The Ramsey Show - App - Get a Car That’s a Blessing, Not a Curse (Hour 2)

Episode Date: July 2, 2019

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Josh is with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hey, Josh, how are you? Not too bad. How about yourself? Better than I deserve. What's up?
Starting point is 00:00:57 So, I have an insurance policy with a company that represents itself with a quacking duck, and it's an accident insurance policy. And I'm currently on step one. I'm figuring out if I should cancel that after I complete step one, because you've said in the past that you've called a gimmick insurance so that my emergency fund covers it. But right now I don't have the emergency fund. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:20 The accident insurance policy covers what? Just work injuries. Oh, okay. So if you get hurt on the job. So what do you make? Currently, I'm making 35 take-home pay. Okay. How old are you? I am 27. How many times have you not worked because of injuries on the job?
Starting point is 00:01:42 Three times. I broke an arm, broke a leg, and broke a knee. Dangerous work. Yeah. You're still doing the same work? No, I've retired from that job, and I'm working in a factory now. Okay. What do you think the chances are that you're going to be out of work there due to an injury?
Starting point is 00:02:04 By the time I complete step three, probably not going to get injured at all. Okay. All right. That's a fair risk. Okay. And what are you paying for the accident policy? Currently, I'm paying, it gets deducted from my paycheck. It's coming at about $15 a week.
Starting point is 00:02:23 $15 a week. Wow. Yeah, so it's $ at about fifteen dollars a week fifteen dollars a week wow yeah so it's 60 a month wow it's 700 bucks a year sounds about right yeah when you make 35 000 700 bucks a year is a lot yeah i'm getting rid of that okay do you see how i analyzed that yeah if you made if you made 400 700 bucks is different right yeah you make 35 000 and you told me you feel like your probability of being injured on the current job is very low yeah yeah and so you know if you if you were based on your other injuries if you were still doing the same thing, you might want to keep it, right? But you got out of there. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:11 And so, I mean, you're in a completely different situation. So what is your long-term career goal? So currently I am working in the maintenance department of the factory. And I know that the people above me are within 10 years of their retirement, and the company I'm working with is completely willing to actually help me go through trade school. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Okay, so you're going to, like, get an associate's and learn facility management and that kind of thing?
Starting point is 00:03:42 Yeah. Very good. Okay, so that you can get up to making, like, $100 a year? thing. Yeah. Very good. Okay, so that you can get up to making like $100 a year. Yeah. Good. Very good. Okay. Well, make sure you're working that.
Starting point is 00:03:52 Don't call me back in 10 years still making $35, okay? Oh, I won't. Yeah. And you don't want to get stuck. You don't want to be a hamster in a wheel. So as long as you've got a plan, let's work the plan, climb the ladder, whatever it is. I don't care what the ladder is or what it's leaning against but climb the dadgum thing okay so call you back
Starting point is 00:04:10 in six months run debt free sure yeah that'd be awesome i'd love to hear your debt free scream and uh here's the thing i'm not mad about quacking ducks or aflax or anything like that um the point is with insurance is does it cover something that is going to happen or that if it did happen it's so big you couldn't handle it and if you got dinged on the job you can probably work your way through it but the probability of you getting dinged on the job right now is very very low from what you're telling me okay and that's what i'm looking at okay and so i don't buy things i can cut i don't buy insurance on things i can accept the risk on and um you it would be a financially painful risk if it hit
Starting point is 00:04:55 but um now you need the 700 bucks more than you need this coverage that's what i would say hey good question thanks for calling in lisa's in miami hi lisa welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave how are you it's a pleasure to speak with you you too how can i help well i'm calling because i started listening to you about six months ago and pretty much all your podcasts and your youtube shows have given me and my husband the fuel to pay off in six months, $16,000 worth of debt. Way to go. Thank you. And I'm actually thinking of going and getting my MBA, but I don't know if with cash flowing in, if I should go that route right now, or if we should just go on the pace that we're at right now of how we've
Starting point is 00:05:45 paid off this much debt already um what do you think uh what is the payoff of getting the mba in money well um i was looking online at one of the universities um and pretty much it's called university for the people and no i wasn't i wasn't asking what it cost i asked what you were going to get if you got an mba in extra income oh extra income i could be about a 40 000 jump okay because you would change jobs and you think the mba makes you that much more valuable or because your company will give you a 40 000,000 jump if you had an MBA? No, I think that I would have to change jobs because right now I'm a paralegal, but I want to manage an actual law office and be like a human resource slash director of operations of a corporate law firm. And you can do that without an MBA? i can yeah the mba doesn't give you that
Starting point is 00:06:48 not every law firm likes that but they like it but you can do it without an mba i'm not mad about getting an mba i'm just trying to figure out what your payoff is it's like if i go take this class and i spend 20 000 bucks or 15 000 or whatever, and my income goes up instantly because my company has a program to do this, my income goes up instantly by $30,000, then it's a no-brainer. But what you're trying to say is, I want to further my career field. An MBA would be advantageous. It would open some doors. Plus, having the knowledge base from it would be awesome because it's a good program to get an MBA. The knowledge base is worth the money. But you don't have
Starting point is 00:07:32 it nailed down that you're instantly going to get this money back while you're getting out of debt. So what's your household income now? Household income, we're at $93,000. And how much debt do you have left after you paid off your $16,000 16 um well with our home no no no baby step two okay so that would be 40 and 48 000 which both of those are student loans for my husband and i our previous student so 88 000 yeah you make 93 and household and what do you make as a paralegal? Right now, I'm making $40,000. And you think you can make $80,000 if you got in one of these management roles?
Starting point is 00:08:12 Yeah. What's the MBA cost? What's the MBA you're looking at cost? I only have to pay for the testing. So it's about $100 per test. So it'd be about $1,000 a bill. Oh, Lord, yeah. I thought you were going to spend $20,000. If you want to do that, that's fine. $1,000. Yeah, I thought you were spending a bunch
Starting point is 00:08:34 of money. I should have asked that earlier. My bad. Yeah, I would go do it if you're going to spend $1,000. Sure. Hey, this is the Dave Ramsey Show. You know, I get asked all the time, at what age should I buy life insurance? Let me be clear. If you have a family, if there are people depending on your income, now is the time to have term life insurance.
Starting point is 00:09:10 I don't care if you're 20, 30, 40, 50, or whatever. Your age is less important than your financial situation. If you have debt and a lack of savings, it makes no sense to risk your family's financial well-being based on the cost of a term life policy. Term life rates are just plain cheap, even if you're not in perfect health. And the best way to compare those rates is through Zander Insurance. Zander only sells the plans I recommend and shops among the top companies to find the best rates and the right coverage for you. Call 800-356-4282 or visit Zander.com. You got no excuse to put this off, folks.
Starting point is 00:09:43 Bad things happen to people all the time, regardless of age. And it's your responsibility to deal with this. That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. How many of you have ever done something stupid with money? Well, that'd be all of us, right? I know I have. Hey, listen, you can wander into debt, but you can't wander out.
Starting point is 00:10:36 It's time to get intentional about your finances. You need a plan to turn things around. As a matter of fact, you need the plan to turn things around as a matter of fact you need the plan to turn things around for 25 years financial peace university's taught more than six million people how to get out of debt so that they can save and invest for the future so that they can change their family tree so that they can be outrageously generous. And you could be next. When you buy Financial Peace University, you also get access to EveryDollarPlus for a year. The world's best budgeting app.
Starting point is 00:11:13 You get live streams to all of our world-class events that we live stream. All included. You get trusted financial coaches who will answer your money questions. All included. Bonus content like the Legacy Journey, the follow-up class to Financial Peace University, and Rachel Cruz's Smart Money, Smart Kids class teaching you how to raise smart money kids. It's everything you need to win with money. No more excuses.
Starting point is 00:11:39 Start changing your family tree this summer. To learn more about Financial Peace University, go to DaveRamsey.com or call us at 888-22-PEACE. 888-227-3223. Blinds.com gives us our question of the day. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. That means even if you screw up, if you mismeasure, you pick the wrong color, they will remake your blinds for free.
Starting point is 00:12:06 You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code Ramsey to get the best possible deal. Today's question is from Jim in Michigan. When you discuss long-distance rentals, you say that's a good way to have someone change their Harley oil in your living room. Just out of curiosity, did this happen in one of your rentals, or is this just an excellent way to get the point across?
Starting point is 00:12:30 I've had all kinds of crap happen with rentals. I never had anybody change their Harley oil in my living room. I have had almost every possible other thing happen. And I learned how to be a landlord starting with weekly rentals low income ultra low income um i was close to being a slumlord but they weren't but we kept the properties up it was lower income properties and in that scenario you meet only two kinds of people. Crazier than a bean out to mess you over and tear up everything, people. And some of the best, hardest working people on the planet.
Starting point is 00:13:17 And you don't ever know. They all talk the same. They all tell you they're the same thing until they move into your house and do something stupid and tear your freaking house up, right? And so I learned the hard way to keep my eyes on property. I had a friend who bought a piece of property two blocks over from one of my properties, didn't visit it for a year. When he came back, the house was gone the guys in the neighborhood the homeless guys tore the house down one piece of board at a time to use it to keep warm they sold all of the copper out ripped all the copper out and sold it to you know for a little bit of money down at the salvage yard right copper by the pound they'll tear your pipes out tell you the light the wires out of the house they get electrocuted
Starting point is 00:14:11 tearing the wires out of the house it's unbelievable man and and they'll you know so he literally went back and the house was gone a year later so that's how i learned a landlord was in that environment so you just think different different, you know, and you go, okay, I'm going to lay, we lay our eyes on the inside and the outside of the property. I don't personally, but my team does of every property that we own at least once a quarter. And, uh, we walk through it and we don't own any property like that. Now we only own really really really nice properties now and so obviously it's a different situation but still if you don't put you know if you don't put your eyes on stuff it gets screwed up that's what it amounts to and you don't have
Starting point is 00:14:59 to micromanage but you do need to do that i tell you what once a year my wife and i go for a sunday afternoon drive and we just take a little map with us and, you know, go and drive by the properties. I lay my eyes on the outside of it personally, every one of our properties, and they're all within, you know, a 20 or 30 mile radius of where I sit right now. So it makes it real easy to do that, makes it easier for the team to do that. And so when you're out of town, even if you've got a management company, sometimes they forget to go look at the house. They forget to go look at the property. And, oh, they just got busy.
Starting point is 00:15:34 And then when you go over there, jeez, man, all hell's broke loose. So that's where it comes from. But you're right. It actually did not happen, but it is a great way. Everybody gets it. The tenant from hell who rolls their motorcycle up in the living room and changes his Harley oil, right? I mean, everybody has that, has ever landlorded or thought about landlording, knows exactly what I'm talking about. So it's just such a great visceral image that everybody understands.
Starting point is 00:16:03 So that's the history on it jim um i did buy a house one time from a guy that was in really bad shape and he had these heroin addicts living in the first floor and i went by to tell the guys that they needed to move and the front window was laying in the front yard when i got there and i had heard through the neighborhood grapevine that they'd all gotten a fight and one of them had thrown the other one through the window the night before. This was two days after I bought the house before I got them moved out. And so I stopped in. I said, you guys are going to have to move.
Starting point is 00:16:31 And they're like, yeah, well, you need to, you know, you're the landlord. You need to fix the window. And I said, well, maybe, maybe not. Maybe you just need to move. And he said, well, I mean, we were just sitting here last night and the window fell out. And I said, yeah, when you threw the other guy through it. And he goes, oh, yeah, well, you are plugged into the neighborhood, aren't you? You know, I mean, this is the kind of crap you deal with.
Starting point is 00:16:49 That did really happen. So lots of stuff like that, lots of great landlord stories. But, you know, you learn to be respectful of people and kind but very firm and just go, no, we're not going to play that. No, no, no. Just because your kid drew on the wall with a pen does not mean that there's mold on the wall. It means your kid drew on the wall with a pen. You know, this kind of crap. And it just goes on for days.
Starting point is 00:17:19 So, yeah, you need to be near your properties to manage them properly. You know, you're just going to lose money to destruction otherwise, regardless of the value of the property, regardless of what kind of property it is, unless you're just going to pay some unbelievable management fees and get, you know, photographic type reports regularly. Good question. Thanks for joining us. Sarah is in Canada. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the
Starting point is 00:17:46 Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? My husband and I were kind of been trudging through debt for several years when we stumbled upon you in January. So we kind of focused on your steps. We saved up the thousand000. We paid off our, I guess, smaller commercial or personal loans that we had following. And then we're working on our emergency fund. The issue I'm struggling with is it's a bit of a slow go with the emergency fund. And then the thought of having to do the 15% is challenging because part of our debt that we're trying to pay off was our mortgage. And at this point, we only have $35,000 left on it. And so I'm like, do I put it in that step six, or do I just consider it part of the debt before?
Starting point is 00:18:37 What is your household income? We make about $100,000 Canadian. Okay, so $15,000 would be 15% of your income. Yeah. Going towards retirement. We pay a huge mortgage because of this plan that we had to pay it off quickly. I'm sorry, you have a mortgage payment that is huge? Yes, because the way our mortgage is set up is that...
Starting point is 00:19:00 Okay, so what is your mortgage payment? It's $232333 a month. Well, just pay that. It's going to pay off very quickly. Yes. And you can do that making $100,000. That's less than $30,000 a year. Put 15% $15,000 in there.
Starting point is 00:19:16 So that's only $45,000 out of your $100,000. You can do this. But you're going to have it paid off in a year doing this just by paying the regular payment that you committed to. So, yeah, you can still work the baby steps exactly. You just got a big high mortgage payment. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We've been voted one of the best places to work in Nashville 11 times. You want to know how we do it? Well, our team has been using LinkedIn jobs for years to find the best people from all over the country to come and help us change lives.
Starting point is 00:20:03 Think about it. LinkedIn has more than 600 million active members. I'm talking about people who come to LinkedIn to make connections, grow their careers, and discover new job opportunities. In fact, 90% of LinkedIn users are open to new opportunities, but not actively scanning job boards this means linkedin jobs gives you access to an entirely different demographic don't wait one hire can change the direction of your company post a job today at linkedin.com slash ramsey and get 50 off your first job post That's linkedin.com slash Ramsey.
Starting point is 00:20:46 Terms and conditions apply. Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Jason's with us in New York. Hi, Jason. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How's it going? Better than I deserve.
Starting point is 00:21:20 What's up? I have a question. I'm pretty sure you're going to yell at me about this, but it's a car-related issue. I make $51,500 a year. I got myself into a $62,000 car loan. Wow. What kind of car? It's a BMW. Nice. Okay. I do not have any other debt at all. I've actually used my credit card last year to buy the car, to put a down payment on the car, which was about $5,000. I've paid off $5,000 on the car. I paid the whole credit card off, and then I've also brought the car loan down to about $55,000 right now. Unfortunately, since I carried over a lot of negative equity
Starting point is 00:22:07 and, you know, threw a lot of the warranty in there, it ended up being, I'm at this point, upside down on that vehicle, at least $25,000. So my question to you is, since I'm making some leeway and I don't have any other debt in the car, should I just continue pushing through and pay it off or just get out of the car and, you know, try another way?
Starting point is 00:22:29 You bought an additional warranty? Yeah, I had them throw a warranty in there. How much is that? That one, the warranty was for an additional five years unlimited miles for $3,500. Okay. So we can cancel that and that'll cut down some of your upside down. And you're telling me that this car
Starting point is 00:22:50 that you paid, how much for? In total, the loan. No, not the loan. What did you pay for the car? The actual cost of the physical car itself. Yeah, what was the price of the car? Oh, the car before No, honey, the car you're driving, the BMW that you have in your driveway.
Starting point is 00:23:08 Yeah, before the negative equity. No, honey, not negative equity, not financing. What was the price of the freaking car? Yeah, it's $45,000. Okay, and so your $60,000 was you had a negative equity already of 15 you rolled in. Yes. Okay. That's what I was trying to get to.
Starting point is 00:23:27 And so from 45, it's gone down to 25 in one year, a Beamer? It's down to the trade-in value. Even if I was to sell it private sale, it's at about 35, but I owe 55. Went down 10 grand in a year. Yes. Which model of Beamer is this? It's the 7 Series. Okay.
Starting point is 00:23:50 That's just a car that should have held its value better than that. I'm a little shocked. Okay. Okay. So you owe $55,000 minus, say, $5,000 for this warranty. Gets us to $50,000. You can sell it for $30,000. You're $20,000 in the hole.
Starting point is 00:24:04 Okay. warranty gets us to 50 you can sell it for 30 you're 20 in the hole okay um which basically is the a little bit of depreciation and the amount you were in the hole before yes that's what it amounts to okay all right hmm well here's the premise and you're obviously a bright guy other than this decision, but the premise is it's very difficult to build wealth when you own things that are very large in ratio to your income that go down in value. So you have a very large item. It's 100% of your income annually, right? That's going down in value. And so when it loses 10%, 15%, 20% in a year, that's a big hit as a percentage of your income. And it makes it very difficult for you to make progress in your wealth building.
Starting point is 00:25:05 You can survive this, but you're just dooming yourself to being broke, you know? Because when you turn $60,000 into $10,000 and you make $50,000, it's hard to survive that and prosper. Do you see what I'm saying mathematically? Yes. And that's where I'm saying mathematically? Yes. And that's where we're headed with this car. I mean, drive it three more years, it's going to be worth $10. Am I right?
Starting point is 00:25:32 Yes. I mean, it might be worth $12. And a 7 Series Beamer is a wonderful car. Matter of fact, I think Beamer is just making a wonderful product. I don't own one today, but I've owned several in my life. My son's got one. My daughter's got one. They're just great cars.
Starting point is 00:25:46 I think they're making a good product. So it's not anything about that. It's just about where you are. Now, if you made $200 a year, you know, you can afford to take this kind of hit. But you don't. So what is your income prospects? What are you going to be making next year? What are you going to be making the year after?
Starting point is 00:26:01 What kind of an incline is your income on? I feel by next year, I should be at, not should be, somewhere around 60. And then after that, I'm hoping to be around 65. So this car is really bringing you great harm financially is what it amounts to. Yes. That's what it comes down to. It's not I'm yelling at you. It's just, you know, it's not a blessing to you. It's a curse. Until you get in and turn the key, and when you're driving it home, it's a blessing because it's a fabulous vehicle. But I'm saying financially, mathematically, what it's doing to you is, you know, it's a curse in your life.
Starting point is 00:26:41 And it's kind of almost a a movie scene or something it's like this beautiful thing this gorgeous item is in front of you and it's the very thing that's causing your downfall you see what i'm saying absolutely it's like the temptation or something you know like the like satan is on the other side of this or something in a movie scene you know what i'm talking about and you just but it's like whoa i will tempt you with this you know that kind of a thing right and so that that's because i know this because i'm you can tell i'm a car guy right i love cars and i know this car and you know and i and so i'm i i was tempted in my 20s to do the same kind of stupid stuff and as a matter of fact i did i had a jaguar i couldn't afford and so um i know so I drove it up in front of my grandpa's place, and he's like, son, I put my money and stuff that goes up in value.
Starting point is 00:27:30 You ain't real bright, are you? And that was my grandpa, right? So that's kind of where I started learning those lessons. So if I'm you, I'm getting out of this car. Now, you know, obviously you're going to borrow $20,000 to do that, and you're going to be driving you know a two thousand dollar car until you get that 20 grand paid off and then you're going to save up and buy a car but dude you got to amputate the beamer okay you see why absolutely okay and that's not me yelling at you i just want you to win okay it made sense i just wanted to know your opinion
Starting point is 00:28:03 as because i was so much negative had so much negative equity if it was worth it. The problem is it's not going to get any better. Yeah. You can plow through the negative equity as an unsecured loan, and holding the car is going to make the thing compound. It's going to make the problem compound mathematically because the car is going down while you own it, like a rock. You know, they all do.
Starting point is 00:28:27 Even great cars go down in value like a rock. So that's the thing. I want you to have a car that's a blessing and not a curse. Thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. It is a free call.
Starting point is 00:28:47 Tammy is on Twitter. Dave, what's your opinion of tiny homes? Do you think they're a good real estate investment or a fad? I don't know that they're a fad, but they're a very, very small, tiny market. No pun intended. See what I did there? Yeah, there's not a lot of people buying tiny houses. Percentage of the population.
Starting point is 00:29:15 Of all the houses sold every year, what percentage are tiny houses? I'm going to just make up a number, okay? I don't know, but probably 1%, right? So when you get ready to resell it, you have an item that only 1% of the public would consider buying, which means your tiny house is going to cause you more than a tiny problem because you can't get rid of the thing.
Starting point is 00:29:42 There's no secondary market for it because there's not a big enough of a first market. Everybody's talking about it, but not many people are really doing it. So, as an investment, is it going to go up in value? No. Not much. It's a tiny house. It wouldn't go up much, even if it went up.
Starting point is 00:30:01 So, it's a teeny tiny amount that it would go up. There's too much tiny in this. I can't stand it. Yeah, don't buy tiny houses. You know, call it an investment. It's not a plan. If it keeps you from living in your car, okay. But no, let's not make that your housing plan long term. Thank you. Thanks for joining us, America.
Starting point is 00:31:08 This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Mitchell is in Washington, D.C. Hi, Mitchell. How are you? Great, Dave. How are you today? Better than I deserve.
Starting point is 00:31:23 What's up? So I've just got a couple questions for you. First of all, I found you on YouTube about six months ago. Paid off two of our, both my wife's and my car. And so we're starting our baby step three. We've got about 14,000 saved up so far. Good. Way to go, man.
Starting point is 00:31:42 You're killing it. Thank you, sir. I'm in the military, and so step three is a bit hard for me because depending on where I'm stationed, my pay changes a little bit. And so it's kind of hard to figure out the three to six months because my paycheck can be anywhere between $6, dc or um around four thousand in oklahoma but it's not based on your paycheck it's based on your expenses okay four to three to six months of expenses and they will vary but they won't vary that much
Starting point is 00:32:19 not as much as your pay will vary um gotcha And so, you know, if we just use $4,000 and we said three times that's $12,000, you're already past that, right? Right. And six times four is $24,000. So if you want to kick it on up a little, or $24,000, you can kick it on up a little if you want. So you're in range now. Okay. and uh the thing is in the military as you know um you get the opportunity to move quite often and uh most thing in a curse most of the time right and uh sometimes that means that you need some money to do that and so i'm probably going to put your mark at about $20,000. Okay.
Starting point is 00:33:07 I just kind of backed into that. The point is there's not a perfect number. It's not an exact science. The point is you need a pile of money so when crap happens. Right. That's all it comes down to. And the three to six months of expenses is a good guideline. And so we use that to back into a discussion like you and I are having. And, you know, so $12,000 to $24,000 is a good guideline and so we use that to back into a discussion like you and i are having and you know
Starting point is 00:33:25 so 12 to 24 is a good range if we just nailed yours at 20 you're only six off you'll be there pretty soon that's going to be fine for you for now if you find that you're having regular emergencies larger than 20 grand i'd be shocked right right um and so that kind of goes into my next question so once we get past baby step three um then so since i have about 14 years left um it's how how do i plan on saving for a home um while you know counting on retirement as well um because i don't i would be putting i would be putting i wouldn't count on your military retirement although it's a wonderful retirement at the 20 year mark like you're talking about i'd be putting 15 of my income away in baby step four into retirement plans roth iras and if you want to use your tsp you can do that uh whatever you want to but i'd
Starting point is 00:34:23 use roth iras and mutual funds as my first point. And if that doesn't get you to your 15%, you're married, then do that. Does your wife work outside the home? She does not. We have a seven-month open, so she stays home with him. Perfect. Okay. So we're going to put $12,000 a year, that's $6,000, $6,000 into Roth IRAs and good mutual funds when you get to baby step four. Above that, use your TSP and use a Roth version of that if you want to. And, you know, the plan, C plan is most of it, 80%, 10% in the S, 10% in the I, and so on. And that's what you're going to want to do. Okay.
Starting point is 00:34:59 Then your baby step six, since you don't have housing, is where you're going to save for your home. Okay. So beyond your 15% in baby step four, then we're going to put some money aside for seven-month-old. You don't have to do a lot. Set up $100 a month or something going into an ESA, and you'll be well on your way for college stuff. And then beyond that, if you want to just save in a traditional mutual fund, and you could just use like an S&P 500 for that, a simple no-load fund, because you're going to use it sooner than retirement.
Starting point is 00:35:33 Right. Or you can meet with your SmartVestor Pro, and they may be able to help you pick out some funds that will help you get to. But this Baby Step 6 college fund is everything above 15% and above what you're doing for junior college. You just start chunking it in a mutual fund, college fund is everything above 15% and above what you're doing for juniors college, you just start chunking it in a mutual fund, and you know, you could have some serious money in there in 14 years.
Starting point is 00:35:51 Okay. No, that sounds like a great plan. Thank you. Thank you for your service. We appreciate it. And congratulations on your success. You're doing well. Cameron's with us in Atlanta.
Starting point is 00:36:00 Hi, Cameron. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Great. I have a question. Recently, we found your program, and we wiped out all our debt except for our house payment. Good.
Starting point is 00:36:15 And when we called, our payoff was like $35,000 left on the house. Great. Now, we recently received a little bit of money and added with our six-month savings plan, like you told us to do, it would allow us to pay the mortgage completely off, but we won't have an emergency plan. No. Okay. No, getting rid of your emergency fund is inviting problems. Murphy will set up a tent in your front yard
Starting point is 00:36:45 okay you know no you're you're asking for something to break no i want you to get your house paid off too but let's just let's just keep on you're you're making progress and the emergency fund is gold you don't touch that thing for anything except emergencies and i do want you to get this house paid off but i don't want you to use your emergency fund to do it connor's in houston texas hey connor welcome to dave ramsey show first off it's such an honor to be speaking to you thank you for taking my call my pleasure sir how can i help so the issue is two years ago i lost my father actually on my honeymoon on my honeymoon and we inherited his my childhood home from him and i
Starting point is 00:37:26 share it with my brother and sister we have renters in it currently uh we're in baby me and my wife are both in we're both 29 and baby says four and six and we're running my wife wants to sell it i want to hold on to it because we have renter value renters in it and there's a chance that this land gets bought up and goes commercial because some property right next to it did, and it'd be worth a lot more then. But we just bought a house, and we wanted to get out of house debt, be very weird, as soon as possible. Right now it's looking about five years we'll be out of debt, but if we sell this house, it'll be like two, three years we'll be completely out of debt.
Starting point is 00:38:03 So what is your share worth? About $105,000. And your brothers and sisters want to sell it or they want to buy you out? So my brother would buy me out. He has the ability. He's very successful. He has the ability to buy me out completely. Yeah, but it's just, I mean, right now I have a good relationship with my brothers.
Starting point is 00:38:26 My brothers and sisters have no issues at all all We still do have renters in the house That's good news Here's the thing Sometimes if you reverse engineer these things It'll tell you the answer So let's pretend you're sitting at your kitchen table And you did not have this deal And instead you had $105,000
Starting point is 00:38:43 Laying in the middle of the table And you had two choices Or you could do anything you wanted to do with 105 but two of what you could do with 105 is you could pay it down on your mortgage or you could buy into a partnership with your brothers with your brother and your sister, one-third into a piece of real estate. We would pay the house off. Yeah, you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't stay in the deal, or you wouldn't get into a deal. Today, you wouldn't.
Starting point is 00:39:17 I mean, your brother's in a different position. Obviously, he would, okay, because he's probably got some money piled up. But where are you at? I mean, I lost my mom when I was in high school. This is my childhood home. And then I lost my dad just so recently. There's a lot of emotions. How long ago did your dad pass? Two years.
Starting point is 00:39:35 And like you said, it was, like, on my honeymoon. Like, I was there. I know. It's so harsh. It's so bad. Well, here's the thing. You've got to decide that part of it. Because it is a vow because this is personal finance,
Starting point is 00:39:48 and the nostalgia and the grief are part of this discussion. They're a valid part of the discussion, right? But, you know, 20 years from now, you're probably going to sell the house. Ten years from now, you're probably going to sell the house. You're probably not keeping this your whole life because it happened to be where you grew up and it happened to be where your dad lived when he passed away when you were on your honeymoon.
Starting point is 00:40:12 It's just a horrible set of circumstances. So, I think you just say out loud that this is a hard decision because of the emotions, but it's still probably the right one. You decide though. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for the Dave Ramsey Show.
Starting point is 00:40:39 If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.

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