The Ramsey Show - App - Is the Government Really Going To Shut Down? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Kristina Ellis answer your questions and discuss:   "How can I prepare for a government shutdown?" from the blog: What Is a Government Shutdown and How It Could Affect You "Can I move funds from an IRA to a 529?" What the Secure Act 2.0 means for those with student loans, "I need a new car soon", Where to start on your money journey. 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

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods moving and storage studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people do work that they love, build wealth, and create actual amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us, America. Christine Ellis, number one best-selling author and Ramsey personality, is my co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Natalie is in Modesto, California. Hi, Natalie. How are you? Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? Hi. So I am currently on BabySip2, and for work I am a federal employee. Because I'm a federal employee and also the position that I'm in, I am deemed essential. So in an event of a government shutdown, I would still have to work but without a paycheck throughout that, during that period of a shutdown. So with that, with the recent talks of, of a government shutdown this year, which, uh, the talks of government shutdown is always, it's always in the air every year, but this time it's actually making me a little bit nervous. So my question is, since I'm on baby step two, should I increase my, my starter emergency fund in case there is a government shutdown um

this year no no no you don't ever increase your baby step emergency fund what you might do is you might push pause on the whole dadgum thing and pile up cash but just push pause on your whole baby steps no baby steps at all are involved. There's a tornado coming towards our house, and we need an emergency. We need a big pile of money. Okay, so just don't even touch the emergency fund. And pile up cash everywhere if you think this is going to happen. Okay.

Now, how long have you been a federal government employee? This is my second year. So I haven't experienced anything, you know, when it comes to the government shutdown since I joined. Go back and do a little research for yourself. How many times you've actually been shut down? Yeah. It's hardly ever yeah hardly ever yeah I think three times in 30 years or something like that yeah and the most recent one being in January of 2019 it's just I'm feeling a little nervous uh because one maybe it's because I'm doing this debt-free journey, and two, my coworkers are making me nervous as well.

So they're in talks of raising their emergency fund or they're saving up money in case they're doing it. They're broke people. Okay. So we need to decide what the real threat is, okay? So if someone calls me up and says, our company is considering layoffs, do I stop everything and build up an emergency fund? Then the question is, what is the probability you are going to be laid off? If it's less than, if it's 50-50, yeah, stop.

Build up cash. If you think there's a 10% chance you're going to be laid off this is called worrying just work your plan and shut up okay so what do you think the probability is after doing a little bit of research not listening to your broke co-workers who worry about everything but really looking at it and saying okay in the current political environment what things are the same as they were during the times that the three times it did get shut down in 30 years or whatever the number is. I don't remember. I'm guessing, but it's not far off of that.

And so, you know, and oh, by the way, there's 14 times or 26 times that we almost did and only three times they did. And so it's usually just a bunch of hogwash, and we keep working. Yeah, that's my, yeah. Yeah, and if you think, you know, okay, there's a 10% chance this is going to happen, ah, go with it. Just keep working your plan. Hey, Natalie, how much debt do you have? I'm currently $80,000 right now.

Okay, and are you working a second job? No, I work currently with my schedule. I'm currently working seven days a week and it rotates every six months. My base salary right now is at 57,000 a year. That's my base salary. But with overtime, I'm projected to make about 105 110 this year okay how much overtime are you doing right now all day long yeah yeah yeah again every six months our schedule changes so um I'm like I'm probably gonna have this schedule for the full

year so I'm doing at least 75 hours of uh working and you're not required to do the overtime if you're not if they shut down i am required no not overtime uh well i to be more specific i work for the usda so my schedule is based on the factories that i work for so if the factories are working i work so they're deemed essential so i'm essential so i'm most 100 i'll be working over time because that the reason i'm asking that is i'm thinking like if for some crazy scenario the government shut down if you had a side hustle if you had another source of income that could be helping no margin to do that right but with 75 hours a week yeah yeah and before the schedule um I I had the time but again this is six uh our schedule changes from time to time so I'm taking advantage of the schedule I have

right now I get that and you're doing a great you're working your butt off girl way to go i'm proud of you yeah and that's tough and and what you're doing is a lot of hard work too it's not like it's not wussy work this is real work so um yeah i you have to decide what you think the probability with actual facts not whiners at work but the actual probability of the shutdown is and if you think it's 50 50 then i would stop everything and pile up cash i personally don't think this one is 50 50 okay okay that's a personal opinion but you can look at it and say i you know because i i think what's going on is the jockeying with a new Republican Congress against a Democrat Senate. And they're trying to – it's a power play. The shutdowns usually are power plays, by the way.

But, you know, you've got a president on one side, a Senate on that side, and then you've got the Republicans on the other side in the Congress. And so they're going to push around and act like they did something, and then at the last minute they're all going to sign up. That's what they do 99% of the time. But that's just an opinion from somebody who has no respect for hardly any of those people up there. Dave, I think we just need you to go to Washington. No, you don't. We need you to run their budget.

There would be a war. We need you to teach them how to budget. There would be a war. We need you to teach them how to budget. There would be a war. You don't want me up there. How are we running our country at a deficit? Like, we're not doing a zero-based budget. We're doing a... We need a no-spend month. Yes, we do. In the Congress. Come on.

Let's go. Well, then Sarah would be back off overtime. Or Natalie, rather. I'm sorry. Oh, my goodness. my goodness sorry about that natalie hey you'll be okay kiddo i think you're okay but you look at it and you make the judgment don't stop your plan based on worries because worries are always there but if the facts are scary then you would stop your plan and pile up cash that's the moral of the story for all of you facing these kinds of things this is the ramsey show Then you would stop your plan and pile up cash. That's the moral of the story for all of you facing these kinds of things.

This is The Ramsey Show. christina ellis ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today thank you for joining us open phones at 888-825-5225. Our question of the day today is from Brian in New Mexico. You want to read it? Yeah. My wife and I are working on baby step two and should be complete in less than two years. We're looking towards the future and worried about how we will pay for college for our eight-year-old daughter. I have an IRA worth $66,000 and I'm thinking about moving about $10,000 of it into a 529. Is this possible and or a smart thing to do? How would it affect the tax side of things if we do this? It's an interesting question. I personally, and Dave,

you may have a different opinion. I would say if you're in baby step two right now, I would just be worried about baby step two and focused on that Um, especially with an eight-year-old daughter paying for college if you can do that for your daughter That's going to be a nice gift But given that she's eight years old one you do have some margin and time to save but also You know, there's a lot of different ways to pay for college. There's scholarships. There's tuition free schools There's so many different options and right now I want you all to be set up, getting out of debt and saving towards retirement.

So I love that you're thinking about the 529, but right now I'd be more focused on Baby Step 2. Exactly. And no, you cannot move money from a 401k or an IRA to a 529, not without paying the penalties for early withdrawal. So it's not an option, number one. Number two, if it was an option, I would tell you not to do it for the same reasons Christina just did. So yeah, let's don't do that. Work your baby steps. You're going to get to baby

step five. At that point, you're going to start saving for college into a 529. And during that time, you're going to get better and better at managing money. You're going to get more and more margin because you're going to have no debt except your home when you're at baby step four, five, and six, working on paying off your house, saving for retirement, saving for your kid's college. And you're going to have more and more than you think you're going to have because this doesn't work on a straight line. You're looking at a snapshot of your life which is today life is a film strip it's not a snapshot it's going to things are going to change every frame as you go along generally if you're working a plan they get better financially generally i mean sometimes people have setbacks that they can't do anything about but generally that's what's going to happen so

including your income going up yeah you know getting out of debt hopefully eventually being in baby step seven as you get closer to college there's a chance that even if you don't have a huge pile of cash to pay for her education you may be able to cash flow some of that yeah you know just don't be adding you shouldn't be adding right now to your 401k you should be working your baby step two you stop your 401k temporarily when you working your baby step two you stop your 401k temporarily when you're in baby step two and you pay on debt smallest to largest and you're working that snowball that way that's a big deal um and so it's smart to look ahead and be thinking unless it causes you to get into panic mode and start doing stupid stuff and this is on the stupid

stuff list don't do this okay even if you could don't do it now here's the other thing well christina the other part of christina's advice is the real answer to your question the thing you can start working on for her college is her okay um for instance we explained to our children that they were going to in-state schools. They were never really giving an option on that because that's what we're not going to overpay for college. And we didn't have any pro athletes or geniuses in the Ramsey house that got 4.0s, okay? So they were like regular kids,

and they were not going to be getting academic or athletic scholarships we did not know about christina and the magic of scholarships in those days uh and so we said you're going to a state school uh so college choice is something you can start working on today uh follow the correct football team you know i mean so you know we don't want to be confused uh and let's understand that the parents run the house not the child well my child told me they're gonna my child didn't tell me stuff i told them stuff that's how that works well you're controlling yep my money you can count on me being controlling in that case yep my kid you can count on me being controlling and you can tell your me being controlling. You

can tell your therapist about it when you're 30, but for right now, you're going to freaking do what I say. Okay. Well, and also, it's important to start having these conversations about money and college, and then it costs money early on, because I talk to parents of seniors all the time who are like, hey, I went home and had a conversation about college being expensive with my senior, and they don't want to do anything but play video games and i'm like well let's see have they been active before like have they been doing sports are they involved in activities are they active you know there's hardly any scholarships for mario right for couch potatoes hardly any there's not a couch potato scholarship y'all not that i'm aware of there's a lot of scholarships but i'm not aware of that one

right and so it's like they don't and then also school choice scholarships plan on working so teaching your eight-year-old how to work age appropriately and how to make value-based decisions what is something worth what it costs and then how to look for scholarships and do things that are not normal that your friends don't do and so we didn't go on a college tour and visit 17 colleges. We also didn't go look at Mercedes Benz when they turned 16 because they weren't getting one. So we, there was no reason to be on that lot because you're not going there,

you know? And so, I mean, it's, you know, so we, this is not, if you want to do all that stuff i'm

not mad at you but this this thing of you these people have a sense that the college system is happening to you when you instead can happen to it and that's a bigger part of the equation than moving 10 grand to your 529 absolutely being proactive about it having these money conversations earlier, instilling these work ethic and values into your kids early on, that makes a huge difference. Talk to them about this stuff. Tell them what the future is going to look like. Talk to them about money and scholarships. And just doing that, they're going to be so much more prepared. That's why we have the student loan crisis right now. A lot of these kids didn't know about money. Nobody talked to them.

And the first person that really had an in-depth conversation was somebody offering them a student loan. It's a little bit mean, and it's one of the few mean things Rachel Cruz says, but she says we don't really have a student loan crisis. We have a parenting crisis. Step up, Mom and Dad. Don't let your 17-year-old or 18-year-old do stupid butt stuff that's going to take them two decades to recover from. You know? I mean, that's what it amounts to.

And you're going to go $200,000 in debt to get a degree in left-handed puppetry or German polka history and then whine because the society owes you a living. And I need President Biden to forgive my debt because I'm dumber than a rock. Well, but it's not even just like it's sad but it's also like these are 17 year olds they're they're inherently like their prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed they're not supposed to like they don't necessarily inherently know all of this for those of you that don't know that's their brain right it's not fully developed it's not and so it's like they're kind of supposed to be a little dumb like that's just part of it it's part of being 17 it's part of being 17 we don't get to choose we all made dumb decisions

at 17 years old but they shouldn't have so if you're gonna pay if you're gonna pay fifty thousand dollars a year for a college instead of twelve thousand there needs to be a real reason and you need to have the money or the scholarships or the scholarships so you went to freaking vanderbilt and got a degree which is like what 60 000 bucks a year it's close to 70 it's like it's over 70 now okay and so you know we can't we're not saying you all have to do what redneck dave did and made his kid go to state college we don't all have to do that so nothing wrong with vanderbilt except their football team so you can go over there and go to school for sixty thousand dollars a year but by the way christina did not pay a dime to go there right and that was part of the conversation with my mom and she's like you're on your own paying for college but you

got to get scholarships you have to figure out a way to pay for it student loans got your master's at freaking belmont right yeah what was it your master's is that right or are you a PhD too I can't remember master's I'm not as cool as Deloney okay not as nobody's as cool as Deloney but um yeah so master's at Belmont and that's like 50 grand a year yeah 52 I think or something yeah it's up there so I mean you picked out two freaking expensive schools but you got a half a million dollars in scholarships yep pay cash for both of them yep well pay scholarships telling your business here girl but i mean this is this is your business so that's why i'm so passionate about it because i felt those overwhelming feelings of like how am i going to pay for this education my mom's already told me i'm on my own

but i'm going to figure it out let me just tell you no one cares where you went to school out here after you get out. Have you ever asked your doctor, before you give me that shot, where'd you go to school? Nope. Or you hired that lawyer. Did you ask him where they got their law degree? Nope. Nope.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. So you need to go to school at a place that you can pay for and that will give you the education that will cause you to go win as like a grown-up and stuff this is the ramsey show Christina Ellis Ramsey personality number one best bestselling author of the book Confessions of a Scholarship Winner, is my co-host today. We were talking about student loans in that last question of the day that came up. And, you know, one of the things that's happened in the last week or so is President Biden signed into law the new SECURE Act.

If you want to see a full breakdown of the SECURE Act, we've got a great article coming out on our website at the end of the week. So be checking our blog at the end of the week, and it's going to be absolutely everything you need to know about the SECURE Act. But there's two things in the SECURE Act that were signed that a lot of it had – most of it had to do with retirement. But two things they did that were very cool that are helpful on this other issue. One is the law allows companies to make 401k matching contributions based on the employer's student loan payments, even if the workers don't contribute directly to their own 401k. So apparently, if I'm understanding this correctly,

a lot of people, a lot of companies are helping with student loan debt one way or another out there. It's a hiring process. You know, it's a hiring thing now, a signing bonus type thing. So like you got a match on your 401k. That's a reason to go to work for that company. We'll help you with your student loans, a reason to go to work for that company. So they're making this happen here. And if I'm understanding this correctly, the company can make contributions to your 401k

equal to up to three thousand dollars a year i believe it was equal to your uh your payments on your student loans this is the same president that's forgiving the student loans i'm so confused but um they're not forgiven so there we go and um yeah this is the thing so employers can match your student loan payments with retirement contributions this is correct uh here i'm trying to read the thing uh let's say you get a new job making a hundred thousand your employer matches three percent on contribution but you're still working on getting sally may out uh your employer could offer up to three thousand dollars of student loan i was right about that yeah so you put three thousand dollars down on your student loan they'll put three thousand dollars in your retirement account if your

employer offered that it is now legalized with secure act that's pretty cool yeah there's a reason to do your debt reduction you know reason to get there and the other one that's even cooler uh because a lot of people gripe about well if i put money in the 529 what if we don't use it well number one that almost never comes up because very few people put enough money in the 529 for this to be a problem okay but let's say you've got thirty thousand dollars left over in your 529 and you didn't use it. Number one, if you didn't use it because of scholarships, you can take out every year the value of the scholarship. So if you get a $10,000 scholarship, you can pull $10,000 out of your 529.

No taxes, no penalties. You just have to provide the documentation. That's already on the books. But the SECURE Act is allowing if after all of that, you still end up with, because you went to a cheaper school and your parents had saved like maniacs, okay, and you end up with money left in your 529, you can roll it. After 15 years, you can roll over any unused money from a 529 to a Roth IRA for the plan's beneficiary so uh little suzy q your daughter has a 529 and little suzy q doesn't use it all 15 years later suzy q can have a roth ira and roll the money into that with no penalties this is so exciting to me that's a really good thing yeah especially as a parent i mean that's a discussion

we've had in our house and just a conversation and a thought process. And it's like, wow, that is a huge change for parents. Well, it takes away the whining that says, I'm afraid I'm going to have too much in my 529, which never freaking happens. But it could happen hypothetically. And if it did, number one, if it was because of scholarships, you should have pulled it out right then and not paid any taxes,

doing what we just told you. That's already on the books. But now this act, the SECURE Act, signed by Biden. Thank you, President Biden. Good, good piece of legislation here. I think everything in this piece of legislation, but one thing I like, we'll cover that another day. But these two student loan things, one is the employer can now match what you pay down up to $3,000 into your 401k. Nice benefit.

And two, this is even more important. If you had 529 money left over after 15 years, you can roll any unused money from a 529 plan into a Roth IRA, the student to the student, okay? Not to mom and dad's Roth IRA, but to the student's IRA, which is, this is just very cool. Yeah, it's another way to set your kids up for success. And again, like you said, to take those excuses off the table. There's not a reason not to save for college if you're in baby step five,

and you think your kids are going to go to college. That's a great thing to do, and you don't have that fear anymore. There's not that reason to hesitate. Very good. Sarah is with us. Sarah's in Asheville, North Carolina. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. us. Sarah's in Asheville, North Carolina. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Thanks. What's up? I have a question about investing or saving. We have just completed funding our six-month emergency fund. Way to go. We would like to. Thank you. We're very excited. We were doing the baby steps. So we're looking to increase our investing. But the question is, we also have some savings goals. We'd like to pay cash for our next car and like home maintenance things. Like we've been told we'll need to replace the heat pump in our house, which would be several thousand.

So the question is, do we just dump into savings right now or up some investing? What's your household income? We are a single income. I now stay home with my children, and we're about right at 90. Okay. And you're going to be putting baby step four is 15% of your income going into retirement. And then with what's left over in your budget, you save up for a car and a heat pump. You don't have any payments anymore, remember?

Yeah, we have no payments. Right. That's the question. If we dump that much into retirement, it's going to be hard to have much to save for a car. No. How much debt have you paid off? Well, we have no car payment. How much debt did you pay off?

Probably $15,000. How long did that take you? Over how long? Probably two years good lord well yeah you're gonna have trouble because you've never cut your budget back how quickly do you need this car um the car we have now is 11 years old and it i mean it's functioning we hope to keep it as long as we can we do not want to go into debt for a car of course so it's not an urgent need right now what's your house no no uh we our house is paid for currently we're a family of six okay sarah there's all kinds of problems in this math,

and I don't know where it is, and I don't want to jump to too many conclusions. My suspicion from my experience is that you're not doing a good job with your budget. You have no house payment. You have no car payments. You make $90,000 a year. You have six kids.

Lots of people in your situation would have lots of money left over after having put $1,200, $1,400 into their 401k plan. You don't have a payment in the world. And there should be all kinds of room in this budget to save, not buy a car a month, but you ought to be able to save and buy one by September. You ought to be able to save and do your retirement. I think you guys are focused on you get caught up in the busyness of a large family, and sometimes there's some disorganization in the finances around that, and we go, oh, well, we're a large family.

We can't afford it. Sometimes that happens. Could that be you? I think so. You know, like I said, we're single income. Do you do a written budget every month? Every dollar has a name and you and your husband are in agreement on it before the month begins? No, you don't.

Yes. You do. Every single dollar has an assignment. Yes. Okay. Then you need to figure out where all your money is going. Do a no spend month. Because, I mean, it's,

you got $90,000 coming in minus taxes, and you should have money left over to do retirement and to save for these other things. There should be room in this budget. I've been doing budgets for 30 years. There's something wrong with your equation here. Something's missing. This is The Ramsey Show. Well, sometimes the lessons in life that you get when you screw up, they hurt.

You learn from them. You've got the wisdom, and you don't have to do it again. And then you get to do something new that's stupid. But that old stupid thing, you don't have to do it twice, right? That's how we learn. That's how I learn. I try to not do the same stupid thing twice. And after you get older, you've done a whole bunch of stupid things that you'd never do again.

So you get to be what they call wise. This is why we wrote the total money makeover. So you don't have to make the same money mistakes I made. You can learn from my stupidity before I learned to do things the right way. You get practical proven plans that literally tens of millions of people have applied to get out of debt and build wealth and learn the seven baby steps. In my most recent book, Baby Steps Millionaires, you'll also find out through the stories of real people that you can be radically transformed and become a millionaire. It can really happen. Anyone can

do this in America even today. It's not snake oil. It's not magic. It's actually very hard, but it's easier than being broke and stressed. So try it. Anyone can do it. Never too late. You can order the Total Money Makeover book. You can order the Baby Steps Millionaire's book. You can order any of our Ramsey personality books, of course, at ramseysolutions.com slash store. Check it out. James is in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hi, James. How are you?

Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? So I just have a question. I recently started listening to your podcast. My wife and I, we recently moved into our new construction home, and we're just kind of trying to figure out how to budget properly.

We're both in our early 20s, and I always hear about the money makeover book and also financial advisors, and I'm just curious on what's the best route for someone just starting to learn how to budget properly to go. Well, welcome on board. We're happy to have you here. Our ratings went way up. We didn't know it was you. So are you familiar with the baby steps at this point? Somewhat, not all the way, but I have my stepmother. She preaches you all the time.

And like I said, I just started listening to you guys. And I'd really like to hop on the train and get this whole situation fixed. Well, I love this. This is what we were talking about earlier with all the acronyms and the new lingo for the people that are just starting out in the tribe. So this is just perfect. So do you all have any other debt outside of your house? Other than credit card payments?

No, we paid off our cars while our house was being constructed, and we had a medical bill that we paid off as well. So we just have credit card payment and house. What is it? You mean you have debt on a credit card? Yes. Okay. How much?

$17,000. Okay. And what's your household income? Yearly, it's right around this year we were at $95,000. Good for you. You got a great start,000. Okay. And what's your household income? Yearly, it's right around this year we were at $95,000. Good for you. You got a great start, sir. Great start. Thank you.

Yeah, and I love that you're already tackling the car, the different medical bills. That's awesome. The $17,000, that's next. So that would put you on baby step two. We have seven baby steps. You're on two. And that's the next thing we want you to tackle. And you asked about a financial advisor.

You know, we've got these things here called SmartVestor Pros. And for a lot of people, once they're investing, we recommend both. But right now, you're in baby step two. And have you taken Financial Peace University yet? I have not. Well, we'll gift that to you. And that'll explain the whole system. You'll learn all the lingo and all the acronyms and all the things that we're talking about uh to just kind of get you really focused

and started now this is the class that you should have been taught that we all should have been taught yeah i wish yeah i hear you me too and so yeah but it's going to walk you through exactly what to do and so right now what you're going to discover is the largest barrier to people becoming wealthy is debt payments because your most powerful wealth building tool is your income. So what we're going to do is quickly wipe out that $17,000. So with no payment in the world but a house payment, you got some wiggle room in your budget, then you can save for an emergency fund, then you can start your retirement investing, which is where you'll build serious wealth. And you can start saving for your kiddos' college so they don't end up in student loan debt later.

And then the next to the last step, six, is we're going to pay off the house early. That's probably going to take seven, eight years to do that whole thing. But, dude, if you're 30 and you have a paid-for house, retirement's well underway and you don't have a payment in the world, by then you're making a lot more than 90. You're going to be so wealthy so fast it's going to be crazy in the scope of things. See what we're doing? I do. Yeah.

Okay. So it's just a system, a process of what to do first, what to do second, and all of that. And like Christina said, we'll sign you up. We're going to give it to you as our gift to say thank you for being a new listener. We're glad you're here, and it'll walk you through this. But you're going to have – there's not a path to greatness that does not involve strain. There's not a path to success that doesn't involve perseverance. There's not a path to being different, above average, that does average things.

So be ready for some prescriptive things that we're going to tell you to do that are going to feel like your friends are going to think you're crazy. But keep in mind your friends are broke people. And so that's what you, you know, if you do, if you get that, then you go, okay, I'm going to lean in. You know, there's no pill you can take down at the vitamin store that's going to make you look like a Greek god.

It requires unbelievable physical discipline. Well, and it's kind of like pick your heart. Being broke is hard. Being hopeless is hard. Having no plan for your money and living paycheck to paycheck, that is hard. And while it takes discipline and it might be a challenge to get on a plan and build wealth, that actually has an amazing end result. And it brings peace in your finances. The actual work is worth it in the long run.

So, and tell your stepmother, thanks for preaching. We appreciate it. Hang on, we'll give it to you, brother. And you call us if you got any questions anytime. We're here to help you. We'll encourage you to. Jessica's in Louisville. Hi, Jessica. How are you doing? Hi. Thanks so much for taking my call.

I have a burning 529 question that I'm hoping you guys can help me with. So my husband and I have three teenagers, a senior in high school, a junior in high school, and a freshman. So all will be, you know, college ready soon. So we've been saving since they were born. As of right now, we have $123,000 in their accounts. Each? Total, I'm sorry. They're set up as three separate accounts, but I just kind of look at it as the full amount. Um, so we put 600 a month in there right now. Um, I looked back last January, January, we were at 128 since then we put, you know, $7,200 with that. And now we're back at 123. So my question is, um, should we stop contributing to the 529 and just leave it for them?

Okay, because we're planning on cash flowing the oldest because he's getting pretty good scholarships. We're requiring all of them to do in-state tuition. Yeah, so that means you've got at least three or four years before you're going to need this money. Yes. So you think just keep going? What do you think the stock market's going to do in three or four years? If it goes three or four years and doesn't go up, it'll be the first time in history. That's my hope.

No, really. Three-year bear markets don't exist in history. Go look for them. Okay, good. So we're baby step seven. So you think just should I pull some out for my one that'll be starting in the fall um or just thought you were going to cash flow the one that's starting in the fall well i can good i can cash no do it do it okay leave this alone let it grow okay i'll do it thank you so much i just love that

she used the word burning and 529 in the same sentence i was going to ask what a burning 529 was i haven't seen one of those i'm like somebody who studies college and loves the topic. It's like a burning bush. That much excitement around a 529 just gets me excited. That's right. I have a burning 529 question. Oh, no, a burning question about a 529. Okay, now I get it. Okay. But yeah, that's an interesting thing. It's kind of like when you're coming up to, okay, you're 64 years old. The stock market's down. Ooh, I got a million dollars in there. Do I take it all out?

Because the stock market's down. No, you're not going to use it all right now. Let it ride. Ride the roller coaster. No one gets hurt on the roller coaster except those that jump off in the middle of the ride. This is The Ramsey Show. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.