The Ramsey Show - App - I Feel Like I’m Parenting My Wife Over Money (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

Dave Ramsey & George Kamel discuss: Does it make sense to save for a house if you have employer-provided housing? How to avoid parenting a spouse over money, Why rent-to-own is a terrible idea, How to get back on track with budgeting, Preparing for an untaxed bonus. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they really love, and create actual amazing relationships. This is the Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today as we answer your questions. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Allison is in Anchorage, Alaska to start off this hour. Hi, Allison, how are you? Hi. I am doing great. Thank you guys so much for taking my call. It's an honor.

Sure. What's up? So I feel like my husband and I are missing out on an investment opportunity of owning a home because our employer provides housing. So we're kind of at a loss, no goal oriented in mind for saving our money. Should we be saving to buy a house? Should we pay cash for that house? It'd be fine. You need to be saving in good mutual funds at a minimum, or you need to go buy a property so you're participating in the real estate market. What kind of employer? What's your husband do? He runs a lodging business.

So we did purchase 10 acres, and it was $60,000. We did 10% down. We got it down to $40,000, $500 a month, but it's interest-free. Doesn't matter. Get it paid off. Go ahead and get it paid off. Pay it off? Yeah. Okay. At least then you're participating in the real estate market, because here's the fear. but it's interest free doesn't matter get it paid off trying go ahead and get it paid off yeah okay at least then you're participating in the real estate market because here's the fear

you sit in the lodge rent free for 40 years and think about what house prices were 40 years ago yeah you get the market just kills you right so you want to be riding that wave up as a part of your wealth building even if it's not a property you live in so uh the 10 acres was a good move and you could add to that after you get the 10 acres paid off you could go buy a rental house and pay it off okay so you would accept that we could go ahead and buy a rental property, even though it's not our main dwelling. It's our only mortgage we would have, do a 10% down. Well, I don't like it. I want you to pay cash for everything because it's the shortest distance between now and getting out.

I mean, you're camping on that $10,000 or that 10 acres over there like it's something fun just because there's no interest on it. You still need to get that stinking thing paid off so i don't like any of that but but uh because the reason i like it is it keeps you from getting rich not the you pay other people all your money so how quickly could you pay pay that off and then save up and put even 20 down on a property i could throw 30 at it today and still have my three to to six-month emergency fund, so that would bring us down to $10,000. I can save $2,000 a month, so five months I could have it paid off.

That's amazing. And then start the saving process over again to pay cash for the rental. And you free up those payments. Yeah, and then start the savings process, and let's either put a large down payment or pay cash for the rental. There's no hurry. The point is you don't want to go decades and not on real estate correct correct that's the only thing i don't want you to do and i wouldn't want to do it and you know i run into this with pastors and parsonages

all the time they've been in one church for 25 years and they've had the housing furnished in the parsonage and then they, and now they're homeless. And so because they didn't have any kind of game plan for the end of that story. And so you're very smart to be, as you said, goal-oriented and be ready for the end of this story. So very, very good. Lincoln's with us in Dayton, Ohio. Hey, Lincoln, what's up?

Hey, Dave, thank you so much for all that you guys do. Thank you. My wife and I, I am 27 and my wife's 24, and we have paid off about $30,000 worth of debt since November. Great. But we still have $40,000 more, and she's actually going back to get her master's in education. And she wants to, basically the main premise of my question is, and more, and she's actually going back to get her master's in education.

And she wants to, basically the main premise of my question is my wife likes to upgrade a lot of things very quickly, and she likes paying off debt, but not to the point where she doesn't get what she wants. And so it leads up to me having to say no to a lot of decisions on things that she wants, and I feel like a parent in our marriage. I don't want to feel like a parent to my wife. So I don't know if you have any insight on that. Well, I sense that you're feeling some resentment towards her because you don't want to baby her,

but I want to have you look in the mirror and go, maybe I haven't done a good job getting us on the same page. Mm-hmm. I mean, is that not the problem? You're not on the same page when it comes to what your goals are and then what our actions are to get there yeah that could definitely be a fair point it's hard to get other people to be excited about your focus it's hard to get other people to be excited about your goal this ain't her goal it's your goal yeah her goals upgrades that is fair

so george is right so i would i would have a conversation with her and go hey listen i know Yeah. Her goal is upgrades. That is fair. Mm-hmm. So George is right. So I would have a conversation with her and go, hey, listen, I know you want to do these upgrades, and I love that. I want to do that, but I want to do it the right way, and I want us to get out of debt first because this is how it's going to propel us forward and get us there even faster without any stress or anxiety. And now she goes, oh, he wants the same thing I want. Now we can start moving in the same direction. Yeah, that's good. And then she's also going back and getting her master's right now in education. Why is she doing that?

Just curious. What's the end goal of getting the master's? She got a degree in HR, and after a few months, she decided that she didn't like her job in HR. So then she took a – she is basically an aide for a special education room, and that she decided that's what she wants to do. So she has to get her teaching degree in order to do that. And it was the same price to get her master's as it was the undergrad. Yeah.

And so she's already quit her job. Yeah, that was about six months ago and so it was taking less money and then also adding on more debt and that doesn't feel like we're moving towards the same goal um so when george said that i was like kind of iffy on it because there are like other symptoms in this uh scenario of her wanting her not being all in for the ramsey plan it's not the ramsey plan dude it's the lincoln and his wife plan you gotta decide what that is and so here's the thing okay it this is not a this is not a um financial question it's more of a marriage question but the um the deal at our house is that we both have to be in agreement and we both have a vote.

My vote's not bigger than hers. Her vote's not bigger than mine. Her dreams are not bigger than mine. My dreams are not bigger than hers. We both have to be in agreement before we make major decisions. So you don't quit your job without both of us talking about it, unless you're sexually assaulted at work, you know, and then you can quit your job and walk out and tell me about it, right? But, I mean, just because you changed your mind at 24 years old,

three months after you got out of college, that you didn't like your job and your whole career path, and so you change it and going to go back to school again to fix this. Oh, brother. So, no, we don't do that stuff. We don't upgrade in this. We don't not do this. We don't go pay off big debts.

We don't make big decisions but we're both together and that forces us to back up from the actual decision itself and say is this decision taking us the fastest possible way to our goal and are we in agreement of our goal and so sharon and i just don't make decisions that way and so in in your case, in other words, Sharon's got a veto card. She goes, I'm not going along with this. Okay, and we're not doing it until we talk it through and we see where it fits. And very seldom does she do that. Very seldom do I say, no, not going along with that.

I don't agree with that. And that vetoes it. It stops. And it's not you telling her what to do or she telling you what to do. It's you both have a vote, and you have the ability to stop the train if the train's off the tracks. And y'all aren't doing that. She's just doing whatever the flip she wants to do and you feel bossy. Hey guys, George Camel here and I'm so excited to tell you about the newest product from Ramsey. It's called Gazelle and it's a digital banking experience that will help you spend and save

the Ramsey way with banking services provided by Pathword NA. You'll get a single spending account with no monthly fees, and it's FDIC insured through Pathword NA. We're offering early access to our beta customers, so you can help us make it the best experience it can be. Just go to ramseysolutions.com slash gazelle to sign up for the waitlist today. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. A lot of people hate the idea of looking at insurance.

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A five-day free set of videos to show you all about insurance. George, this is working. A lot of people watch this. I think they're just hoping for a laugh, and they might learn about insurance along the way, and that was the goal. If we can put laugh out loud and insurance together, that would make history. These don't usually go in the same sentence. No. Solomon is with us in Arizona.

Hi, Solomon. How are you? Good. Thanks, Dave, for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I was calling. I'm in Baby Step 2. I have about $32,000. Well, me and my wife have

about $32,000 in Baby Step 2. Household income, we have about $80,000 to $82,000. But my question is about our house situation. So my wife, um, bought her house that we live in, um, about seven years ago, she was in dire need and she got into a rent to own

situation and we pay 675 a month.. $180 goes towards the principal of the house. The $495 is considered rent. So what I'm wondering is they said we could pay it off. You know, we could have mortgage or whatever. We can pay it off

and go through like a single bank or do we just ride it out as it is? Okay, what is the payoff on the contract now? Last I checked, which was a couple years ago, it was $53,000. What's the house worth? Probably, as it sits, probably close to $100,000. Okay, what's your household income?

It needs some work done. $80,000 to $82,000. Okay. Yeah, I'd run down to the credit union and just get a $50,000 loan and put the house into your name. The reason is, A, you're going to lose all this equity if you lose this deal. And so never do rent to own never do a land contract or contract for deed which is what this is okay the reason is the house is not in

your name if the current owner gets in trouble you lose everything and there's nothing you can do about it so let's let's say he was let's say he was in a car wreck and got sued for $500,000 for wrongful death. It goes as a lien against his property. This property is not in your name. It's in his name. Right. I don't know if they're an actual owner. I think a company, the company that we pay to, I think they buy these houses.

If that company gets in trouble and has a lien put on this house, you would lose the house. The point is you are paying payments as if you own it. You're acting like you've got $50,000 worth of equity, and the house is not in your name. Right, right. You don't own it. Very dangerous.

Now, as far as, like, even though I'm in, you know, baby step two, my credit, I have pretty good credit as far as the store. My wife doesn't. She doesn't have any debt or anything. The point is you're going to go down to a local credit union anyway. Right. And they're going to look at the whole situation. They're going to look at the fact that you're buying this house at 50 cents on the dollar

because it's a rent to own. Right. buying it for 50 000 they're going to get a 50 000 loan on a hundred thousand dollar property that's pretty safe for them okay okay and they look at an 80 000 income to pay a tiny little loan like this right i mean some people make an 80 000 by 50 000 cars i don't really do that yeah i don't recommend that i don't recommend I mean, some people make $80,000 and buy $50,000 cars. Should we do that? Yeah, I don't recommend that. I don't recommend that, but my point is that your income is very large for this deal, wonderfully large, okay, and there's $50,000 worth of equity protecting them, so the credit union will make this loan. Okay.

Yeah, you guys need to go get this house in your name, if you don't keep the house even if you turn around sell it right because you're gonna you're you're in a very precarious and dangerous situation with the property not being in your name now i know we normally don't recommend you buy a house while you're in baby step two while you're in debt but in effect here you've already bought a house you've just done it poorly and in a, we're refinancing in a sense here. Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of these pop up nowadays with the way the real estate market's been. There's a lot of slick online companies that are saying, hey, it's basically a rent-to-own scenario so that you can get into this house sooner because you don't have any money. Never do that.

So I want to steer people away from those. I've been getting messages going, hey, is this a good idea? No, don't do it. Quick answer. Save up a down payment. Do it the right way. No to the capital no. Yeah. Don't do it. Katie's in San Francisco. Hi, Katie. How are you? Hi, good to be here. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I followed you pretty closely after I graduated college and I ended up paying off all of my student loans. Way to go. Thank you.

I have a credit card, but no credit card debt. And I just feel like now I've gotten this like, quote, big girl job. And I, I've just had a hard time. I felt like I've hit a plateau after paying off my debt of not being able to, I've saved up on a thousand dollar emergency fund, but like I'll end up spending it. And I just feel like I've hit a plateau where I just can't save any money and i feel like i'm spending all my money and i just can't like get to the next step why why hello why oh why um i'm not budgeting it's hard i guess i um you're more money than you've ever had in your life and you're broke i know i'm very broke.

What are you spending your money on, Katie? Where are the money leaks happening? I mean, you know, in San Francisco, I'm going out to eat, experiences, traveling. Could you go in instead? Could you have some friends over? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Let's get creative, and let's see what that does for a month.

See how much money you have left over and how it makes you feel. So, Katie, you're trading short-term thrills for your future. Yes, and it's scary because I'm living paycheck to paycheck and I don't want to do that. Yeah, and you realize that. And so now you have to decide. Each time you get ready to go out to eat or go on a trip, you have to go, I just gave away a piece of my future. And I just brought stress into my life so is the joy of the going out to the club tonight with the girls uh is that joy as is that equal to or greater than the amount of anxiety i'm

going to feel when i wake up with a financial hangover tomorrow no that's why you're calling it's why you're calling and so but my point is is you've got to put that into a day-by-day basis and quit doing some of this stuff that you know you shouldn't be doing yeah i guess i i know i can do it because i work so hard to pay off over like ten thousand dollars in debt and then i just lost all kind of i don't know i was like on a i was well you got you got a great income for the first time. You're making more money than you've ever made in your life. And so, you know, it's like you got

lottery-itis, like you hit the lottery or something. Right. Katie, here's what I'll do to help you build that muscle. I'm going to gift you Financial Peace University, and I want you to do two very specific things. Watch Lesson 1, which is on budgeting and Baby Step 1 with Rachel, and watch lesson five

with Dr. John Deloney and I on wise spending. I think those two things combined will give you some tools in your tool belt to go, all right, I'm going to walk through the framework, I'm going to walk through this process,

I'm going to commit to the plan, and just do it for a month. And if you do that, and you hate it, you can go back to the way you were living. But I think you're going to feel that sense of relief

and you go, I'm in control. I'm confident in my money decisions. I can do this. You've got to ask yourself, how old are you? I'm 24. So you've got to ask yourself, with the 34-year-old Katie, is she happy with what you just did? Totally.

She's going to be pissed. Right. You're so lame. That's what she's saying. You're so lame. You're not fun. You used to be fun. I don't want to keep living paycheck to paycheck.

I know that this method works because I feel like I got with gazelle-like intensity to that step. Now I want to continue going. I'm going to be real harsh now. Are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. You need some new friends. Okay. All your friends do is what you're doing. You don't have anybody in your life that's like a grown-up.

All you got is party girls in your life. You need some new friends. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Phillip and Maria are with us. Hey, guys. How are you? Hey, Dave. Hi, Dave.

Welcome. Where do you guys live? We live here in Nashville. Oh, cool. We live in Bellevue. Just up the street. All right. Very fun.

Very fun. How much debt have you paid off? We've paid off $57,000. All right. How long did that take? Two years. All right. And your range of income during that time uh we were making uh ninety thousand and started out making ninety thousand and now we make 150 good for you what do you guys do for a living um i am a mortgage loan processor and she i'm a front-end developer all right very very good what kind of debt was a fifty seven thousand?

It was a range of everything. Most of it was student loans. We had credit card debt. We had some personal loans from the cars that we owned. And yeah, just a little bit of everything. You guys are kind of normal. Yeah. Yeah. So what happened two years ago? What was the wake up call? How'd you get tied into Ramsey stuff? That's a good question. It actually kind of starts back in 2018 when we first kind of got into everything. Yeah. I had a medical emergency that landed me in the hospital, and it was a three-day stay.

Ouch. Mm-hmm. It's still kind of a mystery. We don't exactly know what happened, but we moved to Nashville shortly thereafter and we got one of those insurance letters that says, this is not a pill. It told us how much that hospital visit cost. Yes. And we had just shortly before I ended up in the hospital, we had gotten on insurance. Oh, wow. And so I kind of had a moment in our kitchen when I realized where we would have stood

had we not had the insurance. Mm-hmm. And that was my, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired moment. Amen. And so it set off a couple of things for us. Our debt journey, as well as finding a new career path for me. Which was kind of what brought us down to Nashville. We had lived up in Bowling Green, Kentucky before then and moved down here in the summer of 2018, trying to find her a new career path and just to try and get us a bigger shovel

to really get out of this because back before we moved down here, we were just barely making over $50,000 a year between the both of us. So we were really just trying to make a bigger shovel to really get rid of all this debt. Cool. Very cool.

How'd you guys get tied in, Dosh? Her parents really were helpful with that. I've probably listened to your show on and off since I was a kid. And my dad did his own version of the Ramsey Plan. And he gave me Financial Peace when I graduated high school. I read it and then promptly did not do anything that it said I needed to do. And then when we had moved to Nashville, you were on the radio, you were on YouTube, you were on podcasts, and I started listening again. And we got gifted Total Money Makeover.

Yeah, her mom bought that for her birthday present that year. Financial Peace University. Oh, that was Financial Peace, yeah. money makeover yeah her mom bought that for her birthday present that year financial peace financial peace yeah so someone gifted us total money makeover i read it to him in the car on a road trip that we took shortly thereafter so i forced him to read it you read it out loud i did yeah she's a trooper you didn't even audiobook no i'm doing this myself the wife version of the audiobook yes um and then commentary probably uh and then i asked for fpu for my birthday that year and oh wow made him watch all of them with me i was like no we're doing this yeah it was great the the videos were were a great help and um i think what really helped us the most was um the budgeting app yes and getting that connected with our checking account and just allowing us to

have that financial budget conversation you know every month it just made it so much easier to be able to do that and that was kind of the biggest lesson i think that we've learned is just being able to get on top uh get on top of that that's awesome so you got to tell us about the poster you're holding there's a lot going on there are you a science teacher what's happening that's a great question so he's a really big settlers of katan fan and um i wanted to make up some sort of tracking for our debt and to motivate him you went if i put this in his world he's more likely to do it yeah right there's a fridge is where this yeah so it sat on our fridge for a really long time um but we got most of the way through tracking everything, and we realized that since about 2017,

my mom had been making payments on my school loans and had covered a huge chunk of what we had thought we were going to be taking on. So we're very thankful to her mom. Fantastically thankful for mom. All her help. And it actually was one of several things that encouraged us. We have a few friends, Michael and Emily.

Hi, guys. Who had also paid off their debt around the same time that we started our journey. And so we had a huge amount of support. And, you know, that just sort of added fuel to the fire kept us going just kind of made a game out of it yeah like our last dead free screaming of the visuals you got the social proof from other people doing it you have the commitment you've got the parents you've known this stuff your whole life and you went i'm sick and tired and i think i know a guy who's got a plan yes and you did it we're proud of you guys and if i don't dad or mom is going to remind

me soon they're going to give me another i love them they're going to keep gifting me the book until i do they were standing in the background they kept tossing stuff in until somebody finally picked it up that's great one of the biggest motivators was you know we would really like to start having a family soon and we actually just bought a house yesterday so we've been able to make all of these financial decisions because we've been able to pay off all of our debt. Very cool. It's been really exciting. By the way, that's her parents' decision, too. That's their motivator was for you to have your kids.

She has said that a couple of times. If you'll read this book, I can have some grandkids. Come on. Ulterior motive. Yes. I love it. You guys are awesome, man. Way to go go i'm so proud of you thank you how's it feel to be free oh it's still kind of surreal it feels great but yeah it still feels surreal will you ever go back oh never never no in fact i gleefully um rip apart

you know the credit card envelopes that they send you in the mail. I'm like, ha-ha. It's almost like a weekly ritual. Just throwing out the junk mail. Love it. I love it. You can put some, you know, rip up the parts and put it back in the prepaid envelope and send it back to them. They get hit with the postage that way. That's good.

Stick it to the man. Way to go, you guys. Way to go. We've got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you. That is the next chapter in your story for sure. And also a Financial Peace University subscription. Obviously, you've already been through it, but the brand-new videos are out and the whole new class is there. You need to go through it again or you can give it to somebody and pay it forward.

And we'll give you a total money makeover book, which you for sure can pay forward to somebody and get them started on their journey. I'm so proud of you guys. Very very well done your heroes thank you thank you yeah you are victory uh victors instead of victims we've got too many people in this culture walking around hoping somebody else is going to take care of them and you guys decided we're going to take care of ourselves yeah yeah so very very good and you had a lot of help a lot of encouragement which is the way it should be all right it's philip and maria from nashville 57 000 paid off in two years making 90 to 150 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're debt-free i love it oh that's how it's done right there mom and dad gotta be proud too oh yeah

it's every parent's dream yeah very cool very very well done that's how it's done boys and girls you know you make a list you check it twice i don't care whether you have a poster board uh with symbols all over it or whether you have rocks and jar uh bats in your belfry i don't care whether you have a poster board with symbols all over it or whether you have rocks in a jar, bats in your belfry. I don't care what it is. There's all kinds of ways to do this. You do you. You do you. As long as it causes you to do this stuff.

That's what makes it worth it. And, you know, the number of times we hear someone doing their debt-free screen has some kind of visual in their life, it's not that unusual. We have them actually on our website. You can print off for free all kinds of PDF stuff. People want to do just because it's, I mean, they do links of construction paper chains worth $1,000 a piece, all kinds of stuff. We see it all the time coming in here.

You talk about goal setting, writing it down on paper, and this is a way to do that. You know what? Normal people don't do that stuff. They think it's lame. Normal people are broke. It won't be normal. They'll get you some construction paper, set you off on a journey. Normal sucks.

Don't be normal. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This is The Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Olivia is in Panama City. Hi, Olivia. How are you? Hey, Dave. Hey, George. I'm good. How are you doing today? Great. How can we help? So I have a quick question for you.

I have just got into car sales, so I make commission here with my dealership, but then also the manufacturers that I sell the cars for, they pay us monthly like a bonus, but it's not taxed. So I'm trying to figure out when I file my taxes next year, how do you recommend that I save a percentage of this money or an amount that I set aside every month so that I'm prepared when I go to file my taxes? 25% of it. Every time you get file my taxes. 25% of it. Every time you get a check, put 25% of it in savings. Okay.

What are you making? What's your income? Well, I have a guaranteed of $1,000. No, I mean, what's your total income going to be this year? I don't know. It's $52,000, and then any commission over that, I can have that. What do you think you're going to make, girl? You think it'll be $75,000? You think you're going to make $200,000? What are you going to make? Maybe $75,000 and then any commission over that. And what do you think you're going to make, girl? You think it'll be $75, $100?

You think you're going to make $200? What are you going to make? Maybe $75. Okay. All right. 25% of work then. Yeah. Okay.

And so, because what it amounts to is you're not employed by them. It is taxable income. It has just not got taxes withheld because you're not on their payroll. So you're an independent subcontractor for them technically it's like a freelance job right and so it is taxable and it'll be taxed also it's self-employment income as well so um you're going to get hit you know 15.3 on that and about another 10 on your taxes so about a fourth of it so you get a check for a thousand dollars set 250 aside into a bank into a savings account and then you'll be ready to file your taxes and not be behind you it should cover you okay sounds good thank you so much i appreciate your help thanks

for the call and george that'll work for a lot of people doing the side hustles uh the beauty of side hustles is you can make a lot of money the downside is a lot of people don't set their tax money aside and they get in trouble it looks great on paper you go i'm making good money and then you forget about self-employment tax you forget about the you know quarterly estimated taxes that's an important thing to keep track of as well be filing that with the irs if you've got a freelance job like that yeah if you've done it more than one year and you don't file quarterly estimates you're going to get penalized. We don't like that. So it sounded like that was her first year on this. That's why I didn't push her on that. But you do need to set aside once a quarter.

And a quarterly estimate is not hard to file. It's a little one-page document. It's basically got what you made minus any expenses you have, create your business expenses that you have for that business. And in her case, she doesn't have any. So I'm just setting this out on the fourth of it. So then you're supposed to file that quarterly estimate of taxes as if you're withholding on yourself, in other words, once a quarter,

and that will keep you from being penalized if you've done it for more than one year. But you folks are making a lot of money on your side hustles. You're going to get yourself in trouble with taxes if you're not setting the money aside because you're going to get this big tax bill. And, you know, I made $40,000, but now I got a $10,000 tax bill. Yeah, that'll bite you, see, and set you back, and you'll be in trouble. And so you've got to be very disciplined and very careful and very self-controlled with that. It'll jump up and get you.

David is with us. David's in Fort lauderdale hi david how are you hi dave hi george great to be talking to you guys you too what's up uh so i just moved to fort lauderdale from oregon two months ago i sold my house in oregon uh walked away with 240 000 wow yeah yeah really started booming in Central Oregon. So with that money, I put $10,000 in my emergency fund. I paid off about $10,000 of debt. I've been investing into a Roth IRA now for several years and putting in money into separate mutual funds.

Right now in Fort Lauderdale, I'm going to be starting a fire academy here in three weeks, about three months, full-time academy. So my question is, I'm going to have about $220,000 left over. I plan to live off of $20,000 of it during this three-month academy. And my question is,

what to do with the other $200,000 and bouncing back and forth between, I know high-yield savings are about 1% now. They might be going up, whereas ETF mutual funds annually are 10%, although they're down now. But if I plan to park it for about one to two years until I find where I'm going to live, where I'm going to work, and rent for a couple of years. So let me get this clear, David. You don't have any more debt? No, no more debt. Okay, no more debt. And that emergency fund, is that fully funded, three to six months of expenses for you? Yes, yes. I put $10,000 in there, which I believe is enough.

Yeah, I mean, if it's one or two years, I'm not risking it in the market. That's too short of a time horizon for me. So I know it's not exciting, but that high-yield savings account is going to be your best bet for a short time frame like that so you can protect it. If you put $200,000 into, like, an index fund to park it for two years and it goes down 10%, that's $20,000. That's a lot of money isn't it yeah i mean i well i guess my thought was with the prediction being you know i wait two years and it bounces back i i think the market will bounce back inside the two years but my but george's point is you you know are you in a position to lose $20,000? I wouldn't like to, no. You could do it. I mean, you'd still have $180,000.

It wouldn't kill you. But that's basically about what's at risk. The chance of you losing more than that historically would be very low. And you might make $20,000 instead of lose $20,000. So that's possible. But the anxiety in between of watching it go up and down may spook you. I personally think the market's on sale, and I think two years from now it's going to be back roaring again.

All the data tells us that about bear markets. We're definitely in a bear market. By definition, it's a bear market. And so the question is, do you want to ride that bear out and buy while it's low and take that chance? And the chance, I think what you're doing is you're not risking $200,000. You're probably risking $20,000. And if you want to take that risk, you could go to, you know, just an S&P 500, a simple, you know, a simple mutual fund, a simple no-load mutual fund. Or, you know, if you don't want to take that risk, you would go to high-yield savings and money market.

Or you could split it. You could put $100 in each. Yeah, that's not a bad idea. It just depends on when you need the money. Have a little bit of fun with some of it, a little bit of the roller coaster ride, and then some of it sitting there safe. But you need to really think that through. But I wouldn't do anything other than that with it. Just something very, very simple.

Both of those in the spectrum of overall risk is fairly low, you know, versus putting it in something like Bitcoin where you could lose it all, okay, and very well may in the next two years. So that's a distinct possibility the way that thing's dropping right now. So, hey, thanks for the call. Hannah's in Dayton, Ohio. Hi, Hannah, how are you? I'm good, Dave.

I have a question prepared for you. So how can I get out of debt faster? I have about $53,000 in student loan debt. I have a $4,500 a month car payment or $4,500 balance on my car. And credit cards is $47.05 and $0.23. What's your income? And credit cards is $47.05 and 23 cents. What's your income? Per month, it's about $1,700 a month. How old are you?

29. Okay. What do you do for a living i work for goodwill i'm a job coach for goodwill that's full time that's interesting because you need a new job yeah you're starving to death i am yeah i am this is a great market for you to get a new job okay and maybe two new jobs i also own a business what does that make i own last year um i made well i grew so i brought home ten thousand dollars which is a huge growth i've been in i've had the business for three years, and so this year's been the best year I've had. And I want to keep growing the business.

Hannah, that's wonderful. But you're 29 years old, and your total income is under $30,000. So I really want you to, I'm going to send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book, and from paycheck to purpose, and I want you to really think about the career side of this equation and we'll also send you a copy of total money makeover to teach you how to work the debt snowball but you need a bigger shovel because the size of the hole you're in versus the size of shovel you got is troubling mathematically i want you to get your income up kiddo hang on Hang on, we'll help you with that.

Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.