The Ramsey Show - App - My Fiancée Makes Way More Than Me and I'm Feeling Insecure (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

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Thank you. live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studio this is the Ramsey show where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money I'm Christy Wright author of the the new book, Take Back Your Time, The Guilt-Free Guide to Life Balance. And I'm going to be hosting the Ramsey Show today with my good friend, George Hamill, host of the Fine Print Podcast. You can give us a call because we are here for you.

888-825-5225. Of course, as always, we're taking your calls on money, business, life, relationships, or if you just want to, I don't know, run a decision by us, ask for some advice, you know, get some feedback. We're here. 888-825-5225. And George, I'm excited about this.

I'm excited because I get to host with you. I'm excited because it's Fun Friday. Those are both great things. And it's a holiday Friday. Kicking off a holiday weekend of Halloween this morning was quite an adventure getting my kids out the door for school because today, the Friday before

Halloween, typically there's Halloween parties at school. And so you've got to get the costumes and get the treat bags and get all the things you volunteered for three weeks go to bring for the Halloween party and remember those things. Oh my goodness. I cannot imagine. And I heard a rumor that all three of your little ones will be here in just a few short hours. So here at the office from 4 to 6, we do a Ramsey trick-or-treating for all of our Ramsey team members and families and kids. And it is absolutely chaotic and hilarious and so much fun.

I'm just going for the entertainment. Can we talk about what Carter was last year? Many people may not know this, but y'all, my son is a big fan of Waffle House. And so when Halloween rolled around, he informed me he wanted to be Waffle House. A server? No. The building. The Waffle House building.

So, George, you know I love a good challenge. And you know I'm creative. Please tell me you recreated the Waffle House building as a costume. I did. I did, and it was next level. Let me tell you how next level it was. To make the windows of the Waffle House building that is around his body, I took him to Waffle House, put him in a booth, and took pictures of him outside,

printed those pictures, and then put them on the outside of the building so it really looked like he was an... I'm telling y'all. That is so next level. Here's my favorite part, though. So Carter goes trick-or-treating here at our office, and all around, for that matter. And when he goes to Waffle House, he only gets a waffle. That's all he's ever gotten.

That's all he likes. That's all he knows is there, potentially. Right. It's in the name. He was very confused when everywhere he went, people started shouting their hash brown orders at him. Scatter, cupboard, and smothered! He's like, what are these? He's just so, oh no, poor buddy.

He was so confused while everyone is shouting these words at him. He's never eaten those in his life. He had no idea. Anyway, if you are celebrating Halloween, I hope you guys have a safe and fun Halloween. Hopefully you had an easier Halloween costume than I had last year. This year we did Amazon orders. It was three little pigs and it was easy. You have taken back your time.

You took your own advice, Christy. You're like, I'm not spending 16 hours on a Waffle House costume. Nope. And if he comes up with something weird again, let's be honest, I'll get sucked right back into it. Oh my goodness. Because I love the challenge. But we're here for you. We're taking your calls.

We're having fun today. We are excited to hang out with you as always. We love answering your questions and love hearing your stories. Some of you guys have some amazing testimonies of becoming debt free or making it to the next baby step. And we just want to cheer you on because this is such an opportunity to celebrate that progress because you're going to inspire someone else that's making progress. So give us a call 888-825-5225. And we're going to kick off today with Danielle in New York City, New York. Hey Danielle, how are you? Danielle, are you there for me?

Well, Danielle, are you there? Let's try one last time. Oh, Danielle, I was so excited to talk to Danielle. We'll get there. We'll get there. Maybe we've got a sticky button situation. There we go. Hey, Danielle.

Hey. Sorry, I don't know what happened there. It's not just Fun Hey, Danielle. Hi, Christy. Hey. Hi. Sorry, I don't know what happened there. It's not just Fun Friday. It's Weird Friday. The board's not working. Spooky Friday. That's right.

What's going on? How are you? I'm great, Christy and George. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. Happy Friday to you both. Yeah, you too. What's going on?

All right. Well, I'm calling because I would love to hear your thoughts, words of wisdom on my financial situation. My husband and I, we are proud to be debt free. Congratulations. Thank you. We have paid off our home, our college loans. We live in a one-bedroom apartment that we own in New York City, but we have a daughter and we want to buy a house. We're saving because we would like to buy that in cash. And right now we have quite a bit in savings, but we're not going to buy the

house for another two to three years. So I'm wondering what we can do with that large amount of savings we have to hopefully grow it in the next couple of years so we have more to buy the house for another two to three years. So I'm wondering what we can do with that large amount of savings we have to hopefully grow it in the next couple of years so we have more to buy that house. Yeah, I've got a couple follow-up questions before. I know George wants to jump in here, but New York housing is so expensive and so I can't even ballpark what your budget is. Give us some details on what is your savings account now and what's your goal to be able to buy this house, taking into consideration if you sell your current apartment and that type of thing? Yes, Christy, you hit the nail on the head with that. The New York housing is astronomically expensive. And so right now in savings, we have $600,000.

That's amazing. Yeah. Thank you. And I know in New York money, that is also like only goes so far. Yes, and? Exactly. $600,000 in cash gets you at best a fixer-upper in New York City. So we're hoping that we'd be able to buy something closer to a million dollars, just under a million dollars in the next three years, I would say.

So just wondering how we best use that $600,000 now rather than having it sit in a savings account while we wait to buy a house. Are you going to sell your current place? You know, that's the other question. We're considering either selling it or keeping it and renting it out as a rental property when we have the passive income. Gotcha. What's it worth, out of curiosity? Roughly, I would say $350,000. Okay, cool.

Awesome. So between your cash that you have right now and the value of your home, you have almost a million dollars, correct? Yeah, that is correct. Okay, so this just tells me that you have options because let's say two years from now, Correct? Yeah, that is correct. Okay. So this just tells me that you have options because let's say two years from now, you're like, we really want to get into this house, but the savings in the bank isn't there. Well, we can sell ours and then use all of that money plus the money we have saved and be able to do that. So I just like having options.

Same. So that's a great starting point. How much could you guys save in a year if you just stash money away in your savings account, what would that amount to in a year? Great question. I should know the answer to this. We have a pretty solid income. So I'd say we have an income of about $300,000 combined between my husband and I. We do have a daughter who's in daycare and those types of things right now. But you could throw probably $100,000 in savings each year. Easily, yes. Okay. So if I'm you guys, I mean, with a two-year horizon,

it's too short for me to be throwing it into the stock market and mutual funds. If you're talking about three, five years plus, then that's when I would go, all right, let's get these in mutual funds, index funds, and you can work with one of our SmartVestor pros if you don't have one. These are investing pros that you can trust to do things the Ramsey way. They have the heart of a teacher that can help your money grow at maybe 10%, 11%. So beyond that, if it's under that, I'm parking it in some high-yield savings accounts, making a half percent. Not super sexy, but safe. Yeah. And you're doing amazing, Daniel. You're doing amazing. The fact that you have that much

money in savings, even in the New York market, you're doing incredible. So well done. Thanks for calling. Thank you. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Christi Wright. Do you ever feel lost, maybe a little alone? We have all had that feeling. And I'll tell you what has helped me in these moments is listening to worship music. That's why I'm so excited to tell you that we are partnering with the number one daily worship app called Glorify. This helps remind us that God is with us. And the best thing is Glorify is free to download. Just search for Glorify in your app store, or you can get 50% off their full library when you use the code RAMSEY by October 31st.

I'm Christy Wright, and joining me is my good friend and host of the Fine Print Podcast, George Camel, and we are taking your calls here on the Ramsey Show today. It's Fun Friday. Everybody is excited it's Friday, and we are here to talk to you. 888-825-5225. If you have a question about money, life, business, whatever you want to talk about, we are here for you. We're going to go to Charleston, South Carolina with Patrick.

Hey, Patrick, how are you? Hey, guys. I really appreciate y'all taking my call. Sure. What's going on? So I'm about to be a student in college. I'm going towards my third year. I've saved up around $151,000 through doing stocks. I'm not in debt or anything like that. I have a vehicle. And my question is, should I buy a condo? Because I saw one that's on foreclosure for roughly $50,000.

And its estimated value is around $170,000. And I've been thinking about living in there for about two years and having it be paid off by the end of my degree program so that I will save money on housing and not have to worry about extra housing costs while I'm in college so I can get a head start on a extra housing costs while I'm in college. And so I can get a head start on a career as soon as I finish. Yeah.

Okay, so I just want to recap what you said to make sure I'm getting all the pieces right. You're debt-free. Yes, ma'am. Okay, and you want to live in Charleston after graduating as of now that you know? I honestly have no idea where I want to live or relocate. I graduated high school from overseas, so I'm fairly new to the United States. So I'm still planning my life and trying to figure out what's the best next move forward. Yeah. This is an interesting one, George.

I don't know. What are your thoughts? I mean, first of all, Patrick, you've done very well to have $150,000 and be in college. And do you know what you want to do after you graduate? So I'm still kind of contemplating that. At the moment, I've just been all over the place. I've been trying to get into the Army. I've been trying to get into the Navy.

Also, the course I'm headed off right now is towards the psychology route, maybe becoming a psychiatrist. But there's just so many options out there that I'm having a really hard time just choosing. But one thing for sure is that I really want to get into real estate. I've been really close to getting my license. However, just from third-party issues, I wasn't really able to have it acquired just right this time. So I'm thinking about that towards more in the future. Wow. So a lot of things you may want to do in the future.

And you mentioned that you're looking at buying a foreclosure. And for your first home, the only thing that worries me with that is it can be a nightmare, especially while you're in school. And I don't know if it's a fixer-upper type situation or what state that foreclosure is in. But to sign up for that while you're trying to get through school, it feels to me like that's a lot. I'm getting a little anxiety thinking about it. Well, that's what I'm kind of wrestling through this as you're talking and you're giving us the details here, Patrick, because financially you could, right? Like you could. The numbers are there.

But money decisions aren't always just money. Like we've got to look at other things. And the thing that concerns me are there's a lot of unknowns in this. We don't know how long we're going to live in Charleston. You don't know what you want to do. You don't know the details of this foreclosure that I hear, and so it feels like with you being young and being in school, that's a big risk and time commitment to take on, even though you technically could do it from a financial standpoint. And so I just, I don't know, I lean towards no, I don't know, George. On top of that, you mentioned the $151,000 are in stocks. And that also worries me just because of

the volatility and the risk there that you're taking with a lot of money that could be used to really catapult your future once you graduate. So if I'm in your shoes, you call the Ramsey Show, and these are our principles. Here's what I'm doing. I'm going to cash out those stocks and put it in a good savings account, maybe a high-yield savings account, so that when you graduate, you still have $150,000 that you can use, and you can keep saving up if you can do that to really set you up after graduation. And then if you don't want to be in Charleston, you can go buy a place somewhere else,

and you've got a big pile of money to do that with. Yeah, I think the biggest thing to keep in mind, Patrick, even as we're talking to you and thinking this through out loud with you, is just your season of life and the unknowns in this. I mean, you're new to the United States in addition to all of this. There's just a lot you don't know, and I think it's worth it to rent, which is very low risk, low cost, what you're paying in rent for a couple of years

until you just get some more information about where you wanna be and what you wanna do. And I have no doubt that you will get into real estate. I have no doubt you'll be successful in real estate. You're incredibly ambitious, you can tell already with how you're doing and the questions you're asking. You're gonna do really well and you're gonna do really well financially.

So this is not a step back for you. It's just, I think, a step of wisdom before you make the home purchase commitment, taking into consideration all those other factors. But great job. You've done awesome. That's really, really, really impressive. All right, let's go to Cookville, Tennessee with Robert. Hey, Robert, how are you? I'm great. How are you guys doing? Good. What's going on? Hey, I just wanted to call in and say thank you for your all's hard work i've been listening to the show for probably 10 years or so and uh there's hope for people out there that are only making about forty thousand dollars a year yeah i'm a school teacher yeah i'm a school teacher i'm debt free and i'm i'm about a half a millionaire i've already got the kids college taken care of and the the ability to give is you know if you're

not giving you're not living and the the grass feels so much better in between my toes. And you don't have to give hundreds of thousands of dollars away to have that good feeling. One of the best things that my family and I do when I have my kids with me, we'll buy the car behind us in the drive-thru their dinner. Yeah. And like another example, the cafeteria staff. I said I'm a school teacher. And the cafeteria staff. I just bought all of them coupons the other day for them to go out to have dinner.

That's awesome. And just the feeling that a person gets from being able to do that versus having to worry about your bills each month. I just thought it might be encouraging for some people out there listening. Robert, I'm so glad you called because sometimes hearing from someone who's actually done it, who's actually doing it that is not one of us that does this every day representing our company can be more powerful than hearing from us. I love that you called in. I love that you are doing it. Tell me, tell me this. What would you say, Robert, to someone listening right now? And they're like, well, that works for some people that works for some people that have a lot of money. Well, that works for, you know, and they are, they are

counting themselves out of the principles, the baby steps, the possibilities for the future or ever giving like you're talking about in big ways or small ways. Talk to them, Robert. What would you say to someone that just doesn't believe it's possible for people that just don't make really big incomes? Well, one of the keys is you have to realize that you need to keep your life pretty simple. Simple is sweet and live below your means. I cut my own hair.

I've cut my own hair since I was 18 years old. That is impressive, Robert. I've saved a ton of money by doing my own maintenance around the house. I do my own maintenance on my cars, things of that nature. Yeah. Just you can shave. You can shave. You can save. And as soon as you see a little bit of money going in the right direction, it just empowers you to do more and more.

That is so cool. I'm curious, Robert, how did you get connected with us 10 years ago? I was working at the local university and traveling around in two different locations and just got hooked on your show when I was in the car. That's awesome. Were you already living debt-free and kind of a saver before that, or did that kind of set you on that path? I've had an opportunity to make quite a bit of money in my life early on,

and no, I was in debt. I had college loans. I had consumer debt and things of that nature. And I just realized that it was just not the way that I wanted to live my life. Robert, do you have a paid-for house? I don't like. I do. Wow.

Robert, you're amazing. Baby Step 7, a teacher making $40K. It is possible Wow. Robert, you're amazing. Baby Step 7, a teacher making $40,000. It is possible, Christy. You're amazing. Thank you for calling. Thank you for showing people that it can be done. A teacher, $40,000 a year, incredibly generous, paid for house, paid for college, debt-free. Y'all, it can be done regardless of your income, regardless of your position, regardless of your

stage of life. No, you're not too old. No, you don't make too little money. You can make this work if you're just willing to commit and make some changes, just like Robert did. That is so cool. Robert, you're a rock star. Thanks for calling. This is The Ramsey Show. Imagine a world where people never have to worry about money ever again. At Ramsey Solutions, our mission is to teach people how to get out of debt, build lasting wealth, and be outrageously generous. And that means we have to take on the toxic money culture that says you need debt to get ahead. Well, we're okay with that. We've seen millions of lives changed, and we will continue to create digital products and services to help people transform their lives. If you want to join me and the over 1,000 other team members on this crusade,

we're currently on the hunt for web developers, UX designers, SEO and content marketing specialists, all kinds of digital help. Together, we'll disrupt the toxic money culture in America today. To get more information on these open opportunities, text CAREERS to 33 789 text careers to 33 789 or if you want to learn about our other job offerings we'd love to talk with you text careers to 33 789 889-637-4889. I'm Christy Wright. George Campbell and I are hosting the Ramsey Show for you today.

It's Friday. It's a Halloween weekend. And we're here to answer your calls and hear your stories. I loved it just before the break. Robert called in and had an awesome just example of how he has done it on $40,000 a year as a teacher. He's become debt-free, paid for college, paid for his house. This is why we do what we do, is to hear calls like that

and inspire those of you all that are on Baby Step 1, Baby Step 2, or maybe just new to us and considering for the first time, hey, is it really possible to live life without debt? Is it really possible where I don't have to live life without debt? Is it really possible where I don't have to live paycheck to paycheck? Is it really possible to save up and pay cash for a car to pay off your house?

Yeah, it is possible. And we help people do this every single day. This is why we do what we do. This is The Ramsey Show. So give us a call at 888-825-5225, especially if you're new to the show and you're like, hey, I keep hearing these stories. What does this mean? What am I supposed to do? What are the baby

steps? George and I would love to talk to you, give you some encouragement to get you on your way, and then hopefully you'll be calling us in a few years telling us your story just like Robert did and like so many people do. 888-825-5225. And we're going to go to Louisville, Kentucky with Jason. Hey, Jason, how are you? Hey, guys. I'm good. How are you guys today? Great. What's going on?

Good, good. Hey, thanks so much for taking my call and thanks for all that you guys do. Sure, thank you. I have been kind of on and off the Ramsey journey for many years, but I am finally, finally debt-free. Awesome. Completely debt-free. Congratulations. And, yep, thank you so much. It's taken a lot of stopping and starting and a lot of life happening to finally get me to this place. But I'm super thankful and super grateful for being here.

And my question is this. I actually am going to be getting married in the next year, sometime in the next year. This is going to be a second marriage for myself and my fiance. And she also is completely debt-free, including her house. She's worked very hard to get there as a school teacher, similar to the previous call, actually, and in just a really, really good financial position. As we go to get married, obviously our lives are going to combine with no debt. We will ultimately live in her home. And my struggle is this.

I guess maybe I just need some insight or some encouragement or something here, but I'm struggling a little bit with the idea that I just am not going to be a major contributor to our debt-free life. We'll be moving into her home. It's about a half a million dollar home that's paid for. Lots of money saved. I've got a little bit saved as well, but I'm just struggling with the idea that I'm kind of stepping into a situation where I don't really have to do anything to contribute to a financially free life.

And, you know, I've lived most of my life sort of in conflict and trying to figure out how to pay bills and all this and that. And finally getting to a place now where I'm debt-free and, you know, loving that. But just feeling like, I don't know, it just, it's a struggle for me to step into a marriage and be a beneficiary of all of her hard work. And I don't really contribute to that. And so, I don't know, it's a very strange place in my life. And I don't really contribute to that. And so I don't know. It's a very strange place in my life. And I don't know if you guys would have any insight or thoughts to just kind of give me a boost here with that. Yeah. Well, thank you for calling. We'd love to talk through this with you.

I have a question about your fiance. How does she act about the money piece of this with you? Is this something that she is like, it's our money, this is our life? Or is this something that in any way she holds it over your head? Or is there anything that you feel bad because of her because of the way that she treats it? No, not at all. It's very much the first. She is incredibly gracious and sweet and kind and does not hold it over my head at all. Um, I'll be bringing a little bit more of a, of a savings account to our, to our life together. Um, but again, you know, it doesn't really compare much to, um, what she's done, but no,

not at all. I mean, there's no hanging over my head whatsoever. I think we're both just equally excited to be able to have a life together. But I think it's more my struggle than hers, for sure. Jason, where does this coming from, this level of like, this is a competition, who's bringing more to the marriage, who's done what financially, where does that stem from, do you think, for you personally? You know, I came out of a really bad marriage. And I wouldn't be shocked if a therapist told me that it stemmed from that. I struggle with that a lot, you know, just the idea that there is some level of competition, although that sort of paints it in a little bit of a

negative light. And I don't feel, you know, I don't really feel the competition per se, but it's just, I don't know, I think as a man, as a provider, it just is a struggle, I guess. Well, and I think you bring up an interesting point, Jason, because even being from, I mean, even living in Kentucky, like I live in the South, I've grown up in the South, there is a cultural thing to what you're saying. I think you can see that in church church too, for people that are believers. So that whether that's spoken or unspoken, I could see that you feel this pressure to, to your words, be the provider. And there's different value systems and different,

gosh, there's lots of different stances on that. But the thing that I'm just excited for you is I'm excited that you have this new relationship. You are excited about the future. Your fiance is excited about the future and you guys are debt free and set up really well when you walk down the aisle it's going to be we we what are we going to do and it becomes y'all's home together and it's everything is about the

future the past is in the past and i know it's easy to say that it may be something you do want to dig into and in counseling that type of thing we all have baggage we bring to anything that we do, whether it's a second marriage or you get married later in life or childhood or whatever. But I'm just I will just tell you from from an outsider's perspective, I think that all of the things that can be right are right. Your spouse is supportive. You're coming into a great situation. You're bringing a lot to the situation. And I don't want you to underestimate that financially, but also just, you also just from who you are as a person. We are a lot more than our bank accounts. And you will bring a lot to the marriage that is more than your bank account.

And so I just want to encourage you. I think that you have so much to look forward to. And I think that if anything, that guilt or shame or whatever is something that can be worked through and it's worth it to work through it because I don't think you need to live under that cloud. I think that you're in a great situation. And certainly there's nothing even to work through on the side of your fiance where it's some unhealthy dynamic of her holding it over you. I think this is probably like you said, either from wounds or the cultural pressure to be some idea of what a man is or what a husband is. And I think that you and your fiance get to define what your family is and you get to define what your future is.

And I'm excited for you, Jason. I think that you're doing great. And maybe it's worth leaning into with, like I said, with some counseling to dig into that, even with your fiance and say, hey, what do we believe about money and how do we feel about this and so on. But I think you're doing better than you think you are. Yeah. And Christy, this all points to one thing, that your worth is not your net worth. And I think as men, it's easy to tie your performance and your income to how am I doing as a husband, as a father, as a friend. And when you take all that away and you strip it away and go, no, what does it mean to be a great

husband? What does it mean to be on a team with my wife as we step into this amazing new chapter? And guess what? The money part is really not a huge part of the equation because of the financial position that you guys have put yourselves in. And remember, you did a lot of hard work. You shared your debt-free story with us and what it took to get there. So don't step into this thing thinking, I'm not bringing anything to the table. You're bringing work ethic. You're bringing character. you're bringing so much more than just a number. Yeah. Yeah. And you also, like you said, you also do have the finances, you have the savings

account, you have both. And so I think what we're just, we just want to encourage you that yes, you're doing better than you think you are. And it's a great question to ask. I'm glad you called. But it's something I think you should lean into. I think you and your fiance can walk through this together, talk to it together and it will bring you even closer. And by the way, y'all are in a great position financially. Y'all are doing great. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, listen, whether you want to dream a new dream, tackle a new goal, or just manage your time more intentionally in the new year, I've got just the thing to help you. My new 2022 goal planner is here. It's like having me as your personal coach to keep you motivated. And that's the truth, y'all. I wrote this like a book. There's content every month. There's tools and templates to help you

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888-825-5225. We're taking your calls, so give us a call. We'd love to talk to you. We're going to go to Washington, D.C. with Michael. Hey, Michael, how are you? Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's going on? Hey, well, first I want to say thanks. Me and my wife got married a little over a year ago. We've been listening to your stuff since then and using every dollar. And I think it's actually really helped our marriage. So thank you for that. Awesome. We love to hear that. Yeah, it's been a great jumpstart. But I'll dive into the question. So basically,

both of us had a little bit of a scare with our employment due to the vaccine mandates. And it kind of caused us to reassess our financial situation. So we do have a little bit of savings. But we also have a car loan and a federal student loan. And we were at first saving for a house. So we have about 65 grand set aside for a down payment. But now we're wondering, should we knock out the car loan just right now, get it out of the way really quick or knock out part of the student loan? Or is it better maybe to just pay the minimum payments and then save the money maybe for the next year or so and really just build up our savings as much as possible just in case, I don't know, something happens with the economy or something

else happens with our employment? What do you guys think about that? How much total debt do you have, including the student loans, car loans, and any credit cards or anything else? What's the total? No credit cards. The total debt is about $140,000. So it's about $130,000 for student loans and $10,000 for the car. Gotcha. And what's y'all's income? $230,000. Oh, y'all make a great income, Michael.

Y'all make a great income. Are you new to The Ramsey Show? We've been listening kind of on and off for probably I have for about two years, and then we started listening together, like I said, about a year or so ago. Cool. Well, the reason I ask is because a lot of times if people are new to us or if you hear the show kind of in bits and pieces, it's easy to get confused and maybe do the baby steps out of order. And that's what y'all are doing.

You're kind of doing things out of order with the house savings and so on. So I'm going to let George take it from here. But you guys are in a position to make some good changes. But, yeah, we definitely want to do things in a different order to set you up for success. Yeah. What I'm seeing here on paper with your income and where you guys are at, you've just been trying to do a lot of things at once, and you're not seeing the progress that you want to see. So if you've got $65,000 in cash, I know you guys want to get a house, and that's an awesome goal. But right now, we've got different priorities.

We've got to clean up this debt. And so with that $65,000, I'm going to take $64,000 of that. If you're doing the baby steps, going back to baby step one, we've got $1,000. And the rest, we're going to crush the credit card debt and half of the student loan debt, just like that. Car loan, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. The student loan debt is $130, and the car loan is $10.

So you clean up the car loan today and half of the student loan debt today, which is amazing. And then you make $230,000 a year. The student loans are gone under a year with your income if you guys are getting intense about this, making some sacrifices. Once you've got that, then we can get that fully funded emergency fund. Because I heard it in your story. You guys are a little worried about the future. But when you owe $140,000, you owe other people. And so if something goes down, you're still stuck with those payments, and your income doesn't stay with you.

And so I want you to clean up this debt, get that fully funded emergency fund of three to six months. It sounds like you guys should lean towards six months because of your job situations. And then that's when you'd start saving up for a down payment. And with that income, you're going to get back to that 65 in no time if you do this stuff in order because all of the income is focused on one thing at a time. That is what we teach. That's how we see progress. Every debt-free scream you've seen, they followed those steps to get there. And you guys can do it. You have an amazing income and there is a pile of debt, but we can clean all of this up real fast and get you into a house in a

few years. The only other thing I would add to that, Michael, yeah, because you guys are in such a good position to get this knocked out and cleaned up really quick. The only other thing I'll add to that is it's really easy to be tempted to make decisions based on fear when it comes to job security. And you guys had a real scare for sure. But when you said things in your questions like the economy and this and the other, we could run what if scenarios all day and it's just not beneficial. What we want to do is make decisions based on facts. The fact is today you have a job. If you can see that you have a job for the foreseeable future, then we're going to operate as if you have a job. If for some reason you got some notice that you're going to be laid off in two months, or there's going to be some vaccine thing that affects you guys being able to work there

in three months, then yeah, we would say, okay, let's stockpile some cash and start looking for another job ASAP. But that's just not the case from what I heard from your scenario. And so I just, I don't want you to run what if scenarios. I want you to look at today and the foreseeable future. Today we have jobs, we have a great income, so we're going to work the baby steps like normal and not get caught up in those what if scenarios i want you to look at today and the foreseeable future today we have jobs we have a great income so we're going to work the baby steps like normal and not get caught up in those um what if scenarios yeah you can clean this thing up it won't take long honestly i mean you guys you've you've got a big pile of cash and a fantastic income we just got to start doing

things in order to see that progress yeah and i know it feels a little scary but i promise you we teach it in this way because it works and once you get into it you'll get motivated you'll get that debt knocked out and uh you'll be so glad you did and then you won't feel that risk or fear even if you lose job because you've got a fully funded emergency fund all right let's go to grand grand haven uh with david hey david how are you good how are you guys doing christy george thanks for taking my call sure what's going on well uh question about roth 401k roth iras um my employer just recently made the roth 401k uh investment option at work and i'm taking advantage of that along with a company match but i'm wondering uh if there's any benefit to putting all of my 15 percent toward that uh

roth 401k and not funding the Roth IRA or what the pluses and minuses are there? Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question. I mean, both are going to be great options. So we love both here at Ramsey because they grow tax-free, which means if you've got $2 million sitting in the Roth portion, that's what you can take out in retirement. So I'll tell you what I personally do. Because of that Roth option being available, usually we tell people, hey, go up to the match if you've got one with your employer. Do you have a match? We do. Yeah. Yep. That's great. Beyond that, we say, all right, if you've got a traditional 401k, we're going to go fund a Roth IRA first and then come back to the traditional. But since you have the Roth, you can do all 15% in that Roth 401k. And that's what

I personally do here at Ramsey. We do have a match here at Ramsey. And I do 15% on top of the match from my own funds into that Roth 401k. And I let that grow tax free. So the Roth IRA is a great option. There are some income limits with that. And there are some limits to what you can contribute to that. Other than that, you can fund a traditional IRA if you are beyond that income limit. What's your income? $80,000. Okay. So you probably wouldn't go to the limit of the Roth 401k. So I would just make it my goal to make sure I'm doing 15% of my paycheck on autopilot into that Roth 401k. And later on in life, if you end up making more income, you go past the 401k limit, then you can look into other options like traditional IRAs and taxable investments.

But you're doing great, man. That's a great question. For someone that's listening right now and they're curious, what is the limit? Do you know, George, what the limit is? The limit on a 401k? No, sorry, the income limit to be able to do the transfer. Yeah, so it depends if you're single. I believe it's... Does that change year over year? Slightly. Every year, the IRS just nudges it, give or take, a few thousand. But I believe here, if you're single, then it's got to be less than $125,000. Gotcha.

That's helpful for people. And combined, probably around $200,000. So you can check with your tax pro and find out the IRS limits each year. But around there, you're good. So Roth 401k is a great option. Yeah. Makes it easy. That's awesome. It's good for people to know the difference there. All right. I want to thank producer James Childs, associate producer Austin, and my co-host George Camel. This is The Ramsey advice in their life?

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