The Ramsey Show - App - Is Saving Money Not Trusting God? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

from the Ramsey Network it's the Ramsey show I'm Jade Warshaw next to me is Dr. John Deloney we're taking your calls about your life and money so give us a call the number is 888-825-5225 and we will take our best shot at giving you our advice what we would do if we were in your shoes that's how you have to filter this you're grown but we're telling you what we would do okay so we're gonna go straight to these phone lines where we've got Jordan he's's in Portland, Oregon. What's going on, Jordan? Hey. Hey. How are you?

I'm great. How can we help? So I'm trying to think of a question that it was, oh, how can I better budget my money? I feel like I'm in a pickle. I make decent money. In fact, I think I make real good money and there's really no excuse why I should be broke. Well, what's really good money?

Well, let's see here. Last year I did about 270, about 280. Okay. And the year before that i did about two or 330 about 330 and i'm in sales so i average like on a bad year i'll hit 100 my best year 330 i average about two 200 okay great what uh can i ask what kind of sales so i'm a freight broker i work work in trucking. Sweet. All right. Is it just you? Do you have a family? Yeah, a wife and five kids. Wow. That's why you be broke, Jordan. You got lots of mouths to feed, my man. Yes, sir.

Oh, and my two nieces live with us now, too. Because why not? Why not? Wow. And so I'm guessing your wife's not working, or is she taking care of the kids? Tell me more. Yeah, she's a stay-at-home mom. she takes care of the kids and holds down the castle okay so she's queen of the castle you're making 280 000 you said how can i budget my money better

are you using a budget or is that something you know you need to start yeah it's something i know i need to start i was doing good for a while and then my buddy mentioned he said something about oh yeah you gotta you gotta get this Dave Ramsey book and I thought he was talking about the chef I said no I don't need to know how to cook he said no not Gordon Ramsey Dave Ramsey and he just kind of gave me some insight I googled it and there's like 20 books and I didn't know where to start and there was a phone number so I I called it, and someone answered. James picked up? I'm just kidding. Someone answered.

And what happened? So I was doing good for a while. I paid off my cars. I was saving money. Paid off the truck, paid off the car, paid off like 80% of all of our credit card debt. Did you cut up the credit cards? No, I still have about five of them. Do they have balances? One of them has, so my wife has an older one that's about $17,000, $18,000, and I have one that's currently about $10,000 or $11,000.

Okay. Okay, what else? What other debt do you have? That's it, though. we sold our house we just rent oh gosh so it was like that did you sell your house because it was a drain on you or because of another reason it was we got i i ended up getting like this uh some kind of loan where the it was it started off at four percent but then it fluctuated with like adjustable rate yeah okay so you're out of that you're renting now this is a wonderful time for you guys to

just hit reset if i'm you you need to pay off these credit cards you need to cut them up today if i told you right now if i said go get those credit cards and cut them up. Would you do it? Seriously? Yeah, do it right now. 100%. Unless you've given up on your question. No, you know what? Yes, I would. Do it right now.

Go get them, bro. John and I, we'll fill the space. Go get those cards. Oh, my heart's racing right now. Oh, my God. And listen, your heart's racing. I want you to feel that because that is the security

you have outsourced to that stupid piece of plastic. And the power we're trying to give you as the great rage against the machine said, I want you to take your power back to where you are your own bank. You have an emergency fund sitting in a savings account that if anything

happens with you and those 117 children that you have that you're fine you got no worries because you're your own bank but you have put all of your like hopes and dreams and potential you're going to bail me out on visa man and they don't deserve that role in your life that's so true. Do you have any cash left, Brown? Oh, my bad. We have two questions. You got any cash? I have about $900 in checking and $1,100 in savings. Perfect. That's perfect.

That's all you need for right now. Because we're going to get you on the track to answer the question that you called in with, is how can I budget my money better? The first step to budgeting your money better is putting your money back in your pocket and stop giving it away in debt payments every month. Stop giving it away to credit card companies. And you go from being a dependent person, a person who's dependent on credit cards to a person who's independent on the money that they have. So case in point, you got those bad boys ready? Yeah, and I thought I had five. I have six.

Ooh, even better. They're having their own babies in there, man. You've got a fertile, myrtle house going on there. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to tell us the name of the card as you're cutting it up and tell us once it's clipped. Hold it up. Say American Express, gone forever.

Clip it. You want to use the card shredder? I'll use the card shredder. It's safer for my mind. Hold on. I've got the card shredder? I'll use the card shredder. It's safer for my mind. Hold on. I've got the card shredder right here. All right. Turn this bad boy on.

Turn it on. Crank it up. Here it is. All right. This one's a U.S. Bank. Let her go. Bye, Felicia. There it is.

And then I got two Kohl's. Kohl's. You're a Kohl's. Who needs them? You got enough khakis, brother. You're good. Khakis. No. Then I got two Kohl's. Kohl's. You got enough khakis, brother. You're good. Khakis. No, then I got Freedom Unlimited.

Oh, you're about to find your own freedom. Come on now. I got Capital One Venture One. Oh, what's in your wallet? Money. And then Capital One Venture One Platinum. Oh, Platinum. Oh, that one felt good when they mailed you that one.

You felt like you was somebody, didn't you? I did. Let it go. Shred them. What else you got? Oh, my God. Oh, platinum. That one felt good when they mailed you that one. You felt like he was somebody, didn't you? I did. Let it go. Shred them. What else you got? Oh, my God. There they are. That's it.

That's all six. Dude, that's it. Is that your wife yelling, what are you doing? I need you to see it. There is a whole. Dude, Jordan, there is a whole studio audience of people here at this show. They are cheering for you. They are ripping their shirts off.

They are so proud of what you just did because those people know that you just changed your life. I feel like I'm going to throw up. I know. Never forget this feeling right here. Ever. Never. Game on?

Damn it. Yeah. Game on. Game on, brother. Game on. Damn it. Yeah, game on. Game on, brother. Game on. When's your next paycheck come? Next Friday. All my bills are due, and I don't think I have. You're going to make this happen.

You've got your emergency fund. We're going to give you everything you need when we get off this call. You're going to have every dollar. We're going to hook you up with the coaching that you need. You're going to do everything you need to get on track. We're going to get these bills paid off. We're on it now because the key to getting out of debt is you can't keep creating it. You can't keep depending on it. It can't keep being that security blanket. And when you rip that off, John, you feel it. That's exactly right. And brother, listen, we're going to get, like she said, we're going to give you Total Money Makeover, the book, for free.

We're going to give you a year subscription to every dollar that attaches to your bank so you and your wife can learn to budget together for free. We're going to hook you up with a phone number so you can call a financial coach and you can help you figure out which bills and how to tell this creditor we're going to move this one to over here to help you navigate what's coming your way. And they will pick up. Yes, they will pick up when you call. But listen, today is your first step towards being free. Really free. Today is your first step to taking

back your house. You make a quarter million dollars. I want you to feel like it. Proud of you, my brother. So proud. Few people would do that. This guy's bought in. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981. And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape.

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This is Ramsey Network. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is Dr. John Deloney. And hey, thank you for being here. We're glad you're here. We're glad you're a listener of the show, whether you listen on podcast or YouTube

or all the other ways that you can enjoy the show. Thanks for being here. And if it's really meant something to you, do us a favor if you can, like the show, subscribe to the show. But more importantly, man, share the show. If you share this with other people, it's a wildfire.

It can't be stopped. And that's something that you can do for free and it helps everybody involved. So if you wouldn't mind it, we would love it if you did that. Ramsey Show question of the day. All right. Today's question comes from Bethany in Alabama. I homeschool and I also have two work from home jobs. My husband is a Christian and works in a Christian environment.

That's usually how they set it up, Jade. Something bad's about to happen. I know. But he goes back and forth between saving and overspending. He makes twice as much as I do, but he's currently in spending mode. That's a nice way to put that.

I've had to use my savings to pay bills since he spent so much the last time we talked about it he said that due to inflation it's impossible for him to spend less he even said that the problem is my fault for staying home and not making as much money as he does he constantly wants to keep up with his coworkers as far as toys. They think it's nonsense to save a lot as we should be, oh golly, as we should be trusting God and God doesn't require over sacrifice. Don't even know what that means. How do we get out of this mess? Wow.

I'm reeling from that. Okay. The thing that's clear here is you guys aren't on the same page about anything uh as it relates to truly honestly it sounds like how you're raising your family and how you're handling your money and y'all go to a church with strange doctrine yeah very strange yeah we're taking some things out of context there but that's another that's another conversation um it sounds like there's some animosity there he's feeling some type of way about you staying home with these kids and raising them as homeschool i think it's deeper i think it sounds like he is a toddler with the salary and he thinks he gets to do whatever he wants whenever he wants yeah and

if she has a problem with it then she can just go fix it herself true yeah but if i'm like when you throw out, listen, let's be real. You're married. I'm married. You get in the heat of an argument. There might be something you throw out that is off base, right? Like you shouldn't have said that.

But when you say certain things that are kind of like out of the blue, it's like, wow, you really have a problem with that. Otherwise, why would you just even up and say that? There you go. And I'm like,

the fact that he's saying it's your fault for staying home, not, not it's your fault. I mean, it would really help if you could make more money but if you say staying home you're indicating that you don't think she's doing much while she's at home and she's not making enough money either so that's problem number one you guys need to get on the same page number two is now he's over here saying it's impossible for him to spend less. That is bull crap on a stick in a box. That's just not true. Like a few years ago, I went on a guitar buying binge. You know what I haven't bought in years?

Guitars. I'm just trying to think of toys because I've got to spend money on other things that are more important. That's true. Things got expensive. We even cut out bacon. For God's sakes,

the Delonis cut out bacon. It's expensive. Well, there's cut out bacon it's it's expensive well there's another side to that where it could be that he's okay let me let me play the other side of that which is some people just are they're such tight wads and it's like you want me to cut back even more there's nothing left to cut and i don't know if that's the situation here it could be what john is saying it could be what i'm saying well she's saying he's buying so much toys and that she's having to pay his bills yeah because he's spending so much yeah it's it's not good um she said i think it's nonsense to save he thinks it's nonsense to save and that we should be trusting god so now we're to the third question the third problem which is you guys have it's even

like went into your spirituality of like how you believe and what you believe and what this means and what this doesn't mean. What do you recommend, John? I put you on the spot. I'm like, I'm gonna roll this to you. Well, I mean, it's like they got a faith-based budget, which means we're just gonna spend and hopefully God will pay the bills. And that just doesn't work.

It's just not life. And so I guess, Bethanyany what i would tell you is this your marriage is in way more trouble than you're willing to admit it's in a it's in a it's in a mess and your husband is using your stay at home um you staying at home your husband is using theology your husband is using everything to avoid the responsibility of being an adult husband and father. He's acting like a child. And I'm confident that there's another side to this story, that if he was telling his side,

That's right. that Bethany, your hands aren't clean in this either. Y'all have to sit down with somebody, and the conversation has to begin with, I don't think our marriage is going to make it unless we control, alt, delete, and build a new marriage from the ground up ready go yeah short of that you're not gonna fix it over here and solve this you can play whack-a-mole and if he's listening to his buddies like this more than he's listening to a wife who's homeschooling working two jobs and

saying please help um your marriage is, it's on real, real, real, real shaky ground. Yeah. This is not good. This is not good. It reminds me of a joke. I don't know if I can let it rip. All right. There's this joke. I'm not going to tell this well, but it's basically put your finger on the dump button, buddy. There's a guy and he's on a, on a stranded on an Island. And he's like, he sees it, an airplane go by, but he doesn't signal it. He says, God will save me. And then he sees an airplane go by but he doesn't signal it he says god will save me and then he sees a boat go by and he doesn't signal it he says god will save me and then like one other thing comes by he's like it's okay god will save me and he dies on the island and when he gets to heaven he's like god why didn't you save me and he's like bro i sent

you an airplane i sent you a boat i sent you a guy to come get you and you said no to all of it. So anyway. And listen, if you're buying toys, and I'm sure that's four wheelers, guns, guitars, grills, whatever. Yeah. Those are purchases that you need to sit down and talk through with your spouse. And if you're having to pull from savings to over pay bills you don't have enough money to just have said hey you buy whatever you want i'll buy whatever i want and if you're a husband and this i'm just using that because it's here but it includes wives too if you think i don't have to ask anybody because this is my house then you do not have a marriage no you don't have a marriage

you're not building something together to move everybody forward. You're a selfish child. You've got to work together to build a future. And man, Bethany, we'll be thinking about you, man. This is a tough one. Tough, tough, tough one. That is tough. Thank you for the question. Speaking of questions, let's take another social question. I've got one here. Okay. This one is karen from instagram and she says the economy really has me nervous i know the stocks i have through work are down and i want to save as much as i can i was wondering if it would be better to keep money in the bank or credit union i see videos saying that the banks are going to crash and it really scares me i don't have a whole lot

of money but it's mine with the cost of everything going up, my anxiety is crazy. What do you say to that? I say, what do you say, Karen? I mean, what do you say, Jade? I say, you know, one thing about the stock market is it's a roller coaster. You ride it when it's up, you ride it when it's down. And the way we talk about it here is really the idea of dollar cost averaging. No matter what you're putting aside, you know, whatever that percentage is every month, especially if you're out of debt and you have, you know, your emergency savings. You're doing 15% every single month, no matter what, if things are going up, if things are going down over time, that average is out. And we can look, you can look back on a 20-year track record, 30-year track record of the

S&P 500, and you'll see there are times in economic, you know, dishevel or whatever where it goes down or if there's a war or something crazy happens, the great recession, but then it pops up and it pops up and usually goes like never before. And so there's really nothing to fear other than the moment. Like in the moment, you're like, oh my gosh.

But that's why we say when you invest, listen, this is not like your normal bank account. You don't need to be checking that every single day. You'll drive yourself nuts because somebody could hiccup joe biden hiccups and all of a sudden something happens you know what i'm saying so don't check it every single day i just got a note from my um smart investor pro what do you say the s&p 500 had its best may since 2009 so here's the deal um there's always going to be wars and rumors of wars there's always going to be people telling you it's all coming down and it's all wow yeah as for me in my house karen

i've got money in a high yield savings account because cash makes me feel a little bit safe i also have money in my investments in in the uh in my mutual funds yeah i don't have money in stocks um because i'm not better than the super AI computers that they're using to trade those things. I can't win that game and you can't either. So have a little bit of cash, have an emergency fund, and then put the rest in. And listen, if all the banks go under, you're going to have way bigger fish to fry, sister. So just... That's so true. If all the banks go out, I need like a can. I need cans of beans.

That's right. I need batteries. You need wood for fire. Like it's, yes, we're good. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas and I love the myth of the lone cowboy.

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We're going to New York, New York, where we've got Harrison on the line. What's going on, Harrison? Hi, Jane and John. How are you guys today? Excelente. Great. Well, my question is about a whole life insurance policy and if I should take the cash surrender value and use it for a partial down payment on a condo. Yes.

Yes, for cashing out the whole life policy. We'll talk more about the condo. How much is the cash out? The cash surrender value is about $50,000 right now. Okay. Do you already have term life insurance in place? I do not, but I do not have any dependents. So I didn't know necessarily if that was needed. Right now you don't. How old are you? I'm 23. Yeah. Right now you don't, but down the line,

there's going to be somebody who depends on you is my guess. Do you want a family one day? Yeah. Someday I'd like a family one day? Yeah, someday I'd like a family. Yeah, I think it's worth it for you to lock in now at a great rate. I mean, you're young, you're healthy, you know, lock into a 15 year or 20 year deal term and you'll pay like 12 bucks, you know, it's 12 bucks a month. It's so cheap. It's maybe not that, but it's super duper cheap and you can get 10 to 12 times, you know, your income and you can name a beneficiary on there for now. And then as that changes, as you develop and have a family, you can change that. But I'm definitely doing that. But I'm, you know, I'm going to make sure I have the term life in

place first, and then I'm going to cancel out this whole life policy, get my 50,000. Let's talk more about this, this home situation. What are you trying to buy? Yeah. So right now I'm renting. I'm just looking to kind of move into a condo instead of the apartment I'm in. So at the moment, my price range is about $250,000 because that's kind of what I think I can afford. That's awesome. And I love that you're telling people that there's things you can buy for $250,000.

How many bedrooms is it? It's going to be a one-bed bedroom. It won't be overly glamorous, but that's all I'm in right now. Yeah. Okay, cool. Is there any debt? Tell us more about your financial picture. Do you have debt? Do you have other money saved? So I have no debt, no debt at all. And currently I'm making about 70,000. And I've got, with this $50,000, it would be almost $100,000 saved up. Nice. And now that $100,000 that you have saved, over here we like people to have three to six months of basic expenses

before they start saving an additional down payment. So would you say that is that $100,000 or is that other money that you have, does that also make up your three to six months of expenses? Yeah, I should have clarified that is on top of my emergency fund. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. Okay. So great. What do you have as your emergency fund? I have about 15K right now is my emergency fund. Okay. So what does that get you? Three, four months? It's like three to four. Yeah. Okay. Kind of right in the middle there. Excellent. So you got $100,000 to put down on this property.

So you're putting almost half down, which is really sweet. Yeah, that was my goal. That's the only way I can get the monthly payment within that 25% of your take-home range. So that was my goal to try to get to that $100,000. Dude, you're rocking it. I have no complaints. I have nothing to say other than why did you take out whole life to begin with? Well, so that's actually

where I think Dr. John might be able to help because this policy was taken out from me when I was born. It was something a financial advisor told my parents to do and they've been paying into it ever since then. But now that it's coming on to me to start paying it, it just doesn't make sense to me because of the rate of return is so poor. Yeah. I'm glad you see that. But the problem is like my parents kind of treat it as this like sacred cow and I don't know how to get rid of it without making them upset. Just go make fajitas, man.

Like here's the deal. Like you just choose guilt over resentment brother and this is this is going to be step one of a number of issues over the course of your adult life where you and your parents diverge it might be who you vote for it might be on whether one of your kids should play sports there's just going to be these these debates whether they should bring their dog over to your house for the holidays and you don't want their dog whatever you got to do what you know a to be these these debates whether they should bring their dog over to your house for the holidays and you don't want their dog whatever you got to do what you know a to be right and especially what's right for you it's not dishonoring it's not um like it's not disrespectful it's your policy they handed it handed it to you and what a cool thing there's fifty thousand

dollars here you go i wish they'd invested it and they were able to give you a hundred thousand dollars but here's where we are and so the next right thing is i'm going to buy a house thing. There's $50,000. Here you go. I wish they'd invested it and they were able to give you $100,000, but here's where we are. And so the next right thing is I'm going to buy a house and I'm going to take this money and apply it to my home. Thank y'all so much. And if they want to fight you on it, you tell them, I'm not going to fight you guys. I'm not gonna fight you. I love you. And I respect you. And I'm doing the next best right thing for me. And there's, and here's the deal. Choose guilt over resentment. If you don't, you keep paying into this thing that you know isn't a good use of your money that keeps you from moving into this house just to make them happy.

Over time, every time they call you, you're going to get annoyed. Every time you get a text, you're going to go, ugh. Every time your mom calls, and they don't deserve that. It's not fair to them. That's because you didn't put up a boundary. Can I add one in? Yeah, go for it. If you think that they're going to act a fool over this, give it back.

That's fair. Yeah, they've given it to me, so I don't think they're going to act a fool over it. You do. You think they're going to. There's going to be some pushback, I'd say. If you think it's enough that it has the ability to mess up Thanksgiving, give it back. Okay.

Sounds good. That makes sense. Fair enough. And rent. There you go. Ooh, I love that call. Thanks for the call. That's, I love, listen, he's doing everything right.

And it's really hard when mom and dad, when you know, it's just hard when you know something and your mom and dad are older than you, they think they know something. And I'm like, his path is working out for him really, really well. And they invested into something that had a really poor rate of return. Like, he's right. But he's about to get a house. But you said something that was real important that I want to double click on. Sometimes people give gifts as a way to try to control you.

And especially when parents aren't, when that transition, I'm not looking forward to it. When you shift from, I can tell you what to do, to I'm gonna walk alongside you, right? And I might try to influence you, but you're a grownup and I raised you the best I could and you get to make your own choices. Sometimes we'll say,

let me help you with that down payment of your first house or let me buy you that first car. Yeah. And it's going to come with some strings to it because that's the next way I can control you. I can just be overly generous, right? And there comes a moment when, is that $50,000, would that be nice?

Yes. Is it worth losing my relationship with my parents? Nope. But the moment, the moment, if he, i don't think he will get to this but the moment he would get to saying you know what mom and dad thanks for the gift but i'm gonna give that's gotta cause them if it doesn't cause them to look inward and go what is happening like why i mean that holds up a mirror it's like you know like remember beauty and the beast he had the mirror and he could see what was going like it holds up the mirror that you have to go what am i doing that would cause my child to give me back fifty thousand dollars you entitled brett and if i want to respond like

a child then your then your kid was right yeah oh man yeah good on good on him yeah i think he's fine i think i think he'll work it out i don't think he has to give it back but all right let's see let's go into justine who is in sacramento oh i don't think i can make. I think he'll work it out. I don't think he has to give it back. But all right, let's see. Let's go into Justine who is in Sacramento. Oh, I don't think I can make it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do that to her. We'll take her the next time.

I'm gonna ask this question. All right, Teresa says, I've been gazelle intense for so long. How do I spend money again? My husband and I are on baby step seven and we're struggling psychologically to spend small amounts of money for myself, even when it's in the budget but i want uh i want more of what i want than i need such as home decor clothes so she's they've been gazelle intense for a long time she doesn't know how to get herself

it's gonna sound cheesy and for people who are struggling baby step one this sounds nuts right because there's all but it's a true thing and it happens we get this this call a lot. Yeah. The first thing is you're going to practice. You're going to put money in the budget that you promised yourself you're going to spend, even if it's a little thing. The second thing, and this is what I had to do. This is just me being vulnerable here.

I matched it. I'm going to give this money away the same amount that I'm going to spend on myself. And it'll let me exhale, right? It'll let me exhale. I'm going to buy this guitar but i'm gonna figure out a way to give this much money away okay now we can and it was just this weird psychological game i played with myself but it was my way of practicing we're not running for our lives anymore

it's okay it's okay i like that i like that it's kind of like the opposite some people say you really know you can afford something if you can buy it twice. Have you heard people say that? No. It doesn't shake. Like, let's be honest, it doesn't hold up. But that kind of reminds me of that. Like, you're matching it with something to prove that, hey, this is fine. I gave a little, I spent a little. And then, you know, they're saving a little too. There's three things you do with money, give, save and spend. And as long as you're doing those three things on the proper ratios, you're in the clear. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, all right.

You're listening to The Ramsey Show. Thanks for being here. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is Dr. John Deloney. If you want to get involved in the conversation, you can do that. Give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225, and we'll get you in the mix. Hey, if you're selling a house or if you're buying a house let me

tell you a little something we want you to do that the Ramsey way all right when you do it the Ramsey way it makes home ownership a blessing instead of a burden and so we've got this Ramsey trusted program which is really the only way that you're going to be able to find an agent that you can trust to keep you on track with what we teach here at Ramsey so that you can get the best offer on your house or find the best home for you so what we do is we send you some of the top agents that are in your area. These are agents that we trust. You get to review their stats. You get to interview them. You get to decide ultimately which one that you're going to work with. And so the Ramsey Trusted Agents, these are folks with years and years of experience. They're going to help you make wise decisions

when it comes to pricing, when it comes to marketing, making, and even choosing the best offer if you're selling a home. So we want you to go to RamseySolutions.com slash agent in order to find a free Ramsey trusted real estate agent for you. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com slash agent. We'll get the job done. All right, let's go to the phone lines. We've got Justine. She's in Sacramento, California. What's going on, Justine? Hi, thanks for taking my call. I have a question about retirement. I am full-time working and putting into a state retirement system. My husband retired at 50 and is getting his pension about $80,000, but now is employed in a second career.

We just found out in April when we filed our taxes that we make too much money to contribute to Roth IRAs. Yeah. So my question is, do we go to a traditional IRA or do we just go to a brokerage account since he's already receiving his retirement? You could do a backdoor Roth IRA if you wanted to. You could work with one of our SmartVestor Pros to make that happen. It kind of sounds shifty because you say backdoor, but it's not. It's just basically the idea of you putting the money into a traditional and immediately rolling it over into a Roth IRA. So it'd be nice to work with somebody in order to do that. But I always say work with a SmartVestester pro because at this stage for you, you might be

looking into other bridge accounts that you want to be able to access ahead of time in case, you know what I'm saying? Your husband has the pension, but if you want money there, that's aside from retirement, if you decide to retire early. So I would work with a pro for that reason alone. Do you know what I'm saying when I say it like that? Does that make sense for you? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I just didn't know since he was already getting his pension and mine's going to be a guaranteed pension. I hope it's a teacher's pension when the time comes. And so how we continue because he's 15 and 49 or 52 and 49. So we still got a long ways ahead of us. So we still need to make sure we're comfortable and everything is removed through our second half of our life. Absolutely. Do you already have,

do you have any money set aside in IRAs or old 401ks or anything like that? Yes. We've been doing Roth IRAs for years alongside, but this is the first year I think between his pension and his new job, the salaries just outpaced what we needed. And so this would be the first year that we cannot contribute to the Roth IRA. Great problem to have. Hey, well done. It is. I'm happy for you guys. Yeah.

So yeah, you can do, like I said, you can do that backdoor Roth IRA, but get with someone just to make sure that that's the next step in your wealth building journey. Because like I said, you guys are further along. I'm not sure how much you have. It might be good to do that. It might be good to split it and do some other things as well. So I would do that. Thanks for the call. I love it. If you're doing really well and you find that you can retire early, it's nice to have a bridge account that you can get into that you're not going to have any penalty for if you haven't reached 59 and a half yet. Yeah. And I always

want to caution people, this kind of obsession with let's just retire let's just retire let's just retire um go towards something oh yeah don't don't cross the finish line just to say i quit go towards i'm gonna begin to do these next things i'm gonna learn these hobbies i'm gonna travel i'm gonna visit people like have a thing that you're going to do that's going to give you purpose and meaning and a reason to wake up every day because doing nothing, man, that's not all it's cracked up to be. Psychologically, emotionally, physically, everything falls off a cliff if you're not working towards something.

Yeah. It's like social, I don't know, like what is it called when you're atrophy? Yeah. It's like atrophy. It's like you're not using your brain. You're not using your body. You're not doing the things you always used to do like that can't be healthy for you yeah and there was a there's a movement for a while like let's all retire at 28 or 30 whatever and some of the feedback was i hung out with my friends on the weekends and i want to do that all the time and then i retired oh dude all my friends work all

the time because they still have jobs and so it's not what you think it's gonna feel it's not gonna feel like you think it's gonna feel yeah and so just be prepared for that but i always want to encourage people to go towards something yeah even if it's volunteering serving whatever it is go towards a thing don't just get to this finish line like i don't have to do it anymore because your body will go go cool we quit yeah i'm like you have half your life yet left. If you retire at 60 or 50, you have literally half of your life to go. Like, I don't know. I choose to live to 100.

So I don't know about the rest of you guys. I've got some miles on my body. I will not make it that long. You don't want to live to 100, John? There's 0% chance that happens. Don't say that. All right. Let's go to the phone lines.

We've got Josue who's in Los Angeles, California. What's going on, Josue? Hi, thank you all so much for taking my call. I've been trying to get on the call for a week now, so I'm glad you guys answered. Yay. I have a question. So I got a potential opportunity for employment, but it is across the country. I'm asking to relocate. They're asking me to relocate over to Louisville, Kentucky, Los Angeles. And it is a significant pay bump. So my question is, if it's worth doing the jump to go and relocate for the money and, you know, potentially giving up a company that has really good culture and, you know, potentially giving up a company that has really good culture

and, you know, has been such a pivotal organization for me in my development as a leader. Is it the same type of work? Yes, it's similar. So it's still managing a team of parking attendants. However, this is going to be more in the hospitality industry rather than the commercial industry. Is the culture you're moving into a terrible culture? I am not sure of the culture. I try to make as many connections with people and I get a lot of mixed reviews. Some people say that they hate it, that the leadership doesn't support them as much. And other people say that, you know, leadership is great

and that, you know, just make sure that you have good relationships with your clients and that you'll be fine. A lot of people feel meh about it. Are you a leader? Are you moving into a leadership role? I'm currently a leader here at my current company, and it'd be kind of like a lateral move, more pay basically how much more pay so i'm currently making 30 now which roughly comes out to 62 uh 62 000 per year um they're offering 85 000 a year with a 5 000

incentive for relocation not to mention probably a decrease in state income tax, probably a decrease in cost of living. Fair. Oh yeah. The cost of living is a huge one. Yeah. Have you been to Kentucky before? No. So I've only been to Tennessee. I've never been to Kentucky, so I'm not sure what to expect, but I did do a little bit of time in military contracting. So I did move around a bit, which is relocating isn't an issue for me. It's just my concern is nope. Dude, I'd hop on a plane and fly out here,

shake people's hands. Yeah. It's a $500 Southwest flight. That'd definitely be worth it. Yeah. And yes, I moved across the country. Jay had moved across the country for a better opportunity for our families, and we had to leave some stuff,

and we gained some stuff. But we, I know I did, and I'm sure you did too. I dug deep on the culture. I dug deep. I knew I was coming from South Florida to Nashville. I'd been to Nashville. I'd lived in Nashville before, so I knew what I was getting into,

and so I think for you, I mean, I can tell you off the bat, culturally, it's going to be totally different if you go from California to Kentucky. But if you're up for it, great. You know, it might be worth the money to you. But I agree with John. Get out here.

See what it's like. See if you like the folks. See if you like the culture there. And spend more than a day, you know, like try to spend a couple of days and really get into it. If I was in your world, you know what I would do? I would come out here and rent a car and go use the service of the team you would technically be leading. Ooh, I like that.

I thought about that, but I have to make a decision today whether I'm taking it or putting it in my two weeks notice. Oh, shoot. Well, good luck to you. Welcome to Kentucky, my man. Welcome kentucky yeah i at this point try it listen you can always go back yes and you're gonna have to get in line of all the people leaving los angeles to move to nashville or louisville so you're gonna have to there's some traffic this away but yeah we'll see you soon hey come out to louisville and then come visit us in nashville it's just it's just a hop skipping away all right jose we'll see you soon. Hey, come out to Louisville and then come visit us in Nashville. It's just a hop, skipping away. All right, Josue. We'll see you on the flip side. Can't

wait to see what you decide. This is The Ramsey Show. Take care.