The Ramsey Show - App - It’s Never Too Late to Start Building Wealth

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

From the Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney this hour. The phone number to call is 888-825-5225. And as you're listening, if you could do us a tiny huge favor, let us know what you think about the show, what you don't like, what you want to hear more about. And the way to do that is with our annual listener survey. It's now live. You can text the word survey to 33789 or go to ramsaysolutions.com slash survey. We'll also drop a link in the description wherever you're

listening. And if you sign up today, you'll be entered to win a $500 gift card. And it means the world to hear what you think. And it definitely affects the content that we do here for the rest of the year. And our pay. So be nice. Doesn't affect that, but thank you, John. You can put a good word. John Deloney deserves a raise. I was trying. He's doing so good. All right. Anybody will write that.

Let's try to help someone, John. How about that? Andrea's in Phoenix up next. What's going on, Andrea? Hi, and thank you for taking my call. Absolutely. My name is Andrea, and I am 60 years old, and I am employed. I bring home about $2,864 a month.

I live with my son and his family. The only outgoing bills I have is my car insurance, and I pay for gas and any other incidentals. I want to know, is it possible for me to continue or to own a home and still save for my retirement? I have $69,000 in a 401k. And I'll tell you a little bit. I was in Ohio, and I relocated to Arizona before the pandemic. And since I've been here, everything has gotten so inflated. So my decision now is to go back to Ohio.

But while I'm here in this kind of situation to save and not have to pay any bills, I have some time before I go back to Ohio. So ask me anything. All right. So you told me your stated goal was I want to be able to own a home and retire one day. Yes. Okay. That's going to take a sizable nest egg and a pretty solid savings rate. So how

much are you able to save right now? You're saying you got almost no bills. So out of that $2,864, how much is left over? It'll be $2,154, like $2,154, minus the car insurance and the gas. But I plan on getting a job where I work from home, which is at the save on the gas. And I do have like $45,000 saved up. Okay, that's in a savings account? Mm-hmm. And no debt whatsoever? Well, no.

If I have debt, I just pay it off every month if I use a credit card. But I did get the EveryDollar app. I recently did that. I'm still working with that. And I've just only been listening to you guys for like three or four weeks. Awesome. Welcome to the party. Well, we have a pretty controversial stance around here,

and that is debt robs you from your future, even if it's temporary, even if I'm paying it off tomorrow. And so John and I do not own a single credit card. We just use our debit cards. We use our own money. And what you're facing here, Andrea, is an income problem. We've got to get your income up because that's going to create more margin for you to save for that home. And so you're in what we would call baby steps four, five, and six if you're debt-free with an emergency fund, which you just told me you have $45,000 liquid? Yes. Great. And so we'll call that your emergency fund plus some down payment fund because you don't need $45,000, I imagine, to cover your expenses for three to six months. No.

Okay. So your A1 goal, if it is buying a home, is to put money away for a down payment. But before we do that, we should be investing 15% of our income into retirement. So how much are you investing right now? So right now, I'm not investing that much. I think I'm at 1%. And I can probably put that up to where I should be. Why is it at 1%? Because in my mind, I'm thinking before I listened to you guys, I was going to get more in my mind and thinking before I listened to you guys, I was going to get more in my check to save more, but that just hasn't worked out as well as I wanted it to.

Well, you can't save your way to wealth. We have to invest this money. Because right now, you're not even beating the rate of inflation if that money is just sitting in a checking account. Yes. If you invested, the U.S. stock market last year, Andrea, in 2024, returned 24%. So you put $100,000 in that account, now it has $124,000. Do you see the difference? Okay.

Invested in the stock market. And we're not saying a single stock. You're going to do mutual funds within that retirement account that will grow at a steady pace, probably 10% to 12% over the next 10 years. And that will at least help give you some cushion. I don't know that we're going to have a dream retirement at this stage of the game. We might have to do what John Deloney says and choose our reality and grieve what could have been and create a new picture of what's next. Why don't you want to live with your son? I just don't. I don't want to. I think I just don't want to. I just don't want to be on. You get to do whatever

you want. Going all the way back to Ohio, that's a long way. It feels like an intentional move away from family. Well, it'll be away from the, yes, it'll be away from this family, but then my sisters and brothers are all back east, and they're all getting older, and they're all sickly. And I guess I wanted to be closer to them. Not that I don't want to be closer here, but it's easier for me to get here. Right now, it's not easy for me to get there and be there as a help. Is there a possibility you could move in with one of your brothers and sisters in a garage apartment or something? I'm just trying to reimagine buying a house right now versus if you're going to be in

a caretaker role, moving in with somebody. I could. That is a possibility. I'm not going to lie and say it's a possibility. I know it might not be ideal, but man, I love the idea of you saving some money over the next five or 10 or 15 years until somebody can help you, right? Because you'll need somebody to love and care on you also. Yeah. If you move to Ohio, is your job going to go with you?

Yes. If I get the job from home, my job comes with me. Okay, great. What does that job pay? About $40,000 a year. Okay. What job is it? What kind of role? I work in the medical records department.

What would it look like to make $60,000 60 or 70,000 at your age with your experience in that field? What does the latter look like? I'm not understanding the question. I'm sorry. Like, what would your supervisor be doing in the medical records field? Is there another job out there where you could not just settle for whatever job you could get, but go, how do I grow in this field so that I can actually put more away for retirement and save up for that house? I do have a certification for medical coding, but it's been just difficult to get a job because I don't have any experience in that particular job. Would an entry medical coder make $40,000? They could start off at $40,000, yeah. So that's what I would be doing

if the trajectory is higher with your certification. Even if it's not the exact role you want, I would just try to get on A ladders. And the truth is, Andrea, you might be working into your 70s to make this dream happen. Yeah. Are you okay with that?

Yeah, I would like that. Okay. I am. I just crunched the numbers for you. You know, you got 69 grand in that retirement account. You keep investing, let's say, a thousand bucks a month. If you can do that to 72, you'll have over half a million in that nest egg. And on the way, get yourself, you know, a reasonable mortgage. And that way you're not stuck paying whatever market rent is for the next 12 years. Or, yeah, you take the last two bedrooms in one of your brother's or sister's house when you're caretaking and you're helping out.

And maybe you let that dream go of I have to buy my own three or four bedroom house. But we have a great place to live and you get to care and serve like you like to. Thanks for the call, Andrea. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys, I'm not a fan of the big banks, and you probably already know which ones I mean, but I do like credit unions because they're non-profit organizations that focus on their members, and I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously.

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So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. And while you're there, look at the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans to help you take control of your finances. That's Fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Thank you, George. And it's Inauguration Day, John. A lot going on. Very busy day.

And no matter how you're feeling today, we've said this a million times, what happens in your house is way more important than what happens in the White House. No president or administration has more control over the success of your life or your money than you do. And we're going to prove it to you this Thursday at our free live stream. We're calling it Take Control of Your Money. Dave Ramsey and Jade Warshaw will walk you through practical ways you can create more margin, build more wealth, and get ahead with money this year. And I'll be there along with Rachel Cruz taking your money questions live. And here's your first step. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash live stream to sign up. You'll be automatically entered to win $4,000 cash.

And once you're signed up, create a free every dollar account to get a bonus entry in the giveaway. And this is super important because we'll be using every dollar throughout the live stream to show you immediate ways to take control of your money. So you can have your own budget live doing all the things we're telling you to do to show you how it can affect your wallet, your budget, your household. Then share the event with your friends and family. Again, it's totally free. It's virtual. Join us from anywhere. You'll get a bonus entry for everyone who signs up. And it happens this Thursday, 7 p.m. Central. Go to ramsaysolutions.com slash live stream. Gene is joining us in Fort Lauderdale. What's going on, Jean?

How can we help? Hello? Hey. What's up, dude? Yeah. Yeah, hi. How are you? Fantastic.

What's up, brother? Yeah, I have an issue that I've been dealing with for the past few months. Okay, I recently got scammed by someone that I thought was a friend. And it's a very complex story. It's kind of hard to explain. Uh, I don't know. I don't know if I have enough time to explain it. Give me the overview. How'd you get scammed? Okay. Well, this started in California before I moved back to Florida. You know, um, there's two, there's two, there's two different parts of this story,

but, um, give me the super, super, super distilled version. Did you send the money? Just give us the details. Okay. I sent her money to help with her lymphedema surgery that she was supposed to get, but she never did it. She kept making excuses on why she can't get the surgery and all this stuff. And then the other part was co-signing a car for her, which I co-signed, which I co-signed a car for her before I left to come back to Florida. The money part was after I came back to Florida. Okay. So what do you want the hook for now?

You sent money via what for the surgery? How did you send it? I sent it through Cash App and Apple Cash. Okay, and how much did you send? It was somewhere between like about somewhere between $30,000 to $35,000. And you had this money in cash? Not straight up cash. Like I didn't have have it straight up cash in my bank account. You went into debt for this? I went, yeah. I was already in debt, but now I'm in more debt.

I feel like the dumbest person in the world talking about this to anybody. No, you're good, man. We're not trying to beat up on you. I'm trying to get to the bottom of this to see what kind of hole you're in and how we can get you out of it. So do you owe $35,000 in debt? No, that's how much I lost. Okay. And you co-signed a car loan. I owe way more in debt than that. I owe way more in debt than that.

I have credit card debts, student loan debts. Yeah, you were in a bad situation before this. It just got way worse. Yeah, because I helped this person and they screwed me over. Yeah, so here's the deal before we get to like the tactics part you're gonna have to do two things one you have to release that you did it it's over okay somebody was hurting and you reached out and said, I can help you out. And they bit you twice bad. Okay. Yeah.

The more you hang on to that, the more you're choosing on a minute by minute basis to be miserable in the present and to not be able to move forward. Right. Yeah. So let's let go. The second thing is you have to forgive yourself, man. I've been having a hard time. I know you have to forgive yourself, man. I've been having a hard time doing that. I know you have. We've all done stupid stuff with people that we were romantically interested in.

We've all done stupid stuff with money. We've all just done stupid stuff. Now, we haven't all done it to the tune of $20,000 or $30,000 or $40,000 or $50,000 like you have, so congratulations on that one. But we've all done stupid stuff. You've got to forgive yourself because it's keeping you

from doing the next right thing. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You got a good heart and I'm glad there are people like you out there that are willing to step in and help. And you got bit, man.

And so now you got a big old pile of debt. You got a big old mess and you're the only person that can clean it up. Right? Yeah. Okay. So let's own that. Let's release the other nonsense, and we're going to move on

and do the next right thing. Cool? Yeah. Okay. Say, I forgive myself on national radio. I forgive myself on national radio. There you go, man. There you go. You didn't have to say the on national radio part, but I'm with it. I'm with it. I'm with it. All right. Here you go, man. There you go. You didn't have to say the on National Radio part, but I'm with it. I'm with it. I'm with it.

All right. Here we go, George. All right. So, Gene, what is your total debt load, all in? Of what I owe and, like, everything? Yes. Oh, I mean, it's a lot. I have to add it up.

Is it half a million dollars or is it $100,000? Give me just a ballpark. I mean, if you add everything with what I owe on my car, my credit card debt to my student loan debt to what I owe the IRS, it's like probably more than a hundred thousand. Okay. And what is your income?

Right now? I'm like, like, uh, if I had to make a guess, like 40,000 a year. And what are you doing for work? For taxes. I work at FedEx.

Okay. You can't make your monthly payments every month. Can you? I'm barely hanging on by a thin string. Okay. All right. And, you know, I was doing so, I wouldn't say I wasn't doing like really bad, but I had a little something going, okay? I was investing in crypto for like almost seven years, and all that's gone because I sacrificed and helped this person out, and they screwed me over.

I was too trusting. I had too much of a heart. That's one of my problems that I have. Hold on, hold on. I have too much of a heart. Remember when we just talked? Open your hand up. Right now, I can hear your hands are clenched. I can feel it on you open your hand up Let it go open let it go

Because replaying what you had and what you did over and over and over again will keep you from moving forward What what I'd hear somebody A, has done it before, so that you can do it again, and B, you've got a great heart. The world needs more of both of those attributes. You just need a little more wisdom, okay? No, I will never let this happen again. Okay. Good.

What was owed on the car loan? For my own car or the one i co-signed for when you co-signed for uh it's like i think it's like 30 000 in value are they making on-time payments well here's well here's the thing she's she's still making the payments even though they're late payments but she's still making the payments, which is the part that confuses me here. And I get the feeling that she's – I suspect that she's using my money to make the payments on the car. What she does with that is her business now. That money's gone. I'm just wondering, do you have a way to get in touch with this person if they cut off all communication?

I cut off all communication? I cut off all communication. I couldn't take it no more. She, she is a, she's a weirdo. She is a narcissist. Okay. I'm saying like, I'm guessing it's too late to go, Hey, I need to get out of this. Would you refinance the loan into your name? She's not going to refi, like if she were to refinance it, she's not going to be able to, she's not going to be able to do it until July of this year because I co-signed for the car last year in July. And at CarMax, you have to wait a year to refinance the car. And I'm guessing this credit was so bad. They work with these shady companies like Exeter. Yeah, she didn't have good credit, which is why I helped co-sign for the car in the first place.

And then... I'm guessing the interest on this thing is like, what, 12%, 15%? It might be 12%. I'm not sure. I have to call about it. We're running out of time, Gene, but I'm going to send you a copy of my book, Breaking Free from Broke. And in the book, I talk about this one line that will change everything for you.

It's not all your fault, but it's your responsibility. So like John said, we have to let go of the anger and move forward and go, Jean has a hundred thousand dollar mess to clean up. In your own life, right? Your own credit cards, your own student loans, your own cars. If she's making payments, let her make payments and go on about cleaning up your mess because you're not cleaning this deal either, man. And so you're going to have to get your income up. That might mean a second full-time job once you get off the first full-time job. But you can get out of this. It's going to take a while, and it's going to take stop borrowing money.

And obviously, you're done getting scammed. So sorry you're going through this, man. This is The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts, and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all.

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You call us and we'll help you take the right next step for your life, your money, your emotional health, mental health, relationships, whatever is going on. Tanner's up next in Manhattan, Kansas. What's going on, Tanner? Hi, how are you guys doing? Doing great. How can John and I help? Yeah, so I am getting married in May after my fiance and I graduate. And thankfully, I've had some very generous parents and grandparents, and I'll be graduating debt-free. My fiance will have some student loans that we'll need to pay off because I know that I'll be inheriting that debt as well. My question is,

should I use a trust fund that my grandparents have set up for me to help pay off those debts like right after the honeymoon? Okay. Tell us more. How much debt is this? I think it's around 60 or 70,000, but I'm not entirely sure. Okay. And then tell us about the trust fund. What's it made up of? How much is in there? So I don't actually have access to it yet. I'll get access when I'm 25. I've been able to take out money to max out my Roth IRA these last couple of years, but I think it's around $250,000. Wow. Incredible. Okay, and how old are you now?

Sure. 23. Okay. So you couldn't even do it immediately. You'd still have to wait. Correct. So I guess I'm wondering if I should even ask about trying to get access to some money to pay off that debt, even though I won't technically have access yet. What will your household income be once you guys are married? Now, we both accept jobs, and I think we'll both be making $58,000. Okay.

So I guess a total of $120,000. Awesome. And this is all the debt that will be to your name, the $60,000, $70,000 in her student loans? Yes. We'll probably have to buy a new car. Well, not a new car, but buy a car. Who's the custodian of the trust? What's that?

Who's the custodian of the trust? My grandparents set it up, but I know my parents can move money around. Are your grandparents still alive? Yes, they are. Okay. So are they in charge of it? If you had to go ask, how do you take withdrawals? Let me ask you that. It's always just been, we get to the end of the year and it's time to contribute to the Roth IRA. So then I asked my mom and she is able to transfer the money. Okay. I would find out who's in charge of the trust. Okay.

Sounds like your parents might be trustees on this thing where they can control it. That sounds right. Okay. Do you have any savings? Yeah. I just studied abroad last semester, so it's a little low now, but around like $4,000. Okay. And with your newfound income, I would begin paying it off in the meantime. And if you're able to get access to it to knock this out faster, that's great. But there's another piece of this that I want to make sure you get. And that's, I want you to be able to have your own investing savings muscle and not rely on this trust fund. And it's not because the trust fund's bad. I just want you to have the muscles where you know, if I needed to put 5,000 of my own money

away every month from my income, you could do that. And that's going to be a really good habit for both of you to build as you build wealth together. Yeah, that's definitely the plan as soon as we start the job and have a stable income is to set aside that 15%. I guess another part of the puzzle is like, do I take the 15%, whatever, do the company 401k, and then afterwards I meet that 15%, do I go to my trust and max out Roth? Beyond the 15%, you'd go into Baby Steps 5 and 6, which would be Safer Kids College. I'm assuming you guys don't have kids. And then Baby Steps 6 is attacking a mortgage.

Do you guys have a house or will you? Well, plenty are renting. Okay, good. So if I was going to financially coach you guys as pre-marital counseling, I'm going to go, let's get gung-ho on this debt. Let's take all of our savings, future income. If we can dip into the trust fund, let's knock out this debt fast. Let's get a fully funded emergency fund, begin investing 15%.

Beyond that, I would begin saving up a down payment for a house. Okay. And if you need a car in the meantime, let's set up a sinking fund. Is this like an emergency situation or is this a year from now we need a car? It's not a great car that she has now. I think she's just ready to start new and get a new one. So I would tell you that is one of the top two or three wealth killers for new couples, especially when they're under the age of 25 is this quote unquote, I'm just tired of, or this was my college car, or we just feel like we, or you're my new wife. And so I want to buy you a, that's when people get get themselves they buy a depreciating asset that just is a such a wealth suck versus if you all shook hands and agreed on the first two years

let's just keep driving the same crappy cars and let's just get so far ahead financially that we can get whatever car we want for the rest of our time together yep i can't think of a bigger mistake i made right when i graduated college than running and trying to buy buy after driving a tiny little crummy car that is probably still running somewhere because you can't kill those old toyotas i went and bought the stupidest biggest dumbest truck i could find it was so dumb that's a right of passage for every texan for every idiot not for every Texan, but for every goofball like me. Yeah, dude. And I think an important call out here, George, is your heart is right, brother. Tanner, like when y'all get married, her student loan debt is y'all's student loan debt. I would want to know what

was the main purpose of this trust? Was it set up for all the grandkids to get everybody through college and now you're through college and it's still there like what's the purpose of this of this trust what is the original um what was its original intent and what i don't want you guys to do is be married and have your mommy still dangling this account over your head like well are we gonna get grant like i don, I don't like that. That makes me feel like, yeah, getting out of college, man. I want to know if there's a trust with my name on it. I want to know what the rules and regulations are of this thing when it's fully mine, when I'm in control of it, what the original intent was, all that kind of stuff. And that's just about

having a grown-up conversation with whoever the trustee and the custodian is. Sounds good. Thank you guys very much. You got it, brother. Yeah, the conversation might be grandma and grandpa go, yeah, we'd love for you to use this as a down payment on a house and get your financial future going and knock out her debt and get you guys some, you know, the right financial steps. But I could see a very real world scenario where, oh, well, this wasn't for you paying off your wife's student loans.

She needs to. And now we're in a- There's strings attached. That's right. It gets messy. It gets super messy. And that's what I want. If that's the case, then best of luck to you guys. We're going to take care of our own financial future at our house.

Thank you for having this thing, getting me through college debt-free and getting some Roths funded. But I don't want to be controlled by this imaginary puppet string over off to the side in a new marriage. Yeah, and that's the context we don't want to be controlled by this imaginary puppet string over off to the side in a new marriage. Yeah. And that's the context we don't have. That'd be an interesting call to get grandma on the line and say, what's going on here? And she'd say, no, absolutely. Use it forever he wants. We just wanted to leave a legacy. And as long as you're not mismanaging the money, which John and I would say paying off debt is not mismanagement of the money,

but I could see a family going, no, this is for us to build wealth with. This was actually for you. Not to pay for someone's past mistakes and debts. And that's right. That's not who this family is. You know, you just never know. Right. Whew. Yeah. That part gives me just some pause. You got to take a Tums just thinking about some of those conversations. But the idea of a trust fund, I mean, that's, that's legacy. As much as we, you know, people make fun of, oh, you're a trust fund baby. And I'm like, go create that same privilege for your family if you're so upset and jealous that someone would have money left over instead of leaving their children with a pile of financial mess to clean up.

Or I think the TV show version is a trust fund has $80 billion in it and you're just not working and flying around in jets when actually most trusts are- It's like that. I don't say it's small, but it's a chunk of money. It's got a very designated purpose. Get you through school, get you that first house. It gives you a leg up. Get you married.

That's right. But it's not a sit back, relax in a hammock for the rest of your life. That's right. Situation. So I think there's a lot of wisdom there, Tanner. And you're asking some great questions, especially at 23. At 23, John, I was a knucklehead, you know, still making a lot of mistakes. And clearly, this is what happens.

It's not just the money side. It's the character, the financial literacy that was built by his parents, his parents' parents. And, you know, the Bible is very clear. Leave an inheritance to your children's children. I believe that's not just about money. I mean, that's, you know, inheritance of a lot of things. Character. And that's where it's one of those moments where it's been about money and it's just about money. I mean, that's, you know, inheritance of a lot of things. Character. And that's where it's one of those moments

where it's been about money and it's been about asking. Now it's about a transfer of wisdom and trust. Hey, I want to sit down and talk about the guts, the nuts and bolts of this trust. And that's just an adult conversation that's uncomfortable, but you got to have it.

Thanks for the call, Tanner. 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. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything. It's a fun story, and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets, our own workout routines, our own jobs, our own social media feeds, everything. It's easy to forget that no one can do life alone. And I don't care if you're an introvert, an extrovert, or whatever you want to call yourself, we all have to have a community and a support system to do life with. It's time

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Go to YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. May not be available in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Kathy in Rhode Island. Kathy writes, am I supposed to pay off a loan my husband took out from the bank without my knowledge? He recently passed away, and it was only then that I learned that he had a $10,000 loan. When I asked the bank what it was for, they told me that information was confidential, and they couldn't tell me why he needed it. They just said that I'm liable for it as his spouse.

What? Should I pay it off or let it go to collections? Sheesh. I would guess that you inherit the entire account, including the notes. But yeah, you're going to have to talk to somebody in Rhode Island because I don't know what the particular... The laws there are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You may want to contact an attorney to see if there's a way out of this. Yeah. Versus, you know, co-signing on a loan. But generally, if it was only his name on the debt, the spouse wouldn't be liable for it. Unless the estate's liable for it. Yeah. Who knows, man? You need some more information here. My fear is the bank's coming for you and they're not being fully open because whatever is

confidential is going to be in that bank file. And if you inherit everything, then you inherit everything. I feel like there's more going on here. Yeah, there's some stuff going on here. And I don't know what that is. She doesn't know what it was for. But you need to get an attorney and dig into it, Kathy. That's really the best.

Yeah, in some situations, your estate is liable for the debt. And in some places, like student loans, when you die, the loans go with you. That's the only way to get rid of student loans in most cases. To be dead. That's right. That's dark stuff. Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry for your loss, Kathy. Yeah. And if you have the money and you don't want to burn the brain calories on this, pay it off. That's right. Yeah. And by the way, don't let it just go to collections. If you are on the

hook for it and it's going to go into collections and you're attached to it, then yeah, you got to just pay it off. Or if he somehow took it out in both of your names or he took it out under an account you all share, yes, you're going to have to pay this thing off. That's the only thing I can think of is if it was a joint account with the bank and somehow they took out the loan under that same account. Right. account right if he did just go to a rando bank open up an account take a loan out and just his name and that bank got your name is trying to collect on you then you may you may have a case to not pay it but you need to check with a local attorney there i'd also pull his credit report and make sure there's no other outstanding that's a good idea debt sitting out there too yeah and this is a yet case number 5,870,000,000.

Don't have secret accounts. Don't keep secrets like this from your spouse because one day you will die and you'll leave them with all of that nonsense, man. Don't do it. Don't do it. If you're trying to take secret accounts, trying to take secret loans,

George and I, we do this all the time. You will be found out. Don't do it. Don't do it. For gambling debts, for secret girlfriends, for secret gifts you want to buy. Just don't do it. Don't do it because this kind of crap happens all the time. And you just leave a grieving spouse wondering, what else do I not know? And it's bad all the way around. Don't do it. All right. Let's go to the phones. Kayla is up next in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

What's going on? How can we help Kayla? Well, my husband and I recently spent two years paying off $152,000 in student loans. Congratulations. Thank you. It was a grueling journey. So we want to make sure that we make wise decisions moving forward as we kind of, you know, restart our financial foundation. So we have a fully funded emergency fund and we're contributing in a 529 for our son.

And currently we rent. So we're working on a down payment. And I guess one of my big questions, it all kind of surrounds around. We were able to get a life insurance policy for myself, but my husband has a medical condition where he cannot get term life insurance. And so as we move forward, we're trying to decide, like, should we be looking at a smaller house so that, like, you know, that kind of stuff is within our means. We won't have his life insurance if something were to happen. When we do buy a house, do we get insurance for the mortgage that would kind of act as like, you know, like life insurance that would pay the mortgage if he were to pass away?

Or like, even like looking at our jobs, like should I get a job that pays more? Just, you know, kind of look into the future and how can we best protect ourselves since we can't get life insurance for him. What is the medical condition he has? He has cystic fibrosis. Okay, all right. Does he have, have they given him any sort of timeline here? Or is it just indefinite? No, he is super healthy. So, I mean, he doesn't have any

kind of a clock or anything they're expecting him to have a really long kind of normal life okay great can i just applaud you before we get into the nuts and bolts can i applaud you for um for a lack of better terms just owning reality because a lot of folks get so mad and they go to war with reality um and you're already like okay well maybe we'll need to have a different kind of house because a lot of folks get so mad and they go to war with reality. And you're already like, okay, well, maybe we'll need to have a different kind of house or I'll need to have a different kind of job or we'll have to take a different kind of mortgage insurance, whatever.

That just shows a level of maturity and wisdom that is just awesome. So I just wanted to high five you for that. Thank you. Yeah. You're asking really good questions and you're right. This is one of those tough things where if there's no way he's going to get life insurance, we're going to have to look into probably a more expensive option with a worse payout. And so that's something like a guaranteed issue policy. And then like you mentioned, mortgage life insurance, which would just cover the mortgage balance. And so those are two I would look into.

Have you contacted our friends at Zander about this or where'd you go through for life insurance? That's who we talked to initially of trying to get term life insurance. And then we didn't really like go back to them after. Okay. I might reach back out and just get their take on what might make the most sense for you guys between the guaranteed life, mortgage life. And then beyond that, if I was you in your shoes, I'd go, how do we become self-insured as quickly as possible? How do we make sure that if something did happen and we needed to replace that income, that we would be okay? That might mean a bigger emergency fund. That might mean we pay off the house faster and get the smaller house like you mentioned so that we have less liabilities and we can reduce our expenses.

Because if you can keep your expenses low and learn to live off your income alone, that's going to reduce the risk in your life. Yeah, because like right now, even like with the job that I do have, we do basically live just like on my income and then the rest has been going towards our down payment fund. Awesome. We're at a good spot there. What if y'all built a world where that might just be your reality forever? Yeah, that is a good idea. Well, and by the way, grieve it because that's a bummer too, right? Yeah.

Because maybe you wanted to be a stay-at-home mom one day or you wanted to do this or he wanted to become X, Y, and Z. It's just a matter of being like, that was our dream and it's not going to happen. And that doesn't mean everything's bad in our life. That means it's just going to be different. And so what if for the next 20 years, while he's super healthy, 30 years, we just socked his income away? Yeah. That just reminded me, like another question that I have kind of related to this is I currently work in the school system. And so my retirement is wrapped up in a pension.

And so I've been like waffling back and forth of if I should go change jobs to a job that where I can invest in like a 403B or something like that, um, to add even further stability. You can always invest on your own through a Roth IRA as well. Yeah. And that can be a hedge for you. Yeah. So let's have a world where, let's say, in 10 years, y'all bought a smaller house, y'all paid it off,

and you just used his salary, and every bit of his salary just goes to paying that house off. And at Ramsey, we tell you to take your time paying your house off and do other stuff, but y'all know your life situation is a little bit different. And so now you've we tell you to take your time paying your house off and do other stuff, but y'all know your life situation is a little bit different. And so now you've got a paid for house and then you dump his money into Roth IRAs and just general index funds for the rest of your time. Y'all are going to be, and plus your pension, y'all going to be loaded up if y'all learn to live like that. Okay. Yeah. You do that for 10 or 20 years, you'll be self-insured in no

time. And generally when we say get term life, it's for a 15 to 20-year term because by the time it's over, you've self-insured. You got the house paid off because you did a 15-year mortgage. You've been investing for 15 or 20 years, and that nest egg is several hundred thousand dollars. And so you're doing all the right things. John and I want to applaud you. We're here to just cheerlead you on and say, keep at it. Yes, and there's going to be days you're driving a used Camry

15 years from now and you're going to see one of your colleagues pull up in a brand new Tahoe and you're going to be annoyed and that's okay. You have permission to be annoyed and then you go do

the next right thing. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Thank you to my co-host, Dr. John Deloney, all the folks in the booth keeping the show afloat and you, America,

will be back before you know it. From the Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You call us and we will do our best to give you advice that only John could give. Or George. They say the advice is worth what you paid for it. Amber's going to kick us off in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. What's going on, Amber?

How can we help? Hi. So, I have, it's kind of like a threefold question. We got ourselves into quite a big mess with our finances. We took out a HELOC on our house a little over five years ago. And when we did it, they did not, all they told us was that it was 1% interest rate. It would be, it would take care of all the debt that we had. We wouldn't have that debt hanging over our head anymore and we would be fine. So we did that.

They did not tell us that the HELOC would balloon or mature, which it did. And now they're saying that we have to refinance the HELOC or pay off the total amount. And on top of having to do that, we have to include our other debt as well. What's the other debt? On top of that, which, I'm sorry, what was that? What's the other debt? So we have two credit cards through the bank, and then we have six other credit cards that had gone into collections, and we were working with them to pay those ones off.

The ones through the bank, we cut up the cards when we found you guys and stopped using them, but they still have a balance, and we're current on it. It just still has the balance. So it's $17,000 for one with the bank, another $4,400 with another one from the bank. And then with the ones that had gone to collections that we were working with them on, that total is about $19,000 total. And they're saying that we have to include the two through the bank and two of the ones that had already gone through

the beginning legal proceedings of the other credit cards, which one was 7,000 and another one was 2,400. And they want to include all of that onto the HELOC. Well, they want to do that because they don't see you guys as likely to pay all this back. And so they want to have your house on the block. They'll become a secure debt. That's why they're doing that. Right.

And so you might need to go, George, I don't know if you can go get another bank and see if you can get a HELOC with another bank and refinance the whole thing. Could you get a traditional mortgage with another bank? Yeah, so that was my question. I guess I didn't lead with that. I was wondering, so they're saying this is our only option, and this is the trap we fall into every time. I understand it was us that got us into this situation, but like, as soon as we did that, COVID hit like a year and a half later. And then, um, I had a company reach out to us and tell us it was a debt relief company. And they said to, yeah, I fell for

that. They said to not only, Stop making payments. Let your credit crash. We'll settle. You give us the payments. And beyond that, they said to, because they would just take care of everything and the payments would just kind of go away, they would be able to settle it all to max out the cards. Because the more debt that we had, the more they would be able to work with them, the more likely they would be able to work with them, the more likely they would be able to get rid of it. Okay. You hear yourself telling us that, and you can even hear that that sounds insane, right? I understand how insane that sounds, and I feel like an idiot for believing it.

Well, George and I have both done stupid stuff with money. You're like millions and millions. They wouldn't run this playbook if those plays didn't work on people there's a sucker born every day that's right and i hate that you got caught up in it but but here's the thing two different times somebody told you if you just do x all your debt goes away yeah and that's why i was calling you guys because i don't want to do the same okay stupid thing so are you they're telling us this is our only option. And I've heard you guys say countless times there are other options. Yes.

Yeah, the best option is to go to a completely different lender, stop doing business with this bank, get a traditional mortgage that covers all of this. So we do have our mortgage company, our main mortgage company that we work with. And that was going to be my other question was, would it be better to reach out to them and see if we did, if we worked with them and explain to them that we had the HELOC with the bank and that now it matured and see if

we can work with them instead of adding all of this additional debt onto our house? I would tell them I, we found ourselves five years ago in a scared place during COVID in a predatory HELOC. Okay. I wouldn't give all the balloon and maturation. I wouldn't do all that stuff. And yes, see if you can roll us up in a traditional mortgage. My bigger question is, can you guys actually afford to live in this home? So we can afford to live in the home. My husband brings in on average $2,000 a week. Our mortgage is, well, we were behind a little bit on the escrow because of our homeowner's insurance that had to switch,

so they added that onto the principal. So it went from $1,300 to $1,700 a month. So I mean, the mortgage payments are not a problem. So if you took on a new mortgage, could you refinance and just do one new mortgage that encapsulates all of your debt? And move your payments to $2,500 a month? To talk to the mortgage company to do it all in one? Yeah, I would keep the credit card separate and deal with those on their own and debt snowball those, settle on your own. But with this HELOC, could you absorb the HELOC? Yeah, that seems like a horrible idea to add all of that onto our house.

Agreed. And I don't know if the bank would even let you. Yeah. Because they need that tied to their collateral, not tied to your personal debts. What's the balloon payment on the HELOC? The total amount or the payment amount? The total amount. Total amount. $29,000 and they want to add that $17,000 plus the $45,000 plus another $10,000. So we're looking at over $60,000 that they want to put onto the HELOC. To get out of this. And so if you refinanced your current home and added $60,000 to the mortgage, that would get you out of this. And so if you refinanced your current home and added $60,000 to the mortgage, that would get you out of it? Well, we would only need to add, they want to add all of that on. The HELOC itself is only $29,000, but they're telling us that in

order for them to redo the HELOC- No, we're not redoing any of that. No, we're not doing any business with them. No more HELOCs. You're going to have another balloon at the end of a new HELOC. Yeah, and they're telling us that we won't, and I don't believe them. Do you guys have any other debt, car loans, student loans? We have all of our current debt that we have is through the bank. We have a van payment through them. We have a camper through them, and we have the two credit cards that we already cut up and don't use.

Amber, you know all this needs to go, right? All of it. Yes. The van gets sold tomorrow. The camper gets sold tomorrow. We use all of that to clean up our debts and we stop playing with this. Stop. You guys have debt all over the place. You're hiding debt in the couch cushions at this point. How much money do you need? How would I go about... We are planning on selling the camper, but we don't know how we would be able to sell the van because we're upside down on it. You need the difference in cash or go to a local credit union and get the difference. There's no other way out of that. You need to come up with the difference to clear the title.

And Amber, you're going to have to get probably one job, two jobs, three jobs. Your husband's going to have to get another job. You'll have a huge mess. And you'll have to make an ironclad commitment. We will never borrow money ever, ever again. Ever again. Got to stop. Got to stop. Yeah, the bank sees y'all as a huge liability. So they want to roll all this debt into that house. So they can take your house if you can't pay. So they can take your house on any of these small credit cards. They can take your house from you. So don't do that. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for

renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely. Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment will be a consistent, manageable part of your monthly budget. Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest expense. Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards

turning you into a Baby Steps millionaire. So get started on the American dream of home ownership today at churchhillmortgage.com. That's churchhillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLS consumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Rent with Tennessee 37027. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Leslie's up next in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Hold on, before we go to Leslie. I won't do it. Yeah, sorry, Leslie.

Hang on one second. Like, I... You're stuck on our last caller. I'm stuck on the last caller, and how it sounds nutty, but it is America. It's the current state of personal finance in America. Seven credit cards, a mortgage, a HELOC on that mortgage because somebody said, oh, you got equity. And what Amber said, the last caller said was so important that somebody called her and said, you won't have to worry about this other debt ever again. And it just sounds so amazing, right? Well, when you're that desperate. That's right. And someone calls you like this is the savior we needed. And people

get onto us all the time. They beat us up all over the place because they have all this quote unquote equity and you can just pay off everything. But here's what happens. People don't. Then they go or like, oh, we got some extra money. Let's go get a camper. And instead of buying a used car for 7,000 because that's all we have, it's so easy to go to the lot and be like, well, we got the new ones over here.

And it's like, we took out that HELOC. We have another. And you find yourself. And they go, we can make way. What payment do you need? We can make that work.

We'll make it work. Yeah. And we'll just, we'll balloon it later. That's a problem for future you. And if people need any, if they're thinking about taking out a loan, man. Oh, and then, oh, and then COVID happened, right? If you're thinking about borrowing money, go back and listen, not to the question Amber was asking.

Listen to her voice. That haunts me. Because people call and they call and they call and all they did was what the banker told them to do. All they did was what the lender told them to do or the guy on the phone called or their uncle called and everything, you get so desperate that you begin looking for, as Brene Brown says, whatever you're looking for, you're going to find it, a magic wand that will take it all away. And you just dig a deeper, deeper hole till they come and say, hey, you're going to do what we say now, or we're taking your

home from you. And that's when you realize, oh gosh, we're about to lose everything, right? It's over $29,000. You might lose your house, right? It didn't seem like a big deal at the time. It never does. And that extra credit card didn't seem like it would be the thing that sinks us. And here they are in a giant mess that's right making a hundred over a hundred thousand dollars which we can all agree is a great income right but not when it's propped up artificially with thousands and payments every month thousands and thousands of payments but more more it's when a banker calls you and says hey you're ours now you're gonna do what we say you're gonna take all this debt because we don't trust you anymore.

And because we've owned you for a long time and now we're gonna call it out. We get to decide what you do next. And there's just a panic in somebody's voice and it haunts me. Please, please, please don't borrow money. Proverbs 22, seven, the borrower is slave to the lender. That's right.

It was true back in ancient times and it's very true today. Yeah. Man. All right, let's go out to Grand Rapids now we can talk to leslie all right leslie leslie what's going on how can we help hi um i my question is um should i take out a loan to purchase a family veterinary practice no way i hope you weren't listening to the last five minutes of the show. Oh, geez. I was listening, yes. Okay. Tell us why you're the exception. Oh, incredible. Now, tell us more about this business. Yes. So, this is a father-daughter business. My father owns the business. I have been working in the business for almost 11 years now as an associate veterinarian.

I'm not a partner. I'm not an owner. And I work full time as a veterinarian. I've got two little girls, beautiful little girls, one and four and a half. And my amazing husband works as a school teacher. Awesome. amazing husband works as a school teacher and my my I guess my currently the practice is grossing last year in 24 we grossed 1.3 million and our profits are $80,000 a year. My biggest question, and my brother actually said that I should call and ask about this because my gut reaction is absolutely no.

I do not want to purchase this practice with a loan. But the reason the question is coming up is because my husband and I, in June, finally paid off $250,000 in student loans. Yeah, you did. Congrats. Way to go. Thank you. Thank you. And we are debt-free except our mortgage for the first time in our lives.

Awesome. And it's amazing. And you're like, why would I want to go back into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt? Absolutely, yeah. So is your dad trying to get you to buy this, or has he offered it to sell it to you? How did it come up? Yeah, so we've been talking about it for years now. I'm pretty vested emotionally in the business.

I'm a 120% kind of person. And so I run the day-to-day and I manage our team. And so we have talked in the past and I've been very undecided if I wanted to move forward with purchasing the practice or at least becoming an owner. And I finally agreed that, yes, if we can do this, if we can figure out a way last year, about a year and a half ago, I said, we can figure out a way without me having to take out a loan to do this. I'm on board. And it came up again recently. Um, and he said that he didn't actually believe me when I had told him that I didn't want to take out a loan when it came up again.

Um, and so that really made me feel very unheard. Um, and my, um, we, our relationship is very strained because of this business. And I have worked really hard to try to be mentally healthy for my patients and my family and my team, sometimes working against him. Okay. So let me hop in here. So a couple of things here. Number one, please don't go to a bank and take out a loan and buy this from your dad like that. Okay. There is some ways that, like for instance, y'all shake hands and he agrees to take 25% of the profits over the next five years. That kind of thing's okay. So revenue sharing, a gradual buy-in some sweat equity something like that like you're talking about is we're not going to do debt but

i'll give you this much revenue over this many years in order to essentially pay this off and what i like about the percentage is um if suddenly there's a covet hits then you don't like if you take out a loan from the bank and covet hits you're still paying the bank what y'all agreed on. If you have a percentage payout over time and that $80,000 a year profit goes down to 20 for a couple of years because of, I don't know, there's a dog flu that hits or I don't know. Then y'all both have skin in the game. And if he looks at his daughter who's been with him for 11 years and says no, then I don't want to do business with him. Okay. Okay. Here's the other side of it. You're going to have to take language like, I don't feel heard. And I have, I'm mixed me set. This is a business transaction and you are going to have to get business partners to help you because when family does business transactions like this with family it gets very emotional so what does

that mean you're going to have to get a third party appraiser to come in and say we're going through your books this is what this thing it's not how he feels about the business it's what is it actually worth okay because dad might say it's worth 10 million dollars 10 million dollars and i deserve 10 million i put 40 years of my life in this thing so i want 10 million dollars and now he's put his daughter in a really precarious situation both financially but also you're gonna look at your dad and say dad it's only worth three million dollars it's only worth two million dollars dad right so now we've got a we're going to get a third-party appraiser. And if he says, well, I'm not doing that, then, again, if you're running this practice, essentially,

if you're already a veterinarian and you're leading the team and you're running payroll and you're hiring and firing people anyway, then you can go start your own company. Yeah, I'm questioning if this is the place for you long-term, whether you own it or not. Right. Because of the strained relationship. It hasn't been going well so far. Owing dad $400,000 or a million dollars is only going to make it worse. And by the way, in his generation, you just went and took out a loan, which is why his generation's in the mess that they're in.

So don't get mad if he's like, what? I didn't know there's another option. That's fine. I'm not going to get mad at him about that. But I'm not going to go to a bank and mess up every Christmas for the next 15 years because I owe somebody because I didn't have the courage to tell my dad. No. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. The phone number to call is 888-825-5225. Well, John, it's tax season, and that means a lot of people get a little sweat on their brow. There you go. Oh my gosh, this again. Every year we have to do this. I know, it's like Christmas. It just surprises us.

At least Christmas, there's some joy. You know, unless you're a CPA, and even a CPA is probably going, oh gosh, get me through this, please. So here's the deal. We want to make it easy on you. We know taxes are confusing. And so we have a hub for you at ramseysolutions.com slash tax, where you can find our no nonsense tax software called Ramsey Smart Tax. You can find highly qualified tax pros that are Ramsey trusted across the country in your area. And we have some great tax resources. I personally use them every year. I go to the site and I download the tax prep checklist. I read over the beginner's guide to taxes as a little refresher to go, all right, I'm ready for this.

Puts a little pep in my step. So go check it out. Ramseysolutions.com slash tax is the place to go. Cindy's joining us up next in Miami. What's going on, Cindy? Hi, John. Hi, George. Thank you for all your good work and your sound advice. Thank you. I'd like some clarity, and I'm looking for your professional guidance. I'm currently with my husband on step four and six. I'm a teacher in Miami. My husband's a firefighter. We purchased the house in 2017. It's now valued at 1.3 million. We have a 15 year fixed mortgage at 2.35 and we have 160,000 left on our mortgage. Amazing. We always overpay our mortgage when my husband gets overtime, but that comes in waves. So we're anticipating maybe six to seven years left on this mortgage.

I'm very concerned with our property insurance. When we bought in 2017 our property insurance was 1,200 when we paid it in 2024 it was 7,700 we don't escrow and what's happened in Asheville and these horrid fires in California, I'm anticipating a huge property insurance hike. Now, my question is, since we're on step six and we're anticipating this, should we go back to gazelle intense and try as hard as we can to pay off this mortgage and then become self-insured i would never get rid of property insurance if that's what you're talking about you're saying hey we'll take on the risk of having to rebuild this million dollar home well what we're thinking of is just we can currently contribute to, we have a six-month emergency fund and we're continuing to put a thousand dollars a month into it. I just don't know if it's better to be self-insured or stay with these high prices of property insurance that I'm thinking,

because we've never seen something like this in California. Sure. This has never happened. Well, I'll tell you two quick things to help. Dave Ramsey has hundreds of millions in real estate. He insures every property. Even though he doesn't, he could afford it, but he says the risk isn't worth it on my part. I would rather pay this premium to have it covered for me, and they shoulder the risk.

And I think the same is true for you. So there's a simple solution, and I'll hand it to John, but just set up a sinking fund, and even if it goes up to $10,000 and you want to live in Miami, call it the Miami tax. It's like having a high HOA fee because you live on a beachfront condo. That's the tax you pay. So we're going to put away $833 a month into the savings account so that when it comes time to pay the property taxes, the money's there. And Cindy, every bit of your language reminds me of a guy I used to know and I'll call him John Deloney 2.0.

So tell me if I'm wrong you're you survived covid as a teacher yes your husband's in a very high stress first responder job yes you're in a very high stress i'll call a teacher's first responder job correct caught up in all the politics all the nonsense plus you i grew up in houston your situation is worse than what i grew up in and i politics, all the nonsense. Plus, I grew up in Houston. Your situation is worse than what I grew up in. And I still have in my nervous system Hurricane Alicia when we had to eat on a camp stove for 10 days because we had no power in the city. And you deal with that every year now in Miami. And you've probably been scrolling and scrolling and scrolling through your hurricane season,

through what happened in Tampa, or almost happened bad, bad in Tampa, and what happened in North Carolina, what happened in the fires, you're an anxious, anxious mess. Yeah, I would agree with that. All right, and now here's what you're trying to do. You're trying to take what's happening

inside your nervous system and create future tragedies that you're trying to solve in the present. You're making yourself nuts. Okay. Okay. So here's, here's what I want you to do. Cancel for 30 days, get social media off your phone. Okay. Commit to not going to a news source for 30 days. You're a teacher. If something bad happens, your students will let you know. They know about it before you do.

Yes. Yeah, for sure. I want you to detox, okay? Okay. Now, here's the simple thing. Are you all going to leave Miami? No. Okay. This is our long-term goal.

Okay, so this is where you live. You have a million dollar house. Your husband's a firefighter. You're a teacher. You will never be able to accumulate a million dollars in cash to self-insure yourself. So no, that'd be very difficult. You're going to make yourself nuts trying to catch that dream by the tail because you can't. And so all you're going to do is scroll job listings you're going to scroll extra job you're going to make yourself bananas so y'all are living there this is our home this is our castle this is where we planted our flag and so like george said okay well the our dream tax or our home tax they might make it uh ten thousand dollars i don't

think they're going to i think they've priced it in the market. They've gone up 8 jillion percent over the last five years. But if hurricanes keep happening and they keep getting more intense and happening more frequently, then it's going to go up. They have to cover their spread or they're going to go bankrupt. Okay. So let's just put 10,000 bucks. If we pay our house off, we'll have a $500 a month plus our property taxes. This is what it will cost. Ta-da! That's problem solved now.

Okay. You get what I'm saying? Okay. And I'm saying it this calm on purpose because I want you to practice this. And I will. Because I think Brene Brown calls it dress rehearsing tragedy. You have already imagined yourself standing in front of a knockdown house and wondering what we're going to do.

Don't do that until it comes. Yeah, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. That's right. Okay. So yeah, I like the idea of getting, get that 10,000. Now, if I'm you,

and this is going to kind of break with the Ramsey Protocol a little bit. If I get to, I'll just tell you what I did with my last house. We got right to the very end where we owed 100 whatever yeah we i went full baby step two i went bananas but it was for a very limited sprint you can't do that for five years you can do it for two okay so you and your husband where i needed clarity y'all could do math but listen that's about making a more peaceful

less anxious house than it has anything to do with being able to predict what an insurance company, what the weather's going to do or anything like that. That's you controlling what y'all can control. And a part of making a non-anxious house for me and my family was I don't want us to owe anybody anything. Right. right that was part of john creating that world he was running toward something versus just away from the thing that could be and that's what i would tell you is your when we talk about baby steps one through three it is gazelle intensity once you're in four five six it's intentionality and that's a tough move to make when all you know is go go go dave said right and so i would set an intentional goal with your husband of hey what if we could do this in 40 years? Could we do that? It's $40,000 a year.

All right. Yeah. Let's commit to that. Spidshake. Two years. Be bananas, right? Two years if you want. Can we do $80,000?

Yeah, we could do that. Whatever that is for you guys. But like John said, do it for the right reasons. So I love paying off the house regardless of the interest rate because it's going to set you guys up for freedom. You can invest that payment, but I would keep your property insurance forever, no matter what, and just make a sinking fund and do it and say, well, we did our good deed for the day. We paid our property taxes. Hopefully it went to something good. We paid our insurance. It covered us. I can sleep better at night knowing my house is going to be okay. And one last thing I want you and

your husband to do, this is for all teachers and first responders. At night, when y'all have shared meals together, open the meal with five things you're grateful for. Look each other in the eye and say them out loud, because I want us to remember when the world feels like it's burning down around us, we do have things we can be grateful for. It's a practice. Thanks for the call. Welcome back to The Ramsey show i'm george camel joined by dr john deloney open phones at 888-825-5225 noel joins us up next in dallas texas how can we help noel my question is am i in the wrong because i don't want to go on a spring break trip with my husband and daughter to visit their sick grandma? Ooh. Wow.

Okay, what's the heart behind it? Yes, you're wrong. Is there more context here, or is that it? The context is we're in baby step two, and we had already invested about $800 to get a plane ticket for just my daughter to go out and visit grandma. Grandma has been battling cancer for years and she's probably on her last year. And so we definitely wanted her to spend time with her, but that's what we had discussed. And then today, my husband says, why don't we all go? And I'm just not sure that's the right thing to do so he he's going with or without you to see his mom sounds like it the other um so it's his grandma so my daughter

is great grandma okay and um the stipulation i guess that's important is grandma's willing to foot the bill to pay for our tickets. Okay. Can she afford that? She can. She's got a paid off house. You know, she's invested well. She's ready to spend her money. It's the end of her life. But you know, my thing is I'm missing out on an opportunity to earn money when it's spring break. I'm a school teacher. And so when I'm on break, that's a great time for me to pick up extra jobs and make more money. And my son can still go to daycare. But I am going to miss out on the opportunity to make money and pay off our debt if we go on this trip. How much can you earn in a week? $500, $600.

How much debt are you guys in? We've got $11,000 in a car that should be paid off by March due to cashing out a whole life plan. And then we have my husband's student loans. How much is that? $60,000. Okay. So the current trajectory, when is all of this debt going to be paid off, all $71,000 with your household income? If I continue working, then in 18 months. Okay. And if you skip this extra week of work that would have amounted to $500, it would slow it down to 17.7 months?

Yes. Okay. Well, and Noel, hold on. I just want to make sure we, like, that's really what we're talking about. No, this has nothing to do with that. You're mad at your husband. Yes. Because you want to stay at home,

and you're having to work to pay off his student loans. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You have to get to the root of this thing because on its face let me just say you can feel however you want to feel your feelings are yours and you get to do them and there's lots of of spouses that go visit family members that don't want to but they do it and if it's grandma's last year of her life and she's offering to pay to fly everybody to say goodbye one more time, then if you can do that, I would say do that.

But you've got to address your anger. Maybe it's not wholly at your husband. Maybe it's just life and you love him and you're glad you married him and all this stuff, but it just is what it is what it is. You need to address that because you're creating a life that you're resentful of. Does that make sense? That sounds true. Okay, so I'm just going to make sure I'm not crazy.

So have that conversation with yourself and with him. Because right now for him, he thinks he just figured it out. Oh, we can all go and it's going to be free for us. Got it. I mean, and if you don't want to go and you need to work and you've already committed, spring break's just a few weeks from now, if you've already committed, then say, I've got to commit my commitment. And if this is the last year, we're all going to be going back anyway for the funeral,

you know, in the next year. So if that's the case, that's the case. But I'd much rather you deal with what's really going on here, which is you're stuck in a situation, having to work when you want to be home with your baby, and it's real frustrating. Yeah. I mean, tell me I'm bananas.

You're not. I think you were able to justify it. Even the tension in my body. I can hear it through the phone, man. You've been trying to justify it by going, well, we're in debt. I could make more money. It'll speed it up. And we just proved with math that it's 0.3 months of, you know, it's really not about that. But I do think relationships are not convenient. Family is not convenient. Health crises are not convenient. And that's a part of life on the baby steps. And so we would tell you, hey, if this is really important to

your family, you might need to just pause and take the trip and let it slow it down by a few weeks. And we'll make it up on the back end. But right now, I think you might need to be there for your husband. Or the other side, if being around grandma and her family, aunts and uncles are going to be there, make you sick to your stomach, they've said ugly things about you, whatever, then have that honest conversation because it's going to be bewildering to your husband who doesn't know that you are this against going or you're this frustrated with the life that you're leading

and he's not going to be able to figure out over $400 or $500 that you may earn over a spring break week. You know what I mean? Yes, I know what you mean. I think I need to be honest with myself about where the anger is coming from and have that conversation. There you go. And if you get to the end and you still don't want to go, don't go.

But just be honest about why you're not going. And if every, George, this is kind of epidemic levels of people opting out of family because they're annoying or they're, man, sometimes you just go. Sometimes you go and you sit by your husband, you sit by your wife and you hold their hand and make sure they're not alone when they're going through a really hard moment. Right. And again, you and i don't know if this grandma meant to him if if it's hard for her husband to share this that hey here's really why i want you to go yeah yeah yeah what i'm guessing is happening is he sees how stressed she gets and how frustrated she gets when she has to work this extra week and he thinks he just solved it

he's like oh dude all expenses paid trip expenses paid trip and i get to see grandma but we get to go to texas and she's like i hate all of my life and you and not really hate but you know what i mean so yeah sometimes getting to the root of the root of the root of the issue is where we got to go absolutely good word john is in oklahoma city up next what's going on john hey Hey, get right to the question. So my question is, I'm in Baby Step 2 right now. So I drive a beater, a 2004 Chevy Trailblazer. It has 295,000 miles on it.

I'm starting to have them do a lot of repairs on it and everything. Hey, John, a lot of times people call us and say they got a beater and they tell us what they're driving you actually are so i applaud you brother yeah congratulations you got a for real beater there dude yeah it's it's a true it's old enough to drink this year so there's something to celebrate congratulations man so uh my deal i'm starting to put some more repairs on this which is taking extra money. I have roughly $80,000 of consumer debt to pay off, and then I'll start baby step three. But my question is, if I can make this vehicle last through the debt payoff,

is it okay to save up some cash to buy a better used vehicle before I start the 36 months of expenses? Yeah. I mean, if you need to, like, you know, repair it, drive it until it can't be driven anymore, but also know it might not have two years left in it. And so I would set up a sinking fund that'll probably slow down your baby steps, but at least it won't be this, oh my gosh, I got to go finance a $30,000 car. I had no idea it was going to explode. You know, just set aside, you know, 400 bucks a month so that a year from now you got five grand. That'll get you another beater to get you through. I'll do that. I'll just set up a sinking fund to put, you know, put some cash in. And like I said, it will slow down my debt payoff, but I do work full-time and I do a side gig doing door gash and decide to make extra

money you're getting it brother and hey it'll slow you down but if you go borrow it you're going to go backwards and so that's what really slows you down that's right and george and i like we'll all tell you just be cautious because um man it's tempting when you get on that lot and you see what you get for five grand and you see what you could get for ten. Gosh, it's so tempting, man. Automatic windows and power steering. Don't tempt him with a good time. Air conditioning that works always. For 15, I'm in, right?

Just get that sinking fund and commit to just that being the number. Drive like no one else so later you can drive like no one else, John. You're doing it right, man. Hey, the rest of the Ramsey show is in the Ramsey Network app. That's where we're going to keep the party going. So download it for free using the link in the show notes or just search Ramsey Network in the app store.

If you're on radio, stay tuned. Everyone else, don't miss what's next. We'll see you in the Ramsey Network app. From the Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney, and we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. If you're enjoying this show, you've got to check out Dr. John's show, which is anywhere where shows are found. Yeah, it's where shows are found. They're all over. And on the Ramsey Network app, YouTube.

We were in a stiff competition on YouTube, John, and you recently hit a million subscribers, which is a huge achievement, mostly for the team. Credit to the team. Huge credit. But you're a part of it. But listen, you're gonna hit that hundred mark soon. He kids. He kids. But really, it's gonna take a while to get to

a million, John. That's an impressive achievement. And it's because you're helping a lot of people with great content. And we have great thumbnails. That's what it's all about. Jonathan is in Erie, Pennsylvania to kick us off. What's going on, Jonathan? Hi, thanks for taking my call. Sure.

My question is, how do you get over the fear of cutting up credit cards when you kind of felt like you had to rely on in the past? This is such a good question, Jonathan. I wrote a whole chapter on this in my book, Breaking Free from Broke. There's a credit cards chapter, and I dug into this question, and I asked people all over on social media, on the internet. I said, what is stopping you from cutting up your card? Because I really wanted to get to the bottom of it. And I found there was eight reasons that people brought up. And usually there was a

combination of both. So let me lay them out. You tell me which one you are. There's the perfect spender who says, why cut it up? I never pay a diamond interest. I pay it off perfectly. There's the rewards redeemer who says, hey, I never pay for flights. I get free hotel stays, the cash. Why would I cut this up and get rid of that? Then there's the fraud protector. Well, credit cards are safer than debit cards. We've all heard that. So why would I get rid of that? And then this is where I'm guessing you start to fall into. The convenience shopper. It's so convenient to use a credit card. The emergency shelter.

This might be you. I need it in case of emergencies. What if? What if it all hits the fan? The fear tranquilizer. Having a credit card makes me feel more secure. And then there's the credit score keeper who says, well, I need it for my credit score.

What if I get rid of it and my credit score drops? What is my life then? So out of all of those, which ones do you feel like this is really at the heart of it i think it's closest to like fear keeper it's more we've made bad decisions and been poor with money and sometimes you got groceries with a credit card you know what i mean stuff like that so do you have an emergency fund with your own money in it? We do now. This is our first month doing an actual budget or anything like that. Incredible. Here's what you just did. You decided fear is not going to be in the driver's seat

anymore. Because when you do a budget, you realize there's no boogeyman. There's our income. There's our expenses. And if we follow this plan, we'll have money left over. And if we have this emergency fund, then we don't need the credit card companies to bail us out in case of dot, dot, dot. Right. So how much money do you have in the emergency fund? A thousand right now. Okay. And you guys are getting out of debt?

We started the snowball, yes. Okay. How much left do you have to pay off your debt? Altogether, between $85,000 and $90,000. Okay. And what's your household income? Right around $220,000. Wow.

Incredible income. Okay. It's an irrational fear. I get it. Hold on. Hold on. Whoa, whoa, whoa. There's nothing irrational about this.

That sucker's lodged in your nervous system, man. Where most people get in trouble with fear is that they get mad with themselves for being afraid, and then they go to war with themselves. Your fear's right, dude. You're only going to have a $1,000 cushion between you and whatever's coming, and you have felt whatever's coming before, right? Right. And prior to January, there was no cushion. Yeah, you're not crazy. You're not crazy.

You've been there. You've been hit in the mouth before. So now what we're telling you is just hold a sheet of notebook paper between you and a fist coming and best of luck to you, right? We know what I want you to do. What matters is what you do with that fear energy. Right. Are you going to double down on, what matters is what you do with that fear energy, right? Are you going to double down on it?

Are you going to scroll with it? Are you going to be angry all the time? Are you going to use that to go get another job and then work really hard at the one you got and make that one extra sales call? Like it's just going to be what you do with that energy. Okay. But dude, don't beat yourself up for having feelings.

Feelings are right. They're just, they're just they're just dashboards on your car right sometimes your check engine light comes on you know it'll keep going it's fine and sometimes you know yikes i need to pull the sucker over but don't guess don't beat yourself up man just go do the next right thing that's the hardest part do you owe anything on these credit cards uh I think there's $4,000 in credit cards. Do you know the APR on that? $22,000, I think. I'm going to turn that fear into anger.

Anger that I let myself get in the hands of these snakes at these credit card companies that market themselves as freedom. You'll use our awards. You'll have a great life. The commercials are always just gumdrops and rainbows, and they're charging you 22% for the pleasure of borrowing their money? I'm going to go cut it up and go never again. Yeah, that makes sense. So redirect the fear into anger at your debt and get rid of it within the next 12 months.

Can you guys do that with your income? Just based on rough numbers and doing our first budget and everything. Are you taking home 12K a month, 13K a month? It varies on month to month based on bonuses and everything else. But we did the budget on average of 10 take home just to be safe. Okay. So eight, uh, say eight months and you're done?

If you can throw seven grand a month, you're done in a year. We figured roughly 18 months with the emergency, with a fully funded emergency fund. Yep. There you go. That's through baby Step 2 and 3. And so think about that, 18 months from now, how old are you? 40. So you've gone your whole adult life living with this fear, living with debt, and at what, 41? For the rest of your life, it's going to be different. So it sounds like a long time, but when you realize how long you've lived this way,

18 months to sacrifice to have this much freedom on the other side, that is a very worthy trade. Right. And you've been carrying anxiousness for 40 years. That's fair. And so your body's just going through, now you're on're on a path you just gotta get to the end of that path i think a lot of it comes to from like 220 is a new income yeah you know two two years ago it was 80 000 wow so i mean it's a trying to get used to having extra money is weird too don't that makes sense yeah well and

you thought when you got to 220 it would feel a certain way you thought you wouldn't feel like you lacked anything you thought you you'd feel like you were finally enough you thought man you make 220 000 you'll have whatever you want and you're like oh dude we got to pay for the last 40 years sins right like so like i want you to acknowledge your feelings you feel scared you feel like man i thought i was going to feel different going from 80 to 220 or you thought man people who make 220 are those guys and now you're like oh that's me too all that is good all that's real what matters is what you do next just go do do the next right thing. And if y'all have said, think you can do 7,000 a month, push yourself.

See if you can do all of this in 14 months, in 13 months, just go B-A-N-A-N-A-S and try to get this stuff knocked out. But your fear is right. You're not broken, dude. Yeah. Hey, Jonathan,

I'm going to send you a copy of my book, Breaking Free From Broke, especially read that second chapter on credit cards. There's a credit card challenge at the end. I want you to take it and report back on how it's going. And I think you'll realize very quickly, it was just a bunch of lies. This is The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel here with Dr. John Deloney. 888-825-5225 is the number to call. Annie's up next in Trenton, New Jersey.

Annie, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you so much. Sure. My question is, my husband has just recently lost his job at the beginning of January. Oh, I'm sorry. It's a bummer. That's okay. Thankfully, we both had our emergency fund built up, so we are set at that point. Excellent. So, if we needed to dip into that, we could. He also has found part-time work as well. What?

You're married to a real man. I know. So, and actually the part-time work is paying better than his full-time job was at the moment. Awesome. That's a blessing. Okay. What's he making? Very much. Right now it's 21 an hour and he's doing a full week in between job interviews that he's been setting up.

Okay. Is he working 40 hours? You said it's part-time. I'm sorry. Well, it's on like a week to week basis. It's not guaranteed every single week that he's going to be able to work with this employer.

Got it. So when he does work, it's he's doing a 40 hour week. Yes. Okay. Hey, we do this a favor, Annie,

like, I know that's not why you called, but will you just give him a hug when he gets home and tell him that's from John and George? Yes, I will. Just two dudes in Nashville. All right. What's your question? So he's pretty passionate about wanting to start a business of his own. He wants to start a cleaning business. And we've been going back and forth whether this is the best time to jump into that since he is, he has a flexible schedule. My only thing is that this month, we're trying to save a lot and cut down on costs just as much as we can in case this work does fizzle out and none of the jobs come through. So my question is, should he dive into this and invest, I think he

said it was about $500 to start this up, or should we wait until he has stable income to really investigate more into this? Where are you guys at in the baby steps? Do you have debt? The only debt we have is on our house. We have no student loans, we have no credit card debt, and both of our cars have been paid off for years. Good. And how much money do you have in the bank? In our savings, it's roughly over $20,000. In our checking, I'd say it's roughly over $2,000. We just paid a bunch of bills off. Awesome. Okay. And are you working outside the home? I work part-time, but my income is very low. Okay. What are you doing?

I'm a bank teller. All right. And would you be a part of this cleaning business? I would. So that's the other thing is how much would I have to sacrifice my time at my job to help with this business? Okay, so you just answered the question. This has nothing to do with business or $500 or money. I don't mind. Tell me if I'm wrong.

I don't mind helping him out. Well, I know, but you don't think he can do this or you don't want to be a part of it. Either one of those is okay. Are either of those right i'm questioning how much he's gonna pull through for this um just because he's been playing with the idea of starting his own business for like a year now and nothing has really started so in my mind it's like are we gonna put that five hundred dollars out for you not to go out and do this stuff or Or do I be supportive and say, yes, let's invest that $500, go all in, and then nothing happens. I think you have to know your

husband. If I came home and said, told my wife, hey, I've got a new business idea. I need $500. She'd be like, oh God. If George went home and told his wife that, she'd be like, sweet, when do we start? Because I'm kind of flighty and a lunatic and george is very uh anal retentive and ocd and when he says he's going to do something it's because he's thought about it for nine years before he actually went and did it true and i'd start it for way less than 500 oh i would start way more than 500 do you know how cheap it is to start a cleaning business what does he need george has never bought a bucket in his life he does not know how where how far 500 goes he i've scrubbed some grout in my day he's you don't scrub grout so that's how i know you haven't done that i i there seems to be something behind your question annie and so if i

would ask him for a performer wondering if it's what's the plan i'm just wondering if it's the best time for us to do it only y'all can answer that y'all have the money if I'm just wondering if it's the best time for us to do it. Only y'all can answer that. Y'all have the money. If I'm in your shoes, I'm going to find full-time stable income, and then I'm going to get this going on the side, because right now it's causing you stress. He's not making great money. It's part-time. It's $20 an hour, which is solid, but it's not like,

oh, my gosh, we're going to hit all of our financial goals money. And so I'd want him to have something he can sink his teeth into. I don't know why cleaning is it. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. Has he always wanted to have a cleaning business? Or did he see a TikTok? Like, where did this come from? The funny thing is, is that, you know, we're driving and we're just talking about that kind of thing.

And he's like, well, I don't have any creative ideas for a business. What do you think? And I just started spitballing ideas and cleaning was one of the ideas. And so this is your fault on that one. Well, so, so before I'll jump into it, a, he needs to keep looking for full-time work. Um, and I like George's idea. I like the idea of him looking for full-time work and then he's going to spend six months or a year cleaning on Saturdays and Sunday evenings. Until he has so many clients

that he goes, hey, if I just keep this up, it'll far out replace my income at my full-time job. But I think what you need in your soul is I need a business plan from you.

How many calls a day are you going to make? How much are you going to charge per hour, per job? What's your marketing plan? Are you going to hire? Are you going to do it all yourself forever? Are you going to individual homes? Are you going to go empty wastebaskets and clean off desks in office buildings? Like what's your plan? And when he sits down and does that, then you can come back

and say, okay, I feel comfortable with this, but you need to get to the level of discomfort. I mean, to your, like, are you uncomfortable about your financial situation right now i don't hear that i hear you're uncomfortable with him about to go blow 500 that you know and we all know he's not going to follow through on this business idea he's going to get excited it's going to move on to another scheme he saw on tiktok that's right if i buy a laundromat we could really no let's get a duplex and like cut it in fours and rent out 70 i think he's a guy searching for purpose and there's a better way to go about it than you spitballing ideas and him going yes i'll clean does he clean your own home regularly uh nobody helps out when

i ask oh i like that plan hold on if he demonstrates he can clean your house every day for 30 days then you can get excited about it okay the other thing is is that we were thinking about um cleaning our church part-time as well that's a fantastic idea yes i was thinking that if we if he sticks to that and he really um excels in that field and he's like yeah this, this is something I would want to do at night, I figured that that would be probably the point that I would say, okay, let's go full-fledged into this and we can really do it. I think that's a fantastic idea, and it gives him something to put on a resume when he goes and knocks on some other church or some other business' door and says, hey, I'm cleaning here. This is my full-time job now. I'm all about it. I like him putting the reps in.

I would love for you, because maybe he sees it. I want him to clean his own house every single day for 30 days, plus the church. This is his life. He can find different things in your house to clean. The bathrooms, the shower doors the you can scrub the grout like george likes to do i don't know what else you call it john

yeah exactly what do you call it but i want him to get the reps in because if he's going to do this for the rest of his life then he at least needs to be able to do it for 30 days but i love the idea of y'all working together to clean the church building y'all might find a whole new world and you can help out the church and everybody wins in that situation. And on top of the hug you're going to give them from John and I, we're going to send you Find the Work You're Wired to Do from our friend Ken Coleman. It comes with a Get Clear Career Assessment.

I think this is deeper than a guy looking for a side hustle. I think he's really searching for some meaning and purpose in his work. And that book's going to really help. But John, this kind of feels like when I was a kid and I was like, I want to play guitar. I was like, I want to be on the basketball team. And I was just like, I was searching for the next thing. My parents would buy the guitar. It would sit there. I'd be terrible at it. And then I'd move on to the next thing. And I don't want that to be the adult version. But they didn't buy you the basketball because they were like, yeah, probably not. Yeah, that didn't last long.

Yeah, probably not. I could dunk. If they lowered the hoop low enough, I could dunk. Even if they did, you couldn't dunk. Well, I need better help now. Thanks, John. Hey, more of your calls coming up. 888-825-5225. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.

I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Hey, there's a lot that goes into buying and selling your home, and those decisions can feel overwhelming. It's the biggest transactions of your life, and you shouldn't have to tackle this alone. And that's why we created Ramsey's Real Estate Home Base. It's a place with all the tools and resources you need to get prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence. We've got calculators, start to finish guides, how-to articles, a podcast, a book, a video course, all packed with actionable steps to help you navigate this process. So go check it out,

ramsaysolutions.com slash real estate, or click the link in the description if you're on YouTube or podcast. And hold on, This is an important media clarification. A rare retraction on the Ramsey Show. Yeah, this is, as the great usher once said, not so great usher, once said, this is my confession. George, you do indeed scrub grout. George put that question into chat GPT, and it told him you do indeed scrub grout. And he went to his Amazon account on the internets and found multiple grout scrubbers, so that is a thing.

That's the word. I was also wrong. If you could drop the hoop low enough, George could indeed dunk. Those are two truths, and I personally maligned you on this behind the Ramsey Network app and on the radio. So I'm sorry. I appreciate that, John. I've always said you bring the bar low enough, I can get over it.

And you were able to do that with this apology. You can. It was the least you could do today. It was the least I could do. And George has also committed to doing a series of TikTok videos, fingers crossed that it stays, that will show him A, scrubbing grout, and B, dunking. So look for that. If you are, follow George Campbell at TikTok.net slash org.

I don't know how you find TikTok on the internet. It's not a URL, John, but thank you. Follow him in for those great new videos. Thanks for that free promo. That was fun. I had way too much fun watching you do that. All right. Let's go to Steven in my hometown, Boston, Massachusetts. What's going on, Steven? Hi, George. It's Dr. Dronley. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

I'm 54. I have to retire at age 57, mandatory retirement. I'm married. I have 13 and 16-year-old children. And I was wondering, I have a car loan and a mortgage. Should I pay off the car loan with my emergency fund and decrease my contributions to retirement and pay extra towards the mortgage or put more money into the college funds? So we're talking about doing seven things at once. You got a lot going on, brother. So let's do this with focus intensity. Sure. If you filter this through the baby steps, how much do you have in savings?

The emergency fund, everything you've got. $40,000. All right. What's left on the car loan? $13,000. Okay. So that leaves you with a grand total of, you'll have what, $27,000? I would, yes, if I paid it off all right then that puts you

into is 27 grand still a fully funded emergency fund or is that a little low for you guys no but yeah that'd be good okay so that puts you in that four through six how much are you currently investing what percentage of your household income income? My contribution is 32%. I'm sorry, 34. My wife is 22. We're both maxing out at $31,000 a year. And our funds are both at $1 million. Okay. So your retirement, you're locked and loaded there. Stephen, lead with that next time. We have a couple of million dollars in retirement. What's your net worth? I would say 2.6 because we owe 231 on the house, and it's worth about $800,000. Awesome. Okay, so what would it look like to maybe slow down some of your investing and knock this mortgage out by the time you're able to retire?

Wouldn't that free you guys up? Yeah, I have 10 years left on the mortgage and I have to retire in three. Okay. When you say have to retire, you can never do any job ever again, or your job just fires you? What's going on? Yeah, my job's going to kick me out. Okay. But can you take your full pension at that point in the job and then turn around and go do something else? Yes. If I retired today, I would take home $3,600. I currently make $3,000,

but when I work overtime, I take home like $4,200. Okay. What's your household income as it stands? $241. Amazing. Okay. Hold on. One last question, George. You're 10 years left on your mortgage. That's if you just pay what's on the mortgage note, right? That is correct.

The mortgage is $2,200 plus about $1,000 in taxes. It's $3,175 a month. Yeah, but you guys are bringing home $220,000 a year. You could, if y'all wanted to, have this mortgage paid off in two years. Wow, two years. I mean, you throw $100,000 at this thing a year by slowing down your investing. And then we also have the kids going to college. So you guys are in a real busy season.

Are you wanting to contribute? Is there anything in the college funds right now? They both have college saver plans. The older child has $6,500. The young one has $5,500. And they both have CDs at $10,000, and the other one has $6,500. So $17,000 and $12,000. Okay.

That's enough to get through one course in Massachusetts. Does the 16-year-old know what they want to do? Community college is free in Massachusetts. Does the 16-year-old know what they want to do? Community college is free in Massachusetts. Now, I don't know if that's what my daughter is considering. We still don't know what her major would be or what college she might apply to. Well, you can't leave such a major financial and philosophical and existential question up to a child.

Right. They need direct, you need direct yelling to sit down and say here's how much money we have here's how much money i am going to commit to being able to contribute and let's look at how much these schools cost because if you wait for a 16 year old to get swept up in the college marketing machine that tells her your life will be a failure without us and we're here for you like man that's a whole industry i've been a part of that industry for two decades y'all have to sit down and direct that because it will they the colleges are better than you let me just say that they will

sweep up your child and and um make her feel if we don't go to this school that costs 50 60 70 80 000 a year that somehow she's missing out on life. So y'all have that direct conversation. And make it clear, it's not carte blanche. You get to go wherever you want to go and we're just going to fund it. And it's not okay to take out 200 grand in student loans to do it either. And so have a clear conversation that might mean you end up cash flowing some of this if you don't have time to invest because you've got a 13 and 16 year old. The 13 year old, I mean, you still, five, six years. And so the 16-year-old is more urgent to help them develop a plan and just be clear about what we're doing and what we're not doing. But I would ratchet down your investing

because I don't want to see your kid go 200 grand into student loan debt when you're worth millions and you could have helped them avoid that trap. Should we decrease our retirement down to 15% each of us? Absolutely. And put it towards the house or put it towards college or both? That 15% should be going into retirement accounts. Any money beyond that can then go to college plus extra on the mortgage. And if that means slowing down our mortgage right now because we need to help cash flow college, that's okay.

That one is more interchangeable. What is non-negotiable is investing at least 15%. And beyond that, I mean, you guys are going to be okay. I just like to Deloney's point, I love the idea of you going into retirement with no mortgage payment. Yeah. The only thing that makes it is kind of back or forth for babies. I mean, for babies at five and six, like paying down the mortgage, putting money into the college fund. But you, unlike most, you have an end date coming. You know when the job you're in right now that pays you what it pays you

is going to come to a screeching halt here in a few years. If you were my dad, I would say, Dad, I would love for you to cross that finish line with no bills. The good thing is when I retire,

my salary or pension will be about the same as what I make now, so there won't be much drop-off. And the car payment right now is currently $700. We've been paying $1,500 to $2,000, so we're knocking it out. And if we pay it off with the emergency fund,

that will free up $1,500 a month to go towards the house. Yes, pay it off today. Yeah, I would pay that sucker off. But here's the thing. And George, tell me if I'm crazy. If you're going to get to that mandatory retirement at 57, you've got a couple million bucks in the bank,

and then you're going to get this pension on top of it that's going to ride you out at essentially flat, I would love to have you have no house payment, you all got no bills, and then you can work on an arrangement where you can cash flow college at that point. Right. Especially for the younger ones. That's a good idea. I'd sit down with

your wife, with a financial advisor. You can jump on ramsaysolutions.com and sit down and crunch these numbers and go, okay, here's the game plan. Year one, here's what we're doing. Year two, right now you've done a really good job just sort of trying and doing seven things at once. Here's the thing, Steven. You're too wealthy

to owe anybody any money. 100%. You're too wealthy to owe anybody any money. 100%. You're too wealthy to owe anybody any money. Stop letting other people run your life with your monthly bills, brother. And every, you know, you get a 10% return is what we've seen over the last 30 years. Every seven years, your money's going to double. That million turns into $2 million by the time you're 61. You're going to be okay.

Congrats, man. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Our scripture of the day, Galatians 6, verse 10. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Thomas Sowell said, The big divide in this country is not between Democrats or Republicans or women and men, but between talkers and doers.

And John Deloney does a lot of talking on this show. And not a lot of doing. Just kidding. That's good. But George does a lot of dunking and a lot of talking on this show. Not a lot of doing. Just kidding. That's good. But George does a lot of dunking and a lot of grout scrubbing. As we've learned this hour. Pay attention. That's right.

Ellen is in Philadelphia up next. How can we help, Ellen? Hey, Ellen. Hey, George. Hey, John. Thanks for taking my call. So I'm 29 years old. I was diagnosed with state-of-. And I just wanted to know if

I should get a will slash power of attorney or both, how I should invest my money, if I should do it in retirement or high yield savings or money market or index fund. Good God almighty. Walk us through what happened. Um, I felt a lump and is that, yeah, so I felt a lump and then I got it. I happened to have a doctor's appointment. So I pointed out they did an ultrasound and then immediately a mammogram and immediately, um, a biopsy all in the same appointment. They just like squeezed me in. Um, and I it's since then I've had a couple of CT scans and it looks like it's shrinking. So that's good news. So then I don't, I just don't know, like, are you going through full, you're throwing everything at it?

You're going through full treatment medications. Um, they said like surgery and chemo is kind of not pointless, but it's just spread. So they just, they're managing it through medication. Have they given you a timeline? with like the tumors shrinking and with possible treatments in the future that maybe in 10 years we could still be talking about this. Okay. But did she give you a, um, the other side of the equation too?

No. Okay. Okay. Sometimes that's scary but helpful yeah like i it's not i feel like i have imposter syndrome because i feel fine yeah you know what i've been around people who are staring death in the face for most of my career and I've never heard somebody use that phrase and you just nailed it it's like you're pretending to like you're pretending to be alive in your own skin but you you know something's going on underneath right it's like yeah that's a great way to phrase that oh well like on behalf of me

and George and this whole Ramsey team man our hearts are broken for you and we'll be praying for you. Okay. Thank you. Yes. To answer both your questions, you need the power of attorney and you need a will for sure. What do you do for a living? I'm a nurse. Okay.

So this is your whole world, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Geez. Do you have a good community around you? Family, friends? Yeah, I have a great boyfriend. I moved up here for work, so my family is in a different state,

but my mom has been here a couple months at a time helping out. I have a great work. Everyone at work is so nice, my managers and everybody above me. I have my equal. They're so nice. They're so supportive okay good is it um a wise move long term to be that far from family with a job that's as mobile as the one you have um i i like it here better than than them

dude totally good if anybody um has the right to do whatever they want to do, that's you. Okay? So good on you. Good on you. So what's your financial situation? So I'm not in any debt. I have some retirement through my current employer. It's like $2,000.

And then previous employer, I have $56,000. And then I have a Roth through Stash, like the investment app, and that's $10,000. And then through Stash, again, personal portfolio, another $10,000. You've done a great job. Thank you. That's awesome. And you have an emergency fund? Yeah. Liquid, I have $31,000. Wow. That's fantastic. Ellen you have an emergency fund? Yeah. Liquid, I have $31,000.

Wow. That's fantastic. Ellen, you're crushing it. So you've got no debt, a fully funded emergency fund. You're investing for the future. You're going to get a will in place. You can jump on to ramseysolutions.com slash will.

That will connect you to our friends at Mama Bear Legal Forums. You can do one completely online. And then for power of attorney, there's going to be the financial power of attorney and then a healthcare power of attorney. If you feel like you would need someone to manage your finances at some point

or make medical decisions on your behalf. And so it doesn't sound like you're there, but if things progress, you can always set that up and have a trusted friend start to manage those things for you and make those decisions for you. Or your mom or your dad, yeah.

Even before it progresses, just having done this a long time, I would do that sooner rather than later. Okay. That way you can sit down across the table and say, as a nurse, I've seen the other side of this thing. When things go south, here's exactly what I want. And make it very, very clear for people. And it gives your loved ones a lot of peace.

It gives you a lot of peace in a really messy situation. Can I ask you a crazy question? Yeah. What do you want to do? What do you mean? Every one of us has a clock ticking. You don't just want to fund a Roth IRA this year. What's the thing?

Like, pretend you have a 10-year clock. What do you want to do? Travel. Go. Get want to do? Travel. Go. Get married. Go. Go. Will you please travel and send us pictures from places that you go? Yes.

You have cash. You've got money. Go. Go. Go. I'm less worried about your retirement fund at this point. I'm more worried about Ellen. Could give five boxes of farts about your Roth IRA right now. I want you to go wherever you want to go and get the nice hotel. We're all on a clock. We just don't realize it.

You got to find out, oh, we're on a clock. Right? Yeah. So do what you need to do to prepare for the worst, get the things in place. And that goes for anyone. You just had this crazy life event that caused you to go, oh, my gosh, I need a will. Everybody needs a will. And so I'm glad you're getting one in place.

But you also need to act like this could be 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, and start to behave like it with your decisions. Yeah. And, George, this is what I'm going to say real quick is uncomfortable for everybody listening, but it's just true. Let's say that you have a terminal cancer diagnosis and you've got 10 years, you've got five years. As she described it, which again, she said it so eloquently, feels like imposter syndrome. I feel like I'm healthy. I feel like I'm just going through my life. I'm a great nurse. And yet I've got this thing that I know is, is, is, is taking me down in real time, right? It's easy to project how good you feel right now with through 10 years.

And many people, most people are just stunned by when health turns, it turns in a dramatic fashion. And so here's the call out in this kind of situation. And it might not be you particularly that's facing a potential of one year, two years, five years or 10 years, but it might be a loved one. If you're in a financial position like she is, go now, go do the fun stuff now, right? We have a culture that just says, we'll do it later. We'll do everything later. We'll have fun when we're retired. And man, I know a lot of folks that retire and their knees aren't good enough to go skiing anymore, right? So if you can, go skiing. If you can, go fishing. If you can, she has set herself life up in a way so that when life hit her and it hit

her hard, she can exhale and financially she's okay. She's got a great job and now she can go live, man. She can go kind of breaks off. This is not the YOLO with irresponsibility and debt. She's putting herself in a place where she can enjoy life. She has the freedom and flexibility to do those things. So this year I'm going to take all of my vacation and we're going to go overseas. We're going to take all our vacation and go on that silly hiking trip we wanted to go to while we can, right? And I think it's a good message for all of us. The reason we're always talking about getting out of debt, always doing all these things, because it's not a matter of if, it's when

life happens to you. And God help us that it doesn't happen at stage four cancer at the age of 29. What a tragic loss, but it will happen to all of us. And so live these principles out for this very moment, right? Somber reminder. Hey, we are cheering for you, Ellen, and our thoughts and prayers with you and everyone listening as well. Thank you so much for the call and trusting us with that. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Thank you to my friend, Dr. John Deloney, all the folks in the booth hitting the buttons,

keeping this show going, my friend, Dr. John Deloney, all the folks in the booth hitting the buttons, keeping the show going and you America until next time spend wisely, save intentionally and give generously.