The Ramsey Show - App - Enablers Are the Nicest People You Will Meet (Hour 1)

Episode Date: January 1, 2019

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money, it is a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. John is with us in Miami, Florida. Hi, John. How are you? Hi, Dave.

I'm honored to be speaking with you today. You too, sir. What's up? My wife and I are debt-free, and we are currently, except for our mortgage, and our goal at this point is to pay extra on our mortgage. Good. The issue that I'm having right now is with our parents. They continually borrow money off us, and we're essentially their emergency fund at this point. The most recent amount was in excess of $500. And they do pay us back, but I believe they mismanaged their money and they rely on us. So my question is,

do we continue to lend the money? Because essentially she cannot tell them though, and it's causing arguments and a lot of stress in our marriage. So is there any advice you can offer us? Sure. And is there a right or wrong answer? Well, there's a right answer. So how old is she, your wife? 44.

Okay. So she's been out of the house quite a while. And why does she have trouble telling them no? Just the family script, her mom or her dad are just overbearing type people or what? She worries about them a lot. They're in a situation where I believe they have enough money to make ends meet, but they just don't. They mismanage their money.

So why do you feel like, I'm not talking about them, I'm asking you about your wife. Why do you feel like your wife doesn't look at them and see what you see? Maybe because they're her parents, and I try to put myself in her shoes, and if they were mine. But I don't know what it is within her that she can't say no, and how it affects our relationship, our core relationship at this point. Okay, here's what I would tell her if she was my wife. Okay, this is not about her parents. This is about your wife.

That's where the core issue is here, okay? Enablers, which is what she is, when you give a drunk a drink, you are enabling alcoholism. You are assisting the drunk in being an alcoholic. That's what an enabler is okay enablers are the nicest people you will ever run into i bet your wife is just sweet you're kind of like me i think you're a little bit rough around the edges i bet your wife is sweet she is that's that's part of the issue. I'll bet she is.

Most enablers are. And they see this as just that telling her mother no would just be mean. That's how your wife views it. Because she's a sweet person, right? Am I right? Yep. Okay. Absolutely.

So if you'll think about it that way when you're talking to your wife here's what you need to tell her honey you're a sweet person and you think you're being nice but the truth is if you give a cocaine addict cocaine if you give a crack addict crack if you give someone who misbehaves with money money you are not being nice you are causing them to continue to harm themselves that's not nice at all so most enablers in a chance in an in an effort to be nice actually end up being very mean to the people that they supposedly love because they're just weak. You see what I'm saying?

Absolutely. I have sat with enablers and told them, listen, if you'll get it in your head that you're actually harming them by doing this, you'll quit doing it. Now, once you've done that, then your wife comes over onto the side of, I'm going to love my parents well, which is I'm not going to participate in their freaking insanity. That's loving them well.

If you've got a buddy that's doing cocaine, you don't help him kill himself, right? Right. To love him well would be to help him walk away from the cocaine. Correct? And if you've got somebody misbehaving with money, it's not nearly as serious as cocaine. But it is still misbehavior. These people misbehave. They're immature, they're disorganized, and they've never addressed their stuff. And so if I loved them, what I would do is not continue to give them money unless it had strings attached, like you have to go through Financial Peace University, and I'm going to give you this $500.

I don't want to loan it to you, but in order for you to get this $500, you have to sign up for a Financial Peace University class, and I'll pay for that too. But you guys have to learn to handle money because you've worked your whole lives you got nothing because you mishandle you make enough to not be broke and you mishandle it now that is an act of love towards them and you can't do it she has to do it because you're the evil you're the evil son-in-law to take money from her parents. They give us $50 a month to set aside, but that's essentially us managing their money for them. Yeah, that's four-year-old stuff. Yeah.

Do that with a five-year-old. I don't do that with grown people. You could take over their whole checkbook and manage it for them if they have dementia, but they don't have dementia. They have laziness and disorganization and immaturity, and they need to grow up, right? Yes. Now, I'm being brutal, okay?

I'm being very cruel. I know. And I don't want you to talk to them this way. I want her to talk to them this way. Mom and Dad, I love you, and we will not participate in you not handling money well anymore. So this time we're going to give you the $500. We're not going to loan it to you, but under two stipulations.

Number one, we're not giving you any more. This is the last time it's going to happen. Number two, you're going to go through Financial Peace University and we'll be your cheerleaders and your biggest coach because we want you to turn this around. We're not here to shake our finger at you and condemn you, but I'm not going to give a drunk a drink anymore. That's a loving act.

What she's doing now is not loving. It's weakness, and she's copying it, copying out. She has no courage. It's not loving at all. She's just so nice, she won't deal with it. So that's how I would handle it if I were you guys. I can tell you that that will also help you with your marriage relationship you and your wife because this is a boundaries issues what it's called and her father or her mother

whoever it is that makes the phone calls has become a travel agent for guilt trips and they call up and tell her all the things they used to do for her when she was four and use that as leverage to remind her that to be a good daughter, she has to give them money and participate in their delusional craziness. You're right. They do call, and she feels guilty if she doesn't run to them. You're absolutely correct. Yeah, they're a travel agent for guilt trips. It's exactly what they do.

It's a normal pattern, man. But the trick is, you've got to bolster your wife and convince her that she's not helping them, she's hurting them. If she really gets that, she'll go helping them, she's hurting them, if she really gets that, she'll go, oh, I would never hurt my parents. No, darling, you wouldn't. And I'll stand with you, but you're the one that has to talk to them and tell them. And you pay for Financial Peace University for them, John.

It'll be good for them to have their son-in-law do that. And you give them another 500 bucks or another 1,000 bucks. I don't mind you helping them, but I want to help them win. I don't want to participate in their losing. Hold on. I'm going to have Kelly send you a copy of my buddy Henry Cloud's book. It's called Boundaries. Your wife doesn't have any.

You guys got to read this book. This is the Dave budget each month. Pure Talk USA offers smarter wireless with unlimited plans starting as low as $20 per month. You never pay data overage fees and we never turn off your data. No contracts, no hidden fees. And if you're thinking our low cost means less coverage, think again. Our voice and data service covers 99% of Americans and our 4G LTE network provides the fastest internet speeds like more expensive carriers. We operate on the largest GSM network in the fastest Internet speeds like more expensive carriers. We operate on the largest GSM network in the U.S.

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Thank you very much. Good. How can I help? Well, I'm probably going to be retiring in about two and a half years. And I'm wondering if I should take part of my 401k as I retire and go ahead and pay off the house. How old are you? I'm 63 and a half. Okay. And how much is in your 401K? I have one 401K that's like 140, and the other one's sitting at about 425.

And the one that's at like 425 is the one that will be increasing. The first one was from another company that's been moved in. That's been moved. And how much do you owe on your home? About 125. Okay. All right. the that's been moved in just been moved and how much do you own your home so about 125 okay all right well obviously you will have no penalties but you will have taxes on whatever you pull out and so instead of having 565 today you would uh have about 150 less than that we'll set aside another 25 for taxes just to be safe, right? And so if we say even $165,000, that would leave you at $400,000 left over and two and a half years for that to grow before you're even going to need it.

And even then, you may not need it. You won't need all of it. You just need a little of it. I take it you're single the way you're using your words? No, actually, I'm married. Okay. My husband is already retired. And is this just your 401ks, or does he have some?

This is just mine. And how much is in his? He didn't have any 401ks. He does have pension. And how much is that a month? He clears about $2,600 a month. Okay. All right.

Cool. If I woke up in your shoes is how I answer questions knowing what I know. If I traded places with you after 30 years of doing this knowing what I know, what I do, I would pay your house off today. Immediately. You don't have to be retired to do it. Yeah. Okay. Well, actually, the $ actually the 425 is your current

401k so you really couldn't so it will be growing for sure you cannot take it out while you work there i'm lying so um i'm wrong so you could clean out the 140 and throw it towards the house do you all have any other savings yeah we have an emergency fund of 30 000 and um pretty much that so we have another just small savings account that you know just for little things like car repairs and so forth it's about 5 000 yeah okay well we keep it about 5 000 just just for those kinds of things not you know we really don't hit the emergency fund except for big things like we had to get a roof last year. What do you make? What do you make?

$60,000 a year. Okay. All right. I want you to sit down with your tax person and figure out exactly what the tax bill will be on cashing out the $140,000. All right. I think it's going to leave you short by the on cashing out the 140. All right. I think it's going to leave you short by the time you pay off the house. That would leave you 15 for taxes. I don't think that's enough.

But you might be able to save enough by April to pay the taxes with the 15. You follow me? Right. And if you can, if you can cash flow that safely, I would cash out the 140 today and pay off the house. Okay. Keep in mind, between now and April, you wouldn't have a house payment, too. Right, right, exactly.

So you could save like a maniac. I mean, how much is your house payment? It's about $1,000. It's $1,200-something, but, of course, part of that is the escrow and the insurance built into the payment. Gotcha. something but of course part of that is the escrow and the insurance built into the payment gotcha so 1500 1500 a month give or take it'd be very easy to save between now and april to add to that um right and so you've got 15 000 you know that's going to put you up 20 something thousand dollars is that going to pay that tax bill probably but go ahead and have a calculation done with your

tax person to be sure i don't want you having a tax problem because of the Dave Ramsey show. You know, so. Yeah. But even if you dipped into the emergency fund $2,000 or something to make it work. That's what it's there for. Yeah. Well, it's not an emergency unless you create an emergency. And I don't want to create one.

But you see, you're real close to just doing it right now. And that's probably what I would do. And then continue adding to the $425,000 until you retire. And then you'll begin to draw down on that. You'll have to begin to draw down on it at $70,500. It's mandatory. But, yeah, I'd pay off the house today if there's any way I could run those calculations and feel comfortable that you're not putting yourself over a tax barrel of some kind.

Hey, thanks for the call. Congratulations. You've done very well with your money. David's with us in Chicago. Hi, David. How are you? Doing well. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Awesome. So I have a question about budgeting. So I've been doing your baby steps. I did number one really quickly. I drive for Uber on the side, so that was nice and simple. But I'm having some issues with the monthly budget. So when I make the budget in every dollar, I can pay every single bill and

that's totally fine. But I get paid biweekly. With the sequence, I get kind of stuck. So for example, my rent's due on the 1st, but then the mobile bills due on the 7th, and my credit cards due on the 7th as well. So just trying to balance all the due dates against when I actually get the check. Yeah, the EveryDollar software is a monthly budget, as you've noticed. It doesn't break it out by the week, right? Correct. Yeah, and so what you may have to do to get your sequence laid out, you may have to lay out four columns just on a spreadsheet or on a yellow pad and do a month do a weekly thing of which check where every dollar is going

out of each week and that'll get you in sync until you get a little bit ahead when you get a little bit ahead uh you you end up with some movement or some margin then in your checking account and so it it doesn't matter once you're not tight but right now you're tight and so you have to be very careful okay the dadgum cable bill is going to be late because i didn't lay this out in the right week you know right now when you're tight that's what happens but um if you use the uh any of the budget forms in the back of the financial peace university uh workbook or the back of the total money Makeover or most of my other books, even Financial Peace. They have the forms in them, and there's a form in there that breaks it out by the week.

It's the weekly budget planning, and that's actually on the whiteboard to do with the EveryDollar software. We just haven't gotten there yet. We're continually iterating that software every day and adding little features to it and things things to it but i don't know of a way to do that on the software i'm not that good at software stuff but i can do i can do anything on paper and in my head but if you lay it out by the column four columns for four weeks you're going to have and say i'm going to pay this this week this this week this you know i'm going to pay the cable bill in week two i'm going to pay the rent in week four for the next coming month i'm going to pay the cable bill in week two. I'm going to pay the rent in week four.

For the next coming month, I'm going to pay the car payment in week one. Whatever it is in there, and you take that out of your income, and then you make sure you're not overspending your income for those given weeks, then that allows you to do it as well. So, good question. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225 sean on facebook is there any benefit to term life with living benefits versus just straight term insurance i don't do anything except straight

term insurance sean you're going to pay extra for all these other gimmicks and all these other gotchas usually with living benefits you means it's some kind of a cash value thing going on typically but i don't know that's a branding thing depends on which company you're getting that that phrase from it's not a standard phrase in the business so look don't buy gimmicks just buy insurance don't buy return of premium oh if i don't die i get my premium back they charged you extra for that you would have got your premium back if have just kept it in your pocket to start with. You know, you get your premium back 100% of the time that way.

Don't buy a return of premium on anything. It's a gotcha. It's a gimmick. And so, you know, I don't recommend that. We don't buy disability in the event of our waiver of premium in the event of disability. That's why we have disability insurance to pay bills when we get disabled, long-term disability. And so all these gimmicks, they make a profit.

All insurance, when they start adding these little twists and turns and little tinkerbell stuff to your policy, they make more on that stuff than they do on the policies. It's almost pure profit, all of it, meaning that it's useless. Otherwise, it wouldn't be pure profit if it paid out all the time, right? So, no, no, just straight term insurance, Sean. That's what we tell folks to do. Go to Zander Insurance, Z-A-N-D-E-R, insurance.com.

In 13 seconds, you can get a quote, 20 companies or more, and you'll be going, wow, term insurance just isn't that expensive. I can really take care of my family. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. I get asked all the time, when in the baby steps is the right time to buy life insurance? My answer is typically now. Life insurance is not part of the baby steps because it's needed when your family has debt and not enough savings to provide for their financial needs. That's when they're at the highest risk.

And no matter where you are in your baby steps, it's a necessity, not a choice. This includes working husbands and wives, as well as stay-at-home parents. It's pretty expensive to replace those stay-at-home parent responsibilities. I only recommend term life insurance, since it's the most affordable way to get the right amount of coverage and not break your budget go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282 these are the guys i personally use term life insurance is inexpensive and your family needs this no matter where you are in your baby steps. That's Zander.com. Or call 800-356-4282. Zander.com.

Live in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Chris is with us. Hey, Chris, how are you? Good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. Where are you from? Burlington, Kentucky, right next to Cincinnati, Ohio. Cool. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And all the way down here to do your debt-free scream.

Absolutely. Love it. How much have you paid off? $155,000 over five years and $97,000 over the past 17 months. Okay. Very cool. And your range of income during that time? Back five years ago, I was making $48,000, and I'm in the mid-80s right now. Good for you. What do you do for a living?

I have my own landscape business. Good for you. Very cool. So it sounds like you did your debt snowball. You said 97 and 17 months. Lately? Yes. Just tell me the whole story then what kind of debt

was this and what was the story of the breakdown well i bought a house five years ago um i had a 20 down payment which uh eliminate the pmi um and i started um i just started from there and i got in contact with you through a friend he uh told me about what you do, what you're about, your organization. And I've never really had any debt except for a house. And I was like, well, this is easy because I'm a natural cheapskate. So I buckled down. About four years ago, I started Baby Step 3, got my six-month emergency fund, and 17 months ago, I got real serious. I pretty much looked down at the... Okay, so the $155,000 paid down to $97,000, and then you went crazy. Correct.

Okay, now I see what happened. Okay. It's all your house. Your house was paid for. Correct. Yeah, I paid my house off on August 14th of this year. I'm looking at weird people. I love it, man.

Congratulations. Thank you. How old are you? Just turned 33. And you have a paid-for house? Absolutely. That truly is weird. Yeah, I know.

Everybody calls me weird. I love it. You say thank you, right? Yeah, absolutely. It's a compliment. Great compliment, considering normal's broke. Yeah, absolutely. Who wants to be normal?

Good for you, man. What's this house worth? They did an appraisal back in uh june it was 177 and you're 33 years old yeah man i love it well done sir well done i'm proud of you yeah so did you have people once you 17 months ago is when you kicked it into gear correct so did you have people when you kind of kicked it into gear that is when you kicked it into gear. Correct. So did you have people, when you kind of kicked it into gear, that's when you got super weird and had a focus and you're just like, I'm knocking this out, I'm doing this. Yeah. Did you have people cheering you on or making fun of you?

I had a little bit of both. I had the naysayers and then I had the supporters that, you know, you can do it, you know, you will succeed. And I just took the naysayers as the inspiration to move forward, and the people that patted me on the back, that was just icing on the cake. Yeah, amen. Well, the naysayers, the way I always figure it is, if broke people are making fun of your financial plan, you're right on track, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Good for you. Well done. So you said you kind of started out a tightwad, and it sounds like you did a little bit. You were frugal to begin with. Where did that come from? I guess my parents. My parents always did real well with money, and I've never really been much of a shopper or a spender. So your program just kind of fit right into my life, which is being normal,

which I guess right now is abnormal having a house paid for. Yeah. So your mom and dad were definitely on your cheerleading squad. Yeah, yeah. They kind of tilted their head. You know, the German shepherd looking at you like, you're what? Just weird. Because my dad paid his house off 17 years, and I told him I was going to do it in two years.

And he was like, son, I think you lost your mind, but we're here to support you either way. Well, it would be a good thing if you did, but I'm not sure how i was going to do it in two years and he was like son i think you lost your mind but we're we're here to support you either way well it'd be a good thing if you did but i'm not sure how you're gonna do it yeah yeah absolutely that's a kind of a sideways cheerleader but yeah absolutely they weren't going oh no keep your mortgage forever that's just the way it is that's never been yeah them very cool very cool so what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Because you did it. I would say contentment. You can't worry about what Facebook is telling you to do or everybody showing their fancy steak dinner on Friday night or their new car they're making payments on. Just worry about yourself. Be content with peanut butter and jelly sandwich and, you know, chicken noodle soup for dinner on those nights. Well, if you eat like nobody else later, you can eat like nobody else.

Yep, yep. You don't have a car payment. I mean, you don't have a house payment, car payment. You don't have a payment of any kind. Barbecue was good this past weekend. I'm thinking. I'm thinking. You make $80,000, you can do about whatever you want to do without a payment in the world.

Yeah, absolutely. Very cool. Well,000, you can do about whatever you want to do without a payment in the world. Yeah, absolutely. Very cool. Well, congratulations, sir. Well, we've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book, Retire Inspired, for you. That's the next chapter in your story for you to be completely a millionaire, and you're on your way to doing that. Probably by the time you're 40, pretty easily you'll be worth over a million. And so well done. Well done. And I think that's where you're headed pretty easily you'll be worth over a million and uh so well done well done and uh

i think that's that's where you're headed so congratulations we're proud of thanks thanks a lot all right chris from cincinnati 155 000 paid off in five years but 97 of that in the last 17 months he paid off his house and everything at 33 years old, making 48 up to now the mid-80s. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Boom!

That's how it's done right there. Man, oh, man, oh, man. I love that. That is fabulous. It's as good as it gets. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. They're the number one online retailer of custom window blinds. With Blinds.com, you get free samples, free shipping,

and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the magic word, the promo code RAMSY, and you get the best possible deal. Blinds.com. Kristen gives us our question from California. She says, my husband and I received $25,000, received $25,000 from relatives at our recent wedding for a down payment on a house. We still have $50,000 in debt, and we hope to pay it off in less than two years. Should we put this gift aside until we're ready to buy the house or use the money to help pay down the debt well it was given to you

with very specific instructions so it's a gift with strings attached if you use it to pay off the debt the person that gave it to you um may not like that and so I'm guessing that a gift that large is probably from a parent. So what I would do is the two of you sit down with them, show them the plan that you're working. Here's our plan. We're going to get out of debt, and then we're going to build our emergency fund, then we're going to build our down payment,

and then we're going to buy a home on a 15-year fixed where the payment's no more than a fourth of our take-home pay. This is the plan that we're doing. We're following the Dave Ramsey baby steps. We would like your permission to use the $25,000 to pay off the debt, which will leapfrog us forward in that process. But we did not want to do that without you seeing the plan and agreeing that that was an okay use. Because in a very real sense, your $25,000 is going towards us getting a house.

It's just a little different order, and we wouldn't want to do that. Then you find out that we used that money to pay down on debt without talking to you about it because we're so grateful for the gift. If they say, no, we want you to buy a house, we want you to buy a house right now, you say, well, I can't buy a house right now because I'm not going to do that. So I've really left with two choices. One is use it to pay down the debt, which accelerates the plan towards us getting a house, or we will have to set it aside in deference to your wishes because you gave us such a wonderful gift until we're out of debt and have our emergency fund in place. And if they don't agree to letting you use it on the debt, then you'll have to explain to them that we're not buying a home right now, but we will honor your wishes. You gave us a very nice gift and we'll set the money to the side until we get this done.

And that way you can do both. But usually people don't mind as long as they don't feel like you're wasting the money. If they thought you were going to pay down the debt and then stay in debt and never buy a house because you're stupid and you don't handle money good, then I would see them saying, oh, no, use it to buy a house anyway, which is what most people do. Most people are broke, so we don't want to go that route. So if you sit down, talk to them about it and explain the whole thing, usually they'll come along. But some people are more control freaky than others. And they may go, no, we want you to use it only for our house. We want you to buy a house right now.

I'm buying a house right now. That part you can't control. I will honor your wishes, though, and set the money to the side until I'm out of debt. And then we will use it for a house at that point. Or we can give it back to you if you want us to, if you're mad about it. And if they get super crazy, then give it back to them. But we just don't have a deal with super crazy. But super crazy is out there.

You never know with the in-laws. You never know. It can be either way. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Ashley is with us in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hi, Ashley. How are you? Hi, I'm doing well, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, thank you for taking my call.

I have kind of a weird question. So my husband and I are on Baby Step 2. We took SPU about a year ago. And over the summer, my in-laws approached us about possibly purchasing a foreclosed home and creating two separate living units in it, and my brother-in-law would live in the other half. We were working on the house ourselves over the summer and they decided that the kitchen would be too expensive downstairs so we'd have shared living space and it would no longer be two units.

We got married six months ago and we moved in the week of the wedding and since then it's just, I think it's gotten to be too much with boundaries with my brother-in-law and he's like the 30-year-old man that still lives at home and his parents kind of put responsibilities on us to be responsible for him. And I'm just, we're going to talk to his parents, but I'm just wondering what your advice is. And we did it with the same money. We're only paying $400 a month. Who lives in the house?

You and your husband and his brother. Yes. They don't live there. No. Okay. But it's their home. Okay. You're renting.

Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah, I think you just, number one, you haven't been married very long, and so I would be very careful for you to say almost nothing because um most of what you say is going to turn this whole thing into being blamed on you okay because it's going to come off as somehow you're the the wicked witch of the west that caused this problem and you didn't but the more you talk and you try to articulate what's going on, the more trouble you're going to have relationally.

There's exceptions to that, but they're rare. Now, having said that, then your husband, what does he say while you sit there and smile and nod? And I'm not saying that because you're the lady. If it was your parents, I'd tell him to shut up and have you talk, okay? But it's a bloodline thing. You follow me? Yeah. So he needs to say, Mom and Dad, listen, we really appreciate this.

This was such a kind, unbelievably generous offer. And we thought it was going to be really, really good. It's not working. It's not working. And, you know, we've just discovered discovered and we didn't know this but we've learned it the hard way by being in the middle of it we've discovered that as newlyweds we just need our own place we need our space and um and so regardless of how generous this was or how well intentioned it was we just need our room and i wouldn't say a negative word about the irresponsible

brother and i wouldn't blame any of this on him i would just say we we didn't realize how important privacy was going to be to us and this is just weird for us and we just can't do it anymore and as grateful as we are we're very sorry if there's any inconvenience we're going to get our own place and just keep it real clean and real high level because six months into the marriage you ripping on the brother or you seeming ungrateful to the parents that's the kind of conversations that'll last 10 years in people's memory. They'll still be talking about this conversation 10 years from now if you're not careful. And so don't be blaming, and you can't try to solve all the family dysfunction or the irresponsible brother-in-law with one conversation about you moving out.

I guess my next problem then is my husband he doesn't want he wants to talk to his parents about seeing if they're able to do separate units if we paid more but i would just move no i would just move but he doesn't he doesn't want to i don't care he's wrong it's a waste of money it's not a waste of money you need the space for your young marriage. This is a dysfunctional, toxic situation. You need to get out. Okay. That's what I would tell my own son or my own daughter if they called me. It's just not, it's not, there's not a big enough wall to keep you away from Bozo.

That's what we figured out, right? I love him to death, but I just don't know what to do. Yeah, well, just tell him, I'm not okay. We need our own space. This is not a math problem. This is a relationship problem. If we have to pay double, we need our own space. Okay.

And this is the opportunity for your husband to do with the old preacher thing, you know, the old wedding vows when they said, leave your father and mother and cleave to your spouse. You remember those old vows? Oh, yeah. Yeah, this is when he leaves them and cleaves to you, meaning he puts you and his relationship with you in front of his relationship with his mom and dad, in front of his relationship with his brother, in front of mathematics.

Okay. You and your relationship are more valuable than any of that. And you've got to put it first. That's how it works. So that's the thing we want to pick up there. Good question. Good question. Rob is in Richmond, Virginia.

Hey, Rob, what's up? Hey, Dave. Hey, I'm really lucky I got through on the first try. Crazy. Cool. How can I help? So I'm 51 years old, debt-free, got a good job, got a tiny little retirement savings, but I'm looking longer term.

I mean, I haven't been really disciplined about saving for retirement, even though I do have quite a bit of cash. I owe about $139,000 on my mortgage. And I'm debating, you know, I've been getting pummeled with, you know, do index funds, do mutual funds. And then I've got, of course, folks in my work saying, you know, why aren't you contributing to your 401k? And just trying to get a grip for, you know, what the best course of action is with my available financial resources. Okay.

Well, I invest in four types of mutual funds evenly, a fourth in each, in my personal 401k and my Roth IRAs. I spread it across growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. I pick mutual funds that have a track record of outperforming the S&P 500 or the index funds. Okay. If you don't pick a mutual fund that outperforms an index fund, you'd have been better off, obviously, to just pick an index fund. And there's a lot of mythology and discussion around the investment circles, all of these quasi-experts, non-experts writing books on something they don't know anything about that says, oh, just pick an index fund.

You're always better off because a lot of mutual funds don't outperform index funds. Well, that's stupid. Pick one that outperforms them. I buy some index funds too, but I don't buy them because i surrendered and said i can't beat the indexes i've been able to pick mutual funds that have a 10 15 20 30 year track record of outperforming the indexes if it doesn't outperform the index then buy an index you know or buy a different fund but uh so you wouldn't buy a loser in other words you buy You'd buy a winner, at least on track record. And so that's what I do.

I do buy some index funds, but I haven't just surrendered and said, well, you can't beat the market, so join it. Can't beat them, so join them. And that's the index fund discussion. And it's mythology because, I mean, if you sit down with a decent mutual fund broker, they can walk you into mutual funds in 20 minutes. You know, it's really not rocket science to select one.

And I'm always tickled by these guys who are supposed to be in the business and supposed to know something about it that can't seem to beat them in indexes. It's really just not that hard. It's a query search of a database. I mean, it's just you jump on Morningstar or something and put something in there and you just and then you pull up the track record and look at it now look at long track records 5 10 15 20 year track records i don't care what it did for one year i mean anybody can screw something up or go through or go to the moon for one year but uh including the market itself but long-term investments like that and when you're investing in a mutual fund like that

really what you're like i a typical growth stock mutual fund, you know, it's household names that you're buying into. It's Dell and Microsoft and McDonald's and Home Depot and Regal Cinemas and Ford and General Motors and Alcoa and whatever, right? I mean, these are, now, do some of those companies go down? Yeah. Do some of them go up? Yeah.

And as a group, they've got to go up more than the market has gone up or that mutual fund hasn't outperformed the index. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. And so I've got another very quick, easy, just an opinion. Okay. So I owe, like I said, I owe $139,000 on my current mortgage. If I have, and I do have the ability to pay off that in full, I mean, it's not a huge interest rate. I think I've got a first and a second position mortgage.

I'd do it today. I'd be debt-free in 20 minutes. By the end of the day, I'd be done. And then start your investing. You're young. Start piling that old house payment, every other thing you can, into a 401k Roth IRA.

And you're going to retire very, very wealthy doing that. And debt free. Wow, that's fun. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey guys, it's Kelly Daniel, associate producer and phone screener for the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, this hour the show is over, but you can find our podcast on iTunes or Google Play.

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