The Ramsey Show - App - I Tried “House Hacking” and It Was a Disaster (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

George Kamel & Kristina Ellis discuss: Cash-flowing a house while paying off debt, Going to college without debt, Disagreeing with family about what to do with money, Renter's insurance, When "house hacking" doesn't work out like you planned, Cashing out investments to pay off debt even if the market is down. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET 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 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

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🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pod's moving and storage studio, it's The Ramsey Show,

where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm your host, Christina Ellis, joined by my co-host, George Campbell. Give us a call, 888-825-5225. First up, we have Charles calling from Nashville, Tennessee. Right down the road. Hey, Charles. Welcome to the show.

Hey, how's it going? Thank you. Good. How can we help? Hi. So I recently got married. And right before we had gotten married a few months ago, we had gone through the Financial Peace University, and we have $1,000 in savings, and we're trying to pay off some debts that we have, like a car and a camper. But we also, for the past year, have been building a house. We acquired some family land, and we've been trying to build a house debt-free for a year now. We're coming up close to having that house built.

We're roughly about $15,000 away from having it built debt-free, but we're trying to decide how much of our money we should be putting into the house or should we put more into paying off our debts? And we just haven't quite figured out. We're kind of at a standstill right now. So walk me through both scenarios. So let's say you were able to cash flow the rest of the $15,000 to get the house built, and you made minimum payments on the car and camper. Is that a feasible scenario?

Yes, so that's actually what we've been doing for the past few months. Okay. I see it kind of like if you were going to try to finish college debt-free, I would say, well, finish college debt-free, and then we'll attack the debt, because you're already knee-deep in this thing. There's no getting out. And so I'd rather you not go in debt further and cash flow the rest of this. Okay. That's my stance. Go ahead and hold off our debt and build the house debt-free. I mean, truthfully, I might sell the camper. I mean, are you guys using this thing every week?

Or is this kind of a toy? Yes, we live in it. Oh, you live in the camper. But then the house is built. Yes, while we're building the house. Yep, and then we plan on selling the camper after the house is built and taking the profit from the camper and trying to pay that towards the car oh that's brilliant building it on okay i like this plan what do you think christina do y'all have a fully

funded emergency fund we do not have fully funded we have um we have a thousand dollars in savings um we've kind of got a lot of different incomes coming in. I'm what I call a jack of all trades. So we haven't quite gotten to a fully funded emergency fund, but we do have separate savings accounts for like the businesses. We have three different businesses, and we have savings accounts for each business, and then we have our own personal account and our own personal savings account for that. Okay, yeah, because you guys are technically in Baby Step 2,

which you don't have a fully funded emergency fund there, but it does make me a little bit nervous with building a house if something goes wrong. Oh, yeah, it's frightening. You know, I love that you're building the house debt-free. That's awesome. But I do feel a little bit nervous about like what if an expense pops up

that's a little bit more? What if, you know, just the contractor is a little bit late and they need to get extra, their building project got more expensive. Just having that thought in mind that things could change. Is there a builder's warranty on this? No, there's not.

We're doing it by hand. My family, I come from a family of custom home builders. Oh, wow, that's amazing. We're building the entire house. So it sounds like if something went wrong, you guys could fix it. Yeah, you could fix something. Okay, that makes me feel a little better that he's handy like that. Yeah, I mean, it's not an ideal scenario.

If I could have chosen the order of when these things go, it would be let's wait until we're debt-free, have a fully funded emergency fund, and then cash flow building a house. But because we're already here, I think that's your best-case scenario, is to avoid the debt, sell the camper, get rid of the car, and then build that fully funded emergency fund. Okay. All right. That sounds like a pretty good flow. Well, that's going to feel great having a debt-free house. I mean, good job on that, being able to do it as you go. That's awesome. Well, thank you for the call. Way to go, Charles. All right. We'd love to see it.

Yeah. Next up, we have Jack calling from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hey, Jack. Welcome to the show. Hey there. How are you guys doing today? We're doing great. How can we help?

So I am 19 years old, and I'm a community college student. So I am graduating in the spring with my associate's degree with zero debt. Good job. We like to hear that. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I've paid for it all out of pocket just through working part-time jobs. And I landed a job part-time work now. It's about 20 hours a week and I'm graduating in the spring, like I said, and I'm just, I'm afraid of taking on debt going into my next two years of continuing my education. So I just, I don't know, I need some advice on what to think about in terms of taking out loans or working more hours to save up more money to pay for the next two years. Well, I'm just going to say up front, you've done an awesome job by not taking out debt thus far. Let's keep debt off the table. Let's not even say

the word student loans. We're not doing that. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. Well, what kind of part-time job do you have right now? You said you're working 20 hours? Yeah, I work as an accounts receivable clerk for one of the car dealerships near where I work. It's part-time, I make 15 an hour, but if I was full-time, it would be 18 an hour where I work. It's part-time, I make $15 an hour, but if I was full-time, it would be $18 an hour. So I'm stuck on part-time because I'm a full-time student, obviously, and I didn't think that I'd be able to work full-time and do both of them. And what are you studying? Business administration.

Okay. What do you want to do at the end of that? Something related to finance. Business administration was just the general one that I signed up for when I first started going to school. And then I plan on having a minor in accounting or finance. And I'm taking classes for that right now. Awesome. Well, I love your work ethic. I love that your first thought is to get that job and to start saving up money and to not take out student loan debt. If I'm in your shoes, I'm thinking really strategically about that part-time job. I'm

going to look at places that have tuition assistance. So I would think if I'm in your shoes, I'm looking for an employer that's going to help pay for that last two years, hopefully pay for it 100%, plus allow me to build up a pile of cash. And what's cool is there's a lot of different companies that are doing that now. I mean, they may not be the most glamorous jobs. It may be retail. It may be working in a restaurant. But if it allows you to get that business degree debt-free while also earning money

and gaining experience in some capacity, it can be a win on multiple levels. How do you feel about that? Do you have a certain tie to, you know, a certain type of work? Are you pretty open to it for if it means debt-free college? You know, that's a good question. I have had, I've had a job pretty much ever since I was, I'm 19 right now. My very first job I got when I was 14. So I've worked a lot of manual labor, odd jobs, things like that kind of my entire life. I've never worked retail and I've tried to stay away from that. But to be honest, I hadn't really ever thought about like a

tuition reimbursement or reimbursement program. I've really never even looked into that. So that's something I could consider. Well, and even just do it really strategically, like retail could be like your last option. See if you can find a great job at a business that has tuition reimbursement. And maybe you could be an assistant manager. Maybe you could, you know, do something that helps you also flex those business muscles that when you graduate, you have experience to put on your resume that you're proud about and that can actually help you get that next job. Hey, thanks for the call. I love your motivation. I love that.

I love that he's 19 and you're having these conversations. That's just awesome. Well, thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. The welcome back to the Ramsey show we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225 next up we have Bill calling from Midland, Michigan. Hey, Bill. Welcome to the show.

Hey, how's it going? Hey, great. How can we help? So thanks for everything you guys do. I've got a question. My wife and I are debt-free aside from the house. And we're on four, five, and six right now. We both own our own businesses and um so we sold our previous house last year and we were able to put everything we

made on that one onto our current one and only had to take out a loan for about sixty thousand dollars awesome and um i bought a two hundred10,000 purchase, which was awesome and a huge blessing. But so I feel like, and I think that we can pay off said house by December of this year if we keep saving what we're saving currently. And I talked to my wife about it. We only owe a balance right now

of about just over 49,000 on it. So we've been paying extra on it too. And, um, had a conversation with her the other day, laid it all out and showed her and she was on board with it. And she was just like, she's like, I'm, I understand where you're coming from and it's cool and I'm on board with it, but I'd like to talk to my dad first together just to make sure it's a wise idea because her dad's a CPA. And I'd say all this prefacing the fact that I respect my father-in-law

a lot. We have a great relationship. I respect his opinion, but he's also not necessarily like get out of debt, stay out of debt care kind of guy, you know, like he buys, he kind of like, he's bought like a car on loans every couple of years, carries credit cards, which to each their own, like whatever. But we're on, I feel like we're on different levels of that idea. And so I was like, well, I'll talk to him, but I probably already know what he's going to say. And so we had the conversation and he was like, well, I don't see the point of paying off such a small loan with such a small interest rate.

And you could just save up cash. I was like, well, I feel like we could pause our investing for a couple of months in order to do this. And then restart the process of that. He's like, well, I wouldn't invest right now either because the market's crap. And I was like, well,

what would you do? You went, you went out the house and you went invest. And I was like, well, what would you do? Goodness gracious. You wouldn't pay off the house and you wouldn't invest. And he's like, I just pile up cash. I was like, but we've done that. And so my question is, what should we do? I think you switch the conversation to football and politics and you do you when it comes to money. Now, does your father-in-law pay your bills?

Does he pay your mortgage? No. Okay, just your father-in-law pay your bills? Does he pay your mortgage? No. Okay, just wanted to make sure. And I'm right there with you. Like, he has an opinion, but his opinion is not the final vote. I can have deep respect for the man. I can love him. Same thing with my dad.

You know, we talk money, and I get frustrated, and we change the subject because we are not going to agree, and I say thank you for your opinion. We are not taking a poll at this time. What's for dinner? You know? And so I think that's the relationship. Well, my whole thing with it too is like, so there's a kind of a two-parter is like, yes, it'll take out a lot of our savings, but we'll still have an emergency fund left over if we wait till December to do this, because we'll have at least five months of savings saved up and then we'll be able to save that money right back up. Plus then, you know, the house payment every single month.

Yeah. And we both own our own businesses. I'm my wife owns a CrossFit gym and I'm a massage therapist. So aside from pandemics and whatnot ever happening again, like physically, I don't know when my last day of work is ever going to be, you know, and I make good money right now. So I'd rather get everything paid off now while I make good money so that later I don't have to worry about that when I need to take a different job. That's a great mentality. On top of that, Bill, I would not pause investing. So if you're doing four, five and six, you're investing 15%. If you've got kids,

you're putting some away for college and then anything left over we're throwing at the house. So I do agree. If you want to go down to four month emergency fund and put the rest on the house and get this thing paid off, man, you're going to sleep better. And your father-in-law, while probably a lovely person, doesn't get a vote when it comes to what you do with your money. So when you guys are so close to the finish line, like a December payoff, that is going to be a debt-free house that you're going to keep for years moving forward. So that's just going to let you walk on that freedom.

And I think you're right as a business owner, that security that comes from having no mortgage, no payments in the world. It's just, it's going to change the way you approach business. It's going to help you feel so much more free. So yeah, I agree.

Football, maybe politics. Maybe politics. I don't know. I personally wouldn't. I stay away from all of that. I stay away from both, honestly. Sports, politics, I know very little about either. I'll stick to money. Money. We might need some more conversation topics, George. That's true. All right. Next up, we have Dave calling from Jupiter, Florida. Hey, Dave, welcome to the show. Hey, guys. How are you doing today? We're doing great. How can we help? I had a question about renter's insurance, if that was something worth purchasing.

1,000%. Get it today. Yeah. What made you not want to get it? A lot of places require it, but it depends on where you're renting. Yeah, well, it's actually, well, it's not for me personally. My sister, she lived in Fort Myers. Of course, there was the hurricane that just blew through there. And so she's looking to locate over here to the east coast of Florida, close to me. And she's needing to rent something. And she's more so looking, I guess the owner of the house that she was renting didn't have flood insurance. Apparently there's a lot of people who don't have flood insurance in Florida. So it's new to me, but she started asking me about renter's insurance and I had no idea about

renter's insurance. So I figured I'd ask you guys for your advice or even if that covers anything like flood damage. Well, most of them don't. You're going to need to add that onto the renter's insurance. And so you can have her contact Zander Insurance through our website, Ramsey Solutions, and she definitely needs renter's insurance today. And it covers a ton. I mean, it for sure will cover fire, hail, lightning, theft and vandalism, windstorm, plumbing, system freezes, a vehicle hits your house, someone gets hurt in the house. It covers all types of things, and it's super cheap. I mean, you're talking $10 to $20 a month for most of these policies. Now, I don't know with Florida.

I know it's been crazy with the hurricane and floods, and people can't get insurance. They're having to pay crazy, crazy amounts of money to get covered, but it's just part of the deal if you're going to live in one of these areas that are prone to flooding. So definitely get it. Yeah, it's so important. And that's great that you're having that conversation with her because there's a lot of young people that have no clue. They get out there, they get their apartment, they think that if that was required, it would be part of your signage. They think their landlord's insurance covers their stuff and it doesn't. And Dave had this happen to one of his tenants way back in the day and there was a fire and they said, okay, when do we get our check for all of our stuff?

And Dave's like, that's not how it works. I legally can't even do that. And so they, I mean, it was a hard, stupid tax they learned and a really sad one to not have renter's insurance in place. And so if you are a renter, part of the deal is you get renter's insurance. And a lot of apartment complexes require it. Well, when I was renting and some landlords should, I feel like if you're a landlord, please require your renters to get it because it protects you and of course your tenants. So this is a one you got to get in place. And our friends at Zander can help you out and make sure they will shop independently all of the best companies out there to find you the best rate in your area. So I highly recommend doing that today. Yeah.

And having those conversations, it's so important. I mean, I know you've talked a lot about insurance and just doing a checkup overall. I think it's important. It's a good call out to just, I mean, renter's insurance is important, but there's a lot of different types of insurance that people need to make sure that they have in their life that they have covered. And it's not something that usually comes up over like, you know, dinner. The happy hour. Stock runner's insurance. Well, we did a free five-day walkthrough called

Confidence in Your Coverage. You can sign up for that at ramseysolutions.com slash confidence. And every day for five days, there's a three-minute video from me and I'm breaking down a different type of insurance. I promise you, I at least attempted jokes. I mean, it's insurance, so like I get it. But if you don't enjoy it, you get your money back and the check is going to be exactly worth what you paid and it's $0. So ramsaysolutions.com slash confidence. If you want some weekend plans, you can start to tune into those videos, Christina. I know that's what you're itching to do. Well, you don't often hear the word jokes and insurance in the same sentence, but if anybody can make that work together, it's you.

I tried my hardest. I'm like, we need to make money fun at all costs. And if that means me trying to make a dumb joke that even gets your brain to go, gosh, that joke was so dumb. I feel like at least you're paying attention. So if you need some entertainment around insurance, y'all check it out. There you go. We'll be right back.

This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Right now is the time of year when it's make or break when it comes to our goals. We're heading into the holiday season, and let's be real, it's hard to stay motivated. We all have goals, whether it's to find a better job, make more money, pay off debt, build stronger relationships, and it can be hard to keep momentum going. But here's the good news. Coming up in a couple of weeks, we have one of our biggest events, Smart Conference. We're headed to Dallas for a day-long jam-packed event where you'll get advice from leading experts on money, personal growth, career, mental health, and your marriage. You'll leave with all the knowledge and motivation you need to reach your goals and live the life you want to live.

Join me and the rest of the Ramsey personalities, Dave Ramsey, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman, Rachel Cruz, George, to get a plan for your money, relationships, and career growth. Join us live in person on October 22nd to get your passes before they sell out. Visit ramsaysolutions.com slash events to get your tickets today. I love it.

I love that I'm like Madonna now. I'm just George. I love it. You're just George. Don't even need the last name. You all know. You don't need further introduction. You don't even know.

Well, that's going to be a fun event. I mean, I have been to many, many of these, and it is seriously the most fun you can have at a very insane price point for an all-day event. We've got a live band. I'm going to try to join the band. I'm going to audition live at SmartCon and see if they'll accept me in case my talk doesn't go well.

But it's going to be a great time. It really is a great event to bring someone who doesn't really know Ramsey and you're like, hey, just get a taste of everything they do. The kind of hope that we want to bring in every area of your life from personal growth to career to mental health to money. And it really, it's like drinking from the fire hose and you leave and you're exhausted and yet you're so on fire to go change some areas of your life. Yeah, if you need a jolt of motivation, come see us in Dallas in just a few weeks. Make the drive, make the flight, whatever you got to do. Dallas is a great, you know, central point for a lot of people to visit. People come from all over the world to these events. That's so exciting. Hey, we're taking your calls, 888-825-5225. Next up,

we have Monica calling us from St. Louis. Hey, Monica. Welcome to the show. Hello. Thank you for you guys having me. I'm so nervous. Okay. Don't be scared.

It's just us. We're just hanging out having a conversation. Oh, okay. Okay. I messed up real bad. Okay. So, I bought a house. It's not my primary residence.

I actually bought a duplex where I stay on one side and rent out the other. I bought it in May. I didn't listen to you guys, well, the Dave Ramsey show until June. So Dave said that you were supposed to actually pay cash for the investment. I didn't know that. I actually just went ahead and bought it it and I thought I could do the little hack where you stay on one side and then the other side, they probably

have enough to cover. It didn't go like that. They actually don't pay enough to cover the whole mortgage. Actually, they're really under market. I didn't even raise their rent because she's been there for about three years now. So I didn't even bother to raise our rent.

So it's not market price at all. And I feel like I'm like stuck. I want to like sell it back. And the lady that sold, that helped me, the realtor, she said if I sell it back the most, I will just probably break even, which is kind of okay with me. You know, I don't mind breaking even. I just want to get – it's not like a bad area. It's really a nice area.

You know, the duplexes, it's one bedroom shotgun. It's just I did the steps wrong. I just bought my apartment. You know what that means, Monica? It means you're over 12 years old if you've made a money mistake. And we've all been there, and some people do it with more zeros on the end, and it's okay. We're going to learn from it. We're not going to make it again.

And honestly, breaking even is a best-case scenario for you. A lot of people lose money on these deals. Okay. And so what happens if you sell this thing and you break even? Where does that put you financially? Well, I'm in Brazil right now because I have my soon loans I'm finna pay off. So it really wouldn't do anything, you know, it wouldn't make me or break me really. I mean, I don't, I'm just wanting to get out. I just want

to get out the deal real bad. Would you have to go find somewhere to rent? No, no, I have like, I have my liver fish wash everything is perfect okay it's just over my head like oh my god it's horrible but um well thank you for dissuading all of the people on tiktok out there who are peddling this crap you got to do the house hack man they pay your mortgage for you you get rich so quick no it's not no thank you i was listening to somebody else podcast i can't mention his name, but he was like, other people money. And I'm like, really? I can do that?

And it's nothing like that. It's not like that at all. A lot of people need to hear that today. Like you said, it's so trendy right now. A lot of people are thinking that they're going to be the one that gets rich doing this way. And they end up in that situation. If you hear the word house hacking, just run. So, Monica, yes, you're going to sell that thing, break even,

and then we're going to attack all of your consumer debt from smallest to largest using the debt snowball and just leave $1,000 for that starter emergency fund in the bank. And once you're debt-free and you build up a fully funded emergency fund of three to six months of expenses, and then we can start to invest and we can start to do things the right way, one at a time with focused intensity. And Monica can be a real estate investor later on in life when she's at the place to do it. And it's not a stressor.

It's a blesser. Oh, like that. You like that? She hated that. It's okay, Christina. I'll just let that hang there. All right. Next up, we have Daniel calling from San Bernardino, California. Hey, Daniel, welcome to the show. All right, next up we have Daniel calling from San Bernardino, California. Hey, Daniel, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. So I'm 21 years old. I just had a baby. She's currently a three-month-year-old.

Well, congratulations. Thank you, thank you. I'm having trouble just financially. I owe $66 66 000 in debt um i can't i tried a monthly payment i mean um i'm sorry uh budgeting and i'm just having trouble budgeting me and my girlfriend we're trying to do it on our own and as well um we're also trying to get out of my parents house we currently pay rent and we pay rent for one bedroom that That's it. All three of us just in one room, so it's kind of hard right now. Well, it doesn't sound like you've got a lot of options as far as moving out and renting your own place, which is going to be more expensive, right?

Yeah. How much are you paying your parents in rent right now? I pay my parents $1,000 a month right now. Okay. Okay. How long have you tried budgeting? You said you tried it for a little bit. It's been about a total of like seven to eight months, six to eight months. What are you using to budget? Just my regular calculator just figure out my monthly expenses what I have left over

and yeah that's pretty much it really okay I'm going to gift you EveryDollar which is our app it's online as well and this should help you you can do this on the go and it's digital and so your girlfriend can look at this as well

are you guys combining finances? I know it's a tricky situation since you've got a kid with your girlfriend now. Yeah, we have our finances combined. I'm actually the only one working right now. Okay, what's your income? I make about $75 annually. Okay, great. What do you do?

I'm a construction worker. Okay. I work on gas lines. And so your take-home pay, I'm guessing in California it's lower than other areas. Do you know what your monthly take-home pay is? Yes, it's currently, this is a little bit over time, but it's about $4,800 monthly. Okay, great. And the rent is $1,000 of that, and you've got a few other expenses, I imagine, especially with a kid now.

Yes. So how much is left over to tackle the debt at the end of every month? Let me see. I can do the math really fast. Is it, you know, $500 extra left over that you can tackle the debt? Is it $1,000? It's about, yeah, around $600 to $800. Okay.

What kind of debt is the $66? I have $30,000 in student loans, $6,000 in credit cards, $18,000 in a car, and then $13,000 as a personal loan. Okay, what's the car worth? A car, I'm upside down. It's currently worth $16,000, and I owe $22,000 on it. Oh, you said $18,000. Okay.

Well, that changes things. Okay, hang on the line. Austin's going to pick up. We're going to gift you Financial Peace University as well. What I want you to do is watch all nine lessons with your girlfriend. We're going to send you every dollar as well. Get on a written budget every month. Shave down all the expenses you can work, all the overtime you can, so we can start tackling this debt. More of your calls coming up. This is The Ramsey Show. show. our scripture of the day is proverbs 4 23 above all else guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. John Mark Comer says, our time is our life and our attention is the doorway to our hearts. Oof, so good.

I'm Christina Ellis, joined by George Camel. This is The Ramsey Show. Let's go to the phones. James calls us from Salt Lake City, Utah. Hey, James, welcome to the show. Hey, guys. So I'm on baby step two. I'm also trying to plan on saving up for a wedding.

A couple weeks ago, I bought a ring. I saved up cash and bought it. Good. And so I'm going to be asking her in the next couple weeks. Congrats. That's exciting exciting are you freaking out kind of yeah but we're we're on the same page financially good um it's just so all i have left is a five thousand five thousand dollars on a car okay i will have it paid off by march um you know i've been getting gazelle intense, just paid off all my credit cards a couple of weeks ago. But I'm just wondering, so we're

thinking of getting married early summer, maybe late spring. So, you know, around April or May, I'm just kind of worried if like I get to the step where I pay off the car, never going into debt ever again. I just wonder, like, I don't think two months is fast enough to save up for a wedding. Why is it all on you to pay for a wedding? I don't know. Do you know that for sure? I think we'll get support.

I don't,. Do you know that for sure? I think we'll get support. I don't, not for certain. I think we'll get support from our folks. But I was just wondering, like, I guess once I figure out how much I would contribute, I'm just not sure if I'll have enough time. But I guess it's, I don't know. Have you had this conversation with your fiance? Yes. Yeah. We're, we're super open about this. Okay. What's, how does she feel about it?

Does she feel that financial stress or do you truly feel like it's all on you? Um, no, I think it's kind of on both of us. She has no debt. Um, she actually has a lot more money than me. She's a saver. And I've kind of gotten her onto the Ramsey thing. But she's so good about it anyways, before I kind we can spend on a wedding. And that might mean making some compromises, some sacrifices. We don't get this venue. We go to this venue. We're going to DIY the centerpieces on the tables. There's a lot of things you can do to shave costs down. It doesn't need to be the most extravagant party of all time. So that's how I like to look at it because when you take that off the table, you just start to get creative and go, okay, we can't do a $20,000 wedding. We can do a $7,000 wedding. What does that look like? And, I mean, I know there's a lot of social pressure.

A lot of people, you've probably been to a lot of weddings from friends and you've had family members have weddings. And they may have an open bar and a plated meal and all of that. And you kind of feel that pressure to keep up. But it's your wedding. It's your finances. You have worked so hard for where you're at. You're going to keep working hard. Your fiance is out of debt. We want to keep you there. So it's like, you got to just own where you are. And if it's not the most glamorous wedding, that's okay.

I mean, me and my husband, our wedding was under $5,000. We, any person who was like, hey, I'm willing to help you, you know, set up for your wedding. I was like, I will take it. Yes. I had people ironing out the tablecloths. I mean, literally anybody who offered to help, I was like, yes, in, sold. So. Absolutely. Yeah. And worry about that when the time comes, you know, tomorrow's got its own troubles. So let's just focus on what we can do today, which is getting out of debt. Let's start to build that emergency fund. And as we get close to the wedding, we're going to have the conversations with family and go, hey, here's what we're planning. Are you guys able to contribute? Were you planning on

contributing? And you might be shocked and the parents go, yeah, we'll chip in five grand and we'll chip in five grand. And then she can chip in five grand. You can chip in however much you can contribute. Yeah, that's so good. And so just the key is stick to a budget, make it reasonable and don't get all starry eyed and go, well, we need this $4,000 arch of flowers that are going to die four hours later. Just, it's, the wedding industry has gotten insane. It's a whole thing. It's a whole thing.

Next up, we have Dan calling from Charlottesville, Virginia. Hey, Dan, welcome to the show. Hi, Christina. Hey, George. How are y'all? Great. Thanks for calling. How can we help?

Good thing. I had a question about paying down the house. I wanted to put this out there in case anyone else been in a similar situation. My wife and I are 31 with no consumer debt. Our mortgage is on a 15-year fix at two and a half percent. We're on track to pay that off early. Awesome. Before we knew how aggressively we wanted to pay that down, we had a chunk of money above our 20% in our emergency fund that we decided to set aside for a few years until we had clearer goals, you know, up into the house in case we needed a car. We've started a family since then.

So it's been great having that there. But it's currently in a brokerage account that was performing extremely well until a short while ago, but the balance in that account and the balance on the mortgage have been slowly ticking closer to each other, or they were. My question is this, would you still suggest cashing out non-retirement mutual funds and taking a $20,000 bath in the name of debt freedom, Or does it ever make sense to delay paying off non-consumer debt for 12 to 18 months so as to not secure the losses of a bear market? It's a great question. And it's a hard one emotionally to grapple with when you're selling your shares at a loss, essentially. I mean, obviously, you guys have done well in this

account. I'm guessing it's well beyond your contributions, right? Oh, yeah. As far as the growth. It's just not as much as it was. It's like, man, we could have sold at the top. Yeah, it's probably lost 20%, I'm guessing. Yeah. How much is in there today?

65, I think. And what's left on the mortgage? About 120. Okay. So, I mean, they're far enough away that I'm good with you continuing to just pay down the mortgage with your income. What do you guys make? Before side hustles, just north of 110. Awesome. And so currently, or, you know, outside of this brokerage account, how, what was your debt payoff goal for the house? Uh, you mean on a timeline?

Yeah. Was it three, four or five years? Well, originally it was like 10 to 12 years. And as we got closer and just as incomes rose and just as we realized that, you know, we were in a pretty good situation financially and have been just chunking extra on it every month, we've realized that, you know, paying it off by the time we're like 35 or 37 is a definite possibility. You guys can do a lot better than that. I mean, how much can you throw a month at this mortgage? Four grand? Probably not that much, but we're, you know, almost certainly 25 to 3. Okay. So that's about 36 a year.

So you're looking at under four years. That puts you at 35. Yeah. And once those mutual funds, you know, maybe set a goal and say, hey, once it hits 75 and it climbs back up, we're cashing out. Obviously, you're going to have tax implications. And so I would talk to a tax pro and look at what that's going to be and set that money aside in a savings account. So you're ready for tax time. But outside of that, you know, you might be able to get to the point where you've got the mortgage down to 75 and your investments

are at 75 plus, and we can just wipe out the mortgage instantaneously. Okay. That's kind of what I was thinking. Yeah. But you, I mean, you can hold for now. It's not doing much harm if it emotionally hurts to sell at a loss right now or sell those shares while they're low. We can see what the market does. It may be another year. We just don't know before the market climbs back up, but you'll still have the mortgage hanging around. But I mean, to still have your mortgage paid off in your early thirties is incredible. Right. These are just very driven people and we love to see it. It's weird and amazing.

Yeah. And I think there's a lot of these conversations happening right now in a lot of households with the market being down and there's a lot of fear and there's a lot of concern. And I think, yeah, this is just one of those times where, you know, stay the course. You guys are doing awesome. And I'm excited to see you guys on this debt-free stage here soon. Oh, yeah. Screaming out that you're debt-free.

We love to see people in their 20s and 30s getting a hold of this stuff early. Because that means the next 30 to 70 years of their life is just going to be absolutely incredible, completely debt-free. So exciting. Well, that puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. If you like the show, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, and sharing it with a friend. Big thanks to all the guys in the booth for running the show. And to my co-host, George Camel, and to you, America. Thanks for listening. We'll be back soon. Do you love a good day, Brandt?

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