The Ramsey Show - App - How Do I Transition to Civilian Life After Being in the Military? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, this is The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money, and especially today, your career moves. My name is Anthony O'Neill, host of the popular YouTube and podcast show, The Table with Anthony O'Neill, host of the popular YouTube and podcast show, The Table with Anthony O'Neill. And co-hosting with me is number one national bestselling author and also host of the number one career show, in my opinion, in the world, Ken Coleman. Thank you. The Ken Coleman Show is very creative.

We spent many, many hours and lots of dollars coming up with that creative name. I know. That was very creative. I was wondering, where did you get the Ken Coleman thing? Hey, listen. So we're going to do a little Ken Coleman show along with the table with Anthony O'Neal. Plus some Ramsey show all together. We're talking about your life, your money.

And we'll take your calls about, hey, I'm not where I want to be. I need a bigger shovel, Ken. Help me figure out how I can do something I'm good at, something I love, create results I want, and make the money. Hey, man. So when you make the money with Ken, come over and holler at me, and I'll show you how to use the money. That's it.

That's it. So this is a tag team, right? It works well. It works well. Kelly, James, you need to do this more often. Career, get the money. Me, I'll show you how to spend the money, how to use it wisely. Let's go ahead and make this happen.

As a matter of fact, I'll talk to Dave. I'll tell him he can take some time off, and we'll take care of it this week. Yeah, copy me on that, Dave. Kelly wants to be copied on that as well, because things really go well when people tell Dave things. Oh, yeah, I'm going to tell him. You know what, Dave? I'm going to tell Dave. That's what I'm going to do. Go golf in two more days.

On me, as a matter of fact. Oh. He probably will. He probably will. If you're paying, then man knows how to save a buck. He knows how to save a buck. Oh, man. Hey, this is the Ramsey Show.

Give us a call. Kelly is standing by. The phone line is right now. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. I see one line is open. But right now we're going to go out to Minneapolis and talk to Andrew. Andrew, good afternoon. How can Ken and I help? Ken and Andy, thank you so much for taking my call today. My wife and I are currently in FPU, and it's been such a blessing for us. We walked into this with $143,000 of non-mortgage debt, and in the past

five weeks of doing this class, we've been able to pay off roughly $15,000. Wow. Way to go, Andrew. That's awesome. Come on, somebody. Come on. Yes, sir. I feel the Lord. Yeah, right? Right? And it's all because we've done a lot of the steps, right? We've been able to renegotiate things from internet, too. We've cut out cable and stopped acting normal, right?

There we go. Got the budget going and then, you know, looked at universal life policies and like, this is crazy. What are we thinking, right? So getting into terms. So we're able to flow about an extra, you know, doing all those steps about extra 800 bucks a month, just to our bottom line. You know, we have a little money to play with, but you know, we're, like I said, we're, you know, step five, I mean, I'm sorry, baby step two and wanting to pay off that 143,000 and deep in my soul, I just want to continue to

be gazelle. And I have a great job and our know our net income is roughly about 107 000 a year and i want to pick up a side gig and i i have a passion for real estate and i always enjoy it i love learning about it and watching my friends buy homes and uh stuff like that and i have this desire possibly to get my real estate license but i know it's going to be roughly a thousand dollars up front right but i'm sitting on I'm sitting on roughly now, let's call it $118,000, or I'm sorry, $123,000 in debt. Is it wise for me in this current state and being in Baby Step 2 to invest that $1,000 to get my real estate license to help continue to be Gazelle and do that on the side while I do my normal gig? I'll be quiet and listen to you guys.

How much research have you done into what it takes to win as a real estate agent with the amount of time that you're going to have? Because you've got a full-time job. So have you done any research talking with some successful people on what it takes to get started? How many hours they recommend? I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that. Yeah.

And, you know, to be completely transparent, there hasn't been a lot of deep dive recently. It was something that was on my mind three, four, five years ago. So I sat down with a couple of real estate agents and brokers in the area. And almost every single person was like, you can't do this part-time. You can't do this part-time. That is true. But then I do see some people that say, hey, you can do this part-time. You can't do this part-time. That is true. But then I do see some people that say, hey, you can do this part-time. And I would say right now, I'm not in the place where I would want to leave my job. I feel like I have the dream job.

I love what I do, and it pays well. Good. All right, so here's my take. I think that's where I'm stuck. No, it's good. It's absolutely great. I wanted to know what you thought, because I've talked to some great real estate professionals,

people that train other real estate professionals, and you cannot do real estate part-time as a full-time income. But if you're doing it part-time as a part-time job, I absolutely think you should do it because I think you can do it well for part-time. So let me repeat what I said. Those people have told you that. They're absolutely right. You can't do real estate part-time if you want it to pay full-time. But if you want to just sell a house here and there, and let's say you make a nice $12,000

commission or $18,000 or $30,000 or whatever it is, depending on how big the house is in your market, you can use it to pay off debt. And in that case, if you're doing nights and weekends and you're busting it, you're gazelle intense, you're trying to show homes at nights and weekends, as a part-time side hustle to help pay off debt, absolutely, I think you should spend $1,000 to get qualified. I really do. I agree. I agree. I would say do a little bit more research. And again, I'm not an expert in this area.

Ken is an expert in the career field. But I do think there's a little bit more upfront investment in the real estate agents. Like you got to pay for signage. You got to pay for marketing of the house and stuff like that. I mean, I could be wrong, but I think there are a little bit more. So what I would suggest is if you go this route, I want you to be very careful on how much money you're pulling away from paying off debt to possibly sell some houses. So I like the idea, but I do think that there are like you got to pay for signage. You got to pay for. Do you have a broker relationship already that you're working?

Somebody would take you under their wing for those kind of expenses that Ayo's talking about? You know, I do not. Like I said, I have some really good friends that have been doing this for many years. Actually, I've got a couple friends that have been doing it for 20, 30 years. All right, that's where you start. That's where you start today. As a matter of fact, before this week is over, you need to have had several conversations, whether in person or on the phone, to actually go through what Anthony's talking about.

I took you at face value on the $1,000 for just the getting trained and the testing. But I would love for you to get underneath somebody who's a really successful broker in the area that would cover a lot of that stuff so you wouldn't have to worry a lot about that. And they take you under their wing. Ideally, some of those people have been in there a long time. If you sit down and go, hey, guys, I've always wanted to do this. Can you guide me? Yeah. Would you bring me along?

That's good. And explain why you're doing it. Say, hey, I'm trying to knock out $143,000 in debt. I think that's a wonderful, wonderful strategy. Yep. I totally agree. I totally agree. Andrew, hey, I'm rooting for you, man.

You are winning. Yeah. I mean, $15,000 paid off in the last two weeks, and you can tell he's really excited. He's really, really, really, really excited about paying off his debt. And I love how you're starting to think, okay, what can I do to generate some more income? Just be wise. Find you a broker. See if they'll take on the fees for you.

And if they do, go hard, man. Go hard. You'll be out of debt this year. Six percent on a $300,000 house? Absolutely. You're going to pay taxes on that, but that's still a big chunk towards debt. That's beautiful. That's beautiful.

I like that. This is The Ramsey Show. If current times have shown us anything, it's that the least expected events can and will happen, and we have to deal with it. That's why everyone who has a family counting on them needs term life insurance. For over 20 years, the only company I've recommended is Zander Insurance. Not only because they search all of the top term life plans to find you the best rates, but over the years, they have constantly changed and updated their systems to make the whole process simpler and easier to get the protection needed. You can now apply with a completely touchless experience with everything being done either

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Hello? Hey, Edward. Anthony? Ken? Yes, sir. How can we help, man? Hi. Huge privilege speaking with you.

Thank you for taking the call. Yeah. Just calling because I've got several dilemmas. Recently got out of the military about a little less than a year ago. Been in fellowships, walking with the Lord, and been following along with the Randy show for quite a while. The family is rather difficult to get along with. Doing a lot of executive work is taught in the Dave

industry as specifically what not to do. Already enrolled in Financial Peace University and some of the limits here is being at square one now or already seeing a therapist to have a meaningful conversation and to use the right words here.

But long story short, just wrestling with a quality place to begin. Can you be more specific? I was tracking with you a little bit. Where to begin what? Where to begin, at least with employment, getting back up on the feet. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Delved a lot of toxic leadership, and not to unpack anything here, but long story short, been struggling trying to actually put any teachings into practicality here.

Okay, so first of all, thank you for serving us in our country. You're a great American. What have you sought to do when you get out of the military? What field do you want to be in? What kind of work do you want to be doing? Well,

I've been praying regularly for that. Fortunately, dealing with now having freedom and latitude here, there's a variety of options available, whether it be as a temporary solution here, lows or construction. But unfortunately, messing with some difficulty figuring out what that next move is meant to be I apologize

I feel like we're not quite sure when you say you don't have freedom or latitude what do you mean? I mean getting out the Marine Corps wasn't a choice that I actually had to make the contract was over but now I do have a lot more freedom here. Okay, so you're out of the military.

And from my understanding of you correctly, you can decide wherever you want to go in Birmingham, Alabama, and go apply for a job. Nothing's holding you back from going after work, correct? Essentially. Well, yeah, essentially. So, yes. All right. And so what would you try tomorrow? Why are you just limiting yourself to a home improvement store?

What do you want to do? What would you do, Edward, if you knew you couldn't fail? If you didn't have to spend any money to get qualified, I just put you in it right now, what would you do? What would you try? Maybe in the Justice Department. Great. And be more specific specific what would you do in the justice department what's it look like well uh go ahead and say it's only there's only one word could really come to mind right now okay and you've

always been somebody who really is kind of intrigued and you kind of get down to the details you ask lots of questions that's something that's kind of intrigued, and you kind of get down to the details. You ask lots of questions. That's something that's kind of a pattern in your life is that talent of investigation. Well, there is a very regular pattern of asking questions and trying to understand something. Unfortunately, people's skills can be a little bit rusty. That's okay. Here's the deal. So you want to figure out how to.

So right now, are you employed at all? No. Okay. You need to get employed. One of the worst things that can happen to anybody is to be out of work for a while. It causes tremendous trauma. You begin to start to doubt your self-worth, and then that's a really, really slippery slope. How long have you been out of the Marines?

Almost a year. Okay, and you've not been working? Looking for it. No, I didn't say that. I said, have you been working at all since you've been out of the military? No. You need to. So let's get out tomorrow.

Were you honorably? I mean, there was no dishonorable discharge, none of that, correct? No, just general discharge. Okay, so Edward, listen, you've got to get your mojo, man. And so until you can figure out what type of work you'd like to do in the Justice Department, whether that be on the local level, the state level, or the federal level, you need to start looking into that today. What does it take to get qualified?

What are the types of jobs? Do I want to be a law enforcement officer? Do I want to work for the FBI and be more on the criminal and forensic side? You've got to start really looking into that stuff. And when you do so, your heart is going to really make it very clear to you that, oh, that seems exciting to me. And then we look into that and we say, well, what does it take to get there? Meaning, how do I get qualified?

Then we ask, well, how much is that going to cost? How long is that going to take based on my financial realities? My friend, you need to be working right now, so if you want to go work at a home improvement store, I'm all for that. I'm all for a second job. You're a young man. You've got to get, Anthony, he's got to get feeling good about himself again to say I'm working. I'm bringing in

money. I now have a plan to look and investigate some ideas for my future. Once I look at those, then I come up with the other plan. Again, I gave you the four questions. Here are the four qualifying questions, A.O., that'll help people not be so freaked out by the unknown. Number one, once we have

an idea of what we'd like to do, we look into it and say, what does it take to get qualified? Four questions. The education question is first. What do I need to learn? It doesn't have to be a traditional college degree. It could be a training course, certification, whatever. Second question is the experience question.

What do I need to do? Third question is the economic question. How much is that going to cost me? And then finally, based on my financial reality, the budget, how long will this take me to cash flow my way through it? Debt-free degree is an example of that in Anthony's book. So once we get the answers to those four questions, A.O., we've got ourselves the ingredients of a recipe, if you want to use that analogy. So, oh, we know how to cook this. I know how to do this.

And this young man needs to get hired. He needs to start working, stocking some money away so that he can pay and cash flow his way through this process. Man, Ken, you hit that one on the head, man. I read a study recently. You're a former pastor.

I read a study recently that said that when someone is out of work is up to six months, A.O. Listen to this. That the trauma is the same. The emotional trauma is the same as losing a loved one. Oh, man. And you understand this as well as anybody.

Speak to that. That speaks to somebody's, like, hey, I'm not doing anything. I don't feel like I'm making a difference. I don't feel like I matter. We know that's not true. Not true. But that's how they feel. But, I mean, I think when you, and again, i don't know the study so i could be off i'm just going by a general thought i think

that study is probably even higher with men yes you're right because men we identify ourselves by what we do by providing for our families or providing for ourselves so we're not able to provide we feel as if we've lost a huge part of who we are as a man. And let's be real, we have. And so I agree that this young man needs to get out there just so he can have peace with, okay, I am a working man. Then from there, he needs to be connected with you, your brand, to really start identifying, okay, what's my sweet spot? Where do I go from there? Yeah, let's make sure, Kelly, that Edward goes to my website, kencolman.com.

Get the Career Clarity Guide, a very simple free worksheet under my resources page that will walk him through the exercise to begin to get more ideas and really verify this idea of law enforcement or the justice system and to begin to see what ideas and really verify this idea of law enforcement or the justice system and to begin to see what's out there. One of the things you and I preach to young people is if you've got a general direction of which way you might want to go, go look at multiple. If you say, well, I'm interested maybe in medicine and healthcare, well, go shadow, go meet a nurse practitioner or a physician's assistant or a surgeon or

whatever and begin to explore what it's like to do this work day in and day out. Absolutely, man. Ken, you're hitting it on good, man. That's why I like doing the show with you. Because you know how to answer the question and teach, man. Well, I'm just trying to hang with you. I'm trying to hang with you, man.

You're the professional preacher. I'm just a preacher's kid. So I just got a little bit by osmosis. You know what I mean? Just being in the house. You know? Y'all, man, we have one phone line just open up. 888-825-5225.

888-825-5225. Kelly standing by. We would love to take your phone calls right here on The Ramsey Show. My name is Anthony O'Neill, hosting with me today, co-hosting together, Kenny Coleman, the radio host of the Kenny Coleman Show. And my name, Anthony O'Neill, host of the popular YouTube show, The Table with Anthony O'Neill. Before we go any further, you know, I really want you all to make sure that you all are listening every single day to the Kenny Coleman Show. It's available every every weekday on Sirius XM, your local radio stations and wherever you listen to podcasts. I would definitely say get up in the mornings if you're looking at how do I land my dream job?

How do I even improve build relationships with the inside of my dream job? How do I go from where I'm at now to a higher level with the inside of my dream job? I really want you to connect with my dear friend and my colleague, Ken Coleman, who's a host of the Ken Coleman show where he focused on works that matters. Follow him on Facebook at Ken Coleman show. Also, Instagram and Twitter, the Ken Coleman, not the Ken Coleman show on Instagram and Twitter, but the Ken Coleman. And they get the book, The Proximity Principle, the proven strategy that will lead to the career you love.

And I'll tell you right now, America, he's working on something special. He got two big things he's working on. I won't say it because I don't want to get in no trouble. That's not my brand. Oh, but America, when I tell you, you want to be following his show. You want to be following him on Instagram because he is working on things that's going to impact all of us, including myself. And so I want to encourage you all to please listen to him, listen to the show, call into

the show, ask him some questions, read his book, follow him on Instagram. Thank you, my man. Amen. I appreciate that. But listen, I mean, the table is now in podcast form. It is. People know you on YouTube. The table's been rocking on YouTube.

In fact, last year, an explosive year would be a mild way of putting it, but now you're bringing the table audio to podcasts. Wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, go check it out, because you're taking on some big conversations. And this is really good stuff. I highly recommend it, because Anthony's got his finger on the pulse. So every episode, excuse me, every Monday,

he's got a new episode, The Table, now in podcast form, not just on YouTube. So doing some good stuff over there. Thank you, Ken. That's what we do. Tag team. Yeah, man.

Lift each other. Hey, I was on Fox News last week. You were. And they asked me a question and student loan debt came up. So here I am. And I just did a little whoop. Just moved over a little bit and said, hey, let me tell you

about my colleague. Let me get that out of the way. Let me tell you about my colleague, Anthony O'Neill. I did. I did. I threw my own pass and dunked it for my man. The number one best-selling book. Debt-free degree. And I think it's still as relevant as the day he wrote it. Because we've got a lot of kids that are going to come out of school, A.O.,

in May, and they're going to be saddled with crazy debt. They are. It's right over there. Look at that. It's right over there to our left. As I say it, it's in my peripheral on the bookcase. Looking good. All right, Ken. I'll give you a good tip when we get off.

I love it. Let's help some people. Let's help some people. Hey we? Let's help some people. Hey, 888-825-5225. We have one phone line open. Y'all are calling in like crazy today. Kelly's standing by. She can squeeze one person in for this segment. But, hey, give us a call, 888-825-5225.

Let's go out to Toledo, Ohio. We'll have a conversation with Charles. Charles, good afternoon. How can Ken and I help? Hey, thanks for taking my phone call. So I got married in 2017. We do have joint accounts. All of our accounts are joint accounts.

We're both on both. We got married. Well, the question is, I'm wondering if I should let her finish paying off her car or if I should just do it myself because I'm getting tired of having to explain that after saying we have joint accounts. Yeah. When we got married, the agreement was she was going to stay home and do some couponing. About time we got married, I started couponing and to stay home and do some couponing. About time we got married, I started couponing and I really fell in love with couponing. I loved it. I felt like I was stealing from the stores. You know, they were paying me to carry their stuff out of the stores.

So I told her, you know, I said, I make pretty decent money, $28 an hour. I said, you know, I can work all the hours I want. I work pretty much 60 hours right now, sometimes a little more a week. I said, I'll make the money. You stay home and save us money. Take care of the kids, take care of the house, you know, go to the gym, et cetera. None of that really happened very well. And I finally assumed, okay, maybe she just can't coupon well. She has a hard time looking at two products and knowing which one's the better deal. So she ended up getting a part-time job, $13 an hour, which is about all she's ever done as retail

stuff. And so I'm trying to encourage her to, because I know when I paid off my car, when I had a loan before for my car, I paid it off and that felt great. So I told her, I said, okay, when you get your paycheck every other Friday, take out what you want for you, your spending

money, and then put the rest on the car. And she's been clinking away at it about $400 or $500, maybe $600 every two weeks. It's like trying to shoot a bear with a gun. Alright, alright, alright. Charles, okay,. All right, all right, all right.

Charles. Okay, I tried. I appreciate what you're saying. Something's not lining up. So if you two are on joint accounts, that means you guys are making your money decisions together. Then you shouldn't be calling us asking us if you should pay off your wife's car, and then you tell us a story that she's not paying enough out of her $13 an hour job. If you've got the money to pay it off, pay it off.

Why do you need my permission or AO's permission? And you certainly don't need her permission other than buy-in to say, this is our money. But you're saying you have joint accounts, but you're acting as though you have two separate accounts. And she's just kind of paying it off whenever she wants to. If you want the car to be paid off, sit down with her and cast vision and say, we're going to pay it off. I don't know what's missing here. The only thing

I left out, and I apologize for leaving this out, is I wanted her to feel good about paying it off so maybe she could do what I did, which is like, wow, I paid that off. I need to go make more money. No, it's not working, Charles.

I need to improve my life. You know what I mean? Charles, she's not wired the way you're wired. You're Mr. Coupon Guy, not her. Yeah. And here's the problem that I keep hearing, Charles. And I'm not married. So, you know, I told the producer, James, the other day, I'm going to be careful how I say things because I'm not married. All right. Set me up and then I'll hit it. I'm going to be careful how I say things because I'm not married.

Set me up and then I'll hit it. I'm going to set you up. They can't be divided. I keep hearing her car, her money, her this, and it's not a we. It's not a are we going to do this. It's not our account. It's her money, this, that. I feel separation within a marriage.

Is this the only debt you have? It is. It's the only other than a house mortgage. And I was just hoping it might be encouraging for her. No, stop. Charles, we've already gone down this path. I'm going to keep cutting you off if you keep trying to go down this.

You're treating her like she's your teenage daughter. I can't wait to get married. Dude, how much is the car? How much is owed on the car? $700. That's been killing me for the last $5,000. Oh, my gosh. I'm hanging up the phone.

This is the first time I'm going to hang up on somebody. I'm hanging up. I can't do it. I'm putting them all home. I can't do it no more. This is ridiculous. Charles. This is ridiculous.

Pay the car off today. Oh, my gosh. I've never, ever hung up on anybody. What's going on? This just happened. He said $700. I thought he was going to say like $8,000, $10,000. I'm trying to get my wife to pay off the car with her $13 an hour job.

$700. I want her to feel good. Pay the car off. Oh, I didn't say nothing. But listen, there's, I'm not even, see, I'm sorry, James. I'm not even asking my wife. I'm just cutting the check. I'm just going to cut the check, baby.

I paid off your car. You know what I'd do? I'd spend $750 tonight. $700 to pay the car off, $50 on flowers, and tell her what you did. Come on. What is happening here? She's clearly not interested in paying it off. We've got a communication problem on top of all this.

Oh my goodness. What a good guy. But now, Charles, listen. You're a good man. Your heart's in the right place, I think. Your brain is totally in a different place. You all need to get back on the same page and say, I'm making this decision for us. This isn't about having your wife feel good about herself.

Get rid of the $700. Get out of debt. This guy, he wants to. He knows how. And you know what? As a matter of fact, I would suggest that you two, you two together, go listen to one of our teammates here, John Deloney. Y'all need some counseling together. Y'all need to talk through this together because there's no way in the world I'm having this kind of conversation with my wife. I'm just being honest.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone about it. I'm not. Babe, I paid off the car. God bless you. I love you. Here's some roses. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague Anthony O'Neill and A.O.

I'm excited about this. Uh-oh. Because we need more great people. Yes, sir. To do great work. At Ramsey Solutions, we're all about transforming lives. We want to disrupt the toxic culture in the area of money, obviously work, relationships, mental, emotional health, and beyond. And to be able to do that level of disruption, we need great people who are sold out to the same mission.

And we now have 1,000 people at our company. It's hard to believe until we sit together and staff meeting like we did this morning. We see all those great, great faces. So we need more people. And if you want to join us on that crusade, we're currently on the hunt for software engineers with expertise in Ruby on Rails, Java, C Sharp, and front-end technologies. Or if you're a UX designer, SEO, and content marketing specialist, we'd also like to talk with you.

Find out about all the available jobs. We have many, many more than just those technology jobs. And you can find out more by texting the phrase, Work That Matters. That's one phrase, no spaces. Work That Matters. Text Work That Matters to 337 work that matters to 33789. That's 33789.

And maybe we'll see you in the building soon. I met a sharp lady today right after staff meeting. She had listened to the Ken Coleman Show, called my show about six months ago. She didn't tell me she was applying to this company. But she was asking me advice for how to get in a certain place. And towards the end, I kind of figured it out. And I said, you wouldn't be applying for Ramsey Solutions, would you? And she said, yes.

I said, well, if you get in, and it's hard to get in here. Yeah, it is. But I said, if you get in, come see me someday after staff meeting. Today, she came up and said hi. I love it. Started a month ago. I love it. So we need some great people.

Work that matters. Text that phrase to 33789. I love it. I love it. Since you're leading this, man, where are we going next? Oh, let's see. Go to Kyle in Birmingham. Kyle's in Birmingham.

Hey, Kyle. Good afternoon. How can, how about I say Chris Hogan, can I help you out? Yeah, I've got an inheritance question. Yeah. My siblings and I received an inheritance from my father's mother, and he passed away years ago. It's only $55,000 divided six ways, so we each get a little less than $9,000 apiece. And we're trying to figure out the best way to use that money to care for my mother in the future.

She has historically not been great with money. And I've been trying to help her, but I still, I don't love the idea of just giving her the money. So I'm trying to figure out how or what the best vehicle would be to keep the money, save it for her and help care for her when she's older. Cool. How old is your mom right now? She is 62. Okay. How much debt is she in right now? She is debt-free and has, last I talked to her, about $120,000 total in savings. Okay, okay.

Let me ask you this question. Why do you feel that you cannot trust your mom with the money? Yeah, so when my father passed away, I became heavily involved in helping her with the transition. And I got her debt-free. We dealt with all of the finances, and I had her set up so that if she lived off of the interest alone, she would have money for the rest of her life, and she burned through the stockpile. So she burned through all the reserves, and all that she was left with was the house,

and then she sold the house. Cool. And that's kind of what she has left. I got you. I got you. Ken, what are you thinking? I have a question about all the siblings. Is everybody in agreement that they are going to each give their $9,000,

the sum total being $55,000, to help your mom in retirement? No, it's a mix. A couple of us that have had a pretty decent year are willing to give all of it. Some of us who have been unemployed for the last year need to keep some of it. So everybody's wanting to give some and a couple of us more than others. Well, I think then we find out what the number is. And then I think you need to sit down with one of our smart investor pros. I mean, that's why we have these men and women fanned out all around the country. And I would sit down with a couple. Do you actually work with one of our smart investor pros now on your own retirement?

I do. I'd sit down. Well, then that's where I would go. I'd start there because you've got a trusted relationship. So I'd go to your SmartVestor Pro, and I'd say, all right, here's the deal. We've got, let's just say the number's 25 for round numbers. So that's what the total is, whatever. Here's what we've got.

Here's what my history is with mom. Here's what she's done. How can we put this money away where she doesn't touch it? But, I mean, my guess is, and I'm going to give you a general answer. I'm not Dave Ramsey. But my answer is that she's not touching her current retirement. You say it was about $120,000. She's not trying to do anything squirrely with that, right?

No, she's not. Then I would put it into that. So, to me, it's just piling on what she already has. That's where you're going to get the best return. But again, your smart investor pro is the person to talk to about the specifics of what she currently has and how to make the most of that money. But since she's proven, she's not being just crazy by trying to take out her retirement. So I'd just pile it on to what she has. That's the best use of that money, sounds like to me.

And I would definitely as well, Kyle, have a conversation with your mother. Just pull it to the side and say, hey, mom, we need to start making strategic moves to set you up for retirement, to set you up to win successfully financially in these next few years. And so we're going to make some wise decision

with this pot of money that we're going to give back to you. But then also let's sit down with a smart investor pro, like Ken said, and let's figure out, OK, how do we invest more? And then to mom, you have to make better financial decisions as well. OK, you can't just be out here doing this and doing that. We need you to make strategic moves that sets you up to win in the future. Because, mom, if we can set you up in a healthy place, this helps out your kids and we're not stressed.

We're not hurting our families, but we can still help you out. So I would definitely to have a conversation with your mom first, then reach out to a smart investor pro, then make some moves from there. But such a great question there, Kyle. Thank you so much for calling in. Praying for you, praying for your mom, and praying for the whole family that this will be an easy process. Real quickly, we're going to go out to Phoenix, Arizona,

have a conversation with John. Good afternoon, John. How can Ken and I help? Hi. I'm calling to ask about selling my three rental properties in order to pay off my home mortgage. Recently, we decided to have my wife leave her job to stay home with the kids and our income has decreased by half to $72,000. Okay. If I restructure this way, I can better meet savings goals and have

more breathing room in the budget, which is pretty tight right now. Okay. How much do you owe in your home? About $300,000. Part of the reason we're getting this squeeze is it puts me above the 25% threshold for a monthly home payment. How much would you clear if you sell the three rentals? $307,000 approximately. So right at the number. Yeah. I also have a good cash savings as well right now, but I probably need to sell at least two of the rental properties. How much do you have in savings? $178,000 in liquid savings is what I would call it. What's your household income?

$72,000. Okay, I thought you said you went down by 72. Okay. And this is the only debt you have as your actual home? My home and investment properties. Right, right, right, right, right. Cool. Well, yeah.

Well, to be honest with you, I don't know that I would sell with all three. What do you – how much do you – what's the one that you owe the least amount on on the rentals of the three? The one that I owe the least on? Yeah, how much is that worth? Well, they're all pretty different in equity. Two of the houses, one has $100,000 of equity, one has $140,000 of equity, and one has $67,000. So if we were going to keep one, it'd probably be the lowest equity because it'd be the least from getting to sell it. Right. Well, with $178,000 in the bank, I mean, the way we teach, we teach the baby steps, and I'm sure you're familiar with them. If you're not,

three to six months expenses is what we have you put in an emergency fund. So what's your six month? On 72, your take home is what? About five? Per month? Yeah. I think it's more like 42 per month. 42, okay.

Here's the deal. I would use some of that cash, only sell one or two of the homes, keep one, pay off the main house, and then attack those rental properties. Right on. Right on. I would do that. Or you could sell all three and just pocket the money. Or sell all three, yeah. And you've got to pay cash.

So not a bad idea right there, Ken. In great shape with that savings account. Absolutely. Absolutely. We're proud of you. This is The Ramsey Show. This is James Child, producer of The Ramsey Show. Did you know The Ramsey Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world?

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