The Ramsey Show - App - How Do I Know Which Job Offer To Take? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

Debt, Retirement, Investing, Home Buying, Savings, Career Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/2JgzaQR

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the 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. Chris Hogan, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones as we take your calls about your life and your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Matthew starts us off this hour in Rochester, Minnesota.

Hi, Matthew. How are you? Hey, Dave and Chris. Thanks for taking my call today. Hope you guys are doing well. We are. How can we help? Yeah.

First, I'd just like to make a shout out to the YouTube chat. Cool. There's a couple folk on there sure yeah for sure um so my question is i work for an employer me and my wife work for the same employer we are on baby step two right now um but just wanted some uh guidance when we do get to baby step four of the 15 percent saving for retirement. So I am a union employee, so I do not get the company match where my wife does get the company match. So I was just curious, do I roll my retirement into something else or is it good for where it is i have 403b roth and a 403b okay well we don't separate you and your wife we say household income at 15 say 15 of that and then we apply the rules to the entire 15 regardless of whose name it's in and then chris will use rock paper scissors right that's exactly right and so roth

beats match match beats traditional and so looking at this you have an opportunity to do the you said that backwards that match beats roth roth beats traditional i thought you said that the other way i don't know dave you can't get me play it back okay we go. So in looking at this, you guys utilizing the Roth is going to be huge and beneficial to where you are. You said through your union you do have a 403B? Yes, I do, but I just don't get the match like my wife does. So what we do is we do her match first because she gets a match and you don't. Match is first. Okay? Okay. So what's do is we do her match first because she gets a match and you don't. Match is first. Okay?

Okay. So what's your household income? Roughly it's $90,000. Okay. So let's call this $14,000, which is 15% of 90 grand, okay? Okay. So you need to say $14,000. What's her match?

How much match do they give her? 4%. Okay, and what does she make? She makes, gross pay she makes around 48. Okay, all right. So 2,000 bucks of the 14 is matched, give or take. I'm doing this in my head, but it's rough and dirty, okay? So we say, okay, we're going to take all the match we can get,

but we still got to do $12,000 more after that. Okay, so the next best thing is Roth. Do either one of you have Roth 403Bs available? I do. Okay. Then you would max out yours up to $12,000. Okay. Without the match.

Match is best. Roth is next best and traditional's next best can you get twelve thousand dollars into yours yes okay then we got it she's going to do two and get the match you're going to do the roth and do the rest because she's just she's just even though it's in your name she's protected any state, she has rights to your retirement account. Sure. Okay, now, Matthew, that's the game plan for down the road, but right now you guys are on baby step two, so you're going to stay focused on it.

You're going to pause all retirement investing right now, and I said pause. Temporarily. Temporarily, because you're going to throw all your attention to attacking your debt, and then when that's gone and you give yourself a raise, because when you get out of debt, you get a raise. Then you're going to move down to your fully funded emergency fund. Baby step number three, three to six months in it. And then you could unpause the investing.

Nathan is with us in Chattanooga. Hi, Nathan. Welcome to the Ramsey show. How can we help? Hi, Dave. Hi, Chris. I'm very excited to be talking to you guys. I have a question related to investment as well. I hear oftentimes people, once they have accomplished Baby Step 3,

which my wife and I should have accomplished later on this month. Good. Way to go. Well, thank you. I hear that they don't always immediately move into baby step four because they want to save for a house. My wife and I got married at the beginning of the year and we're starting our family. Our first child was due in July. I'm sorry, the beginning of last year is when we got married. So I have a question about kind of a reverse possibility 3B. I'm 43 years old. And before I met my wife, I didn't know of your program. And, you know, we have about $300,000 in retirement savings that we paused, as Chris was just

mentioning. But we know that the house that I'm in isn't going to be adequate for a growing family. It's probably going to be good for another two years or so. And so we had talked about contributing 5% to get my employer's match, which would be a 9.5% contribution by my employer to equal almost 15 and then using the rest to to chunk down on the house so that when we move in two two and a half three years uh we'll have money available for that next house purchase your current home does not have equity uh current home has about forty thousand dollars in equity um and this would add, in a three-year plan, this would add another $20,000 in equity. Yeah, what's your household income?

We made $81,000 this year, but we're not certain if my wife will be staying home with the baby or not. If she does, it will drop to about $67,000. So not a terrible impact at that point. What's wrong with the existing house, Nathan? It's a very small home. And with having to work from home, one of the bedrooms is now an office. And so it's just not going to... How much square footage? What's the size? It's about 1,100 square feet. Okay. And it's about 1100 square feet okay and there's just

there's three of you right now correct there'll be three of us in july and we expect to grow our family further beyond that yeah well you need a plan to move up i don't have any doubt about that um i just don't i i uh you've got a really good start on retirement, and that extra 10% that you're not putting in is not that much. It's $8,000. And that's at your current rate of income. It won't be that much if your income goes down due to her coming home. So, no, I would stay with my 15% going into retirement,

and then I'm going to work my housing out following that. Because you have a house. And the good news is, too, in the next two to three years, your home will go up in value. You're going to have some equity there just due to increased real estate values. But I just, no, I don't tell people to stop the 15% to save up for a move up in house. Right. I just, I don't want you to get to retirement% to move up in-house. Right. I don't want you to get to retirement.

You're going to get there either way. Right. But I don't want you to get to retirement and not have maximized at least to the 15% level. And if you're serious about upgrading house, take on a second job and dedicate that to the upgrade. Yeah. There might be some other ways to get at this thing. But no, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that.

Hey, thank you. You can do it if you want. But, I mean, it's not consistent with what we teach, and there's a lot of reasons for that. This is The important than ever. While some circumstances can't be controlled, there are items within your budget you can take charge of, such as your health care costs. For nearly 40 years, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, has provided a budget-friendly means of sharing for medical bills when our members need it. Learn more by visiting chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget.

Chris Hogan Ramsey personality is my co-host today. How do money conversations go with your spouse? Do they end in a battle? They're not happening at all. Guys, you can get on the same page with money, and really it's essential that you do. For the sake of your marriage, but also for your wealth building it is the most efficient way to build wealth not in spite of your spouse with your spouse both of you commit to doing a budget every month and with a membership plan to ramsey plus you and your spouse get our premium budgeting tool the world's best app for budgeting every dollar so both of you know what's going on with your money.

No surprises. You'll keep track of your spending. You'll make your budget together. You'll manage your money together. You'll hit your goals together. Keyword here is together. And with access to Ramsey Plus courses like budgeting that actually works, you'll learn exactly how to make a budget for your stage of life.

You'll understand each other better by finding out where your money habits come from, and you'll start building the future you want together. All of this comes with a free trial of Ramsey Plus, which, of course, includes also Financial Peace University. To start your free trial, text TRIAL to 33789. A free trial, text TRIAL to 33789. Nate is with us in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hi, Nate.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. What's up? Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can I help? So I'm graduating nursing school in a couple of months. I'm sitting on two job offers right now. One of them is working days, and the other is nights with primarily COVID patients.

But that job pays about $10,000 more per year. I'm trying to save up for graduate school, which is going to be about $120,000. And I'm planning to work two to three years. Before that, I'm trying to see if it's worth taking the harder job to make that extra $20,000. I thought it was $10,000. Well, I'm going to be working for two to three years. Oh, $20,000, $30,000 over a two to three year period, I see. Correct. Will either one of these places pay for your education if you want to go back? It's through the same company, but it's not significant.

Okay. What's your degree in? It's nursing. Okay. And so you're an RN or LPN or what? I'll be graduating with an RN, yes. Okay. And what are they paying you? So one would be about $60,000 and the other would be about $70,000. And you classified the night one as the more difficult one. Why is that, Nate?

It's kind of working on a unit that's pretty much overrun with COVID patients, so just wearing all that gear all the time. Uh-huh. Okay. All right. good patients so just wearing all that gear all the time uh-huh okay all right do you do you have overtime available with either yeah we can usually get we can usually work four to five shifts a week if we need to yeah or if you wanted to right well yeah and so if you were to do that four to five extra shifts over that would be a lot more than $10,000 a year. Correct. I was just kind of going with a base, assuming 40-hour work weeks.

Yeah, but if I'm working overnight and I'm wearing gear and I'm exhausted so I can't take the other shifts, that offsets. Correct. Yeah, I think you work more of a normal life other than the fact, or you take the normal job and you just work more and you're going to make a lot more than an extra ten doing that, that you could not have made if you were exhausted from overnight and wearing the gear. That's right. It's up to you. No, I think you're on the phone from there for sure. Yeah, because you've got to factor in, nate the quality of life also right i mean just how you're going to be as you're pursuing this to be able to want to go to grad school obviously

you have the heart to serve people i would go with that day job and take as much overtime as possible yeah i think i think i would too and the other thing i'm going to do is um our ends are always in demand but right now there's a huge demand. I don't necessarily want you to take either one of these if you haven't done some more shopping about what's out there. I would love for you to find a place that would pay for your school and give you $60 or more and give you overtime potential. So I am slightly confined to my state because the state of North Carolina helps pay off

certain amounts of debt if we work there for X amount of time. How much is X? About $7,000 a year. For how long? This is just going to be for my first year. Okay. So that's just a nice amount of time. Yeah, but if you give up a job that was going to pay you $80,000.

That's right. And you got $7,000 more, that was not a good trade. Yeah. That's what's called golden handcuffs. Yeah, and that's like the whole student loan forgiveness plan and these debt forgiveness. I'll take the seven if I can get it, but don't take them. If you can move across the state line into Georgia or whatever, or Tennessee, whichever state line, I don't care, Virginia, and you can make 80 plus overtime, plus they pay your stuff,

then stink and give up the seven. Yeah, give me the moving truck. That's the thing. So let's get – I'm afraid you've constricted yourself on a false boundary here. Oh, I agree. Be careful with that one. Hey, man, thank you for the call i'm proud of you man you got a good career field you're always going to have work and you're always going

to have more work than you possibly yep want you know chris people do that sometimes um we place the wrong you know it's almost like it's almost like a distraction like look over there so you can run away you know that kind of thing right and so. Like, look over there. So you can run away. You know, that kind of thing. And so it's, look over there. There's 7,000. And you run away from 25,000 over here. And you do that sometimes with benefits package.

And you go, oh, I don't want to give up benefits. Well, what's it worth? $50 a month, $600 a year. And you walked away from a $15,000 increase in pay because you don't want to give up the benefits. You know, it's just, you know, because you never really do the actual math you just go have this emotional reaction and it's like a distraction like look over there it really is and so what we just did with nate was break down and talk dollar amounts and i want to encourage you all out there there are always more options than what appear in the here and now and whenever whenever you start to say, I only can do this or this, that's not true.

Those are the two things you've thought about. So do yourself a favor. Seek wise counsel. Go talk to some people that have done some stuff, some people that have lived some things, and you'll find you have a few other options available. Well, when we're teaching leaders, for instance, in entree leadership that are running businesses, we teach them decision-making skills. And one of the best decision-making skills you can always do is to have lots and lots of options.

Yep. There's a lot of power in options. You have a higher probability of making the right decision. But if you say, oh, I've got two options, A and B, and both of them suck. I just got to choose between suck and double suck. You know, and that's just a bad choice. I mean, you have to change something. Something's got to be there.

You have to change that mindset. No, you really do. In his case, that wasn't what he was facing. He didn't have two bad options. No. But you just, if you've got 15 different things laying on the table instead of three, your worst case scenario is you get confused. Mm-hmm. Your best case scenario is you're going to have better options.

Yeah. No, and you get confused your best case scenario is you're going to have better options yeah no and then you've got power and you can go back to well i like this other place better but they're five thousand dollars off and you go back and go guys if you'll meet this other offer i'll take your deal that's right you know and you throw in paying for my grad school or whatever it is i mean you can negotiate when you've got the you know it gives you power because you know you can go do the other thing. That's right. And you're not demanding. You're asking.

You're having a conversation. Now, for a lot of you out there, you might say, I'm a leader in my company or I'm in management. What's this entre leadership stuff? Well, this is essentially how we, Dave, built our company from a card table in his living room to where we are now with a thousand team members. And so if you're out there and you're in leadership or you want to be a leader or you want to be a better leader, go to EntreeLeadership.com right now.

And I'm going to tell you, having been to grad school, they didn't teach you this stuff in grad school, okay? They don't know it. It is not taught. And so this is something you have to pursue on your own. And you've got a great opportunity with Entree Leadership and Entree Elite. So go to EntreeLeadership.com and learn more about growing yourself as a leader. I mean, if you've made payroll, that's different than you've been a professor.

It's just a different thing. Yeah, they talk about it. Well, I mean, it's a different thing. I'm not putting professor. Oh, no. There's a difference between learning from a practitioner and an academic. And the academic is far superior in some ways

and far deficit in others. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Aaron and Danae are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Good, how are you? Welcome, welcome. Where do you guys live? Reno, Nevada.

All right. All the way to Nashville to do a debt-free screen. How much have you paid off? $124,987.40. I love it. How long did this take? 18 months. Wow.

And your range of income? $78,000 to $154,000. Cool. What do you guys do for a living? I work at a hospital, a marketing department. And I'm in the automotive industry. Cool. Very cool.

What kind of debt was the $125,000? We had payday loans, credit cards, 401K loans, and car debt. Oh, and school loans. And school loans. Wow, you were normal. Yeah. Every kind of debt out there. Yeah.

Wow. How long have you been married? Six years. Yeah. Going on seven. All right. So what happened? What made you decide to wake up and get serious about deleting this debt?

Well, I had some pay loans, and the bills were coming due, and they were higher than what we had coming in. And so I had to go to this guy and say, hey, I need more money to pay these bills. And so he was like, no, that's it. We're done. We're doing this guy, Dave Ramsey. And I was like, what? And he's like, yeah, we're going to do that. And I was like, okay, fine.

I guess we're doing it. And so we're putting in a budget and got me going. Aaron, where did you hear about this Ramsey stuff? Actually, I seen it on YouTube, and then a friend of mine was speaking about it as well. So I just did a little bit more research online and YouTube and then found the show. Okay, found the podcast. Yes. Okay.

So what did you guys plug into when you actually started this process? I mean, did you get into Ramsey Plus or read the book or just listen to the podcast? What were you doing? We started with the podcast. Well, I started with the podcast. Well, I guess we. And then we did Financial Peace. Oh, good.

Okay. And then we read the Total Money Makeover. Oh, good. And then we read the Total Money Makeover. Oh, wow. And then we just got everyday dollar and started plugging in our debt and pulling all the spreadsheets in from the bank. And then I created a spreadsheet, and we tracked that every month. Well, every two weeks, every biweekly when you get paid, you track it. And so, yeah, we just track, track, track. And every two weeks, we have a budget meeting and go over what's coming in, what's going out, and make sure we account for everything. Now, how did you double your income in that 18 months?

I picked up another nighttime job. So nighttime jobs usually pay more. So I did four-tenths for my regular job, and I did three-tenths at my second job. Wow. And then he did overtime at his job. We worked at Burlington Coat Factory. We worked at housekeeping. You made sacrifices.

Everything we could do, we did. Yeah. Aaron, you created a monster. You didn't know, buddy. factory we worked at uh housekeeping and you made sacrifices everything we could do we did yeah aaron you created a monster you didn't know buddy you had no idea or did you know that hey you knew we could do this yeah actually i had a feeling we should be able to do it the way i looked at it we first started off at the uh the rich carlton, and then we ventured off to, I did like food delivery, like Uber Eats and Grubhub, and over time at work as well. So it's been rough. Yeah. It's a long 18 months.

That's a lot of hard work and a lot of hours, but it's different when you're actually getting somewhere. Oh, yes. You know, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's not a train. Yeah. If you were working like that and you thought you had to do the rest of your life, that would be just too much. Yes, it would. Denae, I know a lot of people out there get themselves tangled up into these payday loans.

Yeah. Right? What did you learn dealing with them that you didn't know before? They're a total ripoff. You're sweet. That's a freaking scam! Well, it's a scam, but I mean, when you're in a pinch, sometimes it's like, I mean, I didn't have anyone to turn to, so it was like, I didn't turn to him, I just was like, oh,

I can fix this. It was my easy fix. It just kept becoming an easier, easier fix, and they just kept taking more and more and i was like okay this has to change financial heroin yeah yeah it's the worst sucked in man it's the absolute worst unbelievable yeah you were just like it's they're not very nice you know they're scum but you hit the nail on the head it is reaching out yeah right talking about it because i've heard I've read some nightmare stories and talked to some people that have really got themselves being charged $200, $300, 200, 300% in interest and they don't know where to go. And so it's a matter of helping them cut those lines, right, that mindset. You guys did that.

Have you started Baby Step 3 yet? Yes, we're almost done. All right. We have $1,500 left to go. Yay. That's fantastic. How does it feel? It feels awesome.

You ought to feel very accomplished because you are. You're very accomplished. That's very impressive what you've done. Yeah. You've worked like maniacs. We did. And you completely reversed a seven-year trend in 18 months. You reset the grooves in your brain completely.

Very impressive. Your financial future is totally different now. Will you ever go back in debt? No. Oh, no way. He didn't even get the question out. That's what happens. You're like, I'm never going back.

We'll not finance anything in life ever. We'll pay cash for it or we will not buy it. Yep. Yeah. That's good. I'm proud of y'all. Yeah. Very, very well done.

Who are your biggest cheerleaders? Probably each other. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my family and friends were. My mom, she still thinks we're crazy, but now that she sees what we accomplished, she's like, oh, maybe I could do this. I was like, you should.

How do you like me now? Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it interesting? The people that thought you were crazy, they will come to you and they'll start asking you some questions. Like, we know you're crazy, but how did y'all do this? Tell me more about being crazy. It really is.

And so what I call that is living the difference, right? And that's what you all have done. That's great. So well done. You're free. You're going to be millionaires without a done. That's great. So well done. You're free. You're going to be millionaires without a doubt. That's so cool. We've got a copy of Chris's book for you,

Everyday Millionaires, because that's definitely the next chapter of your story. Yeah, game on, man. I like it. I like it. I love it. Very well done. Aaron and Danae from Reno, Nevada.

$125,000 paid off in 18 months. Did you hear what they did? They went from 78 to 154, went from 40 hours to 80 hours in one fell swoop working overnight. That's just her. And then he did it, too. This is a great place to go when you're broke, to work. They did it. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah. I love it. Absolutely fabulous, you guys. Yes. Great clawed and fought to get their financial future back.

Yeah. Didn't sit around talking about it. Didn't sit around wishing. They went to work. Yeah. Didn't sit around talking about it. Didn't sit around wishing they went to work. No. That's fantastic. That's just, there was no, there's something happens when you take responsibility for your future and you don't blame your problem on somebody else.

That's right. I mean, it might be somebody else's fault, but you still take responsibility. Own it. And go, I can't control them all i can do is control me yeah you know i mean she's so sweet she's she's almost taken up for the payday lender you know they're not nice but they're just not they're just they're not they're scum but i mean my gosh it's unbelievable man and uh you know but what happens the level of abundance you can go into when you don't wait on someone else to fix your life, those two, the emotional maturity that they show.

That's right. To be able to look into the future and go, I'm going for that. Yep. And locked arms together and did it. Holding hands all the time they're talking. Payday loans, credit cards, 401k loan. Denae, y'all know better than that. Car loans.

Student loans. Student loans. Everything. Had everything. Had it all. And got it all out of their lives. It's all gone. Gone.

Mailbox now only gets a couple pieces of mail in. And the government didn't get them out? Nope. Chris Hogan didn't send them any money. Dave Ramsey didn't send them any money. Yeah, you sure didn't, Dave. None of us sent them any money. You know what?

They went and got money. They did. They called it work. They gave up sleep. You know how much sleep you have to give up to work the kind of hours they're working? You're tired. You work 410s and then you work 410s overnight, too. You're tired.

That's stinking impressive right there. Yeah, it is. As my granddaddy called it, bone tired. Yeah. But they did give up. That's getting it. But they did not give up. I'm going to tell you, that's motivation.

If you're out there right now and you've got some debt, I want you to look at what they paid off. And if they can do it, hear me. You can too. You just have to decide. Get up and go. Get it. That was it, man. Giddy up. I like it. I'm proud of them peeps.

That's very cool. Rock stars right there. This is the Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. This is The Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Phillips in Sioux City, Iowa. Hi, Phillip. How are you? Hey, doing well, Dave.

Hi, Chris. Thank you for your guys' ministry, and thank you for taking my call. Certainly. How can we help? The question I have for you is my parents, they have an inherited brokerage account, but it's only got one stock in there. It's not a huge value. It's only about $13,000. But just help them with their taxes, help them with a few different things. And I just kind of know that this is, in a way, an emergency fund for them, should they ever need it.

And I've just mentioned to them that, of course, one stock is just such a risky thing. And I think they are interested and kind of they've said, hey, like, we can, you know, would like to do what you think. But obviously, that's, you know, I'm not in their shoes. I'm not in their position. I just know it's a very risky situation that they're in. And I've followed you for quite a while, so I just wanted to get your take on it. Well, I'd definitely roll it into a mutual fund and get the risk down. That's what you're suggesting, right?

Yeah. Why would they not do that? Well, you know, I think it's hard to say. It's just, you know, sometimes you mention, hey, it went down, hey, it went up, and oh, well, it could go up again, you know. And it's like, well, yeah, but that's one stock. Yeah. I think you need to connect them with a SmartVestor Pro,

and if you can talk them into setting an appointment while you're doing it, just set an appointment, and you can even go with them, and it's just a matter of filling out some paperwork and rolling that inside that inherited IRA so it doesn't create taxes. Just move it over into a mutual fund. I mean, you know, even if they lost the whole thing, it probably doesn't change their life. It would just be bad. Yeah.

I mean, and if a single stock, you can lose, hypothetically, lose it all. I mean, I don't know what it's in, but how stable a company it is. But it's more likely that they would lose $3,000 or $4,000 than it is they would lose the whole thing. And, Phillip, you hit on something that I think could be a factor here. You said it's an inherited brokerage account. And so there could be some emotional ties from where this money came from, this stock. Yeah. You know?

Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah, I would agree with that. And so uncovering that, talking about that, but understanding that, you know, by shifting out of that stock that your grandfather had or great grandfather had, what you're doing is is being smart in protecting the money. So it's not necessarily the legacy that's being given up. It's more of a protection mindset. And I think you speaking to them, like Dave said, getting them connected to an investment professional just to have the conversation uh but dave this is one of those situations you said this phrase first about 15 years ago and i did a double take powdered butt syndrome yeah but it does sound like they're listening to him yeah they are and the powder butt syndrome is where once somebody's powdered your butt they don't really care about your opinions about sex and money and so your parents don't want to. It's not normal in the scope of life for most people to listen to their kids in regards to these things. But it sounds like he's got their ear.

Yeah. And he's gotten past that. And I think if you just kind of acknowledge the emotion, like you suggested, that this is what Grandpa did. But also, he was a wise man, or a great-grandpa, or whatever, or grandma, whatever it was. And they were wise. And it's just time to lower this risk. And it's silly to have the risk. You're playing with a roulette wheel.

That's right. And coming out of the pandemic and all the things we couldn't control being smart and mitigating risk is a is a wise thing to do and so philip i'd go that route talking to them about mitigating risk we want to lower the risk and protect this money riley's in los angeles hey riley welcome to the ramsey show dave chris thank you so much for taking my call it's an honor honor to talk to you how can we help? So my girlfriend and I, we found a house that we really like. We went through the pre-approval process this morning,

but I'm just, I'm having a really hard time. It's a huge amount of money, and I'm trying to determine whether we can afford it or not. Well, when's the wedding date? That's coming really soon. Not a date set yet, when's the wedding date? That's coming really soon. Not a date set yet, but in the near future.

The closing would need to occur after that. Okay. You're setting yourself up for a very, very dangerous scenario otherwise, from a legal perspective and from a relational perspective both. It feels harmless, but you're just getting things out of order. Because in 30 years of doing coaching, Chris and I have seen heartbreaking situations and horrifying situations where basically from a legal perspective, what you're doing is you're entering into a general partnership with no partnership documents. And so

an example would be, God forbid something happened and she died in a car wreck. Now you own a house with her mother. Because you're not the heir. You're not the heir. Or she becomes permanently disabled. And you now own the house with someone you're not married to. And you might go ahead and get married in that case. You might not.

I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of variables in those situations. But you might, or something happens to the relationship now you've got this bad breakup but you do not have a legal forum which a divorce gives you to deal with the property involved yeah because you don't have any partnership documents yeah so please don't buy a house yeah riley don't do that and i'll tell you this dave another thing i just did a media hit today talking about the home buying market. And he made mention he's not comfortable with that dollar amount. Well, first and foremost, don't do that.

Yeah. And so I was walking through, you know, people are letting the low interest rate and the low inventory of homes cause them to rush in to buy. A lady read a story. Overpaying. Overpaying. She didn't deleted having to have the home inspection done bought a home that was riddled with black mold oh and so there's there's just steps you need to take so i want a teachable moment for everybody out there when you're ready to buy a home you are completely

out of debt you've got an emergency fund you you've got a down payment minimum of 10 i'd love you to have 20 yeah you're either buying it as a single person or you're married, but not with your girlfriend. That's right. 20% down payment allows you to avoid PMI, private mortgage insurance, which adds hundreds of dollars to your payment. It doesn't protect you. It protects the lender. And you also need to have money available to take care of the closing costs, which can be 3% to 5% of the loan balance. So you've got to have a clear plan, not to mention boundaries on what type of home you're

looking for and how much you're going to spend. And when you get in a hurry and you get house fever, you're getting ready to overpay and buy a house with black mold because you didn't get the dad gum inspection. And that's what happens. A few hundred dollars. All right. Circling back to Riley for just a second. So, Riley, what you've done is a, up until now, is a good, healthy, normal process. You're dating someone that you're about to get engaged to, it sounds like, according to your own words.

And you guys are out riding around on the weekend looking at houses, and you're dreaming about your future. And I grew up in the real estate business. I still ride around looking at houses, even if I don't need one. I just, I love real estate. I still ride around looking at houses, even if I don't need one. I just love real estate. I like going around looking at property. I like seeing what's developing somewhere, where they're putting up this or that. And Sharon and I have done that for 40 years of marriage. We just go out.

If there's an open house, we'll just walk through it and look at them. Oh, look at what they're doing with those kitchens these days, that kind of stuff. It's a good thing to dream about your future and to kind of look at that and visualize yourself owning a house together living together in a marriage situation moving forward all of those things are healthy and normal it just escalated to where one thing the the wrong thing got in front uh the old saying the cart before the horse and don't buy a house until you're married with someone. And so any more than you buy a house with your college roommate. Yeah.

Oh. No. Oh. If that didn't give you a shiver down your spine. No. So, yeah, that's my suggestion to you, sir. And I do want you to have a house, and I want you to have a wonderful future with this young lady. And I just don't want all the... Part of the thing that we learn about people building wealth is they play offense, but you also

play defense. Yes. And doing things in the right order is a defensive move. And so buying a home with someone you're married to versus someone you live with is a defensive move. Because it's defending you against the possibility of a stupid situation coming up and leaving you looking and feeling stupid. Yep, that's true. Because, Dave, sometimes people can become crazy. I never known that to happen.

Never known that to happen. Yeah. You're lying. Crazy. Crazy! Not Riley's girlfriend. Nope. That puts us out of The Ramsey Show and the books. Hey guys, this is Kelly, associate producer for The Ramsey Show.

Did you know that over 16 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? And a lot of those people listen on one of our 600 plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.