The Ramsey Show - App - I’m 76 and Still Have Student Loan Debt (Hour 3)

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

Live Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. Thank you for joining us. Robin is in Phoenix. Hi, Robin.

Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you, gentlemen, for taking my call. Sure. I am going to retire in about three years at 76. I have no mutual funds and no 401k. My question is, should I buy or rent at that time at 76? Okay. How would you be able to buy if you don't have any money? Well, I've got time.

So currently my income is $4,500 a month. $2,000 is going to rent. $2,000 is going to studio loans. And I spend $500 on daily living expenses. You're 70 years old and you have a student loan? Yes. I haven't paid it off yet. But I will pay it off.

It's expected to be paid off in March of 24. Okay. What's the balance on it? $12,000. So I'm paying $2,000 a month on that. Okay. All right. I'm really curious how you end up with a student loan at your age. How did you do that? Well, let's call paying the interest. I paid the interest only for a long time. What's a long time? Since 2020, since 2005, I guess. That's when I graduated. You graduated in 2005, so you graduated 18 years ago, and you've been paying. And your degree is in what?

That particular degree. I've got some more since that time, but that particular degree was in communications. Okay. And what do you do for a living? I'm a quality inspector. Okay. Wow what do you do for a living? I'm a quality inspector. Okay. Wow. All right.

The thing that runs through my head is this. Obviously, you, at retirement, have to have monthly money to pay an electric bill and buy food. And provide shelter. Okay? The largest line item in your budget for the rest of your life, if you live to be 95 another 20-something years, is going to be housing. And if you're renting, your cost of housing is going to go up every year because rent always goes up.

Does that make sense? Yes. If you buy, at least you're locked in to what you're going to be spending on housing from this point forward. So buying is good. Having a paid-off home by the time you get there is even better and of course having a nest egg to live on so do you have a pension in the background of this or are you counting on just social security to feed you no um i'll finish the rest. So currently what I have is a universal life policy that has a cash value approximately $9,000 in it.

I'm reluctant to cash it out because it has a long-term care rider of 50 months on it at 4%. So that's going to give me about $1,500 a month just for that. Now, as I shared, by the time I retire, I will have approximately $500 in pension and $2,500, I'm guessing, $2,500 in Social Security, which would give me $3,000. And you have no money in savings at all? $1,000. $1,000.

I got my $1,000. Okay. All right. I want you to cash the universal in and pay the student loan down, and let's be done with the student loan very quickly. Let's get that in the background as soon as possible so we can try to accomplish a couple of these other goals, which is housing and start to build some kind of a nest egg over the next three years. So basically, you're going to live on beans and rice for the next three years while

you throw as much money towards housing, buying a home, and as much money towards a nest egg as you can throw. And both of those are going to be better moves than a bad universal policy so we've got to get the student loan in your rearview mirror to pull that off so get the student loan in your rearview mirror build an emergency fund and then start saving for a down payment while you're putting at least 15 of your income or more into retirement and i want you to save as much as you can save for retirement while putting down as much as you can put down on a house. And when you do buy a home, I want you to buy a very modest, a very inexpensive property.

I am more concerned that you have basic shelter that is locked in on its monthly cost than I am you having a home that you are necessarily thrilled with. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. I want to stabilize. I'm trying to stabilize your future. That's my first goal.

Your luxury or your comfort are secondary. But stabilizing the shelter aspects of your future next 20 years is really what I got to lean on. And wow. Wow. really what i gotta lean on and uh wow wow well the good news is i think you can actually make a pretty good dent in 36 months on this if you'll be very focused um i think that might be one of the oldest student loan debt callers i've had it's it's mind-boggling i'm sitting there listening to that and because we're having the student loan live stream tonight uh it's absolutely free uh ramsaysolutions.com 7 p.m central 8 eastern it's important to point out that she is

and i don't throw this word around lightly you know this dave she's a victim of this cultural message that has said if you get a degree you're gonna a raise. And sometimes that's true. Many times it's not. And she kept getting degrees and degrees and degrees. And I'm not in communications. Exactly. She's in quality assurance. And so you've got to be careful. These degrees don't come with jobs. You still got to go out and find them, get them and perform them well. And I'm not trying to be unkind, but there are so many people that still believe. You go through a layoff at 45 or at 50, and you go, I got to go get more education.

Maybe. But probably not. Probably not. Yeah. Not at the cost of sitting at 70 years old and still have student loan debt. No. And see, that's the exchange that makes me so angry about.

And let me just be honest. Let me be an equal opportunity offender, folks. Both sides of the political aisle are in the business of student loans. It's big business. It's a lot of money. And no one's talking about legislation or regulation. To stop it. To stop it and to take on the unbelievable inflation in the world of tuition. Doing a service.

No. You people in government are not helping the population. You are harming the people that you're called to govern. It's a hidden tax, Dave. And people are getting filthy, stinking rich off the backs of people like her. And it really does need to stop. It really. I mean, mean seriously would somebody

grow a leadership backbone and send it to washington dc this is the ramsey show ken coleman ramsey personality is my co-host today dr john deloney has a brand new book coming out called the building a non-anxious life you can pre-order the book right now for 20 and you'll get 75 in bonus items nearly half the u.s population says their lives are affected by anxiety stress burnout it's everywhere but here's the thing anxiety isn't actually the problem it's the thing. Anxiety isn't actually the problem. It's the symptom. The problem is we're unsafe, disconnected, unhealthy, living like we have no say in what happens next. And in this book, Dr. Deloney walks you through six daily choices to recognize and break free from a life that's spinning out of control. It is amazing. This book is selling like hotcakes, too. And it comes out technically October 3rd. If you preorder, you get $75 in bonus items, which includes instant access to one of Dr. John's talks,

newest talk, Smoke, Fire, and Freedom. That is a great talk. And also, you're going to get the e-book and the audio book. Ramseysolutions.com, building a non-anxious life. Christopher is in Corpus Christi, Texas. Hi, Christopher. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave and Ken.

Thank you for having me on. Sure. What's up? So, I'll give you a quick back story. I'm recently engaged. Our wedding is in June. I have a full-time job making $34,000 a year. I also go to school full-time to be a radiology tech. I have no debt, and I have an emergency

phone of $20,000. Me and my fiance are on the same page about not going into debt for the wedding and not spending more than $5,000 on our budget for the wedding. I recently made it to step four, but I'm confused if I should be investing 15% while also saving for a wedding and adopting out a home. No, you ought to be saving for the wedding and for your education until you're married. Don't worry about a home and don't worry about retirement right now. Okay. You got time to get to both. Right now, you need to get married, pay cash for the wedding and uh even if you beef

up the budget a little bit that's okay your budget's not out of control on this wedding and um make sure you get through this school and pay cash for all of it so you need the margin in your life to just be piling up cash right now until june right yeah let's let's worry about retirement and worry about buying a house a year or two from now okay so i should just be saving for the wedding and for your life yeah just pile up money right now i want you to get i want you to get your education finished i want you to get

married lower lower stress on both of these with a big old pile of cash and then when you get out and the wedding is over, if you've got a little money left over, that's your head start towards your emergency fund and towards your down payment. But you're putting too much pressure on yourself to try to do all these things at once. Okay.

You got time, man. You got time. How old are you? I'm 24. You got plenty of time. You're going to How old are you? I'm 24. You got plenty of time. You're going to be okay. Christopher, I can hear your brain. You're processing what Dave's saying, but something's got you hung up.

What's going on? Nothing. You're just goal-oriented. Yeah, I guess you could say that, but I started school late, so I'm doing my basics right now and my remedial courses, so I feel like I kind of started late in the game. So you feel like you're behind. Yeah.

You're not. Yeah. You're not. You're way ahead because you actually know what you want to do. That's right. And you're running down a very clearly defined track. Your plan, you laid it out perfectly in just a few moments on the air here in front of 20 million people.

That's impressive. I mean, you really, that's a great job. You're doing a whole lot better than it feels like you're doing. You're going to get to the other things. I'm not saying don't do them. I'm just saying don't worry about them now. A year from now, two years from now,

we'll worry about those. Right now, pay cash for the wedding, finish your degree, pay cash for that, pile up money. That's all you need to do right now. And that's plenty. That's plenty making $34,000. That's a big enough task as it is. Yeah.

You can do it all, but not at the same time. And I think that's pretty much true in any area of life. So you're going gonna be okay and give yourself a break i there's i could feel him beating up on himself a little bit i'm behind i'm behind yeah no you'll be okay yeah you're not the fact of the matter is with our plan you're gonna catch up with a lot of people oh you're probably by march yeah you know why he's a tortoise and he's focused and the tortoise always wins that race every time you're exactly right jeremy's in houston hi jeremy welcome to the ramsey show hi thanks for having me sure what's up yeah so my primary question today uh and i probably just need to hear you say it

is trying to work out how much house i can really afford because when i start to look at the numbers i begin to feel like maybe i'm going a little bit crazy and then it just kind of spirals into should I ever even think about buying a place or should I rent forever? Well, that's a false narrative. You don't have to rent forever. That's not a real option. You know that's just drama queen. Well, no.

I don't mean to sound dramatic, actually. I don't necessarily. No, but I mean don't mean to sound dramatic, actually. I don't necessarily. No, but I mean, that happens. We have a little drama. All of us have a little drama queen in our head. And that one's that. When you spiral out like that, that's the little drama queen in your head. I mean, you know you're not going to rent forever.

And you know that's dumb because rent goes up every year. So renting is a good short-term plan, but it's not a good long-term plan. You already knew that, right? I sort of knew that, but I didn't actually feel that renting was necessarily i don't mean it in a negative connotation oh it's negative it's not a good idea long term i'll give it to you negative it's here's why it's negative it's not because it's a class status thing it's because your cost of housing goes up every year for 45 or 50 years you're going to pay more every single year if you rent and that's that's a death knell to your finances versus if you own the value of the home is going

up and if you're making a payment on a fixed rate 15 year that we tell you to do the payment is locked in the only reason it would change is taxes and insurance but it won't change otherwise and so you've locked in the largest line item in your budget, which is housing, and it's going up in value versus nothing is going up in value when you're renting long term. And your rent goes up every stinking year. The largest line item in your budget takes up more of your money every year. So you don't want to do that long term, but you may want to do it for a year or two while you get some other things done, like getting out of debt and getting your emergency fund in place. And then let me just tell you, one of the things you experience when you learn to live debt-free is that you are living like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else.

And when you live within a reasonable budget on housing, there's going to be people around you that are buying a nicer house on a 30-year adjustable rate mortgage, maxing themselves out where they can't breathe, and they're taking on a house payment that is crazy as a percentage of their income. And they don't make any more than you make, and it looks like they're winning. They're not winning. they're destroying themselves and meanwhile you're over here uh in a much more modest property feeling like you're losing and the reality is you're winning does that any of that sound right no it does sound right and and you know the numbers make me feel a little bit crazy because i feel like i earn

a pretty good living what do you earn my situation i make after taxes about 140 after taxes after 401k about 140 000 a year okay well we say we say put a 15 year fixed rate no more than a fourth of your take-home pay and that's not counting 401k that's just taxes coming out of your take-home pay so what's your take-home pay not counting 401k and a 15-year fixed rate interest rates are higher now than they were this time last year obviously uh the good that's the bad news the good news is that that um you know well there's a shortage of housing so we're still seeing house prices go up but But you can find a house. You probably can get a seller to give you some attention right now.

Inventory is really low, which is holding the prices up. But if you can find a house, you know, if you're out of debt and you have your emergency fund, you have a good down payment, you're going to buy something more conservative than your peers. No question about it. Yeah. But again, it's the long game. That's the definition of winning is don't follow your broke friends. Right.

It's not how fast you come out of the gate. It's how you finish. And you've got to remember that. It's so enticing. You're not making $500 a year. You're making $140 a year. I mean, it's a lot of money. It's double the household income average, but it's only double.

It's not 4X and it's not 6X. So, you know, average house price in your area, plus a little, that's what you're going to be getting. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Nick and Laura are with us. Hey guys, how are you? Good, how are you Dave? Better than I deserve. Where do you guys live? bernardino california oh fun welcome to nashville and here to do a debt-free scream how much have you paid off 223 000 i love it and how long did that take 99 months 99 months look at you and uh your range of income during that 99 months

we started at 71 000 and ended at 195 very cool what do y'all do for a living well i am a homeschool mom and i also do real estate on the side and i work for the county local government there okay very good well you guys are doing well so 99 months 223 is this your house this is everything dave one to Paid off the house? Everything. Yeah, everything. Looking at weird people. Yep. I mean, you live in freaking San Bernardino, California and have a paid for house. Yes, we do.

This is a big deal. What's this house worth? A little over $600,000. I bet it is. I love it. Congratulations. Ding, ding. How much you guys got in your investments for retirement and so forth?

We have about 150 in Roths and about 200 in a pension. All right. So that puts you at millionaire status, doesn't it? Right there. Baby steps millionaires. Right on the line anyway. Yeah. Really close.

If we throw in the furniture, we're there. Yeah. Yeah. All right. There's not much furniture, Dave. Way to go, guys. Congratulations. How old are you?

42. 42. 42. And a paid for house and basically Baby Steps Millionaires. I'm so proud of y'all. Thank you. Tell us the story. What happened 99 months ago?

How'd you get connected with this Ramsey stuff? Well, I listened to you when i was younger um probably when we were both younger dave um and i was doing good and and uh we were moving in the right direction i worked for a bank and we went south we went on the borrowing trend and uh we borrowed everything we could we wood burning stoves credit cards everything else you can do somewhere along the lines we just started going negative every month. Every month, we were losing money.

We were just not saving. We were just going red, red, red, red, red. Until one day, I realized I couldn't put gas in my car without putting on a credit card. I felt like a loser. I felt like a pretty bad father because we had just had two beautiful girls. I kind of remembered everything I I listened to on the radio.

Went back and restarted in our mid-30s. And then we suffered a lot over the last eight years. And here we are. So, Laura, he walks in and goes, this isn't working. What did you say? I said, okay, well, how do we fix it? And he said, oh, well, there's this Dave Ramsey guy and he has this plan and we're going to have to cut everything.

I'm going to sell my dream truck. And I said, ooh, hard pass. I don't think so. That sounds terrible, actually. You know, I had two babies and I didn't want to do it but I I wanted to support my husband and so I did it for about nine months without my heart in it but I did it you know to the letter and then one day we were sitting at the dining room table and we paid off our car and I looked up and I said, oh, my gosh, this could work.

This is amazing. Ding, ding, light comes on. It came on and I started listening to the show. And, you know, it was game on from there. My heart was in it. And then it was different, you know, from then on. Yeah. Wow. So you took nine months of you kind of dragging her along.

Yeah. And then she goes, okay, wait a minute. Dad gum. This stuff is, yeah, okay. I like it. There might be something here. months of you kind of dragging her along huh yeah and then she goes okay wait a minute dad gum this stuff is yeah okay i might be something here nick i picked up on the word suffering which it was a little bit sarcastic but yeah yeah but i i think he's actually there's probably a lot of truth to that and and and i want people to hear it's not easy how difficult this was for you guys but how it feels on the other side so give us a little window into what suffering even sarcastically meant. Well,

I always joke that Dave Ramsey ruined my life. Yeah. There's a whole, there's a whole internet channel on that. But the truth is, I mean, you're going to see your friends, they're going to be buying trucks and they're going to be driving,

driving side by sides down the road. And, and they're going to be having a lot of fun. And there's going to be a time where you have to suck it up and you have to say, I'm going to get some and I'm not going to, I'm going to say no. I think for your normal working family, you have to pay a price. If you just, if you just wander through, you'll wander right into debt, just like all the Joneses and you'll be comparing yourself.

So I think there's just a time where you have to have discipline and you have to say, hey, this is hard, but it's the best thing for my future, for my girls, for the rest of my life. And so that's where your temporary pleasures, I think we had to put aside for a minute and we had to focus on our goal, which took a long time, took eight years.

So what's the dream now? Forty-two and you guys are debt-free house and everything well how does that change your vision well our first dream was to come to nashville to check it off the box you're there one down yeah so next dream yeah i watched a lot of debt-free screams and i always thought if we make it we're going yeah i like it i'm glad you're here yeah i'm so proud of y'all it's good deal so what is the next big thing yeah for me you know the next big thing is to set up my girls for success you know in a just a better platform to build off of than i had i'm from a single wide trailer even though it's in california um and i just want better for them so for me the future is trying to build for them

and then us enjoying our lives a little bit more. Yeah, absolutely. And really being an opportunity to give and affect people in a better way. Well, congratulations. I guess, Dave, there's probably a nice truck in the future, though. I would hope.

I think he's earned it. Maybe a side-by-side. He's a millionaire. Yeah, why not? He's 42. Come on. Come on. Pay cash for it. He's a millionaire. Yeah, why not? Come on. Come on. Pay cash for it.

Get you a toy. Yeah, that's good. Y'all should. You should enjoy some of this, and you should give some of it, and you should use some of it for investing and building up the future and changing your family tree, and you will. So very, very well done. Very proud of y'all. Thank you.

What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I think that it's avoiding lifestyle creep that was something that i feel that we did really well over the eight years you know nick had a lot of promotions and a lot of pay raises i had a few commission checks come in and they pretty much went all to the mortgage and that was hard when you see other people unrewarding it's very unrewardinging. And it's hard after a while, and you just say, oh, I just want to do X, Y, Z, whatever it is. And we just didn't. We just kept saying, no, you know, we want to pay a price to win. And over the course of the eight years,

we spent the first four years in baby steps one through five. And, you know, three, four, five felt like it took a really long time to get through we really just kind of crawled through those and those were you know hard slow years and then uh we paid off 180 in the last four years so it really kind of picked up at the end yeah and that's what your income changed during that the income changed everything changed we were we're working together and the snowball really got going it was it was really neat to see that way to go you guys congratulations we did a tracking process as well we kind of bought these hurricane lamps and we put some smooth stones in them each stone was five hundred dollars so at the end of the budget meeting at the end of the month, we would see how much we could put in towards it,

and we would bring the girls in, and we'd each put a rock in, and sometimes we only put two, and sometimes we put 15. But it was something that we brought them in for, and we would talk about why are we even doing this, and what is dead, and why is this important. Bring them up. Let's introduce them. What are their names and ages?

I've got two of them here. Oldest is Sabrina. Young youngest is cassidy great hey we've got the live and give box for you the baby steps millionaires book which is what you've done congratulations the total money makeover book and a financial peace university membership for you to either enjoy or give any of it just our way of saying thanks for you to come and people buy that and give that stuff away all the time. So thank you, guys. So very proud of you. Nick and Laura, Sabrina and Cassidy, San Bernardino, California. $223,000 paid off in 99 months, making $71,000 to $195,000.

Baby Steps Millionaires at 42. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Are you ready? Three, two, one. hear a debt-free scream. Are you ready? Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Oh, you gotta love it.

Man, oh, man. Those little girls have a mom and daddy that changed their lives. Well done. That's grown-up stuff there, and girls this is the ramsey show our scripture of the day proverbs 12 15 the way of a fool is right in his own eyes but a wise man listens to advice tommy lasorda says the only problem with success is that it does not teach you how to deal with failure.

Joe is with us. Joe is in Cincinnati. Hi, Joe. How are you? I am fantastic. How can we help? Alright, I've got a question. I've been pretty intently saving to buy a new Bronco, even selling my early Bronco.

And through my intensity and focus, I've actually saved up enough to pay off my home. And now I'm struggling. Do I continue on with my plan to buy my Bronco or pay off my house? Wow, that's cool. Those Broncos are cool. So what do you make? About $150.

What's the Bronco cost? $56. Okay. And you can pay off your house for $56. I'm a car guy. You can pay off your house for $56. I'm a car guy, and I've got a couple other ones. Yes.

You have a couple of other cars? Yeah, I've got an old classic from my father-in-law, and then an early Bronco that I've also had for about 35 years that the value has increased on it also oh yeah those things are through the roof yeah yeah that's fun um well it's a simple question that you have to answer for yourself i don't think anyone else can answer it for you what do you want more a new bronco or a paid off house and um i'm the other side of all of that um let me just tell you this too it's not it's not a permanent choice it's which one do you want first yeah because if you buy the paid off bron, then your next goal is you're going to pay off the house, and you make good money, and you're going to pay it off fairly quick, right?

Yes. Or if you pay off the house, you'll have a house payment, and now we can save like crazy and buy a new Bronco. So, I mean, my guess is that two years from today, you've accomplished both goals. Agreed? Yes. So just which one do you want for the next two years? Because the other one's going to wait 18 months to two years.

Yeah, I'm also struggling because I've drove junk for years, and even a free car to keep it going just so i can do something i'm struggling spending that much money thinking of spending that much money on a vehicle now it's always what i thought i wanted you know it comes down to uh letting it go for that i don't know uh you're not getting rid of the other two classics right no okay good i was gonna say i love the old bronco more than the new one but this is your money yeah oh i wouldn't make the trade i'd keep those two and then add the new one to the mix the new one's a cool car it's it's a neat car um are you driving something that you're not proud of

right now is that why you're driving he's driving one of those classics aren't you no right now i'm driving about a eight thousand dollar car i upgraded last year from my freebie junker uh so i upgraded uh in the meantime to save up for bronco i've just been able to save up what's the uh what's the balance on your house exactly uh 72 000 and you have 56 in the bronco account or what uh just in my general savings uh we actually have about uh i think uh 70 uh liquid right now not counting our emergency fund what's in the emergency fund uh we keep about 20 in there and it's normally low but i've retired military so i've got a pension pretty good pension that comes in monthly so i love the car i love the bronco i think they're cool cars i don't own one of them but i think they're a very cool car i can understand where you're coming from having said that i personally

would wait 18 months to buy the new bronco and i would pay off my house. But the point is you're going to do both within 24 months, and you need to have a game plan to do that. It's just a matter of which one goes first. That's the only choice we're making. We're not making a choice of Bronco versus house. We're making a choice of which one comes first in the 24-month calendar. And that helps me make the decision to do the house. Does that make sense?

Yes. And then you're going to feel a little wiser spending this much on a car than you feel right now. You feel like you're overdoing it a little bit right now because that house is still dangling out there. And if you do the house first and the Bronco second, the Bronco's not going to come with as much guilt. Yeah.

And if that older Bronco is pretty slick, I'd get rid of the $8,000 car. Sell it. Drive the sweet Bronco around if you want to upgrade. You've worked hard. I get what he's saying. He's like, I've been driving crap for so long, and now I kind of want to drive something nice. But I'm with you.

That house is going up in value. The Bronco he buys will not. no it's not i know the old one did but you're not going to keep this one 45 years that's right going to be that's correct thing so and it's not uh 1800 bucks which is what you paid for the other ones exactly right back in the day or whatever whatever it was i would be driving that old bronco. I don't know. It depends on, you know, you don't want to mess it up. You don't want to put miles on it. Yeah, I get it.

I'm not a daily driver. Joe's in Cincinnati. Hey, Joe, what's up? Oh, that's what I meant. Oh, we went back to Joe. I just screwed up. Yeah. Hi.

Hi, Joe. Thanks, guys. All right. Brian is in Los Angeles. Let's screwed up. Yeah. Hi. Hi, Joe. Thanks, guys. All right. Brian is in Los Angeles. Let's try that. Hey, Brian, how are you? Hello, sir. I'm doing great.

Thank you for the time to be on here today. I've been a big listener to you guys for a while now because you got out of debt a couple of years ago. Thanks. My question today is I'm married. I have two boys. We live in Los Angeles County. And my question is, we make a good income here,

and however, we're very unsatisfied with the quality of life here, just the school values, the crime, homelessness, and all in all, just the uncultured society. So we're considering relocating to another state, such as either Tennessee or Idaho or a few others. The issue is that my projected income would probably be cut close to being in half. Why?

What do you do? So I'm a police officer in L.A. County, and with overtime, I usually bring around $140 to $150 a year, and the same salary in those areas are a good bit less, maybe like 60% of that. Yeah, but you're comparing overtime to no overtime also. It's not half, but in your field it is substantially less, yeah. But it's also worth just kicking the tires in other states. What would an Atlanta metro situation, that's not the greatest thing in the world, but the cost of living would be less than L.A.?

Look at multiple states in a region to kind of see what your opportunities are. How long have you been on the force? That's another thing, 12 years. Does that qualify you for moving into like a highway patrol role in one of the states? Because those do pay a lot more than the states you're talking about. I would likely be able to go into any type of law enforcement field in any other state, but just comparing it to California, it just truly is a significant... Not necessarily.

How much research have you done on this? And I'm going to tell you why. I covered this story recently. The Fraternal Order of Police, they are having a hard time recruiting police officers. You understand why i don't need to get into that and there's a great opportunity right now for you with 12 years of experience in los angeles county i think you need to do more research and see what your opportunities for uh transfer would look like and then growth and dave makes a very good point there may even

be some signing bonuses available yeah and moving into a state police role uh in another region of the country could be really lucrative and that would not necessarily be a pay cut then yeah i mean you move into a bureau of investigation in one of the states like tennessee tbi or something like that um but i would get out that's the heart of his question i would get out if i felt the way that you set it up to dave and i I would get out. I think you're moving, but I think you've got to do a little bit more work on the career side so that it isn't as big a cut as you perceive it to be. That's correct. Because what you're outlining at first blush is true. Compare it to an outlying county or something like that in, you know, in a Texas, a Tennessee or Florida, whatever. You might see that bigger cut.

But there's ways to get into a metro situation. There's ways to get into state situations. And with your experience, you might move up several pay levels in one of those states and actually come out fairly close. And there's overtime available everywhere in your world. Tell you what, high school football games and church on Sunday morning. Everywhere. There's police everywhere. Amen.

We appreciate you. Stay safe out there. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Dave here.

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