The Ramsey Show - App - My Boyfriend's Parents Are Prying Into My Finances (Hour 1)

Episode Date: January 17, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions Broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show. Thank you for joining us. It's all about you, your life, and your money. The phone number is 888-825-5225. You call. The advice is free, and some say it's worth what you pay for it.

The phone number, 888-825-5225. Casey starts off this hour in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Hi, Casey. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I have a really weird question for you. His family has been asking for our financial information. They want to know what our utilities are, how much we're spending on everything, and who is paying what. So I am from a family where

you don't share those things outside of your immediate household. So my question is, should we be giving them this information or should we be holding the barrier and like the wall that we are saying that this is our information and, you know, it's not really any of their concern. We're not in any kind of financial need. Yeah. Okay, and so you're married. We are not married. I told him he could not propose until I finished grad school, and I finished in about six weeks.

Mm-hmm. Which is kind of another thing of whether or not that answer changes once we are married. Yeah. Well, it does because then it's a different situation um the uh because there's not a we now yeah i mean all of our bills are you have a roommate and your roommate's mother is going over the line yes that's different than your husband's mother is going over the line. For me, it is.

And I think relationally it is. Either way that she's going over the line, what is their motivation in being so dad-blame-nosy? Honestly, it's his sister. His sister? Why does his sister want to know his stuff? Honestly, she, for whatever reason, does not care for me, and that's been well known. We go through points where we're fine and then other times where she doesn't. But we are taking a trip as a family to Disney this fall, and his sister spent $12,000.

And I said that we would only go if we could do it our way. And we were only spending about $1,500 instead of $12,000. So she's really upset right now that I'm refusing to do everything that she wanted to do and taking on extra debt because I was only willing to go if I had time to save up the money. And our $1,500 covers our whole little unit. And how old are you guys? 33 and 34. And how old is sister? 39.

Well, here's the problem. There's more going on here. This is not about money. This is about your roommate's future fiancé, maybe future husband's sister's relationship with you. That's what this whole thing is about. And let me just tell you who solves that. It's not you. Okay. This is just an old man talking i'm not a family therapist okay no i know this is not i mean it's because it's not a money thing but you trying to solve this with her is going nowhere agreed i do agree yeah him sitting down with her and going hey sis back off he did and his whole family's

not speaking to either of us now well there you go okay so we weren't sure if we just disclose all this information if it would fix it or if it's just going to put it in a situation where when people violate boundaries and you say no i'm going to have a boundary and then they say oh the only way we're going to have a relationship with you is if we can tell you what to do in your life we're going to violate boundaries that is not a relationship that's a controlling manipulative bunch of jerks i think there's more going on here though um that's outside my realm of expertise um so i don't know exactly how to address this um but uh no i know you caving to people who demand that they can violate your boundaries is not the way you solve a relational issue okay but i don't think this has anything to

do with disney and i don't think this has anything to do with your light bill. I think it has to do with you all living together, and his family doesn't like that, and they don't like you shacking up with their son. And it's talked about all the time, and they don't like your stance on anything. And that's what's going on, and it's being reflected in these other things that are symptomatic. So you've got a much bigger problem than that. And so, you know, I think you sit down with a marriage counselor and get some pre-engagement, pre-marriage counseling, because you have a real problem in one of the four areas that causes marriages to end, and that's in-laws. It is one of the four areas.

Money fights, in-law fights, fights over kids, and fights over religion. And when you are unequal on any of those four things, you cannot come up with a solid way to handle this on any of those four things, then your marriage is going to struggle your relationship's not going to last so you need to see a a good marriage counselor to help you with that and um uh so you know you ask me and i that i i i don't think you can solve this by giving them the information. That's absurd. It's absurd they asked for it in the first place.

It's absurd they're angry because they want you to spend and do everything that you can afford to do. That's not an act of love. That's an act of control and manipulation by them. But none of those are the problem. They're all symptoms of a bigger problem that's a relational breakdown between you and his family, and that's what you're going to have to get into that I'm not qualified to deal with, nor do I care to. Sorry.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Deanna is in Fresno. Hey, Deanna, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I just have a quick question.

So I'm currently in the Navy. My husband got out two years ago. I mention that because that means we're both eligible for the VA loan. We're currently on Baby Step 2, but we plan on moving next year when I get out. Do you suggest that we purchase a home or rent until we're completely debt-free? Rent until you're completely debt-free and have your emergency fund in place. You buy a home after baby step three because if you don't, all kinds of crap is going to happen in your life and that is going to mess you up. You're kind of inviting Murphy to visit. If it

can go wrong, it will when you don't have an emergency fund and you buy a home the va loan is not the way to go it is the most expensive loan of the three loans fannie mae fha and va unless one of you is disabled in the military and if you're a disabled veteran all the fees and gotchas that the va charges the military folks are waived but otherwise they're not waived and it's expensive, which is weird because it's supposed to be a benefit for serving, but it ends up not being unless you're disabled, one of you. So check out that part, but no, wait until after Baby Step 3. Hey, thank you for your service to both of you. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

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How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm well, thank you. Better than I deserve. How can I help? Yeah, my husband and I just started baby step number two. We have quite a bit of debt, $97,000 in student loans. Well, that's a private student loan, and then another $20,000 in federal student loans, and then $7,000 in credit cards. I read your book. I'm inspired to get weird and to pay this off, and I think we can do it fast. We make about $90,000 together take home.

I want to do this in five years or less. How much debt have you got again? Say that again. Seven on credit cards and 25 on a student loan, and what on a student loan? The first large student loan is $97,000, Sally Mae student loan. And then there's a $25,000. And then a $20,000 federal student loan. $20,000, and then $7,000 in credit cards.

Yeah, so we have a lot. I think we can do it fast. We cut up our credit cards. We're budgeting. Five years is not fast. Yeah, but he thinks it's going to take like 10 years still. No, it's going to take less than three. Okay, see, that's what I mean.

I need to hear you say that it's possible because that's what I want to do. Yeah. Well, let's just do some simple math here, okay? You make $90,000 a year. Yeah. Okay. $40,000 a year for three years pays it off. Yeah. You can't live on 50?

We can. I think we can. We just have to make a lot of changes. Yeah. I mean, it's radical. This is rip the Band-Aid off stuff. Right. You know, it's not tear it off slowly.

It's rip, you know. Right, yeah. But that's what's successful is when people get that intense. I actually think you're probably going to do this in less than three years because I don't think your income is going to remain the same. What do you all do for a living? I'm a registered nurse, and he is a respiratory therapist. Wonderful.

Both of you can work like animals. Yeah, that's what the plan is, too, is work in strikes, work in nutritionists. I mean, you can make more than $90. You just have to work all the time. Yep. But you're not going to be able to go on vacations or go out to restaurants anyway because we're getting out of debt, so you might as well be working. I know.

I know. It's for a short period of time. We're going to live like no one else so that later we can live like no one else. Yeah, you're out of debt in less than three years but you have no life i believe it's possible you have no life during that three years well here's the math okay you pick up all the ot you can pick up i mean you pick up some emergency room work or whatever right yeah he does the same thing you can get your income to 120 in this house yeah but you have no life okay just for two years so 120 minus 50 000 is 70 000 to live on 50 000 a year for two years almost knocks his dad out in two years yep but you're

working all the time yeah and you have no life and your friends are going to think you're crazy and your mother's going to think you need counseling you know but you'll be done in two years not 10 years not five years and that's that's when people are successful is when they get that intense that focused and they they just you know they just go crazy on this stuff and and that's how you win. You have the perfect careers to temporarily increase your income dramatically without doing harm to your career. Yep, yep. Because you can scale right back down and not do any harm once this is over. Yep.

But, you know, you don't do 40-hour weeks when you're in a mess. You do 80-hour weeks when you're in a mess. We're in a mess, for sure. Yeah, yeah, and you don't do 40-hour weeks when you're in a mess. You do 80-hour weeks when you're in a mess. We're in a mess, for sure. Yeah, yeah, and you can do this. You really can do this, Rebecca. This is so freaking doable. But it's going to be all about just making this the only thing you're doing. You have no life, no lifestyle.

It's scorched earth, beans and rice, rice and beans. You're going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there. Okay. I mean, you just completely focus on getting out of debt. Because here's the thing. The deeper people cut, the faster they get out, and the faster they get out, the higher probability is that they get out. And so it truly is a rip the Band-Aid off thing.

It's do it. It's, you know, boom, hit hit it hard hit it fast hit it often that kind of thing and that yeah you can do this you definitely can do this yes thank you i think so too hey thanks for the call mandy's with us in atlanta hi mandy how are you hi i'm doing well thank you thanks so much for chatting with me today. Certainly. How can I help? Okay, so I have a question for you. My husband and I are in Baby Step 2, and we've got a long road ahead of us. We have about $107,000 in debt. Most of it is student loans.

And so both of us are on salary. We have no opportunity for overtime. And so I was thinking about things that I can do to help this along, become a gazelle. And I came up with an idea, and I just wanted to see what you thought about it, see if it's worth pursuing. Okay. So the work that I do is in bookkeeping. It's creative in creative problem solving, but not physically creative. And I find myself to be a creative person,

so I was thinking of how I might be able to apply that and get some extra income. A few years ago, I made a table for my nephew where I used a technique that made it very unique. And my sister-in-law just really loved it, and so I thought, well, maybe I can do something like that and do it like an Etsy shop style project. So I'm just wondering how, if you have any advice on how to maybe test the idea to see if it's something that people want. I can't find any comparable products on Etsy or other sites like that. I mean, there's tables, obviously, but there's not things that are in this style.

And it would probably cost me about $60 to $70 per item. That's not counting shipping it to wherever it would go. How long does it take to make? It takes probably, I think there would be a learning curve to it. I think I would be able to become pretty quick at it once I got back. If I ordered one today, how long would it take you to make the first one? It would probably take me about two weeks. Okay, good.

You can put it on Etsy without owning one. Right. Take pictures of the one you gave away. Sure, yeah, I can definitely do that. And just say it's two weeks to get there okay delivery is two weeks yeah absolutely would it be worth it to because i know there are feet i don't know the exact i looked it up a while ago but i don't remember the exact fees for etsy um do you think it would be worth it to do it on a different platform first

like a facebook um a marketplace or or something like? I don't know why you couldn't put it on all of them. Okay. None of them are exclusive, meaning that they all allow you to be on anything and then just find out where people buy tables, which one of these platforms is the best way to sell it, and how can you move them the most and so forth. And, you know, if you can make it in two weeks and it costs you $60, what are you selling it for? I would imagine I'd have to sell it for maybe $150, $175, something like that.

Okay, so you make $100 with how many hours invested? Like I said, I think it would speed up pretty quickly, especially if I could get my... How many hours will it take you to build a table that you're going to make $100 profit on? I'd probably say about two hours. Okay. $50 an hour is a pretty good job. Yeah.

Yeah, okay. Why does it take two weeks? Well, I actually had surgery on my hand today. I'm sorry? Yeah. So I would have to give myself a little bit of time to heal before... Oh, oh, oh. Oh, okay. But after we get past that, you could turn the thing in a few days.

Oh, yeah, definitely. Oh, okay. All right. Well, that makes good sense then. Yeah, all right. I didn't know. When I was asking this, I thought it was just like what a normal customer would get. Oh, no. A month from now, if somebody buys one on Etsy,

you can get it to them by the end of the week and make them all custom, right? Yes, yeah, I'd be able to do that. Yeah, that's the thing to do. Put them out there on everything. Hold on, I'm going to send you a copy of Christy Wright's book, Business Boutique, Equipping Women to Make Money Doing What They Love. And check out the website, businessboutique.com, and all the community there.

There's a lot of ladies making a lot of money on businesses and side hustles, both that are businesses. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. I love talking about companies that know how to do business right. You've heard of Grip6 belts, right? Well, if you haven't, it's the only belt you can get online with no holes, no flap, and no bulk. I'm talking weightless, and the buckles come in really cool designs and are interchangeable. I personally own a number of these belts, and they're so

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Congratulations, you guys. We sure are, Dave. Thanks. How are you? Better than I deserve. Well done, well done. So how much did you pay off? Well, we paid off $200,000 in 10 years. It was just our mortgage. But $87,000 of that we did in the last 13 months.

Whoa. Okay. All right. And your range of income during that 10 years and that 13 months? Well, when we first started, after we got married and bought a house, combined we're about $60,000, and now we're up to about $140,000 between the two of us. Gotcha. What do you guys do for a living? Well, I work for the state of Montana in law enforcement. I am in my real estate appraisal, and I recently went on my own to be self-employed.

Cool. Very cool. All right, so this is your home is all it is. You paid off your home, your debt-free house and everything. Yes. I'm talking to weird people. Very good. I love it. Very good.

So what happened that the turbo charge kicked in 13 months ago? Tell me about this. I tell you what, you know, we listen to a lot of stories about people and how they get out of these big mounds of debt, and we just always thought it was great. We got married and we were right on the cusp of going into debt, but after listening to your radio show pretty much every day, Shannon talked me into cutting up the credit cards, and we never even went into debt pretty much, you know, because of what you teach, except for a mortgage, yeah. So we started just attacking this thing,

and we could kind of envision the way our lives wanted to be. Once we were debt-free, we could buy what we wanted and do what we wanted. So we just went all in, like you said, crazy people. We didn't buy anything fun or do anything fun for about two years. We threw it all in the house and 100% worth it. Okay, but what happened 13 months ago? Because you paid off half of it in 13 months. Yeah, we had just been going along and paying off what we could,

and then we just decided we were sick of it, and we wanted to be done with it, and we thought we could do this in 24 months. We could be totally done, and as we started going, we just threw more money at it, and that's about the time I started working for myself and found out we had a little more we could throw at it. And we ended up doing it in 13 months instead of 24.

Wow, good for you. How old are you guys? I'm 43, and Shannon's just about to turn 40. And she's being modest, too, because she was working for a company, and actually her boss ended up passing away. So she had no choice but to start this thing up on her own, and she's been kicking butt for the last two years like you can't believe. We're very proud of her.

Good. Way to go, you guys. How does it feel to have everything paid for, house and everything? We don't even know what to say. I mean, you just kind of wake up smiling. I'm telling you. Way to go. Congratulations.

Very well done. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I think pretty much it's just being hyper-focused on not being satisfied with having any debt, making small payments on stuff, just get it done and just go start buying stuff and having fun, saving some money. I mean, it's very easy once you set your mind to it. We did have some visual aids, you know, little spreadsheets where we'd knock the month off with a highlighter and it just went really well once we were on the same page. You've got to be on the same page with your spouse for sure. Absolutely.

Well, well done, you two. Very, very proud of you. Congratulations. Did you have people cheering you on or saying you were crazy? A little bit of both. Some people we know just thought we were crazy. Our parents were really supportive of us. But, yeah, it wasn't easy, but completely worth it, I guess,

is the main message I want to say, which is just a wonderful thing. We ever go back in debt? Why? No. No reason to. Now that we're here. Well, you make $140,000 a year. You don't have any payments in the world. You're well on your way. We've got a copy of Chris. Yeah, we're here. Well, you make $140,000 a year. You don't have any payments in the world.

You're well on your way. We've got a copy of Chris. Yeah, we're doing really good. Now we can kind of already see the light at the end of the tunnel, sort of an actual retirement, no second jobs for us. We're going to pull the pin on our jobs here before you know it and just go do whatever we want. There you go.

Love it. Very cool. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you. That's the next chapter in your story to be millionaires and outrageously generous along the way, a retire-inspired number one bestseller. Congratulations, you guys. Hey, Dave. Yeah.

Yeah. I said thanks, Dave. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. Okay. Hey, we wouldn't have done it without you. Hey, you did it, man. I'm proud of you paul and shannon billings montana two hundred thousand dollars paid off in 10 years 87 of which in the last 13 months

making 60 to 140 that's their house and everything count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one Three, two, one. We're free! Love it! Well done, you guys. Very, very well done. Beautiful. Absolutely fabulous. Ariana is with us in Seattle. Hey, Ariana, how are you?

I'm good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hi. So, okay, me and my husband, we are a single-income family. My husband's active-duty military. And we are $7,000 in debt with credit cards, with nine different cards.

And with auto loans, we have $30,000 in debt. So with that being said, since it's nine different credit cards, we're on baby step number two, I believe, of just starting the debt snowball. And I was wondering, do I still have to make the minimum payments on the other credit cards, or should I just knock out a credit card and not worry about that taking a hit on our credit? No, you make minimum payments on everything except the smallest card and the smallest debt, and then you attack the smallest debt. When it's gone, you take the payments you used to use there

and any other money you can squeeze out of your budget and attack the next one down. What's your household income? Only $32,000 a year. Your cars are insanity. Yeah. We have a $9,000 loan on an Xterra and then a $22,000 loan on a Ford. With a $32,000 income.

That's smoking crack, kiddo. There's no way. That car's got to go. Okay. So I did my research on that as well, and we're under when it comes to that. You're under what? So I was looking at selling it, and we are under $10,000. We're negative $10,000.

On a $22,000 car? Yeah. So we paid it six months ago, and we got it six months ago, $24,000. We brought it home, and I just looked up how much it would be on Kelly Blue Book, and it said it was $14,000. Dealer trade-in. Dealer trade-in? You looked at trade in.

You didn't look at retail sales. No, I looked at a cash offer. A private sale offer? Mm-hmm. Okay, some of these are all these numbers. There's no car that loses $10,000 in five or ten months on a $24,000 vehicle. It loses half of its value. What kind of piece of crap is this?

I don't know. And that's why when I did the math, I was like, oh, my God. Yeah. Did you have negative equity in a car you rolled into this one? No. So we got cash for our old vehicle, and we used that towards that vehicle what kind of car is this what is it i had a 2012 for we have the one that is the 22 000 piece of garbage what is that that's a ford explorer okay your numbers are wrong something's wrong in the numbers okay

that car is not that the car a ford explorer did not drop ten thousand dollars in eight months unless you wrecked it. I mean, it just didn't. You're getting some bad numbers somewhere. You're putting something in the Kelley Blue Book wrong or something. They're not that bad a car. So, yeah, you cannot survive with car payments, with car debt that is equal to your annual income. You should not have car debt.

You should not have car debt, period, but you should not have cars that are more than 50% of your take-home pay, and yours is 100% of your take-home pay. This is why you're starving to death is these stupid cars. You're way over on your cars. Something's got to give here, kiddo. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. One of my favorite parts of this show is hearing your debt-free screams. You guys are our heroes.

You've kicked debt to the curb and you've saved for the future. Now we want to celebrate with you. If you have lived like no one else and are currently in baby steps four through seven, well, it's time to enjoy some money. And the perfect place to do that is on board our first ever live like no one else cruise in March. That's right, just a couple of months away. But get this, it's not too late to book your cabin, so don't miss your chance. This Caribbean cruise is going to be an incredible seven days at sea on a stunning new ship with amazing experiences. I'm talking all of our Ramsey personalities and other world-class entertainers.

We're stopping in the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and Turks and Caicos. It's going to be an amazing, debt-free celebration designed just for you. Don't miss the boat. Head over to RamseyCruise.com today to reserve your room. Michelle is in New Orleans. Hi, Michelle. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I have recently gotten engaged. Congratulations. Thank you. I found out that my fiance is about $250,000 in debt. He makes about $90,000 a year, but $47,000 of that goes to his ex-wife for child support and maintenance. I've never been in debt, and I honestly don't know where we would even start to get out of this debt. What do you make a year? I make about $26,000 a year, and I work in the gig economy. And how old are you guys? I'm 36, and he's 38. What is his debt from? It's basically from the divorce.

He owes about $70,000 to his ex-wife, $45,000 on a vehicle that he turned in for a voluntary repossession, $30,000 to her lawyer and his lawyer, and about $75,000 in credit card debt. And he got his butt whipped. Yes, he did. His lawyer was awful. Yes.

He ends up paying everything. Yes Yes. He ends up paying everything. Yes, he absolutely ended up paying everything. Whenever the divorce went through, he was making about $125,000 a year. Why does he not make that now? We went through the flood in 2016, and he lost his job. I lost my job. And so he's gotten back. He works in the plant.

He's gotten back to working, but he had to go with a different company, and they offered him $5 less an hour. Why? The other company never reopened? Right. What does he do? He works, he's a heat treater in the plants here in Louisiana. Okay.

So he's working 80 hours a week. The other part of the story I want to get straight in my head, it sounded like you didn't know how much debt he had until after you were engaged? Yes. Why? I was not aware. I was not very smart, and I didn't ask him about his debt. I've never had debt. It didn't cross my mind.

Well, it should have crossed his. Yes. That you should have had this information prior to making a commitment to marriage. Yes. That's kind of a problem, like he was hiding it. Okay. That bothers me more than the debt right this moment. And so what's his attitude about the debt?

He really hasn't been paying anything towards it, and I just don't want to start a marriage. Now that I know about the debt, I can accept that. I just, before we actually set a date to get married, I want to know that we are on a plan to get this paid off. There you go, and that he believes in that plan and is committed fully to that plan. Yeah.

If he is, for whatever reason, has given up hope and it feels like he's stuck, he's just going to stay there, or he just doesn't care or whatever about the debt, if for whatever reason he's just going to wallow in this, that's a deal breaker. Okay. It's not the debt. I wouldn't tell you to not marry him over the debt, but I would tell you to not marry him over lying about it or not marry him over the fact that he would tell you to not marry him over lying about it or not marry him over uh

the fact that he wants to just stay in it because you're not going to be you know you you it's a long life full of hell for you okay if you you know think about it 10 years 15 years from now you're still wallowing in this stuff you're not going to be okay with that no that's what i absolutely don't want to do yeah and so as long you know and if he's not going to be all in like we live on nothing and um you know he probably needs to go back to court and adjust some stuff okay um and i don't think he owes 45 000 on the repo i think that's what he owed on the car at the time they repoed it you don't owe he owed when they repoed it 70 000 yes what was he driving a suburban which i think is absolutely

outrageous uh yeah and he rolled some negative equity into that to get to there okay and so that the 45 000 is the difference okay they'll settle that for pennies on the dollar. They can probably settle that for $10,000, but the rest of the stuff, I don't know. I mean, the ex-wife thing, I don't know what you're going to do with that. How in the world he ends up owing her and these two attorneys. Wow. You may be able to settle those with lump sums. I mean, you might walk up to her and say, here's a check for $30,000 if you'll go away.

And she might take it, you know, but you'd have to have the 30 000 is what i'm talking about here not 30 and so you know you're going to put some money together here and that means both of you are going to get your incomes up and you both have to have a high desire to get out of money or to get out of debt and to make more money to do that. You have to both have this thing, and it's still going to take you a few years. I mean, if you guys just go bananas, it's going to take you a few years. So that's what you're facing. But the thing is, folks, those of you dating out there, it is not a deal breaker. As far as I'm concerned, it can be for you. You can decide what you want to do it's your life but i don't tell people to not get married over debt i do tell

them to not get married over the decision to stay in debt when you don't want to stay in debt because that's going to be when you can't be in agreement on money before you get married when money is the number one cause of divorce, we can highly predict that your marriage is not going to last. Okay, if the number one cause of divorce you don't agree on, guess what? You're going to get divorced. I mean, it's a fairly simple equation here. And so you have to be in agreement. So the $250,000 doesn't scare me.

It scares me, but it doesn't terrify me to say this guy's not a keeper i don't know if he's a keeper or not i can't tell he sure has a bad taste in lawyers i know that because he got his butt whipped but um anyway man he ends up paying her lawyer his lawyer owes her 70 grand and half of his income. It's half. This is not a fourth. It's half. Good gosh.

So, wow. Yeah. Somebody. So, anyway. Yeah. This was not an equitable outcome. I have no idea what the situation was, but wow, what a mess. Anyway. So, all of that's behind us now.

The question is, are we committed to cleaning it up? If we are, then ready to go. Game on. That's fine. Thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Alex is in Pittsburgh. Hey, Alex, how are you?

Hey, Dave, how are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Very good. Hey, we are newly married and looking to create a plan forward. Good. Congratulations. So, yep, newly came onto your videos on YouTube.

So, as I'm going through, it looks like we are on step six. We're debt-free. We have six months of savings. Both put about 15% to 17 percent into 401k. Wow. Nope. Yep. Not bad to run into a plan that you've already done all of it. Yeah, it doesn't happen all the time, right? Really good for you. Okay, so what's your question? Yeah, no kids, no college fund, so it's kind of like we're on step six. You got a house? Yes. Mortgage is our only debt. Okay. And that, and with that, we have about 15,000 extra savings on top of our six month emergency fund. Okay. So the question

is, uh, still about 48 on the house worth about a100,000. And it's in a good rental area. So our goal is to move in about two to four years. And with that $15,000 extra grant, do we use that to start paying off the mortgage more? Right now, I do double payments. So we're already actively trying to pay that off quicker. But do we fully commit to paying off the house early, or do we split it and keep doing the paying down of the mortgage and bulking up for a down payment knowing that we want to? I love real estate. And if you have a desire to own real estate, I really want you to get there. I do not personally buy real estate with debt for investment, and I don't tell people to buy investment real estate with debt ever. And so you borrowing money to buy your next house,

meanwhile keeping a paid-for rental is the same thing as borrowing money to buy a rental, effectively. So you're not going to like my answer, but I would tell you to sell the rental, buy your next house. When your next house is paid off, save up your money, pay cash for your rental. That would be a baby step seven issue. Hey, thank you for the call, sir. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey guys, this is Blake Thompson, Senior Executive Producer of the Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know over 15 million people listen to The Dave Ramsey Show every week? And a lot of those people listen to one of over 600 radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.