The Ramsey Show - App - Here’s the #1 Thing You Can Do To Leave a Legacy

Episode Date: May 2, 2022

Dave Ramsey & George Kamel discuss: Giving care to a parent with Alzheimer's, Why everyone needs a will, How to spend a large inheritance. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is done, 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, George Campbell, Ramsey personality, host of the Entree Leadership and Fine Print Podcast on the Ramsey Network, is my co-host today. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create real, high-quality relationships. We're thankful you're here, America. Thanks for being with us. Open phones here as we talk about your life and your money. 888-825-5225. Rachel's in Miami to start this hour off. Hi, Rachel. How are you?

Hi, Dave. I'm doing all right. Thank you very much. How are you guys doing? Better than we deserve. What's up in your world? Well, I'm going through a bit of a hard time where I'm stepping into a role of a caregiver for my parents that has Alzheimer's. And, yeah, we've been working through the steps up until then.

Thankfully, we got our cars paid off and any other debt out the way, but we still have $40,000 in student loans that we've been making aggressive payments towards. And just with the Alzheimer's situation, there's going to be about $8,000 between medical and legal bills coming up. So we want to know whether we should put a pause and just aggressively save for that, like go into, I guess, emergency mode, or how should we kind of address that, like try to gradually save up for that. Wow.

Yeah. So who's got Alzheimer's? My mother. I'm sorry. Where's your dad? Yeah. So who's got Alzheimer's? My mother. I'm sorry. Where's your dad? He's not involved because in this she kind of, she doesn't want him around ever since. She has Alzheimer's? Yes.

She doesn't get a vote? Yes. Where is your dad? Yeah, he's also very emotionally unstable, so he never makes the situation better. So they're still together, but their relationship is bad. They're legally together, but they're not living together. They don't live together. Correct.

Oh, okay. Do either one of them have any money? No. Unfortunately, they've made a series of bad decisions, which led me to being aggressive with taking control of my and my husband's finances and getting things in order, both of us getting on the same page with your plan. Wow, kiddo. I'm sorry. Yeah.

How old is your mom? She's 65. So this is pretty advanced. Yeah, yeah. So what is the legal and medical bills that you are responsible for? So we're moving into guardianship because she didn't even have anything legally in place for power of attorney. And throughout the years, it wasn't so clear what was causing it. Now is when we're really getting a good... And now she's no longer capable of granting that, so you're having to ask the court to give it to you. Yep, yeah. And overall, aside from that, she is okay in that she has some savings, but we obviously can't access that to pay off the bills,

and we just were getting compared to that. How much savings does she have? How much savings does she have? She has about $15,000 in savings. Okay. Well, you need to access that simultaneously with getting the guardianship. Yeah.

If you're an appointed conservator and power of attorney, you access that money instantaneously. Yeah. They said that once that comes through, it will be able to be reimbursed for the legal fees. But before then, we obviously don't want to put any legal fees on credit cards. We want to be able to have the cash to go pay it in the moment. So right now up front. Okay, wait what i just said was when you are given the guardianship and you're given the power of attorney by the courts that should be you

shouldn't have major legal fees due in advance of that happening yeah you got an attorney asking you for eight thousand dollars up front to go get this work done? Well, it's not exactly. They just stated that it would be an estimate of that amount. After they get it through. But, I mean, they can bill you and you pay them after this court case. Yeah.

So you can use your mom's money to pay her attorney. It's her attorney, by the way. Yeah. It's her bill. So ask them to pretty much bill it, and then it's paid after the case is going through. Well, I mean, you may have to put up a couple grand or something up front

as a retainer, but putting up $8,000 up front to get a conservatorship or a guardianship passed through is kind of asinine. You need a new lawyer. Well, you're right on that. What they've only well what they've asked for is three thousand as a retainer at the moment okay that's not

unreasonable okay okay so what is your household income um right now we are at a hundred thousand a year okay and if you stop taking care you're gonna have to stop working to take care of her. Is that the idea? Yeah, and once we do that, we'll be at $60,000. Okay. All right. Can you guys pay the bills on $60,000? Yeah, we can. We purchased a townhome beforehand, so we only have about $16,000 in the mortgage with insurance and taxes. So it's reasonable, and we did it prior to me working.

We were able to pay it just fine. And then what does long-term care look like for her financially and physically? That's kind of the concern. Well, financially, the care for her should be covered because she does have good medical insurance, and it's covered a lot beforehand. I think it's going to be more so probably more of an expense as far as, like, food that we'll be providing for her now.

There's no long-term care insurance. You don't have nursing home insurance. Nursing home, no, she doesn't have that. Okay, but just the medical bills. Yeah. You got those covered. She's got those covered. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, here's the thing. There's no good. This is a horrible situation. It's a tragedy. It's a mess. And you're a sweet person for taking this on and loving your mother well. All right. But there's hard choices are going to be made. Okay. Hard choice number one, you've already resigned yourself to, and that is you're going to lower your household income and at a minimum, lower, slow your personal financial progress

in order to take care of your mom. Yeah. That's what you're telling me, right? Yeah, that's correct. What I'm going to add to the conversation, while I know your heart is breaking and I love you and I want you to win, is there's also a reality at the end of this story that may be her in a nursing home

and you're back to work. It might not be the end of the story is her passing at your house. She may pass in a nursing home. Because you may reach the point that your family is going to require your income again. Let me give you an example, okay? If this goes on two or three years it's not a big deal you can probably make that it's not going to set you back for decades this goes on 15 years you can't do this yeah it's not it's not it's not sustainable for you emotionally for your family

it's not sustainable for you financially you're going to end up getting her some nursing home care on Medicaid because she's broke and she qualifies for Medicaid. And so, but on the short term, yeah, bring her home and quit work for a little while and let's see how this goes. And then if that slows down your debt snowball, it just does. I'm so sorry. So tough.

Always have a health care power of attorney. Always have long-term care insurance. These two things would have solved a whole lot right here. Building wealth is a hot topic right now. There's all kinds of opinions on how to do it. Plus, inflation has everyone freaking out. Well, it's time to cut through all the noise and learn how to build real, lasting wealth the right way. That's why this year, we're hitting the road for our Building Wealth Live event.

Joining me will be Rachel Cruz, George Camel, Dr. John Deloney, and Ken Coleman, and we'll be in Vegas, Orlando, Sacramento, Minneapolis, and San Antonio. At Building Wealth Live, you'll hear us tackle the latest trends and dive deep into investing, saving, and planning for retirement. I know that might sound super overwhelming, but it's way easier than you think. Plus, while you're there, we're going to be signing books and taking photos. Seats are just $25 a piece, or you get a four-pack of passes for only $60. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash events to get your seats before they're gone. That's ramseysolutions.com slash events. Well, it's officially event week.

Las Vegas, I hope you're ready. We're on our way, baby. We're doing Building Wealth this coming Thursday night, a live event. There are still some tickets available. The George Camel, the Rachel Cruz, and Dave Ramsey will be doing the event, along with the Dr. John Deloney and the Ken Coleman. And they'll be signing books and taking pictures. I will be doing some of that as well.

And we'll be doing a couple-hour live event there in Las Vegas about the true aspects of building wealth the proven process of financial principles that work and we'll discuss some of the um shall we call them modern distractions oh i like that i was going to say schemes traps trends but i like modern distractions too yeah things that would distract you from doing smart things there is an endless amount of those there's only a few simple ways to actually build wealth they're called get rich quick easy and you know one of these things one of the things that i'll

talk about this thursday night that i just love that these all share in common the person who's espousing them always has an air of condescension that if you do not believe in their get rich quick scheme then you're just one of the little people or you're just in my case i'm a boomer i'm too old to actually understand how bitcoin works i my intellect cannot grasp it because of my age my advanced years yeah that's a nice way to put it yeah it's just it's it's humorous uh that when you're 24 you can have that much arrogance oh wait a minute i did so well there you go yeah and i And that's exactly how I went broke. And I would have argued with you until the cows come home, as my grandmother would say, and how right I was and how wrong I turned out to be.

So on a get-rich-quick-nothing-down real estate scheme, scam, whatever you want to call it. And it's still around to this day. A lot of people saying leveraging debt is the way to build wealth. And speculative trading is the way to build wealth. Oh's exhausting we'll be talking about all that thursday evening and again uh in two weeks on thursday the 19th in orlando and so um five of us ramsey personalities will be there rachel and george and i on the money side dr delonia with his number one best selling book be there signing it own Own your past, change your future. He'll have some comments about the current state of affairs and anxiety.

Ken Coleman about the world that we live in with hiring and careers right now. We'll be doing all of that in Las Vegas on Thursday. Tickets are a whole $25 each. You can get a four-pack for $60. So bring up, you know, like four of you. Get your buddies. Go out to dinner, then come over, hang out. They're going to be doing some labs and some pre-sessions and some

post-sessions and everything else. And we'll be there just working our little tail ends off helping you guys. And for 60 bucks for four people, I mean, you can even buy pizza for that. That's not one ticket to a concert with Ticketmaster. That's fees on Ticketmaster alone. Yeah, for sure. So, go to ramseysolutions.com slash events to get your tickets right now. And make sure you get all signed up for that. Annie is

with... Before we go to Ann, George, you can listen to this show for multiple reasons. You can listen to the show for the entertainment value, because human beings are on here, and sometimes they're laughingly entertaining, sometimes they're very sad and entertaining,

but just life happening on the radio, caller after caller, that used to be what we called the show years ago, but it is. You can listen to the show for the academic underpinnings, and in other words, the actual tactical things you learn to do, but you can also listen to the show for the academic underpinnings, and in other words, the actual tactical things you learn to do. But you can also listen to the show for life lessons, mentorship,

and you can even have sometimes an anti-mentor. Like, whatever that person did, I want to do the exact opposite. So here's the thing. Poor young lady that just called a minute ago. She's taking care of her mom. Just sweet. But here's the thing. Poor young lady that just called a minute ago. She's taking care of her mom. Just sweet. But here's the thing. For the rest of you out there, your job as a grown-up is to not leave your kids in that position.

Now, that sounds harsh or mean. I'm not being mad at her mom who's got Alzheimer's. But this is just a concept. Now, that sounds harsh or mean. I'm not being mad at her mom who's got Alzheimer's. I'm not. But this is just a concept. The concept is you should have a will. Get your stinking will done now. And it should include a health care power of attorney, which means that if you have early onset Alzheimer's or dementia and you lose the ability to, you lose your faculties to make,

legally make decisions, then your person who has the power of attorney can use your money then to take care of you. They don't have to go pay $8,000 to a lawyer to get a judge to say you can do that, because a $15 piece of paper would have done that. MamaBearLegalForms.com. Hello. Get your will done. It's a two-page document. A healthcare power of attorney goes with allegalForms.com. Hello. Get your will done. It's a two-page document.

A health care power of attorney goes with all your wills. And I'm yelling at you people that have not done yours because 78% of Americans don't have a will. And you need your butts kicked because you're going to leave sweet Rachel in the lurch. And you got $15,000 to your name and $8,000 if it's going to a lawyer and it didn't have to. All you had to do was take care of business. Are they scared they're going to die earlier if they get a will? I just don't. I don't know.

There's a lot of reasons people don't have wills. One of them is I'm afraid I'm going to die if I get a will. Well, doofus, you're going to die. Nobody gets out of life, okay? Wills do not increase the probability of your death. It's already there. Hello. So, oh my gosh.

On top of that, long-term care insurance. This is something we talk about on our own. Once you're 60 years old, you need long-term care insurance.. On top of that, long-term care insurance. This is something we talk about on our own. Once you're 60 years old, you need long-term care insurance. And on top of that, hello. You don't have to worry about that at all if you had been investing and saving and stayed out of debt. And you had, at 65 years old, more than $15,000 to your name. And, again, I don't want you to misunderstand I'm being harsh on that poor lady and that poor daughter in that situation i have my heart goes out to them but for the if you're 35 years old and you're like james and george camel yeah listen you need to get your crap together because your

children are going to bear the brunt of your misbehavior and your irresponsibility the thing you don't want to be when you're old is a burden. We talk about leaving a legacy on the show, and being a burden is about the exact opposite. You can be to your family. That's not how you want to go. No. And so it is your job to put the basic paperwork in place. You know, long-term care insurance, life insurance.

You've got, you know, your will and your healthcare power of attorney, and you've got, and everybody knows what's going on, and you save some money. Well, I had a hard life. I understand. So have I. I mean, a lot of people have had a hard life. I meet people every day that have had a hard life, and then they chose to own their past and change their future, as Droney says so i i i do not you know some of you are going to get all twisted up because you got your little panties in the water about everything anyway and just go ahead and jump on twitter and reddit or wherever you go to voice your crap but go ahead and do that but because you think i'm picking on that particular lady and that particular uh young lady that's taking care of her mom both of them are sweet but i'm

not mad at either one of them. But this idea that you can walk around out there after hearing that call and not go fix this stuff right now, you ought to have your butt kicked. I mean, really. That ought to be your inspiration. When I'm old, I don't want to be working at McDonald's unless it's the one i own in st thomas okay i mean seriously i don't want to be working mcdonald's period but anyway but you see my point

oh i don't want to be i don't if you want to be a greeter at walmart bless you thank you but this is not my retirement goal hello get this stuff in order you can do it over a lunch break people think this is gonna it's too much time i don't want to deal with this i get a hundred dollars a month invested from age 25 to age 65 in a decent growth stock mutual fund in your roth 401k without a match dave that's not sophisticated a hundred dollars a month is over a million dollars if you do it from 25 to 65. It's just simple. Do it. My goodness gracious.

You've got to get out of the consumption mode and out of the get rich quick mode and quit looking down your nose and just go do the basic stuff of life. You owe it. It's how you say I love you to your family. Just imagine how much different Rachel's world would be right now if there wasn't $15,000 in her mom's account. But instead, there was a health care power of attorney, and there was $250,000 sitting in a 401k. Oh, she doesn't have to quit work now. It's a peaceful place to be. Wow.

There we go. This was the Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today as we talk about your life and your money Bradford and Emmy are with us they are in salt lake city and it says on my screen you guys are debt free congratulations thank you way to go how much debt have you paid off 252 thousand dollars wow yeah we're super excited how long did this take took us about four years. And your range of income during that time? Well, when we first started, it was about $90,000, and then until now, it's about $150,000. Cool. What do you all do for a living? So I am a hairstylist. I work in a salon.

And I am a funeral director. Cool. All right. And what kind of debt was this it was our house how old are you guys well i'm 32 and i'm 34 man i'm talking to weird people i know we are weird people to our friends i love it you are weird people. I love it. What's this house worth? I think it's about $750,000 now. Whoa. Ding, ding. I love it. Way to go, you guys.

How much have you got in your retirements investing? We're probably around $200,000 to $250,000 as well. So that, like, makes you Baby Steps millionaires? Yeah, almost. We're trying. Well, I mean, $750,000 and $250,000 is a. So that, like, makes you Baby Steps millionaires? Yeah, almost. We're trying. Well, that means 750 and 250 is a million where I come from. Okay, so I think you're, look at you, and you're what, you said you're 32? Yeah, and 35.

32 and 35. My goodness gracious. Okay, so tell us a story. What happened four years ago at 28 and 31 that made you guys decide, hey, we're paying off the house? Well, I think it's safe to say that I'm a Dave Ramsey super fan. And so since the beginning, we've always worked your baby steps. About four years ago, we found this house and bought it using your principles to make sure that we had as much down as we could. How much did you put down? Sorry, say we could. How much did you put down?

Sorry, say that again? How much did you put down? We put about $100,000 down. At 24, 28 years old. 28 and 31 years old, yeah. Yes. Yes, sir. Man, that's impressive.

Like I said, super fan, for sure. He's a super fan. This is like the best day of his life calling today. Well, it's not a bad day for George and me. we can just tell you we like people like you guys you guys are incredible well thank you so you guys you you pre-decided that you were going to pay this house off really fast absolutely and just worked extra and through everything we could at it george is this your cousin i must be and they sound a lot like me. These are the kind of friends I need. Yeah, George is 32. George is 32. He just paid off his house, and he's a millionaire. So, you know, there we go. This is how it goes. So what inspired you guys?

I mean, obviously, you've been a Ramsey fan for a while, but what made you go, hey, what if we had a paid-for house in our early 30s? What would that be like? Well, we're really interested in traveling, and the funnest thing we've ever done with our money has been able to give it and share it with others, and we just want to be able to do more of that. Wow. So you use that as your fuel in this journey of, man, we want to give more, we want to have more amazing experiences,

and to do that, maybe not having a mortgage payment would help. Absolutely. Wow. So how long ago did you start doing our stuff, Bradford? I would say about 10 years ago. I listened to you on our local radio. I bought the book. I bought the financial piece packet that had the book, the workbook, and all that.

And I listened to you as much as I could and worked it out and kept Emmy on board. And we just kept rocking and rolling. So did you guys have debt previous to the mortgage that you paid off, or did you just kind of stay debt-free? We just kind of stayed debt-free. We did have debts before. Like, we had some car payments, and that's probably pretty much it. And then we just paid those off.

But, yeah, we've pretty much lived. We've tried to live debt-free. Since you've been married. We've been married for 10 years, and when we very first got married is when we jumped on board, and we started our marriage off by selling Emmy's really nice car, and we've never looked back since then. Wow. This is what it looks like. Now Emmy's a 32-year-old millionaire, so it worked out good.

It worked out pretty good. Now I can drive anything I want. Anything you want. I can drive whatever I want. Right. Drive like no one else later Now I can drive. Anything you want. I can drive whatever I want. Right. Drive like no one else later, you can drive like no one else. I'm so proud of you guys. You're amazing.

Very well done. Yeah, we're excited. Okay, you've been working this really for 10 years. The last four years paying off the house, been living smart, wisely. Have you had a life while you were doing all this, or did you just live in a cave and collect lint and triple coupons? Right. We actually did have a life. We decided because I'm the spender in the family and so I told him like we can't live like with doing nothing. Agreed. And so I just so we decided to do at least one vacation each year. Good. And so that was something that we

got to look forward to and you know plan towards but so yeah that was kind of our motivation to keep us have something to do fun you know absolutely and we're looking at the youtube pictures they're flashing on the monitor looks like you got three babies during that 10 years yeah we do have three babies it's awesome greatest accomplishment amen amen now the greatest accomplishment will be when they have babies. Those are called grandbabies. Those are the best things on the planet. Okay.

That's true. I've heard that. Well done, you guys. I'm so proud of you. It's amazing. Thank you. Thank you, David. It's been an honor to talk to you and work your plan and actually get a visit with you.

It's a pretty cool accomplishment. Well, we're proud of you. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Just stay the course. Of course, everyone says to do a budget, and that definitely helps, and just keep with it, keep motivated, listen to the show, or do whatever it is that motivates you, and stick with it. It seems like a huge mountain to climb, but you take it step by step. You follow the baby steps, and before you know it, you're on top going, look at what we can do now. Unstoppable. That's just absolutely incredible, you guys.

Very well done. Well, we've got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you. That is the next chapter in your story for sure. Also a copy of Total Money Makeover for you to That is the next chapter in your story for sure. Also a copy of Total Money Makeover for you to give away. I'm sure you've told a few people about this during this decade-long journey, but thank you for that. We appreciate you spreading the word for us, letting other people know this can be done. You're proof positive. You're a wonderful case study of what it looks like if you start this stuff, and particularly if you started you started early yeah it's a 10-year journey

and they're now they're millionaires just like that who was your biggest cheerleaders guys i would definitely say each other we yeah we kept each other accountable we had some good friends and we had some friends that told us we couldn't do it and i think that was a great motivator as well absolutely yeah you got to have friends like the second bunch the ones that don't know what they're talking about yeah i like it they're so dumb they don't know the haters are like free gasoline in the tank it is that's great so it's kind of nice to be able to like yeah say thank you you can and these days free gas is a big deal that's amazing Well done, well done, well done. Bradford and Emmy from Salt Lake City, Utah. $252,000 paid off.

That's their house and everything. They did that in four years. At 32 and 35, they have a $750,000 paid for home. $250,000 already in their retirement plans, making them early, young, baby step millionaires. I'm so proud of you guys. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. We're debt-free! We're debt-free! Man, oh man, oh man oh man we could just multiply people like brad from an emmy across the nation we could uh i don't know make the government irrelevant yeah we really could here here's what's interesting okay americans last year spent 70 billion dollars on christmas decorations on Christmas decorations. Now, I'm not against Christmas decorations, and I'm not against Christmas. Papa Dave would be lacking some Christmas lights, all right?

But here's the thing. If you had a whole community full of Bradford and Emmys, they could put up Christmas lights, and just a handful of them come together and build a hospital. Another handful of them come together and feed every hungry child in the city. And another handful of them come together and there'd be nobody in foster care that needed a forever home because they pay all the adoption expenses.

It wouldn't take but about a 6% or an 8% shift in giving to completely clean up a whole lot of the social ills that we have in america we the people taking care of we the people when they act like those two be impressive that's a vision right there this is the ramsey show Thank you. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today and is with us in Oklahoma City. Hi, Ann. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thank you for all you do. Well, thank you. How can we help today? I'm going to give you a scenario, and my question will be, how should I best spend almost $200,000

in inheritance that I'm about to receive and best help my retirement and not be a burden to my children one day and also be able to retire well? Here's my scenario. I'll soon be 60 years old. I was divorced in early 2021 after many years of marriage. My net worth is approximately $600,000, excluding the $200,000 inheritance. I have no debt. Out of that $600,000, only about $34,000 of that is in retirement savings account. The rest is in rental properties and a small business that I own. I have a fully funded emergency fund.

My yearly bring home pay is approximately $96,000 of that comes from the business each month, and $3,100 comes from part of my teacher's retirement and rental property income. I've been renting for a little over two years, and I've never had my own home. I would love to have a condo or a small home. And I was wondering with the inheritance money, should I try to buy a small condo or home with cash and if there's anything left over invested in mutual funds? Or should I forego buying and just put all of that $200 in mutual funds and let it grow? You know, interest and all. My concern there is if prices keep rising, will I ever be able to afford my own little place?

Or do you have a different scenario you might recommend? Well, you are really on top of this. You have done a great job of knowing where you are, and that tells me you really have probably a pretty good plan of where you're going. How much longer do you plan to work? Well, you know, at least to probably 65. I mean, I would love to retire at 65, but I don't know if that's realistic. You know, 65, 67 is possible. You know, I'm great.

What kind of business do you own? It's a little clothing business, boutique. Okay. All right. Is it brick and mortar? Yes. Okay. Okay.

Well, as long as it remains viable, I'd probably continue to run it as long as you want to. And what I would do is begin to get more and more management involved so you have more and more time off as you go past 67. But there's no reason I can't continue to produce an income for you up into your 70s okay you could sell it at some point if you wanted to just quit but um my guess is what you're doing is not that physically straining and you don't sound like you're stressed out by it no okay yeah so i i think i think i'm gonna continue to operate as long as i can there's no rule that says you have to quit working at any point especially if you enjoy what you're doing and i got a feeling with all you've been through that it it probably is a bit of a an escape area an area you can go that's that you won't that you can control the

variables a safe place yes it's a wonderful place. We're very grateful to be there. Amen. Okay. I like your idea of buying something small and putting the rest in mutual funds, buying something that you can live in for cash and not having any payments.

Okay. Are any of these rental properties a nuisance to you? Would you ever want to get rid of one? No. Actually, they cash flow each month. I mean, that's basically how I'm living. I'm trying to keep my personal income separate from my business income. And so, no, I don't want to get rid of them right now.

Good. I'm sorry. I'm a little nervous. What was your question? I just wanted to know about the rental properties to see what the options are but i i'm with dave i'm trying to find somewhere like i can pay with cash and that's going to reduce your expenses which means you can live off a whole lot less even in your retirement so that's the goal yeah invest what would have been a rental payment or a house payment now here's the reason to do that. When you buy a piece of property

with 100% down, obviously, in this case, for your retirement years, you're 60. Mathematically, there's a very high likelihood you live until 90. Average death age of a female in America is 76, but that includes infant mortality and teenage death and so once you're a healthy 60 year old 90 is a high probability statistically speaking okay now obviously none of us ever know exactly we don't get to decide all that but uh anyway so now if that means you got 30 years from today give or take that you are going to pay increased rent payments every year for 30 years. It's going to go up every year.

Or you're going to take your largest expense item in your budget, which is housing, and make it stabilize or go away. Right. And the asset is going up in value so you stabilize the largest payment you have in your case you're going to make it at zero but even if you took out a house payment in your case you would stabilize and at least you know you'd have the same payment throughout the rest of your life right andus rent going up every year.

And the house is going up in value every year. So there's two major reasons. But it adds a huge level of peace and stability to be a homeowner as you head into retirement, particularly if the home is paid for. So I'm all in with you spending, you know, the vast majority of this $200 to do that and putting the rest in mutual funds, then commit what was your old rent payment out of your income, at least, if not more, into additional investing ongoing, and let's build that nest egg up. Yeah, I love this plan. And if you have tax-advantaged

retirement accounts you can do that with, I know she's a small business owner, so she may have some self-employed, you know, solo 401K or SEP IRAs and things of that nature. Yeah, you can do SEP IRAs, you can do solo 401s, that's exactly right, and do a Roth, and do all of it, and put it all in mutual funds, and just see how rich you can become in the next 10 years. I'll bet you you could have a million and a half in 10 years in mutual funds. I'll bet you you could get there. Not a bad retirement. Without a single house payment in the world making $100,000 a year. I'll bet you it could be done.

And have a decent life while you're doing it. And those rentals will go up in value over time as well. And those rents coming to you, not going to someone else. I like this plan. This is going up. So just like your investments go up, that is an investment. And those rental values will go up as well. Connor is with us. Connor is in Pittsburgh. Hi, Connor. How are you? I'm good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

All right. So my question is kind of a long-term question about bridge investing. So my situation is I just turned 26. I make $50,000 a year. I have $30,000 in a brokerage account, $20,000 in Roth IRAs and 401k. I have a house that is valued at 250,000. I owe 127,000 on it. You don't need to worry about bridge money right now. Well, so the reason I'm asking that is i had a conversation with my mom and she is deciding that she's going to pay the house off for me oh within the next within the next year or so um and so so i wanted to know you know my family's done well in real estate grandparents and parents and such and so i kind of always leaned that way, but I have cerebral palsy. And I've seen just it takes a lot physically to care for a bunch of rental properties.

No, it doesn't if you hire somebody to do it. Yeah, so that was part of my question was, would you just hire a management company or is there some other way you would do it? Yeah, but you've got to ride herd on them, but that's an intellectual process, not a lifting a hammer or concrete block process. You have to watch them and make sure they don't charge you $800 for a water heater that should have been $400. Yeah, I can definitely handle that. And make sure that they're actually paying attention when the house is empty and getting it filled back up is there a sign in the yard are they keeping the grass cut the bushes trimmed so that the house is marketable when it turns over

so you got to watch your property still but you don't have to do the physical lifting and the day-to-day negotiating and dealing with tenants you'll be just fine with that so if you're saving up to buy some cash buy some rentals for cash i'll be fine with that after So if you're saving up to buy some rentals for cash, I'll be fine with that after mom pays off your house. That'd be pretty cool. Put you in a really good situation. Way to go, mom. That's really cool. Yeah. But that does not mean you need to do bridge investing exclusively. You need to do all you can put into retirement and you'll still, without a house payment, have room to do some bridge investing that you can turn into some paid-for real estate. So, very cool. Good question and good clarification.

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