The Ramsey Show - App - How to Get a Mortgage Without a Credit Score (Hour 2)

Episode Date: November 26, 2018

The show about you

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Starting off this hour is Lee in Indianapolis. Hi, Lee. How are you?

I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Good. So I was just calling because I started a new job a little over a month ago, and I'm about to sign up for my health benefits plan that my employer offers. So I was just calling because I started a new job a little over a month ago, and I'm about to sign up for my health benefits plan that my employer offers.

So I'm 25 years old, and I turned 26 in May 2019. So I've always been on my mom's health plan, and so all this is pretty new to me. So there are two plans that my employer offers, and I'm just trying to figure out which would be best for me or, you know, which one would you suggest? Cool. What are they? So the first one is a buyout plan. So this one has a lower deductible, but the cost per month is more. And then the other is a HSA health savings plan. So that deductible is a little more, and then the per month is less. Okay, what's the deductible on the first one and the premium on the first one? It's a $2,000 deductible, and then the per month cost is $545.61.

$545.61? Yep. Okay. And the HSA, what's the deductible on it? The deductible is $3,000. And then the per month cost is $356.46. And then also $500 goes towards the HSA. They match you if you put money in savings.

That's the $500 match. Okay, good, cool. Are you healthy? I am. So pretty much I only right now knock on wood go to the doctor for regular checkup. Okay, which are both going to be out of your deductible anyway, unless it's just something that's covered. Okay, I mean, if there's some kind of a certain kind of checkup that's covered in a plan,

then, you know, that's, but otherwise, if you have an event that is $1,000 in the emergency room, both of these will be out of your pocket. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so the only time it's going to come up is if there's something over $2,000 that you're responsible for. Now, on the first one, is that an 80-20 plan? They pay 80%.

You pay 20% plus your deductible? Yeah. Yeah, that's a co-pay. Okay, and on the second one on the HSA, after you go through the $3,000 deductible, is it 100% covered? Yes. Okay. All right. So the HSA is going to be better for a lot of reasons.

Okay? Okay. And let's talk about it if you have a ten thousand dollar event you're going to be out of pocket two thousand dollars plus twenty percent of eight thousand dollars okay on the first one okay you'd have to pay your deductible and then the other eight thousand is 80 20 you have 20 of that% of that, which is $1,600. So on a $10,000 event, you would be, you know, that's like something where you end up in the emergency room. It would typically be a 25-year-old, okay, something like that.

I don't know. You could have a, I don't know. You could have your appendicitis attack, okay. That would be $10,000 or more, okay? So if it's $10,000, you'd have your $2,000 plus your 20% would be $1,600 or $3,600 out of pocket on $10,000, right? Yeah. And you've paid $200 a month more for a year would be $2,400 more, right? Yeah.

Okay. Or in the $10,000 event with the HSA, you'd be out of pocket $3,000, not $3,600. You would not have paid in the $2,400. And anything from $3,000 and above, you don't pay anything on. It's 100% coverage. So for someone that's healthy and doesn't run back and forth with a lot of little nitsy little small things if you're either really sick or you're really healthy the hsa comes out better mathematically in other words if you're going to always blow through the

3 000 and always be up into 8 or 10 000 every year because you've got a chronic illness the hsa is better if you have lots of lots of little stuff is the only time the other one might be better. It's typically called a PPO in your case here. So mathematically, you're going to save a lot of money if you don't go to the doctor, like $2,400 a year. If you do not have medical events that happen, you will save $2,400 a year in premiums and have had a slightly higher deductible with 100% coverage above that. If you also add to the HSA itself, then you'd get the extra $500, but you don't even have to do that. I have both plans available here at my office through our company that I offer to my team,

and I'm part of the team, so I'm on the same plan. I personally use an HSA much like what you just described. But knock on wood, I don't spend much time at the dock. Basically, I come out every year with cheaper insurance is what it amounts to. Okay. That sounds good. I thought it would be the

better plan, but I was actually suggested to use the other one. That's by someone who wants to buy insurance for everything. Yeah. That is very risk averse. Do you have any money saved? I do.

How much? About $15,000. Okay. So you can cover the deductible in either case. You have no trouble, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you're going to come out much better off.

As long as you stay healthy or get really, really sick, one of the two So you're going to come out much better off as long as you stay healthy or get really, really sick. One of the two. You're going to come out better with the HSA plan, not counting the $500 match. When you put the $500 match in there, it comes out even better. So thanks for calling in. I appreciate you letting me talk through that with you. It's a good question. By the way, I've got almost 800 team members here, and the vast majority of them

are on HSAs. It's like 80 or it's like 94% or something of them are on HSA. We offer the other one just because, but I mean, through the health insurance company that we buy our group health for, but no one does it anymore. If you've got the savings built up to get your emergency fund, your HSA is going to come out better, even if you don't do the savings portion. And we do the same thing her company does. We match our team 500 bucks on the savings portion if they do it. But even if you don't do the savings portion, the health insurance is just cheaper, assuming that you're safe, relatively healthy. So, good question. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

You jump in, 888-825-5225. Jamie follows me on Facebook. In our Facebook group, it's called The Ramsey Baby Steps Community. You can check it out and join it if you want. I'm 20 years old, and I want to buy a house. My old instinct would be to open a credit card to build up credit. You have an old instinct at 20? That's pretty good.

But now I don't even want to go down that path. Will a bank loan me money for a house if I don't have a credit? 80 credit history? Yes. It's called manual underwriting. Some banks won't. A lot of banks won't because they don't know how to do it anymore. Churchill Mortgage will.

Get in touch with Churchill Mortgage, and they can help you do a manually underwritten mortgage if you have a zero credit score. Very cool. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. I get asked all the time about what people need to do to improve their family's money situation. Two of the most overlooked things are term life insurance and disability insurance. Both plans make sure that you have income to pay bills and take care of yourself and your family if something were to happen. For term life, you need to carry 10 to 12 times your income, and I recommend 15 or 20-year plans for most families.

Stay away from cash value or return of premium plans. They're just a ripoff. Disability insurance is just as critical. How are you going to pay your bills if you're unable to work? Disability is the leading cause of bankruptcies and foreclosures. That's why I send you to Zander Insurance. They've been helping my listeners find the right plans at the lowest cost for almost 20 years. Call 800-356-1780 or visit zander.com and compare online. That's 800-356-1780 or zander.com. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Casey and Delilah drop by.

Hey, guys, how are you? Great, how are you? Cool, from Lexington, Kentucky. How can I help today? We were just wondering. We had invested in some rental property using debt, and we are looking to to we just got married this past weekend oh congratulations thank you and we're trying to we're really motivated to start

beating on this debt and get completely debt free cool my question was we have quite a few rental properties what would be a good liquid amount to keep on hand as far as repairs and whatnot before we start throwing everything else towards debt? Okay. Well, real estate people traditionally don't keep enough liquidity. How many rental properties do you have? There's 26. Oh, wow.

Very cool. And the value range is what? Cheapest to most expensive one? Monthly or? No, the value of the property. There's one property that's got five duplexes and one quadplex. It's probably $480,000 total. And then most of the rest, there's one house, and then the rest are mobile homes.

Okay. All right. So you've got quite a bit of repairs then. Correct. On the type of property you're dealing with. Correct. And so you've got to budget that, and you've got to budget vacancy. And really, you've even got to budget legal for turning over tenants against their will.

Because it's part of your equation. And so you make a real good ROI likely on property like that. Like on a mobile home, you'll make a good rate of return on it versus what you've got in it versus the rents are pretty rich. But you're going to plow a lot of it back in, in repairs, vacancy, and legal costs and other things because of what you're dealing with. So it's a higher hassle factor but a higher rate of return. So all of that said to say, you need to keep pretty good pallet cash.

And so, I mean, you can look at the overall portfolio and judge it out however you want. But I would want to keep at least three months of payments if you have debt on each one. You probably have them lumped in different accounts or one account or whatever just for the rental property. But if you just add up all your payments and say times three or four, keep yourself pretty liquid there while you go about the business of paying them off. I'm assuming you're going to work through paying them off and keeping them from what you said, right? Yes. Yes.

That's the idea. Okay. You're keeping all of them or are you going to sell some of them to get liquid? I think we're okay liquid right now, but we were just, you know, wanting to make sure we had a good rule of thumb, I guess, before we start because we normally don't hear people, you know, we understand $1,000 if you don't have this situation, you know, and that just don't cut it in our situation. No, I would keep your rental property as almost like a business to the side and say, you know,

I'm going to have about three months of payments in the rental property emergency fund. Then over in your personal account, I just work your normal baby steps. Okay. But that's a separate issue because, yeah, you can't keep $1,000 around with 26 of them and a bunch of them trailers. I mean, you're going to have too much stuff going on. That won't work at all. But on your personal side, you know, that stuff ought to be cash flowing. It is, right?

Yeah, yeah. Like ridiculously, I hope. Right. Yeah, it does pretty well. Good. Okay. And I assume, do you all have incomes other than that? Yeah, yeah.

She works full-time, and I've got a lawn care business on the side. We do, and I've got a small car dealership. Okay, so you've got a lot of stuff going on. Good. Very cool. Yeah, I would begin to get those paid down. And I have a friend 20-something years ago, when I used to do a whole lot more active trading, daily trading in real estate, I made a bazillion dollars fooling with mobile homes as rentals.

He would buy them for nothing. I mean, nothing. And the rate of return on it was just amazing because you put a renter in there versus what he paid for them. It was very good. The downside is that there's no value at the end because they go down in value instead of up in value like other real estate and so if i got dirt under them at least you got the dirt when you're done but um that thing drops in value every year pretty dramatically but if you don't have much in it and you're cash flowing like a bandit it doesn't matter was his formula he was using it as a cash machine rather than the long-term investment with you know a

typical house or go up in value. And so that's how I'd probably try to look at those. I wouldn't want to get into expensive mobile homes as rentals. I don't think that'll work at all because they're going the wrong direction. But it's an interesting cash machine. It really is. So very cool. Well, congratulations on the new marriage. Thank you, sir.

Does that help you? Yeah. All right. Thank you very much. Thanks, guys. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Sam is with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hey, Sam, how are you?

I'm doing good. Good. How can I help? Okay. I am a new listener, and I'm calling for some guidance. I'm working on saving up $5,000 so that I can purchase a new car, so that will allow me to go back to college, a community college. However, I also have some student loans from the last time I was in college, a private school that I went to,

and I'm just wondering whether I should continue working on saving up for that used car, or should I just throw all the savings that I have right now towards paying off that loan before I even you know think about saving up for a car and going back to college so you don't have a car no I don't how old are you yeah I'm 21 21 okay yeah and uh going back to college you said yes because I yeah I went to private school. I lived on campus. I was an RA for a year and a semester, and then I dropped out due to just mental health and me just realizing that I could not afford going there. So how much school debt do you have? Right now it's $7,000, and the interest on it is 4%.

Got it. Okay. And you're living at home, I take it? Yes. Okay. And you're working? Yeah. I work.

Yes, I work. I work at a donut shop, $10 an hour. And how much are you making total uh ten dollars an hour i know in a month what are you making um about a thousand two hundred okay all right um yeah i'm thinking about picking up a second job yeah as well yeah i might do something different than ten dollars an hour or in addition to that. I mean, you can make $20 an hour babysitting. Yeah.

And, you know, so, I mean, walking dogs you can make more than $10 an hour. So I might do some things different to try to make a little bit more money if I could. And to accelerate this whole process because at the end of the day 10 grand changes your life by changes your life i mean you're debt free and you have a three thousand dollar car that's 10 grand right so how fast can we get 10 grand and where are we going to get it from and that's what starts running through my head when i'm seeing this and then you can decide which one comes first i don't know that you need a five thousand dollar car but you do need a three thousand dollar car i'll go along with you on that.

And I probably would go get that and then make more money and keep making money. Now, how are you going to pay for school when you go back? I was just probably just looking at financial aid and also working. Okay. Just avoiding loans because loans have not been a blessing for you. They added to your stress and added to the mental health and all that stuff that you got into before. Because it was all one big soup. That was the problem. It wasn't individual things.

It was when you stirred it all together, it didn't work. And so that financial stress didn't work in that situation. So you could live at home and go to um like you said community college and you're going to study what i'm nursing good okay very good very good well i think what let's do three things one let's drop the price from five thousand to three thousand on the car i agree with you we'll put the car first and then the second thing i would do is let's raise our income any way you can that's legal and moral without doing anything immoral or illegal, but raise your income just working all the time. Because the bad news is that you don't have any money and you don't make much money.

The good news is that $10,000, only $10,000 changes your whole life. That's good news. That's gettable right there. I mean, that's 10 months of an extra $1,000. I mean, let's say you picked up another job and you're making $2,200 a month. Five months, you got $10,000. You see what I'm doing? It's very, very reachable for you.

So you got this. You can do it. You call me back if you need some more help. Pay cash for whatever you're doing. Pay cash for whatever you're doing. Pay cash for whatever you're doing. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Why in the world would you trust some random guy in a cube when getting your mortgage? Do you really think he cares about your long-term money goals? Well, he doesn't. Those companies care about getting you into whatever home loan program they're pushing that week.

When it comes to ordering a cheeseburger, the meal deal works fine. But let's get real, people. We're talking about the largest investment you'll probably ever make, so don't be naive and trust an order taker who pressures you into a pre-packaged loan. My friends at Churchill Mortgage have been helping my listeners for over 25 years. Call Churchill Mortgage and get custom solutions from an expert within 10 minutes. It's simple. They'll shoot straight with you and quickly show you the real way to save money. Call 888-LOAN-200. That's 888-LOAN-200.

Or visit ChurchillMortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumerAccess.org. Equal Housing Lender 761 Old Hickoryory Boulevard, Redwood, Tennessee 37027. Faraz is calling from Los Angeles. Hey, Faraz, how are you? Good. How about yourself, Dave?

Better than I deserve. I see on my screen you're debt-free. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. Cool. How much have you paid off, sir? I paid off $50,000 in 18 months. Way to go. And your range of income during that time?

When I started, it was about $20,000, and I ended up in about $60,000. All right, cool. What do you do for a living? I'm an aircraft mechanic. All right, good. What kind of debt was the $50,000? It was just two things. It was $40,000 in car loans, car loan rather, and $10,000 in credit cards. Gotcha. So what got you started on this journey to get out of debt? Well, well um about uh the start of it when i um finally woke up and uh uh realized that i was in all this debt one day um i did some research on youtube i found you and i listened to a couple of uh your

videos and uh everything just started making so much sense right from the beginning. Then I ended up actually calling into the show, spoke to you, and then really realized how stupid I was. And then you gifted me Financial Peace University. Oh, cool. And then I just literally started right from there. I knew what I needed to do, but calling into you actually kind of made it really clear what I needed to do. What did I tell you to do? To get rid of that car as soon as possible.

I had a BMW with a $600 car payment. I was making about $2,000 a month. So how much did you owe on it? Well, the loan was $40,000. What did it bring? The car only brought $21,000. Whoa! How'd you cover the difference?

I got a personal loan. Okay. And then you had to pay that off. Yes. So what are you driving now? I have a 2005 Toyota Avalon that I bought from, yeah, I bought from my friend's parents. It was hit by a semi truck on the side, but it just, and it was running great. And it has 257,000 miles. What did you pay for it?

About $40,000. Yeah, I paid $900 cash. Yeah, you go from a Beamer to a Hoopty big time. Dude, you were doing it right. Way to go. I'm so sorry the Beamer's gone. I'm so glad you got your life back. Yes, yes.

It's amazing. I would do it again in a heartbeat. And it's okay. can probably have a beamer or lexus or whatever i want in the future and i'll have one before you know it you don't have any dead gum payments man when you make 60 you make 60 000 bucks a year pick up a little ot you pay cash for a car in no time right yep yeah hey take lots of pictures of this beater, because you'll want to show your son someday how he's supposed to live and not be a stupid man. Yes, yes. Because you and me, man, we both got a thing for cars.

I love cars. I'm just like you. I get you. I completely understand. So very, very, very, very well done, though. I mean, what you did was emotionally very hard, was it not? It was. It was very hard.

It was very hard getting a 25% interest loan to get out of the car, and I was so upside down. And I didn't sell it private. I sold it to CarMax, actually, so I got even a little bit less for it. And, yeah, I really got hit. They gave me $21 for it. I gave all that money, and I literally walked out of the dealership with no car, actually. The car actually came through two weeks after. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. Wow. I was going to school at the time, and I was working. I was going to school as an aircraft mechanic, and I was working as a manager at a flight school. I was working seven days a week, going to school five days a week full-time. My dad lived down the street from the place, and I told my dad, and I said, Hey, if you don't mind, I'm just going to stay at your place until I find a car. And I was willing to just stay at his place and walk to school and walk to work every

day. I didn't care. I just left out of there with nothing and no car, and I had all that debt, too. Wow. But you're on your way out. You can see a light, and you're going to be done forever, because you'll never go back in debt after going through that crap. No.

No. I mean, driving a $900 car, taking on a 25% loan, walking out of there, sleeping on your dad's floor. Oh, my God, you'll never go back. Never. You're changed. How old are you? 29.

Yeah, you're going to be very wealthy. Congratulations. I'm so proud of you. Who was your biggest cheerleader in this process? I don't know if I had one. I bet a lot of people said you were nuts. I think it was you because I listen to you all day at work. I'm able to have a speaker at work, and all my coworkers know about you. Matter of fact, they see me and they call me Ramsey.

Faraz Ramsey. That works. Yeah, and everyone, and everyone everyone uh everyone you know when they first see me they say hey how are you and uh and uh so you know just just how you you know you ask some of your your people and then i always because they know my answer i say better than i do there you go that's right that's code that's code for i'm getting out of debt yeah i like it man exactly i'm so proud of you. So I guess you were my biggest cheerleader, believe it or not, because I listen to you every day, and that's what kept me motivated.

Well, I am definitely your biggest cheerleader today, man. I'm so proud of you. Very, very, very well done. You are 29 years old. You are on fire. You've got control of the guy in your mirror. And if you can do that, dude, you can do anything. Very, very well done.

Excellent job. Excellent job. So well done. And you've worked your butt off too, man. I mean, you've been working like a crazy man. You've done everything right. And you now know how to make the needle move in these situations. You're not a victim to your circumstance, are you?

No, not at all. I work six days a week, and I knew every time I felt like quitting, I told myself, this is something that I caused on myself, and now I have to turn it around. I have to fix it. And the good news is you can, and you did in 18 months, just 18 months. You turned your whole life around you know i mean that's pretty pretty stinking incredible well done sir all right for us in los angeles fifty thousand dollars paid off including the sale of his fabulous little beamer oh my gosh 18 months he did it all making 20 to 60 working his butt off it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. I'm debt-free. Way to go, Dan. Touchdown, baby. Yeah. That's how you do it right there. Absolutely amazing. Well, Faraz, we'll send you out a copy of chris hogan's book retire

inspired that will be the next chapter in your story debt freeze chapter one wealth building chapter two becoming an everyday millionaire you are on your way sir very very well done well did you know there's about two million that that's not an exaggeration, that's a real number, 2 million active real estate agents in the United States. So how do you pick out of the 2 million? How do you know who has the right experience? How do you know who has your best interest at heart? Well, our endorsed local providers are expert agents in your area that are screened by us

so you can feel confident when it comes to buying or selling your home. These agents are not pushy jerks. They're just trying to get a closing to happen for you if you're buying or if you're selling. It's pretty simple. And they're one of the top performing real estate agents in your area. You don't want your Uncle Charlie, your Aunt Sally, or sweet old Sandra down at the church

to sell your house if they sell two houses a year. Your house is the most expensive asset you have for most of you. It's the most expensive thing you own. And you don't hire a novice to help you with that. You get a pro who sells 50, 100, 200, 300 houses a year.

That's who you want in your corner. So check it out. Go to DaveRamsey.com. Click on ELP, Endorsed Local Provider, for real estate. If you're buying or selling a house, you'll get the top people in your area that we endorse. Merry Christmas, America. Thank you for joining us. Tis the season. It's upon us, isn't it?

Well, it is that time of year. And one of our favorite shows and one of your favorite shows that we do here on the air is the special giving edition of the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be doing that right before Christmas, probably the Friday before, something like that. And we want to hear stories, which is what we always do, from you about how you have given generously, or maybe sometime that you received generously. Generosity is life-changing, and it is one of the primary motivators for getting out of debt and building wealth to put yourself in a position to be unreasonably outrageously generous.

We want to hear stories. Maybe you tipped a waitress $100, or maybe you bought Thanksgiving dinner for a family who couldn't afford one. Maybe you blessed someone by giving them a car. Maybe you've been on the receiving end. We want to hear from you. So email me your giving or receiving story for the special giving edition of the Dave Ramsey Show at DaveOnAirAtDaveRamsey.com. Email me at DaveOnAirAtDaveRamsey.com.

Put giving in the subject line and tell us a little bit about the story. And, of course, Kelly will get in touch with you and get you scheduled to be on The Giving Show. Remember, we live like no one else so that later we can live and give like no one else. So email me at DaveOnAir at DaveRamsey.com. Put giving in the subject line. Tell us a little about your giving story,

your generosity story, and we'll try to include that in our special edition of the Dave Ramsey Show. Dakota is with us in Dallas. Hi, Dakota, how are you? I'm good, Dave, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I was introduced to your program when I was about 18, and that was seven years ago. Since then, I've been working for that entire time and got married a couple years ago. So my wife and I have been saving very aggressively towards our first home, and next month we're actually moving out of our apartment and we will pay cash for our first home.

So we're excited about that. It's an $80,000 condo, so it's a starter home, but we're able to completely avoid a mortgage. Way to go. My question, though, is should we borrow approximately $5,000 for renovations, which would not be substantial, mostly just painting and perhaps installing some new flooring as well as fixing up one of the showers. Because basically this check we're about to write is going to bring us pretty close to the danger level on our checking account. We may only have $2,000 or $3,000 after that.

And so do you have an emergency fund? We do. At this point, we have approximately $3,500 in there, which is not as strong as I'd like it to be. And one of our goals in the near future is to maybe get it up closer to $6,000 or $7,000 just so that it can be a three-month supply. I realize this may not be a good idea. Our thought was that we could borrow from that for about a month to make this down payment because we're able to save right now about $2,500 a month,

so we could replenish it pretty quickly. Okay. Down payment. I thought you said you quickly. Okay. Down payment. I thought you said you were paying cash. Excuse me. We are paying cash. I was using that term incorrectly, but we're paying cash. But, again, it's going to leave us with about $3,000 or so in listed money.

In checking and about $3,500 in your emergency fund. Well, the emergency fund is,500 in your emergency fund. Well, the emergency fund is contained in our checking. Oh, so you will have $3,000 to your name. That's right. Okay, yeah. Number one, your emergency fund should not be in checking. It should be set aside separately so that you don't accidentally use it.

Okay, that's sidebar. Okay, so we need $5,000, and you can do it at the rate of $2,500 a month, right? Yes. Okay, and when were you closing? Approximately December 20th. Good, okay. And when is your lease up? The end of January.

Now, the arrangement in the contract is that the current owner will lease from us for one month so that he can get his affairs in order and find somewhere else to live. Oh, okay. So that means during that month. He'll be out by January 19th. Okay, so during that month you have $2,500 more, do you not? We should. Yeah. Yeah.

So now we're only $2,500 more, do you not? We should. Yeah. Yeah. So now we're only $2,500 apart. Right. And there's a chance that we will choose to live with the paint and live with the current carpet, but we just haven't quite decided whether or not to upgrade those things, and we are aware that it would perhaps be easier to do that before we're actually living there. Oh, absolutely. Definitely be easier to do it. That's why I'm trying to help you.

I'm trying to figure it out with you. Have you got anything you can sell? Not really. We've got two cars, a 2015 Chevy Cruze and a 2001 Corolla, but those are our work vehicles. Okay. Excuse me, I said 2001 Corolla, 2011. How much are you putting into retirement right now? We've been doing $350,000 a month,

and we actually have about $25,000 currently in our IRAs. That actually is another matter of discussion currently because we had been planning to spend our retirement savings for about 24 months to totally just save up towards our first home. That was before this opportunity presented itself to buy the $80,000 condo. So now we're wondering, should we go back to what we were doing and just keep saving $350,000? Here's what I would do. I would shut down everything and try to make the goal, temporarily, try to make the goal of getting in here for cash. Here's what I hear listening to you.

An 18-year-old guy, seven years ago, started a plan that is more genius than 98% of Americans. You're paying cash for an $80,000 condo at 25 years old. Dude, that makes you such a rock star. And I just can't throw... My wife and I collectively make't collectively make 75 a year so i cannot i cannot sit here emotionally and talk to this rock star guy who's so incredible and and and allow him to go into debt you did it i mean so you just got to do it you got to find a way you've always found a way and so we stop retirement we delay moving in a month.

Instead of moving in in the middle of January, move in in the middle of February. That gives you your $2,500, $2,500. You're there. Or you delay the repair. I don't know. And it's not going to kill you. It's not a bankruptcy offense. I mean, you're not going to be in the stupid column no matter what you do.

But just emotionally, you did it. And I can't, now that you did it, I can't fathom you going into debt. I can't even digest that emotionally. You're such a rock star. You're such a stud. And now you're going to throw a baby Ruth in the pool. No, man. Don't do it.

You know? Don't do it. You know, you made it this close. You know what I'm saying man don't do it you know don't do it you know you're you made it this close you know what i'm saying don't do it you can do this man you've convinced me i just i just don't know how exactly but you're within a gnat's breath i mean you're right there you're right there and so i mean you get 2500 of the repairs done, and you move in, and you deal with the other 2,500 after you move in, or you delay moving in a month, or something else happens, or I don't know. But you're right there.

Don't give up now. You've done something nobody does. You understand that? Nobody pays cash for their first house at 25 years old. We don't have many friends who can relate to our choices. I mean, I think some people are under the impression that we're living on $10 an hour because we live humbly, and they perhaps assume that we don't have money to buy groceries. And who cares what all these broke people think?

You're getting ready to pay cash for your first house at 25 years old. That makes you a stud. Touchdown! Now, don't go for two and lose the game. Touchdown! You won! You're too close, man. You did it. I'm so proud of you.

Absolutely amazing. The rest of you, stop your whining after that call. Just stop your whining. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. This is James Childs, producer of the Dave Ramsey Show. I'm excited to announce that we're now carried on 600 radio stations across the country. To find one near you, head to DaveRamsey.com.