The Ramsey Show - App - Hard Work and the Prosperity Gospel (Hour 2)

Episode Date: December 19, 2018

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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. This is your show. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thanks for being here. Merry Christmas to you.

Josh is with us in Indianapolis. Josh, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir. How can I help? Well, I'm calling today about my sister. She's going through a divorce right now, and she's in a really big financial mess. She makes $11 an hour, and she pays $900 a month

for rent, and she has $10,000 of student loan debt, and she has no hope, and she turned to one of those prosperity gospel preachers to give her some hope, and she's coming to visit in a few days, and I'm wondering what I can do to help her, whether I should talk to her about that or just hand her your book or what I should do. How old is she? She's 31. Okay. I'm having trouble hearing you.

Your phone's going all over the place. Make sure you're speaking directly into it, please. Okay. I'm having trouble hearing you. Your phone's going all over the place. Make sure you're speaking directly into it, please. Okay. So she's 31, and does she have children? Yeah, she has a four-year-old boy. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Where are your parents?

You said where are they? Mm-hmm. They live here in Indiana close to me, and she lives in Boise. Oh, she lives in Boise. Okay. Yeah. All right. All right.

Well, there's a proper doctrine from Scripture that would result in something that sounds like what St. Ambrose used to say, we pray like it all depends on God, we work like it all depends on us. And so sometimes folks who are in a desperate situation, and I've been there, right around the time I get desperate is when i get stupid and um sometimes i can get sucked into a a bad doctrine situation that causes me to wait on god to fix my life and he's up there uh a loving heavenly father saying uh child i want you to learn some lessons from this process and those lessons will fix your life and um you know like when i'm teaching my baby to ride a bicycle, I let go of the seat.

And then if they go crazy and try to jump a curb, they may have to learn a lesson in that process. That doesn't mean I'm not a loving Heavenly Father because I watch them fall over off that bike, though. And sometimes i've gone through that where i know that god was just letting go of the seat and letting me uh letting me suffer the consequences of my stupid choices and uh it's painful but it's a loving act uh by a loving father and it does not match up with a prosperity gospel. And so, you know, that's why it's always hilarious to me when people say,

oh, Ramsey's prosperity gospel. Crap, I don't have enough hair to be in the prosperity gospel. So, you know, I think the way you can help her is help her have some real clear next steps because she's scared. She's got a baby. She's broke. She's hurting, and that makes her vulnerable. And so anything we can do to help her with her career, she's got $100,000 in student loan debt.

I don't know how much student loan debt she has. I just said tens of thousands. Tens of thousands. Okay. Did she get her degree? Yeah, she has a master's degree in something related to Bible. I'm not sure what it is. It's not like business or anything really useful like that.

Okay. Well, a master's degree in Bible could be very useful, depending on what she's going to do for a living. There are lots of Bible teachers in Bible colleges that make a whole lot more than $11 an hour with a master's degree in Bible. So it can be a very useful career move, not to mention being very spiritually fulfilling. And so her spiritual walk means a lot to her, is what we're saying.

She has invested a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of her life in her spiritual walk, which is awesome. And now we've just got to figure out a way to help her do that, not at $11 an hour. And so what fits into her passions, as Ken Coleman says, and into her training? He calls that the sweet spot, when your passion meets your training. And she's got passion and training for this subject area that we're talking about.

And so now we've just got to figure out a way to help her build a career in that area without being vulnerable to somebody trying to shear the sheep here, or fleece the sheep, as we say. And so I don't know if that's what's happening but the way you frame the question is what you think is happening yeah yeah and so um yeah the student loan debt is the least of her trouble right now getting her career going and her broken heart uh mending uh and emotionally uh squaring her shoulders and feeling strong again after all she's been through,

which is going to be involved making more money and putting some distance between her and this divorce. And that's the best way you can help her is just love her through that process. And if you can coach her along the career side, and then the money, you know, we can knock out $10,000 in debt once we solve a broken heart in $11 an hour. Yeah. But those two things are going to hinder the ability to get to the tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt. So, yeah, she's going to have to work like it all depends on her,

pray like it all depends on God. pray like it all depends on God. Work like it all depends on her. Work a plan, work a system, work hard, make money, be tired, be fatigued because you work all the time. Because work is where money comes from. And that's in the Bible, by the way. The diligent prosper. It's in Scripture.

Those that don't work don't eat, Paul said. That's pretty harsh, but it's in there. I told my kids that. It helped them when they were teenagers because teenagers like to eat. Don't work, don't eat. It's in the Bible, you know. So, I mean, you can have these common sense applications of scripture when you're in the ditch.

And it's not unspiritual, and it's not self-help dressed as Jesus. It's a doctrine straight out of Scripture. But God chooses to bless us, and he most often chooses to bless us as a part of our hard work. He very seldom causes wheat to grow in a farmer's field unless the farmer plants it. He causes the rain. God does. He causes the sun. God does.

But all of that just brings mud in the field if the farmer doesn't plant the wheat. So we both get to play a part in this. Work like it all depends on you. Pray like it all depends on God. Farmers know about prayer. They believe in it. And they know about the capriciousness of toxic theologies. Yeah, you don't get to tell God what to do.

He kind of thinks he's God. And so that's how this works. It's a fun thing we get to walk in, this walk of faith. 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.

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Did you notice? Yeah. I mean, it wasn't that long ago you could get a 3% mortgage, and now it's even close to 5%. Hmm. Five whole percent. Scary. The world must be coming to an end but you know what that's done is it has actually slowed down this white hot real estate market just a little bit i mean there was a period of time there for about a couple years that a monkey could sell a house you

know they would show houses like i mean they'd be walking around i mean just somebody that didn't have any sense at all got a real estate license because, really, it doesn't take a lot in most states to get a real estate license. And they're just showing houses and, you know, like your Aunt Sally, you know, never been able to do anything, and now she's selling real estate. I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't go win. I want you to be a great world-class realtor if you want. But I am saying those of you that are selling houses should not list your house with someone because they're your relative or because you go to church with them or something. You should hire a real estate agent that knows what they're doing, and the proof that knows

what they're doing is they sell a bunch of houses, because it's like their job to sell houses, and so if they don't sell a bunch of houses, then they're not that good at their job. You sell three houses a year, you're not real good at your job as a real estate agent. You sell 300 a year, you're pretty dadgum good at it, right? This is how it works. So don't hire a monkey just because you know them. You got monkeys in your family.

You got monkeys you go to church with. You got monkeys in your life that are your friend. And I know their little feelings. You're going to get hurt if they don't get to sell your three hundred thousand dollar house oh well you know i bought a piece of real estate one time and this woman is a friend of my wife's got all angry at us and i'm like woman i've had a real estate license since i was 18 years old i'm not using you as an agent you know it's unbelievable you get all twisted up they do though and that's okay you just gotta get twisted up because here's the thing.

You are going to list your largest asset. You're going to buy your largest asset from a professional real estate agent. Nothing else. Or I'm going to box your ears. You're just going to do it right. Okay? You're going to do it right. It's that simple.

Because, I mean, it's $300,000. You make one little mistake, it's 30 grand. That's a 10% error. And you can do that, and people that don't know what they're doing do it every day. And, by the way, trying to get something sold when you don't know how to sell something, that's just hard. So get with our endorsed local providers, our ELPs. They have the heart of a teacher. They're committed to seeing you get your home sold for top dollar or get the home of your dreams.

They'll know the marketplace. They'll know which neighborhoods are white hot and what you've got to do to maximize that environment, whether you're buying or selling. And they'll know the ones that are dragging a little bit. And they'll know what's happening right now in this current market. It's kind of slowed down a little. It's not, I mean, it was white hot. It was going crazy crazy crazy for a while and it still is in a few places but um a little cold water been thrown on this thing and that's

when the professionals come out see when everything's going good you can do stupid stuff and it feels like it's smart because it works every anyway there's enough good things going on that it overcomes your stupid you know but when stupid is stress tested is when things slow down. And all of a sudden, stupid starts looking stupid. It shows up, you know. And so when your little plan gets stress tested, stupid will pop up. And that's true of your little financial plan, too. You know, I'm going to borrow and I'm going to do nothing down real estate and I'm going

to get deeply in debt. And as soon as the economy turns, you're going to be bankrupt. You going to do nothing down real estate and i'm going to get deeply in debt and as soon as the economy turns you're going to be bankrupt you know how i know that because it happened to me because i was stupid so there you go my little plan got stress tested by an economy shift an economic shift a banking climate shift and the banker looked down went, I'm kind of scared of real estate now. I really liked real estate about 20 minutes ago, and now I'm scared. And then they called our dadgum notes, and we spent the next two and a half years of our life losing our butts. And you know whose fault that was? Mine.

Because my plan that I thought was brilliant was working fine when everything was going fine. But when it was stress tested, it turned out to be stupid. And see, that's the beauty of being debt-free. You stress test that, you look smart. Borrowing money up to your eyeballs when everything's going good, I can afford it does not mean you can pay the payments. I can afford it means you have the money to pay the item in full right then. So if you're driving a car with car payments, that means you got to

bought a car you can't afford. If you're buying Christmas gifts on a credit card, you're buying Christmas gifts you can't afford. Otherwise, you would have just paid for it. That's how you know you can afford it. It's a real easy formula. But see, when things get bad, when you lose the job, when someone gets sick, when the economic situation changes and your stupid gets stress tested, aha, there you go. And that's what happens when you hire the wrong real estate agent,

which happens when you hire the wrong tax person, when you hire the wrong investment broker, and you start reading the wrong books and doing some of the stuff some of these people say to do. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. As soon as you put stress on it, I mean, when the tide goes out, Warren Buffett said,

you can tell who was skinny dipping. That's what's happening. Stress test. Stress test. You're stupid. And you can tell what's up. And you'll find out. Well, I was getting away with that because there was enough good things going on with

my income and with the economy that I didn't, I couldn't tell how bad this was. But now that it got a little stress put on it, you're like, ouch, this hurts. Karsten's with us in Los Angeles. Karsten, Merry Christmas to you. How can I help? Merry Christmas, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? So currently, right now, I have no debt. And I'm saving about 50% of my monthly income to fund my emergency fund. Okay. So after that's done and the emergency fund is fully funded, I want to take that savings rate and apply it to stocks and what you call good growth stock mutual funds to get a 10% return so that in, you know, give or take 20, 30 years, I have

X amount of dollars. My question for you is, you know, I'm a young kid right now. I'm 23, and I just don't know where to get started. I don't know. Do I go to a... Because I want that 10% return. Now, that's an annual return. Not every year is 10%.

However, if that's my goal, I just don't know where to get started. Do I go to a brokerage firm? Do I go to some kind of fund? I mean, how do I, I found out about my emergency fund and I have the money I'm still saving. Who do I go to? If you have a book you would recommend or a firm that you go to, where do I get started? Okay. Very good. Very good. Good for you. So you're 23, and what's your degree in? I don't have a degree. I don't go to college.

Okay. What do you make a year? Roughly about $25,000. $25,000? After taxes. After taxes, yes, sir. Yeah, you're doing great. I mean, you're really making that $25,000 work hard for yourself.

Good job. Thank you, sir. Okay. Thank you. Well, what do you want to do with your career, just curious, in the next 15, 20 years? Well, currently I work in consumer service, and I really love the job I have. I mean, potentially I want to start a family and work with a really great girl right now, start a family and work up in my career. I mean, I would want to start a family and with a really great girl right now, start a family and work up in my career.

I mean, I love what I do. So, I mean, currently right now I'm trying to become a manager and then hopefully work up through the company. I mean, you can never predict your life fully, but if I keep working hard, that's what I want to do. Okay, so the space that you're in and advancing in the space that you're in is good. And so what does a manager make 20 years from now in your space if you kept at it and you became one of the top dogs? If you want to talk to us, I would say between 80 and 100. Okay, all right. So we're heading somewhere with this.

Good, good. All right, good. All right, the answer to your question is I invest in four types of mutual funds, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. And I invest in mutual funds that have long track records, okay, 10, 20, 30-year track records, that kind of a thing. And the first place I recommend people invest is inside of a Roth IRA, inside of their 401Ks. Now, you know, the standard and poor, which is the measure of the stock market in good mutual funds,

has averaged up over 10% since the stock market began, since inception. It's up over 11%. So you'll be fine if you stayed with that, but you can buy mutual funds that outperform that. If you want to find one of the brokers that we recommend to coach you in this process, click SmartVestor at DaveRamsey.com. Put in your info. It'll drop down a list of the SmartVestor pros in your area for you to select from.

One question I get asked all the time is, do I need life insurance? Listen, the whole point of life insurance is to replace your income for someone who counts on you. So if you have a spouse or you have kids, yes, you need term life insurance. It's the only way to protect them until you're out of debt and have built up your wealth. You're only digging a deeper hole if you waste I'll see you next time. not expensive. It's not complicated. And Zander will be there as your guide every step of the way. Visit Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. You need to get this taken care of. I can give you the advice and I can tell you where to go, but it's really up to you to take that important step to get your family protected. That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282 Are you one of those people that Christmas sneaks up on? Gotcha! Well, they don't move it.

But some of us just procrastinate, right? Well, there's a way you can still get Ramsey gifts. They're called digital, right? All kinds of digital deals. Yeah, all of our audio books books which really are very good on a road trip an audio book is a great way just pop that sucker on your phone let it play through your speaker system on your car just take off or just turn it up real loud whatever you want to do i don't care and the total money makeover audio the smart money smart kids audio um you can get some

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Live event tickets are great stocking stuffers. And like smart money events, the smart parent event, the smart conference, the money and marriage event, all of these are on sale 25% off. Use the code word JOLLY. We're going to be in Colorado Springs, Irvine, California, Raleigh, North Carolina, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Cincinnati, Ohio, Atlanta, Georgia, San Diego, Minneapolis, Sacramento, Dallas. Smart Conference in Dallas is going to be here on January 12th in about 20 minutes. That's a whole day-long thing. Nashville is the big February 14th money and marriage event with Rachel Cruz.

That's a destination one. Rachel Cruz, Les Parrott doing that. And Kansas City and Des Moines and Dallas, they're going to be doing money and marriage. Hey, all of those cities we're going to be doing one of our events in or more. Check them out at DaveRamsey.com Send your friend,

send your parents, send your loved ones to the pep rally. And that's what this is. We teach you what to do, and we make you believe you can actually do it. You know why? Because you can actually do it. Yeah. DaveRamsey.com.

Use the word jolly for 25% off between now and Christmas Day on live event tickets. How fun is that? Edgar's with us in Rochester, New York. Merry Christmas, Edgar. Merry Christmas to you. How are you doing, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I remember the last time I called you, I was trying to get

out of a car lease, and of course, I successfully got out. Good. I make about $30,000 a year. I've been doing overtime, and I can bring it up to about $40,000. And so, my debt that I have left over is I have $380 in student loans and I have a credit card bill of about $1,300. Good.

You're almost there, huh? Yep. And so I'm currently in the job that I'm doing now. I'm a patient care technician, which is a nurse assistant at a hospital. And I'm looking to go to college full time as an x-ray technician in the spring. My question is, should I just go full-time so that I can just jump right into it, or should I just continue working overtime to stack up my savings account? How are you going to pay for it?

Well, I'm in the union, and they have a way that i if i if i go full time that i could they'll be able to cover everything but i have to be full time they'll cover all your tuition yes i would have to i would be responsible for the books and how will you eat while you're doing this how do you pay food and lights while you're doing this how do you pay food and lights while you're doing this yeah that that's the part that i was also think didn't get a chance to think of okay all right so if you worked a month i mean how long does it take to go through x-ray tech school uh well it's a two-year it's a two-year school i have about 30 credits left okay and so how long will it take you to complete if i go full time it'll probably Well, it's a two-year school. I have about 30 credits left. Okay.

And so how long will it take you to complete? If I go full-time, it will probably take me about maybe two or three semesters. So like a year and a half? Yeah, exactly. Okay. How old are you? I'm 29. Okay.

And you're single? Yep. All right. What do you're single? Yep. All right. What do you make now? I make about $15 an hour. And you're able to pay your bills and you've been able to reduce debt doing this, right? Yes. Okay. All right.

And plus you picked up a lot of OT because you're not afraid of hard work. I can tell that. Right. Because in the past, I was going of hard work. I can tell that. Right. Because in the past, I was going part-time. I was only taking one class. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's two ways you can do this.

One is you can go hard part-time, meaning that you take more than one class, and try to get through in like two years, two and a half years, rather than one and a half years. And then you just that you keep working the job and keep working overtime and you just you know it's just going to be a really tough two two and a half years uh because you're working and you're going to school and it's hard you know the second way you could do it i guess is if you could build up enough savings to cover your bills for that 18 months by working a lot of crazy overtime

for a period of time, then you could afford to quit and go full-time to school, right? Right. But you'd have to say, okay, it takes me, I'll just make up a number. It takes me $1,000 a month to eat, and I got 18 months of that, so I need $18,000. Right. And if you got that that then you're ready to go um but i'm just i mean i don't that's that's a very very low budget by the way i don't know if you could do it on that but i'm just making up a number just figure out what it takes you to get through to survive to cover your basics food shelter clothing transportation and utilities while

you're going to school times the number of months you're going to be in school full-time, and you need that much in savings. Otherwise, you're going to work it part-time, and that's okay. You'll get there. You'll get there. You've got time. You've got a goal now. You're a goal-oriented dude now. Proud of you.

Shante is with us in Miami. Hey, Shante, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Okay, so I am probably two years into learning my budget and starting, you know, baby step number two and paying off my debt. But I live in South Florida where everything is very expensive. And currently I'm paying about $1,875 for rent. And me and my husband bring home

$5,000 a month. My big issue is that come 2019, we'll actually be losing one of our incomes of $600. And I'm wondering if it makes more sense for us to start putting money towards a little starter home instead of continuing to pay this much rent and not really having anything to show for it no you need to move though your rent is insane and please don't tell me that miami is all1,875 a month. I know better. I just spent two weekends down there. It's just where you live.

You've been trying to play the South Beach game, and you can't afford it. Well, the thing is, this is actually, my husband is so close to his job that he literally skateboards to work where I'm able to keep the car. So a lot of the places that we would need to move to to actually be in our price range, we actually would have to invest in a second car. Okay, do it. Get you a $1,000 car, but you're going to save that much first month on rent. Okay. You guys are living the life.

I can feel it. And it's a wonderful place. I love Miami. The vibe, I mean, it's New York-esque. I love it. I mean, South Beach is, I'm not a party animal. The party animals all hang out there. But we went to some fine restaurants down there just the other day.

There's some great places to eat. It's just a wonderful city. I love Miami. But you've got to watch. I mean, it's got the same thing going on in New York, Chicago, L.A. has. You can suddenly get sucked into how much energy there is there and how much fun there is there and all that. And you don't make enough money to play in that world. You've got to make twice what you guys make to live like you're living.

So, yeah, you've got to make some decisions. The old skateboard to work thing just came to an end, and that's going to get you where you can win. But, no, I would not buy a home until you get yourself out of debt and get your emergency fund in place. Good question. Thank you for joining us. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Yeah. Allison is in Lexington, Kentucky.

Merry Christmas, Allison. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? We're a family of four, and we currently had to recently move to an area that neither one of us, the adult flies, like living at all. Very unhappy.

We're about to receive a very small settlement check of probably around $12,000, and I just really need advice on should I go ahead and try and buy a small piece of property in an area where all my family is that would make me happy, or should I just go ahead and start working on paying off my debt with that amount? Okay. So you live how far from family? Probably an hour and a half, and we were used to like a five-minute drive to everyone that we lived by.

Yeah. And why did you move? Our landlord sold the house from out underneath us. We were trying to work on buying that, but we couldn't get a loan because of bad credit. And she went ahead and sold the house that we were trying to... Yeah, but that's not the only house in the area. Why did you move an hour and a half away? Because she went ahead and gave us 30 days notice, and we really only had... Yeah, but that's not the only house in the area. Why did you move an hour and a half away um because she went ahead and gave us 30 days notice and we really that's

not the only house in the area why did you move an hour and a half away because there was nothing else we could find to rent in that particular area wow must be pretty rural it is it is yeah It is. It is. Yeah. Where? London. London, Kentucky. Correct. No houses to rent in London, Kentucky. Houses to rent in London, but I guess the two-week time, we just couldn't find anything. And I let my boyfriend kind of be head of that decision-making, and everything we could find online it was not in london

of what we could afford your boyfriend wanted to move away from your mother nope my parents i'm just making that up it just sounded like it was good okay uh here's what's here's what's happening okay um You are making hard left and hard right turns, and you keep rolling your vehicle over. Like, you ever seen somebody to avoid a wreck? They swerve so hard that they are the wreck? Mm-hmm. That's you. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. Okay. Like, you overcorrected for something that really wasn't that big a deal, and you move an hour and a half away. Right. Because you didn't just sit down and go, okay, we have to solve this freaking housing problem, and we both need to work on this immediately. So the answer to your question is, yes, I would move back to family.

No, I would not buy a property. I would take my time and find a reasonable rental in the area, making sure you have jobs lined up there as well. What are you going to do for a living? We both work at home for a subcontractor that does work for Apple Support. Okay, so you can do that from anywhere is the point. Yes. And what is your household income?

I'm on track to finish for my individual income about $20,000, and track i think for the same so 40 000 for the year okay so you're not making a ton no okay all right so i would go if you want to move back to the area that's fine let's take our time and do this slowly and deliberately instead of swerving do you sense sense what I'm talking about? Yeah. There's this lurching with your decision-making, and I want it to be smooth and graceful instead. And so let's take our time and go, okay, it may take us six months. We're going to sit here for a little while. We're going to pedal and pedal and pedal until we find the right place.

We find the right place with the right deal. Then and only then are we going to move then we make our move we work on getting out of debt while we're doing that um use some of this settlement money to get out of debt but no you don't need to buy a property until you're out of debt and you for sure don't need to buy a property with someone that you're not married to. That's going to cause you all kinds of trouble. And it's just a, you don't buy a property, you don't buy a piece of real estate with your roommate. You guys get married and aren't roommates anymore,

then we can talk about buying a house together. But until then, you don't. And you're right, it's a small settlement. It'll help you make the move. It'll help you get out of debt. It'll help you do all of those things, which will help you get in a position to save up an emergency fund, and then you're debt-free, and then you have the time to save for your down payment on a property. But please don't tell me that it is necessary to buy a property in order for you to live in that area,

because that is not the truth. You can find some place to rent if you don't turn it over to him and he doesn't want to live there anyway so he finds a reason to move for whatever reason so that's what you're looking for hey thanks for the call open phones at 888-825-5225 sinking funds and emergency funds is what angela's calling about in jackson mississippi hey angela Hey, Angela, how are you? Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve.

Tell me what you're talking about here. Great. So my husband and I graduated from FBU right before we got married a year ago, and we are working on our fully funded emergency fund, but we were kind of wondering where you would draw the line between sinking funds and emergency funds, or if you would even separate them. Oh, they're completely separated. A sinking fund is a budget issue. A sinking fund is Christmas is in December, and they don't move it, so I'm saving for Christmas.

A sinking fund is I have to put tires on my car, and it's going to be about six months before. I probably got six months of life left on them, so I need to start saving six months' worth of tire money. A sinking fund is my kids are going back to school in August, and we're going to have to buy school supplies and clothing, and that happens every freaking August, and so it's not a surprise. We're going to get ready for that, and we can't do it out of our regular budgets. We need to save up a little to get ready for that. A sinking fund is the car licenses are due, and they're $400. And that's a part of our budget we can't handle, so we need to save for two or three months to do that.

But none of that is an emergency. That's a little miniature savings account inside your budget that helps you live life well. Okay. Does that make sense? So you're putting specific names on your dollars rather than just a general emergency. Always. Always. An emergency, if it's not an emergency, if you know it's coming, that's not an emergency.

Okay. By definition. Christmas should not be an emergency. Right. And we have a baby on the way, and so it's like a loss of an income. You would consider that part of your sinking fund instead of an emergency fund? What I would do there is I would just stop everything. I would stop doing any debt reduction.

I'd put pause on my baby steps, and I'd pile up cash as high as I can pile it in the emergency fund in case there's an issue. Okay. We're completely debt-free, and so that's why I was wondering where you would stop depreciating them. You're okay. You're okay, then. And do you have your emergency fund in place? We have $4,500, but we need about $12,000 to be the fully funded. Yeah, then I would just be focusing on that wide open while the baby's on the way, and

let's get that as much as we can have in there when the baby comes. That'd be great. Because having a big pile of savings and no debt is a really peaceful place to be when you're delivering a child, because it's exciting and scary and all those wonderful things, and having a little money around just kind of puts a little grease in the gears. It smooths everything out. you're delivering a child because it's exciting and scary and all those wonderful things and having a little money around just kind of kind of puts a little grease in the gears it smooths everything out alex is with us in wilmington north carolina merry christmas alex how are you i'm doing well how are you dave better than i deserve what's up um so recently at work my um

international fund for my 401k has changed. And it changed from a fund that had roughly a 10-year track record to essentially a brand new fund that has no track record. Yuck. And so they transferred my funds that were, excuse me, my money that was in the previous fund

into this one, and I'm not sure how... Without your permission? Yes. I guess it just rolled from the old international fund into this one, and I'm not sure how... Without your permission? Yes. I guess it just rolled from the old international fund into this one. Hmm. Okay. Well, I'm probably going to change that. I wouldn't put money in a fund. If I've got other options, I would adjust that so that I don't have money in a one-year-old fund.

And besides that, the international category of the four categories we talk about, it sucks the worst of all of them. Yes. The category in general is underperforming. And then add to that, you've got a one-year track record fund. How many options do they have in your 401k? Total or in the international? Total, I have around eight.

Okay. I would poke around in those other options and move it over there. Hopefully, you can get something that's got some international flavor, a global fund, which is international with some U.S. mixed in. It's kind of a kissing cousin of an international foreign fund, anything that falls in that category. I'm looking to try to get some diversification here and not have it all in American stocks. But if you have to, to avoid a one-year-old fund, I would. Hey, it's Blake, Chief Production Officer for the show. And here's a little tip for 2018. Go download our revamped Dave Ramsey Show app from the App Store. We're always listening to your feedback and adding new features to make it even better.

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