The Ramsey Show - App - Leverage Is a Risky Two-Edged Sword (Hour 1)

Episode Date: January 25, 2019

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. It is a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. All right, starting off this hour is Chris in Greenville, South Carolina. Hey, Chris, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Dave, good afternoon.

Thank you for your time. Certainly. How can I help? Yes, sir. So I'm a 35-year-old single male, never married. I got a fully funded retirement account with roughly $265,000. I don't have any debt except for my house. The question I have for you, Dave, is roughly currently I have about $105,000 in liquid cash,

and I have $64,500 on my house, and I want to start an insurance business as well, what would you do with the current money that I currently have and what would be the best action plan to pay off my house but also start an insurance business where I need around $50,000 to start it up? Okay, I'm sorry. I thought you said you had $265,000 in retirement, right? I have $265,000 in retirement, right? I have $265,000 in retirement. Aside from my retirement account, I have an additional $105,000 in liquid cash in my checking account that I have.

And your mortgage balance is what? And my mortgage balance is $64,578. Okay. And your household income's what? Just over $120,000. Okay, cool. $120,000. All right. You've done very well. Congratulations. So you want to quit your job and start an insurance business cold?

Yeah, to be a scratch business, yes. Okay. And how long before it starts making money? Well, based on the insurance company that I'll be looking at, roughly I would say about three to six months. I would say probably six months. And the $50,000 that you need to do that is going for what? Well, this is an actual franchise, and so $25,000 of that would be an actual fee. The other additional $25,000 would be kind of working capital as you get going.

So it's not the traditional brick and mortar that you would normally see, like, from an all-state or a state farm. It's more of an independent brokerage, but you don't have all the upfront capital or expenses that most businesses normally do. Now, which type of, like, P&C? P&C, life and health. Okay, the whole gambit. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, obviously, if you take $50,000 of your $105,000, you don't quite have enough to pay off your house.

And so, you know, the question is, can you do it on $40,000 instead of $50,000? Can you get the business going on $40,000 instead of $50,000 with no house payment? Or do you want to just hold your cash for a little while, get this thing going, and then reach over and pay off the house? I mean, if you use $50,000, you'd have $55,000 sitting there. How long is it going to take you to save up the other $10,000? Is that no emergency fund aside from that, right? Well, my emergency fund would be on the current cash on hand that i have okay all right no no yeah you can't do both no i would not have it

you can't do both you need an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses period okay we're not going to touch that so whatever that whatever uh portion of the 105 that uses up is not available. Now, then, I guess what I would do is start the insurance business for cash and then begin to pay off my mortgage as quickly as the insurance business starts to take off. How much of the $120,000

income is yours? It's 100% mine. Okay. It's only a one income. I'm single. Okay. So you're going to have zero income.

It'd be zero income, yes. For a little while. Okay. Hopefully not long, but yeah. I've thought about working the remainder of this year, taking my income and just piling it straight into the principles, which is what I've been doing. Not a bad idea.

Yeah, not a bad idea. Get yourself in a better position, because obviously if you're going to go to zero income, you've got to have an emergency fund still sitting there. And if you've got the house paid off too, then that just creates a different level of staying power to get the insurance business off the runway, to get it to lift off, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do.

I think working the rest of the year is probably a really good idea. And just knock that mortgage on out because you're an aggressive saver. You have the ability to do that. And we can go from there that's what i would do hey thanks for the call open phones at 888-825-5225 ann is in toledo hi ann welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave thank you for taking my call um i have a retirement life insurance question. I'm married. My husband's military, retired, and all he's doing is working on his hobbies. Our kid is going to college next year. She has RGI bills, so she's set. We're currently debt-free. We decided to do the snowball and pay up $45,000, and we did it in 12 months on the house, the sawmill, and some credit cards.

Our take-home is $8,600, about $104 a year right now. However, I'm retiring in a year with the military, and that'll take our income down to $5,600 or $67,000 a year. Guaranteed monthly checks. And according to my calculation, no one's going to have to work. So we can just do some side hustles and be just fine. I'm 58 and he's 50. He has the survivor benefit plan on him,

which if he passes would give me $1,500 a month, and he has about $120 in the TSP 401K. Is this enough to consider him self-insured? It's up to you. Can you live on what you're left with with no life insurance? It should keep me about the same of where I am. Okay. So the survivor benefit, the fact that you're debt-free,

and the fact that Kids College is covered puts you in a position that you can live on comfortably what you would have coming in. Then that's the answer. I mean, can you live off the income that you have coming in and the income off the assets that you have coming in? And if you can, then you're self-insured. That's what it amounts to, especially in this case. And so is he disabled nope um luckily he did get injured while he was overseas but he fully recovered so nope he's not disabled he just likes to be uh retired he just pulls around um making things and then he sells them yeah and

woodworking yeah all. All right. That's fine. Yeah. Whatever you want to do. He has a life expectancy of 45 more years to putz around. I don't, that's just kind of strange. But if that's all he wants to do, that's fine. I appreciate you guys serving your country and appreciate that you got that wonderful retirement.

That's awesome. But it's kind of sad to just quit at age 50 and not contribute anything else to your life or to the life of others. I'm not saying go take a job you hate, but just sit on your butt for 40 years. It doesn't compute to me. I mean, it's your life. You get to do what you want to do. So I just have to make the comment. Hey, thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Your goal this year is to get rid of your debt, but here's the deal. In order to keep your momentum going past January, you have to make small changes that get quick results. That's why you need to attack your debts smallest to largest.

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at 888-LOAN-200 or visit churchillmortgage.com for your Churchill checkup. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

That's 888-825-5225. David is with us in Charleston, South Carolina. Hi, David. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Mr. Ramsey. How are you doing, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Quick question for you. This is a mortgage-related question. Currently, me and my wife are on baby step number two. We're paying off our last car note that we've got right now. We have about $47,000 left on that. And then my question is that we're looking to buy a bigger house probably in the next three to five years, and currently our house is worth about $200,000.

We owe about $168,000. Should we, once we pay off all of our debts beside the mortgage and we fund our kids' college fund and the other baby steps are paying off the mortgage. Should we just pocket that money to save for a down deposit on a newer home down the road? No, just go ahead and pay it on the mortgage, because when you sell your house, they give you a check at closing. Right, but what if you go to that attorney, though, because I'm always kind of worried that whenever I'm going to sell my house, but then I've got to find a house.

You don't want to own two houses. Right, exactly. So don't put yourself in a position that you do that. No, you need to pay down your house and then sell your house when you get ready to move and just make that work. That's the normal way of doing things, number one. But number two, when you save money to the side like that, A, it's not going to get any greater return unless you put it at risk.

And, B, it ends up going on to a bass boat. Did you say you owed $47,000 on your car? Yes, sir, I did. And what's your household income? Me and my wife make a little over $100,000. You broke up. You make $100,000? Yes, sir. And you have a $47,000 car? $150,000. You broke up. You make $100,000? Yes, sir.

And you have a $47,000 car? Yes, sir. Okay. A good rule of thumb is to not own vehicles when you add all of your things with motors and wheels together, that they shouldn't equal more than half your annual income. I think you're violating that. You probably have a car here that's too expensive um because you know when you have when you make a hundred thousand dollars a year and you got sixty seventy thousand dollars tied

up in things that are going down in value it makes it very difficult to build wealth and so um you need to really look at that and consider that uh jason is with us in austin texas hey jason welcome to the d Ramsey Show. Hi, great talking to you, Dave. How are you? You too, sir. Did you get off that speaker? Yes. All right, I'll come back to you when you get this figured out. Matt is in Boise, Idaho. Hey, Matt, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how you doing? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Hey, me and my wife have saved up a good chunk of change in the bank,

and we have several investment properties. We own actually just two, and then our own personal home. We have no debt. Cars are paid off. I'm trying to figure out what to do with that money in the bank, whether it is pay off the mortgages or invest it in new rental properties. I know that... I would have you become debt-free before we move on with more properties.

That's what I did. Mortgages are considered debt. Oh, well, yeah, they're debt. If you don't pay them, they do this thing called foreclosure. Of course it's debt. Yeah. Yeah, and it adds risk to it. What about leverage? Okay.

The leverage is a two-edged sword. It cuts both directions. It increases risk while you are doing that. If leverage didn't matter, you would be borrowed up to as much as you could possibly borrow on your home and all of your rental properties in order to buy other rental properties with nothing down. But when I say that, that makes you feel like, oh, that's risky. Well, that's because leverage is risky. When you borrow money and the more money you borrow in ratio to your assets, the greater your risk is. And so when you calculate the risk in mathematically, it offsets anything that you would have, any benefit you would have had. Now, you can do whatever you want to do.

I own a couple hundred million dollars worth of real estate. And I love real estate. And 100% of it is paid for. And I bought it one piece at a time that I paid cash for. No one is going to foreclose on me. I've done detailed research, and 100% of the foreclosures occur on a home with a mortgage. And I've run into people in 30 years of doing this that thought they had it all dialed in. They thought they had pushed the risk aside and traditionally don't keep enough liquidity and traditionally don't value, don't look at mortgages as risk. And they are risk.

The borrower is slave to the lender. There's not an exception to that. And so, again, you do what you want to do, but you call me. So what I would tell you to do is to become debt-free as fast as you can. And as soon as you're debt-free, use the incredible cash flow that you'll have on these properties and in your personal life without a house payment to save up and pay cash for yet another rental property and save up and pay cash for yet another rental property. And so my rental properties easily create enough cash to buy other rental properties

all the time and so um like every 20 minutes so you know you just but you have to get it up to that you have to begin to build a snowball in your favor and get there so hopefully that'll help you open phones at 888-825-5225. Jason is on Twitter. Dave, do you consider a physical asset like gold or silver to be equal to having an emergency fund? Absolutely not. It's the worst possible place to put an investment, but certainly an emergency fund. See, you understand, gold is not really a physical asset. You know, that's a misnomer.

The only reason that gold has value is that someone else will buy it. If a block of granite, someone else would buy it, then it's, you know, and would pay what they would pay for a block of gold, then it's just a transfer of an item. But there is no intrinsic value in gold, meaning it has no actual functional value in any more than a block of granite does. It's just that the marketplace has determined they're willing to pay you so much per ounce. But you're not any more safe because you have a rock sitting in your safe

than you had paper money sitting in your safe. There's no physical asset here. Now, physical asset is real estate. That does have a physical asset to it. But because it has a function and it creates income, blocks of gold, you know, gold rocks do not create income. And so absolutely not. No, you do not put any money in gold or silver, but certainly not your emergency fund. I own zero gold except some cool cufflinks. That's it. Zero. And if you will look up gold and do a little bit of a historical study on it, you will see it as a very, very volatile, high-risk investment.

It goes way up when people are scared and greedy, and it goes way down when everybody gets comfy. And it's way down right now compared to where it was about two years ago. And so you lost your butt on it. I mean, if you bought a single stock that was as volatile as that and I told you to do it, you'd all be screaming at me to be lynched. Put a single stock on the exact same risk pattern, the exact same increase and decrease in value as a block of gold. But, oh, it's gold, so it's all okay because it's mysterious.

It's not mysterious at all. It's a gold rock. That's all okay because it's mysterious. It's not mysterious at all. It's a gold rock. That's all it is. It's a mineral. It does not have intrinsic value. The only reason it has value is that other humans place value on it. That's all. It's a spiritual transaction, a transaction of trust.

The only reason green pieces of paper with president's faces, they don't have any intrinsic value. The only reason they have value is your trust. And that's a spiritual transaction. You trust that if I have a green piece of paper with Uncle Ben's face on it, I can do about $100 worth of business. Most anywhere. And it's still accepted in most places all that right you know that's what you're facing so um no no no don't fall into the gold mythology the mysteriousness of gold this is the dave ramsey show This is The Dave Ramsey Show. With more frequency than you know, I get calls and emails from people dealing with the recent loss of a spouse or a parent. You can hear the struggle and the heartache that they've been experiencing. And at a time they should be grieving, what breaks my heart the most is the strain and tension that they're going through because of money. Especially when it's a situation that could have been experiencing. And at a time they should be grieving, what breaks my heart the most is the strain and tension

that they're going through because of money, especially when it's a situation that could have been avoided. If you have a family, it is your responsibility to have term life insurance. It's one of the things you do to say I love you. And yes, this is an ad for Zander Insurance. But since this is one of the most effective ways I have to get my point across, so be it. For over 20 years, I've been telling you about the importance of term life insurance and protecting your family.

Listen, you need to check out Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. I can't say it enough. Protect your family. It's what you're supposed to do go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282 In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, they're here. Charles and Melissa are with us from Dallas, Texas. Hey, guys. Welcome, welcome. And all the way up here to do your debt-free scream.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right. Very cool. How much have you paid off? You want to tell them? Go ahead. $310,000, including the house. Very cool. Excellent much have you paid off? You want to tell them? Go ahead. $310,000, including the house.

Very cool. Excellent. Excellent job. And how long did this take? A little over, right at 12 years. 12 years. All right. And your range of income during that time?

Approximately $75,000 to $125,000. Okay. And you paid off your house and everything? House and everything. Man, I'm looking at weird people. I love it. Well, congratulations, you guys. Absolutely fabulous.

Very, very well done. So how much of the $310,000 was the mortgage? $231,000. Okay. All right. And the rest of it was consumer debt that you did first? Consumer debt, we had just typical debt, car loans, credit card, student loans. Stupid tax. Stupid tax. I understand. So what happened 12 years ago that got you guys

started on this whole thing? Well, we were realizing very quickly early on in our marriage when we got married about a year after that we were in trouble financially and that we really didn't have a plan to get out of the debt that we had incurred. And so we started watching on TV another personal finance coach, and then we started to realize that even more that we needed to get out of debt. So we found your Fox Business Channel show, and we started really watching that and really transitioned over to your way of thinking and your philosophy on getting out of debt. So that's really where we started.

Oh, cool. Very cool. That's neat. So what do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? You've done it. Live out of debt. Live out of debt. Live within your means. Okay. Live on less than you make. And for us, it's really important that we tithe. So we've been tithing from the very beginning. Yeah.

And, you know, we grew up with parents that both lived within their means, you know, paid off debt. And so we just wanted to follow in those footsteps and honor them. Yeah. Very cool. Well, congratulations, you guys. Thank you. Very proud of you. Who were your biggest cheerleaders along the way?

I think each other. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because it was a long time. Yeah, 12 years. I mean, it's not like you had 12 years. Yeah.

And, you know, and I really think that I started out and really I had to bring her on board. And I think that once we really start to look at the numbers together, before I was just doing all the budgeting and everything. And when I showed her kind of where we were, that really got her on board. And really, there are times where she's carried me. I really appreciate that. I got you. Cool. Very cool.

All right. So how long ago did you start on the mortgage? Well, obviously, we paid it all along the way. But we had a house. No, I'm saying, yeah, when you got out of debt, though, and you start working baby step six, and you're out of debt other than your house, and you got your emergency fund in place, and it's, okay, game on, everything above retirement and kids' college, we're going to start throwing in the mortgage.

How long ago was that? Well, we had our house built in 2009. So, really, that's when we just, we were really at that cusp of almost baby step six at 2009 when we had our house built. So we sold our house. We had another one built, and then we just attacked that debt. We started paying an extra mortgage from day one. From day one. So an extra payment.

So really, what we're saying is you bought the house nine years ago. Yes, sir. And paid it off in nine years. And then in addition to that, before that, the three years was you getting out of debt and doing other stuff. Yes, sir. Okay. Excellent. Excellent. Well done. Because that before that the three years was you getting out of debt and doing other stuff yes sir okay excellent excellent well done because that's about the average the average everyday millionaire that we interviewed was 10.2 years to pay off their house you did it yeah and so what's this house worth 365 i love it way to go how's it feel to not have a payment

in the world feels wonderful feels great travel It feels great. We can travel now. I love it. Very cool. Well done, you guys. Very well done. We're proud of you. We got a copy of Chris Hogan's Everyday Millionaires book for you because that's the next chapter in your story. Yes, sir.

You're going to be everyday millionaires. You're on the way. Yeah. And outrageously generous as you go along. And, Dave, I just wanted to interject something real quick that a point I wanted to make is something my dad taught me many years ago. And he had a saying, he's like, son, a person with a gun can only take what's on you, but a person with a pen can take everything that you ever make. And that's always stuck with me.

And when you sign your name to debt, when you sign your name, whether that's in co-signing a loan or for anyone else, you realize you're really putting yourself out there. And so we've really had to learn that we need to be intentional, like you talked about. We need to be intentional with our money, what we're doing, what is really a need and what's a want. That's a big deal. That's a great line from your dad.

I've never heard that. I will steal that instantly. All right. Charles and Melissa, Dallas, Texas, $310,000 paid off in 12 years, making $75,000 to $125,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free!

We're debt-free! Way to go, you guys. Way to go. That's absolutely awesome. So proud of you. Excellent job. All right. Brandon is with us in San Francisco.

Hey, Brandon, how are you? Good, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I got a question regarding my company 401k and how I should contribute to it. They do not offer a Roth 401k. However, they do offer both pre-tax and after-tax contributions, and they don't require me to invest pre-tax contributions before after-tax,

and they also do match after-tax contributions. Yeah, but I wouldn't do after-tax contributions before after-tax, and they also do match after-tax contributions. Yeah, but I wouldn't do after-tax. I'm going to do pre-tax if it's not tax. The only reason you'd do after-tax is if it was a Roth and it's growing tax-free from that point. No, I would definitely do pre-tax. They do allow in-service withdrawals, and the program's through Fidelity,

and I've been talking through some of their reps, and what they're saying is that I could actually transfer those after-tax contributions into a Roth IRA. Nah, I wouldn't fool with that. I would just do your traditional up to the match. I'd do a Roth. Do you have a match at all? At the company, yeah. Okay.

How much is the match? 3.6%. Okay. Up to the match, I would do the traditional. Then I would do Roth IRAs at home. Are you married? Yes. Okay.

You and your spouse each can do $6,000. Unless you're over 50, you can do $7,000. And what's your household income? Last year, $200,000. Good. Good for you. Okay. Excellent.

All right. So we need to get to $30,000, and your spouse got an IRA at work, or is this all you? It's just all me. Okay. He stays at home with the kids. Okay. Cool. All right.

And so if we do $7,700, that's $14,000. We need to get to $30,000. That leaves us 26 away. I just load my pre-tax 401k and do two Roths is what I would do. Okay. Just keep it real clean and real simple. If you ever leave there and you roll it over and you have some extra money, you may at that point want to make the decision to roll it into a Roth,

but that will create a taxable event when you do that. And that's not a bad conversion to do, but that's when you've got some extra money, extra dollars are sitting around. So, hey, there you go. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window covering. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos every month, you save even more. Use the promo code Ramsey.

Trevor is in Iowa. I always hear you say to invest in good growth stock mutual funds with a good 10-year track record. I've invested with a broker who only makes money if I make money, no fees. One thing he asked was what amount of risk I would like to have with the money I have invested. Would it be okay to invest in a higher risk category if they still have a good track record over the years? Yeah, absolutely.

We tell you to spread across four types of mutual funds, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. That's what I personally do. And if you were looking at a normal 401k and they had a low, medium, and high-risk categories, what I just outlined would land in the high-risk category. It's not really high-risk. It's compared to Vegas or compared to investing in something stupid like Bitcoin or gold. It's not even close to that kind of risk, but it is higher risk than other options inside

your 401k. So, you know, you need to look at that. And what you need to do is just look at how volatile it is. Okay, play that out for me. If I put that money across those four with you, what would it have looked like over the last 20 years? How are we landing there? And see how that works out for you.

And you can look at those projections like that, what they did in the past, and give you an idea, do I welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Jason is with us in Austin, Texas. Hey, Jason, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Certainly. How can I help?

So, quick question. I want to know what to pay off first. I have 30 in credit cards, 40 in filed back-to-ta taxes, but I also have a lease. So I just have a wild of a mess here. How did you get $40,000 behind on your taxes? I had some bad accountant advice who also told me to lease a car. It's a couple of years, 13, 14, and 15. I'm actually very current with 16, 17, and 18.

So you got your quarterly estimates going because you're self-employed or 1099? That's correct. Okay. And so you're up to par now, but these are back taxes. And I assume you've got this on an installment plan. Yes, sir. Good. Good.

And what's your household income? About seven to eight after taxes and expenses. Good. Okay. Cool. Cool. And do you have any cash at this point? I've got about $5,000 in cash. Okay. Cool. All right. What we teach people to do is to list your debts, smallest to largest. Pay minimum payments on everything but the little one.

Save only $1,000. Stop all investing. Cash out any non-retirement investments. Do you have any non-retirement investments? No, I do not. I did already cash out almost all of your podcasts. Okay, and you paid it towards what? I've already been putting it towards the credit cards and taxes.

I cashed out a couple of days ago or about a week ago and put that, but now that's my balance, about $40 and $30. Okay, cool. All right, so what I would do is take the other four down to $1,000 baby step one, and I'm going to list my debts smallest to largest with the exception of taxes. You do not want the KGB in your life. I mean the IRS in your life. And so this is a high penalty, a high interest, and they have unlimited power to screw up your life.

And so you want to pay that thing first. Let's put the 40 at the top. List your credit cards smallest to largest right under that, and your car fleece is last. Let's put the $40,000 at the top, list your credit cards, smallest to largest, right under that, and your car fleece is last. When's the car fleece up? About 20 months. Okay. And you're making $8,000, so you make it $100,000, and we've got $70,000.

Yeah, I figured if I tried to sell it, I'd still owe about $12,000 or $14,000. I think you're going to play that lease all the way through, probably. Yes, sir. Yeah, and don't get up over the miles, and make sure you keep it so they don't get you on condition when you turn it in or mileage, and make a plan for paying cash for a car coming out the backside of that as your last step. But I'd get the IRS out of my life ASAP. I mean, like, just a matter of months here.

That needs to happen very, very fast. And then list these credit cards, smallest to largest, paying minimum payments on them while you're doing the IRS thing, and then attack them down in that order, work them through in that order. And then start making a plan for the car because you're going to turn this one in. That's what it amounts to. It's going to take you 20 months to get to all of that anyway. You've got 70, and you've got to buy a car, and you're making 100, so it's 35 a year. It's going to take you 20 months.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Marina is with us in Canada. Hi, Marina. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. So my question today is about emergency funds and also about the fear that I have. Darren is nervous.

So the thing is that I'm an immigrant in Canada from Eastern Europe, and I came here two years ago. So because I didn't have a job at the time, I kind of accumulated credit card debt, which was $13,000. But I paid it off in seven months this January. So right now I'm officially debt free. So my household income right now, you know, in American dollars would be like $35,000 a year after tax. And the thing is that right now I'm on baby step three, and I'm trying to accumulate the six months of emergency funds. And right now I feel like it's very hard. I feel like I'm stressed about money all the time. Why are you stressed?

You don't have any debt. Why are you stressed? The thing is that I'm very afraid to lose my job, and sometimes I'm thinking that if I lose my job, I'm going to lose my apartment. What if I end up leaving in the streets or something well would you get another wouldn't you get another job well i i definitely what makes you think you're gonna what makes you think you're gonna lose your job well it's you know it's it's a bit hard sometimes um sometimes the relationships with the management is um you know it's not perfect as I would want it to be. And I'm really trying.

Like, I also go to school and I pay cash right now for the university here in Canada. So I'm really trying to build my Canadian dream here. But I find that it's extremely hard. My question is, is it better for me maybe to quit school for now and get a second job to kind of build that emergency fund as fast as I can? It depends on how scared you are about losing this job. If you think there's a 50-50 chance you're going to lose this job in the next six months, then you have a real legitimate worry. And, yeah, you may want to do that. You may want to delay school a little bit until you can get yourself more stabilized and more sustainable.

If you think there's a 20% chance you're going to lose your job, then you're just being a worrywart at that point. You just need to lighten up, lighten up, go to work, be kind to people, work hard while you're there, smile while you're at work, and get along and get along and keep moving along and decide what your long-term career path is. But I can't tell from discussing this with you whether you just are worried and afraid in general because of the journey that you've been on, which makes you a little more fearful, or is there a legitimate storm cloud right there in front of you and you need an umbrella? I can't tell that from talking to you. You've got to decide that. Is there a legitimate storm cloud right there in front of you and you need an umbrella? I can't tell that from talking to you. You've got to decide that.

But I do know this. You need to get a game plan on the money piece where you're piling up cash, where you're building your emergency fund, where you're living on a budget. When you live on a plan and you're building that emergency fund, it gives you a tremendous amount of peace. A tremendous amount of peace. And you don't have any peace right now. You got no financial peace. So, hey, thanks for the call. I wish I could be more help to you, but that's what I'm seeing when talking to you.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Joey is in the Ramsey Baby Steps community. If you didn't know on Facebook, we have the official, the Ramsey, capital T-H-E, Ramsey Baby Steps community. About 100,000 of you. Dave, just getting started on the plan. Super motivated, even though my wife just will not get on board. She will not combine our money. It feels like she would be paying off my debt since it's my student loans. We don have a lot of debt but with her income we could pay off the debt and mortgage and basically

half the time uh what do i do to convince her you have a marriage problem you don't have a money problem and you need to sit down with your pastor or with a good marriage counselor because your wife missed the part in the marriage vows for rich or for poor in sickness and health she's not your freaking roommate your roommate shouldn't have to pay your bills your wife should she gets sick and has to go for cancer treatments guess what you're going to be holding her head while she's throwing up in the toilet. That's how life works when you're married. You take care of each other.

This is what marriage is about. Submit yourselves one to another. In sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, unto thee all my worldly goods I pledge. Is the old marriage vows. You don't hear those used anymore. They're not quite hip enough for some people. But that's how you properly live. My wife has not had an income in 34 years.

But she has a really good income. Because there's not a she and me. There's a we. We have a really good household income, and thus Sharon has a really good household income, but she has not earned an income as an individual in the marketplace since our oldest child was born. Does that mean that she shouldn't have a say or that we shouldn't share? No. You need marriage counseling, Joey.

Bad. Bad. Your wife thinks she's your roommate, and we need to work on that. I hope that helps. That puts this hour of The Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener. I'm Dave Ramsey, your producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, and we'll be back.

This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to The Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify? For all the ways to watch and listen, check out our show page at DaveRamsey.com slash show.