can do this. The question is, how intense do you want to get? And when we preach gazelle intensity, let's give you the image here.

We're talking about this little deer, this deerish animal that is running for its life. We're not talking about a competition. We're talking about survival. Yes. And it's got a cheetah running after it, right? Or a lion or whatever. You've got to run for your life on this. And if you do this, I think you'd be shocked how quickly you could pay off $51,000.

So good, Ken. You're preaching today, Ken. Well, you know, I'm next to the preacher. I'm a preacher's son. So, you know, you put me in this situation where you get preaching and then I start preaching. And then what are we doing, man? We need to take an offering. You know what?

We got a good band. I mean, music director and our producer, James Child. James Child is a world-class engineer, producer, songwriter, this guy. I don't know. We do need to pass the plate. It wouldn't go over well. It'd be the last time we did it, but it would be fun. I'm kidding. Hey, you do realize

this show is free. More of your free advice right around the corner. This is The Rancher Show. Let's start playing some cup. The Ramsey Show continues from our Ramsey Solutions studios in Nashville. Thrilled to have you with us. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague Anthony O'Neill, and we are taking your calls, 888-825-5225.

888-825-5225. Hey, this is your last weekend to shop our famous $10 sale. Learn how to make faster and real progress with your money and in your career when you check out our famous $10 sale. Learn how to make faster and real progress with your money and in your career when you check out our famous $10 sale. You can save up to 60% on over 40 best-selling books and budgeting tools like My Proximity Principle and Anthony O'Neill's newly designed

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No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to win. Text the word CASH to 33789. Text CASH to 33789 to enter our giveaway now. All right, let's go back to the phones. Joshua is on the line in Louisville, Kentucky. Joshua, how can we help? Hello, Joshua.

All right. Oh, there we go. There we go. Sorry, I'm in a meeting. My kids are talking. I get it. No worries. How can we help?

Yeah, hopefully a quick question. My wife and I have an opportunity to take on a sort of a staff position with the church. Part of that includes housing on campus because sort of part of the function would be to, you know, keep an eye on the place, take care of things around the church, things like that. And so that's part of this base of the compensation is housing. So right now we own our own home. We've been here for about two and a half years now. And so we've got a little bit of equity, but the housing market in our area is up quite a bit.

So we would make some money off the sale. But my wife is kind of attached to the house since it's our first home. And so we're wondering whether or not it would be beneficial for us to simply just sell the house and be off money, take and pay off most of our debt with what we make or turn it into a rental property. So I wonder if you guys can give some pointers on that. Well, let's be honest. It's absolutely beneficial for you to sell the house financially because you just told us you're going to pay off all of your debt or most of your debt. Is that how I heard that? A majority of it. it uh right now we've got uh it's just under

eight fifty thousand dollars uh the vast majority of student loans we've got a couple thousand dollars in um uh miscellaneous debt and then uh credit card um the vast majority student loans um the like i said so we right now we owe about i think 116 roughly on the mortgage the real agent is pretty sure we can sell for around $160,000. So after fees and everything, we're probably looking at about $40,000 as far as we clear. Just think about how that fast-forwards your debt-free journey, and then you're going to knock off the other stuff because you've got reduced expenses with the church housing. So all of a sudden, you're in great shape.

And if you're looking at renting to try to rent this thing, you're just not going to clear enough. Let's run those numbers. Give AO&I the numbers. If you rent it, what would you rent it for, and what's your mortgage payment? Well, our mortgage payment right now is just under $1,000. I think it's like $950, $960, something like that,

with homeowners insurance. Okay. I think the estimates, according to a couple numbers we ran, was about $13 monthly for a rental cost. Yeah, and then on top of that, you've got repairs and stuff you've got to deal with as now being a landlord. So you tell me which is the best financial situation. I'm definitely leaning towards selling. My wife is, like I said, she's really attached to the house. Because it's our first house together.

We had our newest kid here, and so she's got an emotional attachment. I get it. Every time Stacey and I have moved, we've moved three times, and every time we move, she cries. It's like a nest, and I get it. That's a real thing. I don't discount that, but the reality is that renting this thing is really not – it's going to almost be a wash when you talk about repairs and everything, A.O.

I just, I think it's a relationship question, not a financial question. I think you've got to sit down with her and go, hey, here's the vision. Here's what this does for us. We can get another house, but this is going to change our life. I think you have to sit down and really walk through it, the pros and cons. How long do you plan on being with this church, Joshua? It depends. I mean, we're here for as long as the Lord has us here.

We moved to Louisville from Alabama in order to go to seminary, and it's been a really slow process. So let me answer this question. Let's say you move into it, and two years from now, let's say you all do it and two years from now, let's say you all do not, or you're not at the church. Do you regret selling a home two years later? I'm talking about you.

I already know what your wife would say, but two years later, will you regret selling a home? Probably not. No. I mean, right, right now,

there are times where it feels like the, I can't think of the place, but the old movie, the money pit, where it's just constantly happening. It's a little bit of of the place, but maybe the money pit, where it's just constantly stuff happening. It's a little bit of an older house, but it's not bad. But it feels like that sometimes. But no, I wouldn't regret it, no.

Yeah, okay, cool, great. I agree with Ken. It sounds like you and your wife need to get on the same page and just have a good conversation. From a financial perspective, it makes total sense to sell the home, put the rest of it towards the debt. Because not only does that, not only does it put $40,000 towards the debt, but it adds another $14,000 or about another $12,000

that can go towards the debt as well within a year. And so you all will be out of debt very, very quickly if you all steward this opportunity the correct way but i think for me i would rather have peace than in my home with my wife than to have uh be debt free and i have a little bit of drama in my home with my wife so i agree we can before y'all Ken. Before you make any decision, make sure that you and your wife are on the same page and have a real honest conversation

and speak to her heart, speak to her emotional concerns. And then I think after you do that, hopefully you can went over to your side and y'all both have a clear understanding of the big image. I'm not a marriage guy. Yeah, you know, the only thing I'd add to this, Joshua, is have you sat down and showed

her, okay, if we sold it, and Anthony's right, based on what you've been paying in mortgage, after you've put 40 grand on the debt, you're going to be out of debt pretty quickly. Now, all of a sudden, you're starting to save at a higher rate. And have you walked that out with her to say, hey, this is what it's going to do to our monthly budget to where we can spend more on the kids' stuff, we can go on trips, we can do things, and even save up for a house that maybe be better for a growing family.

Have you walked that entire vision out for her? Well, I guess not to step-by-step in overall length and looking way out in the future, but she's the one who, well, we do it together, but she handles the day-to-day money stuff for us, and we work out budgets and stuff like that together. So she knows the financial picture. I think it's just more of an emotional attachment that she has.

And so I was just trying to figure that out. But she's not saying, she's not putting her foot down going, we can't do this, correct? No, no. She's giving me the line of I'll follow you anywhere, which, of course, makes me feel bad for dragging her i like that line yeah i gotta tell you something i wouldn't feel bad about that do you believe she means it oh oh gosh yeah well then dude come on man some women say that but they don't mean it. She means it. That's what I'm saying. She means it? Yeah, listen. You've got to go, wife.

Yeah, listen. You've got to do this. I don't know why you're not doing this other than the fact that you feel bad. I think we just got to the whole point of the call right there at the end. You feel like you're making her life worse, and I think what you've got to realize, she said she's willing to follow you, and you show her this bigger vision, a little bit more specific than you have. And I think when you do that, you're going to feel like, hey, I actually am doing the best thing.

I am doing the right thing. This is going to pay off down the line. But the fact that she's willing to follow you, then lead, man. Come on. Say that again, Ken. The fact that she's willing to follow you, then lead, man. Lead, man. Come on. Say that again, Ken. The fact that she's willing to follow you, lead, man. Yes, lead, man. I mean, you know, you got to put your big boy pants on, tighten that belt, straighten that back up, and go do it, man.

You are leading your family into a fantastic financial future. That's what you got to think about. You're not ripping your family out of a nice home. That's not what's happening. Oh, I can't wait to see the comments from the ladies on this one tomorrow. Oh, this is going to be so good. Yeah, all of a sudden I'm worried about what I said. I have no idea.

No, fun stuff. Hey, you know, look, this is a great, great call. This is a great situation. And it's a relationship. This is a marriage thing, not a money thing. But it's going to have great money consequences. Good stuff there. Thank you so much, Joshua, for the call.

I'm going to explain marriage to AO during the break. Don't move. More of your call is coming up. This is The Ramsey Show continues from our Ramsey Solutions headquarters. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by Anthony O'Neill. So thrilled to have you with us. 888-825-5225. Our scripture of the day comes from 1 Corinthians 1558. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm.

Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Our quote today from Walter Elliott. Perseverance is not a long race. It is many short races, one after another. 888-825-5225 is the number. Let's go to Tallahassee, Florida, where Kyle joins us. Kyle, how can we help? Hey, guys. Pleasure to speak to you. I love listening

to you both. Thank you so much. How can we help? I got a technical question today about life insurance for my grandmother. She's 77 years old and she's on a fixed income living on social security. She currently has a 10K whole life policy, which she pays $30 a month for. The cash value of that is about $3,000. We went and checked on term insurance and through Xander and they said that the cheapest they have would be $254 a month for a 10-year term at $50,000. And that's too much for her. At what?

That's pay per month. At what payout? $50,000 payout. $50,000? How old is your grandmother? Yeah, that was the lowest. All right. She's 77.

Okay. Yeah, I can understand that because she is higher up in age honestly yeah she has some uh health issues like scoliosis um but overall she is in good health um so my question is should she keep the whole life policy since it's just 30 a month, or should she take that $3,000 cash value out and she has another $1,500 she could put with it into mutual fund investment? All she's trying to do is cover cremation costs, and then anything above that would just be gravy that goes to the family. Does she have any other savings? No, not really.

Just that $1,500 that she would be willing to put into the brokerage account. How much is the cremation cost? We're estimating about $10,000 for the cremation and funeral services. Yeah, so really, if I'm understanding this, the only reason she's even thinking about the term life policy is to cover her funeral costs. Yes, which the whole life would cover as well for a lot less per month. Yeah. Ayo, what do you think on that one?

You know, it's a tough one, man, because she is higher up in age. And Xander is right, because she is higher up in age with medical issues. It is a little it is a little difficult to get the quality insurance at this point because she's so far in. I would honestly sit down ahead and cancel the whole life and go ahead and just start stacking the savings. If there is no way possible that she can get that thing there, then because of where she's at, I mean, the whole life disinsurance policy, because she is in it, may be an okay route. I'm not a fan of whole life insurance. I don't endorse it. But because she is in the latter part, we need to figure out how do we get this, the bare minimum taken care of.

And my preference... Yeah, I did the math and it would be... Oh, sorry about that. Go ahead, go ahead. I did the math and it would be about a six-year break even for her to get 10K in her brokerage account with the money that she would put in there. Does she have any kids that I can help her? I mean, clearly, because I mean, but I mean,

are any of her kids and anyone alive that can help her get to that 10 K? Yeah, absolutely. Um, and they're all doing fine on their own. They could cover the funeral costs, but she just wants to not put any burden on her family, uh, for when she passes. Yeah, I understand. I understand.

My gut is I would honestly counsel the policy because she's wasting the money. Cash it out and invest it. Sit down with one of our smart investor pros and let's figure out how to best invest that money. And I think that at her age, I mean, you're expecting her life expectancy, I'm guessing, to go a bit, I guess. She's pretty healthy. Yeah, she's pretty healthy overall.

I would assume she'd make it more than six years. Yeah. I think that's what I would do. Absolutely. But, yeah, contact one of our SmartVestor pros in your area, in the Tallahassee area, and let's cash that out. And let's put that to good use because it's not going to help her. It's not going to gain anything. And I understand that the cost is so low, but that's part of the marketing pitch for a whole life.

Oh, it's only $30 a month. Well, it's just a complete waste of money. And so, yeah, I would cash out that, and let's invest that wisely. And I think that's going to be the best move there. 888-825-5225 is the number. Let's go to Phoenix, Arizona, where Tina joins us. Tina, how can we help? Hi.

Thanks for taking my call, guys. You bet. What's up? I have kind of two problems. Today is my last for sure paycheck that I've received. And also, I'm a public school teacher. And this year with COVID being interesting, it was kind of crazy. But I'm not getting a recommendation from my bosses to go to another school.

So I'm kind of like panicking a little bit because I'm not quite sure what to do next. Why are you not getting a recommendation from your current bosses? It's personal. I got COVID and there was a cluster at my school. So there's been a personality conflict. Yes. Okay. But has anything been negative in your file?

Has there been anything written up that would go into your employment profile for other schools? No, but it was not. We talked a little bit about that today, and some of that didn't go in because I said I was going to resign at the end of the year. So another school has asked for a recommendation and she had said no and now i'm like i don't know how to move forward because my points were valid but you can't change how somebody feels about you and i really feel like i'm called to be a teacher good did you reach out to that yeah i don't want you to feel like just because you can't get a recommendation you can't get a job let's just go ahead and dispel that myth okay Okay. Is it going to be difficult? Might be, I don't know,

but it's scarier than it actually is, is what I want you to hear. Do you understand what I'm saying? All right. So did you reach out to the school in the form of applying that then reached out to your current boss? Yes. And so have you had any contact with them yes and what are they saying are they moving on from you because they um the assistant principal took it to the principal because they wanted me there and now they're like well a past school saying yes and one the current school saying no and so i've had to kind of explain myself and how did that conversation go when you explained yourself? It went well. I mean, at what point do you keep like, like trying to like, this is me, not what they think of me. Wait a second. I do know what you mean, but the great news is you would have thought that

they told you to go pound sand. Uh, they wanted you, they got a good recommendation from one school and a non-recommendation or, you know, not so good from the current school, and you were able to talk to them about it, and you said it went well. They were still thinking about it, though. I get it. But, hey, fight for it. Fight for it. Here's the other thing. How many current great recommendations could you get from other teachers or other people

at your current school or other schools? And that's what I said. I've reached out out and I said, please talk to people who are in my classroom on a daily basis. No, listen, don't tell them to talk to them. Go get the recommendations yourself and flood their email with it. Okay. Take the bull by the horns, Tina.

So answer my question. How many in Phoenix, Arizona, how many education contacts do you have that would vouch for you that you're a really good teacher and tell a different story than the story you currently have told about you? How many? Too many to count. So I'd be calling all those people, getting written emails from them, and forwarding to the assistant principal going, Hey, I understand why you're hesitating.

I get it. I'm telling you it was a personality conflict. It was a rare situation. I can do this. Here are all the people that will vouch for me that will give you a totally different narrative than what you're hearing now, and it will match up with the good narrative you got from me. Come on, Tina.

You going to fight for it? Yeah. Well, stop worrying about it and start doing something about it. This isn't going to stay in you for the rest of your life. All right, Tina, you know what to do. All right. I want to thank my colleague, Anthony O'Neill. So fun to be with you on the air, my friend.

Always. I want to thank our producer, James Childs, Madison Browder, sitting in today for Kelly Daniel. Thank you, and thanks to you, America. You are why we do the show. This is The Ramsey Show. Have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life? Let them know about the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast.

It's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes. Check out the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.