The Ramsey Show - App - My Husband Said He Deserves His $1400 Truck Payment (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage studio, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in your life, specifically with your money, in your work, and in your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by Jade Warshaw, the fabulous. Jade Warshaw joins me in the studio today.

888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Jade is your money expert. She'll walk you through all things baby steps. She's got a great personal story. She understands every angle of this game. So make the phone call. I'm here to help on your work life.

You can't talk about money and not at least be thinking about work. As Dave Ramsey has said for decades, your income is your greatest wealth-building tool, and I'm here to help you there. Do I need to make a transition? Do I need to get promoted? Do I start the side hustle? That is my game, and so we do that together, and we're excited to be promoted. Do I start the side hustle? That is my game. And so we do that together and we're excited to be together. Let's go now to Salt Lake City, Utah, where Brittany is on the line. Brittany, how can we help? Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. You bet. What's up, Brittany?

Yeah. So my husband, his truck payment is almost as much as our mortgage. Oh boy. Hold on. Let me get the Pepsi. How much are we talking about Brittany? So it's, it's right over 1400. Oh boy. I'm feeling faint. Jade. I'm faint. I went into James Brown mode. Goodness gracious. We have total money makeover. We're currently about to start Financial Peace University. She understands why we don't use credit cards and all that. But when it comes to his truck, when it comes to the truck, he says, I work hard. I deserve a nice truck.

But I'm just trying to figure out if there's some magic words that I can say. Yeah, I got the magic words. I got the magic words. You're sleeping on the couch. Hey, okay. Oh, watch out. No, I got the magic words. I got the magic words. You're sleeping on the couch. Hey, okay. Oh, watch out. No, I'm sorry. That's probably not the best marital advice.

But I do think, Jade, at this point, we've got a serious conversation. He can't be taking the baby steps seriously and justifying a $1,400 truck payment. I mean, I just want to know when people say things like, I deserve. I'm like, really? You deserve to be in debt? Because I feel like I deserve to be debt free. I deserve to have a future. I deserve to not live paycheck to paycheck.

I deserve to be able to have the margin to invest for my future, for my children. Like people need to reframe when they say what they deserve or not. So that could be a place where you start but in all good uh calmed down advice ken and i kind of went off the the spout there um you do need to sit down and you do need to have a conversation and it needs to be an adult conversation because right now i mean i'm not saying this in an insulting way but he's in a selfish mode and he's kind of in a for right now mode. And we need to get in a more futuristic. There's more ahead of us than just right now. There's more people that are feeling the effects of this than him. And so

being able to have that conversation is going to be really important to you. And I have found that when you use language that's kind of like, hey, here's what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid X, Y, Z. Or here's what I'm so excited for. And if we could just get to this, that would give me so much joy. Like if you can really find ways to bring your fears into it, but also like the things that would just cause you so much happiness and joy in life, those are big markers and should be big markers for the people who love you and care about you. They should want to hear about those things. And when you share those things, it should cause them to make a reaction. Does that make sense?

Yeah. No, that makes total sense. What's your take-home pay? Together, almost $200,000. Okay, good. $200,000 take-home. Yes. Way to go.

Okay. So you look even at that kind of income. I mean, this is a huge chunk of your monthly budget, $1,400. It's massive. Yeah, our mortgage is $1,600. Oh my gosh. And how long ago did he get the truck? About six months ago. And what did he pay for it? I think it was like $85,000 or $90,000. Oh my gosh, I'm lightheaded again. So $80,000 to $90,000. And you know what would be very interesting in this conversation, Jade? Tell me if I i'm wrong here but as i'm sharing those feelings of what that does to you and how that

makes you feel you've got to point out how that it'd be fun to get a an amortization schedule like you would on a house but on a car it's hard to get that but how much that car is devaluing oh it's going down like a rock that's so he's paying $1,400 a month on something. The difference with your house is that's an asset for you guys. The truck is a liability. And where that deserve statement comes in, it starts to lose its power when you start talking about what you could be doing with the $1,400. Here's the thing. Ken makes a very, very good point.

So you said you're bringing home $200,000 a year, right? So what, $16,000, almost $17,000 a month? Yeah. Where he's at, I'm going to tell you where he's going. I mean, we have almost $17,000 a month. $1,400, that's nothing. That's what he's thinking. It's a very small piece of that.

By the way, your mortgage is as well. But what I'm looking at is because you have so much income, there should be zero reason for debt. How easy would it be? And let me point this out too. Typically, do you have any other cars, by the way? Or is it just? Yeah, we have one more. What else do you have any other cars by the way or is it just um yeah yep we have one more what else do you have uh we have a ford explorer and how much is that

worth um i believe around 40 but that's paid off okay so typically we wouldn't want you to have any more than half of your income yearly in vehicles because they go down in value. So you're right at that. I personally, because of your income, I'd be like, look, we make money. We can pay this off or we can, you know what I'm saying? Like there's, I think there's a way that you guys can meet in the middle. $1,400 a month. That is just a lot of money to be giving away in payments when you could be debt free. What other debt do you have? a house and then i have a student loan how much is a student loan um twenty thousand yeah so a hundred thousand dollars in debt you guys have you live on 200 you can pay all of this off in a year and everybody's happy yeah let's do it why

not yeah awesome that's what i would do because here's the thing he does earn a lot of money you guys do earn a lot of money and he's like, I don't need to drive a jalopy. We earn $200,000 a year. And, you know, then paid off. But he's taken out a loan on a truck. Yeah, he should have paid cash for it. That's almost half of what they bring home. She said $80,000 to $90,000.

She said somewhere between $80,000 to $90,000 he paid for that truck. Yeah, it's expensive, but it's not more than half of their... I understand, but... It's still expensive. It's out of whack in that you've got a loan for half of what you take home. He shouldn't have got a loan. He should have paid cash. He's got so much money. It would have felt so great

to walk on that lot, buy it a couple of years used, so spend $20,000 less, and walk home with a car in cash i'll tell you what 90 000 for a truck that truck needs to power your entire house you know i mean it needs to do the laundry it needs to i mean yeah yeah put the kids to bed you know the whole nine yards that's a lot of it's just crazy when the value on that is just dropping and dropping and they're upside down i wouldn't do. I wouldn't do it.

I wouldn't do it. I know. I know people do it. I mean, we've got people on TikTok bragging about how they have joint car payments of $2,100. They're like, eee! I know, they're crazy. It's sort of fun. It's just like we're mind-numb robots.

Yeah. No, I wouldn't do it, but I would pay it off if I were them. That's what I got. All right. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down.

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I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by Jade Warshaw, and we are here for you this hour. 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Let's go to Kyle now, who joins us in Los Angeles. Kyle, how can we help? Hi. I was just calling.

I'm 27 years old, newly married since last October. I just have like 48,000 of student loans and the federal loans are just about to start being unfrozen starting October. I'm just wondering like what would be the best way to basically start with payments and stuff. I wasn't sure if it would be something I could ask my wife who can also help shipping, even though it's just my student loan, or is it something that I should pay on my own? Well, tell us first what the actual minimum requirement is going to be when it picks back up. What is that number? It's only like 300 a month. And what other debt do you have? Just the, I have one private, so it's been the two. My private started out being 42. It's down to 16. I've been paying that one since it wasn't ever frozen. And then my private one's like 32.5

or my federal, I mean, just 32.5. I'm sorry I'm sorry I thought you sorry you've got 16k in the private you've got I thought I heard you say so 48 total yeah okay I see I see um and what's the payment on the private loan um private I've been paying um like a grand but the minimum's 811 right now yeah um so smallest to largest in your debt snowball you're paying the private loan first to get that one paid off the 16 000 here's what do you have the margin in your budget to pay the 300 and if so what would that leave um yeah so my wife just recently like finished school as well and already paid off her loans but um okay hold on wait hold on let's stop let's combine it let's talk about these numbers combined okay so how much debt does your wife have none she just finished okay

just checking and nothing else right nothing else no credit card debt no car loans or anything okay so combined income if once you start paying this 300 a month do you have the money there do we need to find it no i i have the money i was just saying what would be like should i just finish off paying the private and then work on the federal? I would. What I would do in your situation is I would do the debt snowball. And I would do whatever you can throw to the smallest debt, which is the $16,000 debt. I would knock that out as quickly as possible.

In my situation, I had a lot of student loans. I had more than you did. And I got lowered payments on the other ones. So we'd have all the cash we could to throw on the smallest student loan, pay it off, and then keep doing it like that. So if you can cover the $300 payment, I wouldn't do that. But if you're having problems covering it, then that could be a strategy to free up a little bit more money to pay at the $16,000 debt. Kyle, are you guys joint bank accounts? Are you guys doing things separate?

So we have our separate and then we have our joint. The first year, she was still in school and I just finished school and was working as a nurse. So I was paying for all the rent and utilities. I heard that and I want my colleague back in on this, but I felt that and heard that like, oh, we have two separate bank accounts. We aren't we. And I think you guys need to understand our position on that. You guys need to be doing this together. There's a reason for that, Jade. And I think that this changes the questions that he should be asking. And I think it changes the math because we've been operating based on, well, this is what Kyle can put towards it because they're

not doing this together. Yeah. You guys need to combine your income. I mean, I can't say it enough. Couples who combine their income, they build wealth faster. They're more likely to buy a home together. They're more likely to stay together across the long haul. Like there's so many statistics that back up combining your money. So I could go on and on about that. But practically right here in the here and now, you guys will pay off this debt so much faster. You know what I'm saying?

So have that conversation tonight do you think that she'd be on board i mean it can't by the way for anybody listening when we say combine your money some folks try to do the work around kind of like what kyle and them has done where it's like well we do have a we do have an account that we put we pull some of our money so sweet but that's that's not the real that's halfway yeah that's not that's not the real deal holyfield so halfway. Yeah, that's not the real deal, Holyfield. So... How much money could you put towards...

If we do the debt snowball, so what I'm hearing is the lowest, the smallest debt you have in the debt snowball is a $16,000 private loan. And your minimum's $800. You have personally been putting $1,000 on it, if I'm recalling everything right. How much could you two put on that $16,000? How much, if you do your budget, you go, we're going to take care of everything else, and then we're attacking this debt snowball, how much could you put on it together? Together, $4,400.

Come on. That's how I got it beat up in four months. Let's go. Yeah. Let's go. I got one more question. I got a hunch, Jay. Yeah.

What do you both have in savings? Do you have separate savings accounts? Come on. And if you do, what do you got? I know. I'm digging. We have our separate and together, and we each have like, so I just dropped my savings into like the $1,000 emergency fund and put a $3,000 payment.

Good. How much does she have? She has $1,450. And then together we have another like $1,450. $1,450 as in $1,450? Yeah. Okay. Oh, okay.

I thought you said. So we're okay there. Okay. I didn't find too much there. I'm not much of a detective on that one. But. We're combining the money from now on. $4,400. Yes. You're going to knock this thing out. And we didn't even talk about side hustles.

That's right. We didn't even talk about that. I've been working a lot of bonuses, which the incentives are really nice as a nurse. Good. Extra hours. Yes. Good for you, Kyle. Yeah. I get paid like an extra thousand just for picking up a shift. That's great. And then the time and a half on top. Let's cast a little vision. Kyle, you're paying off the 16 in less than four months. And then the 48, that's less than 10 months. Yeah. Your life changes.

Yeah. Flipping the script. Did you hear the smile? I just heard it. Oh, yeah. See, because you felt the hope. You saw it seemed like there wasn't a way out and then ken so masterfully crafted there's a way out and you see it now and i want you to go home and i want you to share that with your wife because i want her on board with this i want her helping i want her going okay what can i do kyle

do you want me to pick up some extra work? What can, like, I want you guys on the same page and I don't want you to think about it as this big sacrifice. Okay. It is a sacrifice, but I want you to think about it as a trade. All right. You're, you're trading a bad card for a really good card. You know what I'm saying? And when you frame it up like that, it's far more motivating than like, oh man, I'm to go to work again and oh man we can't you know go out to dinner and all these things no man i'm trading this bad uh bj armstrong looking you know worse worst player on the team for a michael jordan wow i like the chicago bulls reference i'm so amazed no bill cartwright you know what i'm saying that's better b BJ was a good shooter. No John Paxton.

Give me the Michael Jordan card. How about a Bill Winnington? Big old tall dude that can barely do anything. BJ, you gotta give some love to BJ Armstrong. But you know what we're saying, Kyle? This is what we're talking about. You're getting the winning card. It's worth the trade.

It's worth the effort. And these loans are going to be gone. Gone. And then the emergency fund isn't far behind. Okay. So all of a sudden, we are rolling into baby step 3B, saving for that house. Okay. I'm just really curious.

We've got about 30, 40 seconds with you. What's your combined income right now? Combined, since she just finished school, I think together it'll be like $110,000 to $120,000. That's great. And you're just getting started. Just getting started. Kyle, you guys, you got this. Yes. And I need everybody to see because there's a lot of Kyles out there. It was that simple. It was as easy as us looking at the budget, looking at the income, finding ways that we can earn more and can changing our mindset, framing up this, this whole situation to go, you know what, this benefits me. This is in my best favor. He's going to look back and in,

you know, a year and a half, his loans are going to be gone and everybody else is going to still be whining. And their income is only going to go up. They are going to be Baby Steps millionaires. The process works. Kyle, thanks for the call. Really excited for you. Get after it. Got to have a conversation with the missus. We got to get those bank accounts together. And then we're talking about exponential productivity. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show, where we help you win with your money, your work, and your relationships. And, you know, one of the things that is so fun about this gig is we get to hear amazing stories, whether it be the debt-free screams here on the debt-free stage in our lobby of Ramsey Solutions World Headquarters, or the comments of social media profiles, certainly our Baby Steps Facebook group. And so I thought

it'd be fun, Jade. By the way, Jade Warshaw, Ken Coleman with you. I'm sorry I did not tell you who's talking at you right now. We are Ramsey Personalities, and we're here together for you, 888-825-5225. Before we get back to the phones um these there's some really fun comments uh from our baby steps facebook group great group of people and these are the i had it moments right and they're sharing moments where they got to the point where they went okay that's it what i've been doing isn't working i'm not doing it anymore. Dave kind of made this, I had it. You get sick and tired of being sick and tired. And so we got a couple here.

This one jumped out to me. This is from Robin. I would have panic attacks in line at the grocery store because I was terrified my card was going to decline. It was a miserable existence. I'm feeling that right here in my chest. Me too. Oh, I love this. Haley Jo. Yeah. This one hit me. Having to ask for your parents, having to ask your parents for money as an adult was my all-time low. Did it once, never again after that. Been there. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember early on in our marriage, Stacey and I brought not credit card debt, but we did have student loan debt and we were paying it. There wasn't any more touring back then. And we were both starting out. We weren't making much money. Right. And I think we were probably five or six months into marriage.

We had an apartment in Richmond, Virginia, and we weren't on a budget. We were just two young kids. Yeah, man man and i remember taking her out to eat and you know i mean we're six months in tell me what happened ken well you know what happened you went to pay for the steak and they they brought the card back yeah i'm sorry sir but yeah is there another card you would like and we were so clueless stacy was like, well, maybe something wrong with this card. So she does the old, here, try my card. The way your bank account was set up though.

They go walking off, you know what I mean? And you're kind of in that moment going, is this a card problem? So you didn't even know? Like you didn't know, hey, I know I don't have any money. I'm owning it. We didn't know. We thought we were okay.

We weren't budgeting and we were just living life. And we didn't have much margin. And sure enough. Were you so embarrassed? Humiliated is the word. Mortified. Not so much of what the waiter thought of us, but that we didn't know. And so I remember calling the bank and getting the lady on the phone because we didn't have it. Like, we got to pay the bill. Oh, that's right. You can't. You're washing dishes otherwise.

Well, let me tell you something. We luckily came up with some cash. I had some cash in the car that I, you know, we were like, finding the change underneath the... Oh, I'm not even kidding. And I, I apologize. We didn't have enough to tip the waiter. Yeah. That'll, that'll get your attention. So I had to tell the waiter, I mean, it was in the waiter was super cool. Yeah. And I said, I am not going to

leave you hanging. And I went back about a week later and, and, and gave that dude some money, but like we, we had to pull from. It was so embarrassing. Yeah. It was right before paycheck and we weren't paying attention. And that's when I was like, I don't ever want to be humiliated like that again.

I know that's right. When you're looking at the waiter going, I got to come up with the money to pay my bill or I may be in the back. Okay. Rolling up the old sleeves washing the dishes yeah here give me the macaroni plate I'll get that that's a true story that's a good there's a wake-up call that was like now this was all pre-Dave Ramsey we didn't even know who he was so we didn't discover him until you know two or three years later yeah but that was a wake-up

call for us that we need to be budgeting and paying attention to what's going on. That's a good one. Wait, what about Rachel? I'll be honest with you. I got a little anxiety right there retelling that story. Well, look at this one. This one says, this kind of reminded me of you.

She said, I saw my husband cry at a checkout because our card got declined and we had to put things back. Oh, yeah. I wish I could have put my food back but i had already eaten it no i i didn't cry because i was my face was boiling do you know that kind of embarrassment where like you want to crawl under the table yeah well look at this i i want to read this last one because i i i have some thoughts on this she said when i finally wrote my debt down on paper one day out of the blue, the number absolutely terrified me. I didn't realize I was that far in debt. I didn't want to get stuck in that situation. That reminds me, Sam and I were

just talking the other day. He was like, Jade, the day that I realized how much debt we had, we were staying at his mom's house in the upstairs but you know when you're like in your old bedroom oh yeah that's when you've gone all the way down to the bottom all right you and your your old bedroom yeah and you're your new wife hey hi this is my bedroom girl well it was his sister's bedroom that was even worse so there's like flowers and stuff so we sit we're sitting in there and he pulls up you know what do you do you do? You go to credit karma to see. And it was like, that was the first time we'd ever looked at a credit report to see all listed. You want to talk about hyperventilation?

Freaked you out, man. What? The numbers just kept adding up. They just kept coming. Just more and more zeros. Is that the, cause I know your story, the big total. Is that when you found out the big total? Yeah.

Cause I'd been kind of pushing him to tell people who don't know your story. Yeah, so started out, came out of college, newly married. I knew he had a lot of debt. I didn't know how much. And I knew Sam had alluded to the fact that he had a lot of student loan debt. I didn't, you know, when you're that young, you don't know what a lot of quote, a lot of money. He was so handsome and talented. You didn't care. Oh, thank God.

The man is good looking. He's a snack. But let me tell you, when he told, he kept saying, yeah, I think it's around 130. I think it's around 150. I'm like, well, what is it? So I'm pushing on, I'm pushing on it. Finally, he logs in, looks at it, $280,000 of just student loan debt, the rest of it to total $460,000 of debt between credit cards, cars, everything else.

So that's a perfect segue for our next caller, I think. I'm just reading the board here. Let's see what Keith has got to say. In Indianapolis, Keith, you're on the Ramsey Show. Hey, Ken. Hey, Jay. Happy Friday. Happy Friday.

You too, buddy. What's up? Yes, so I am also recently married. Also within the last year, I got a new job. I moved down here to Indy. I've done the math and it looks like over the next four years, given my spouse is in dental school, we'll be able to cash flow about three and a half of that. Just one of your guys' take on that last half of the year where we would be depleting cash.

Would we take out the loan and then pay it off within, you know, well immediately for having a job or try to rework the budget now and with this little bit of runway, try to make it to where we break even by then or you know dealing with a lot of you know five years here a lot of time pretty much but let me make sure let me make sure i understood you correctly so newly married you both have new jobs she's going to be a dentist and you've apologies my apologies yes i i got a job so household income's 80k with my job she's starting dental school right now so she's not working okay and you have most of it saved up we only got about a minute so we only have to pay we only

have to pay half the school year right um yeah it would be it would well i mean so we're saving money before now and then obviously um but real real quickly you said that you've got three and a half years paid is that correct we will have three and a half years paid three and a half years paid how long is the program four years okay how much would you need to make up um right now we're under $17,000 doing the math. Don't take out a loan for $17,000. What's going to prevent you from getting that $17,000 between now and three and a half years from now? Just having done the budget where we're zero based. Hey, you're going to make more money between now and then. You're starting at $K now. It's three and a half years on down the road.

You got a lot of road to make up that money. Yes. Sell some stuff. Get a side job. You've come so far. Don't go into debt at this point. You've got to $17,000 between now and then, even with a little bit of margin and a whole lot of hustle.

You can come up with that. You do not want to strap yourself with that debt. You're so close. Very good. I applaud you for having that much. Finish the job. Finish well. So excited for you, Keith. Thanks for the call. Don't move. More Ramsey Show coming up. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. If you've been with us, Jade and I were talking about some I've had it moments for us and certainly from the stories we get from you, our awesome, amazing audience. And if you'd like to share your I've had it moments,

you can do that in our various social media accounts, the YouTube comments, Spotify comments. We'd love to hear your stories. They're inspiring and we'd love to share them. So we're going to be doing that more and more on the show. So if you've got a great I've had it moment, share in all those places, and we'd love to share your story. All right, the phone number is 888-825-5225. Let's go to AJ, who's joining us now in Washington, D.C. AJ, how can we help? Hi.

Thanks for taking my call. You bet. Huge fans of you guys. I am calling because my wife and I are currently on baby step three. We're about to move into step 3B slash 4. Our household income is $140,000. The houses in our area are around the average $450,000. And I'm curious to know if it's wise to buy a condo, which would be cheaper, or should we just leave it for a single family house? I'm asking because we're about to start trying for a baby soon. And the plan is to have

my wife stay home while I work. And I'm not too sure if we can save up for a down payment, no less than 20%. No less than 20% for a down payment and the mortgage would be less than 25% of our income or of my income, I guess. So the 140K, that's the combined income. So if your wife becomes a stay-at-home mom, what does that drop the income to? So at the moment, it will be a, well, at the moment, 73K, but potentially it could bump up to 83. Okay. So what I would do is when making the decision on what to spend with the home, I would use that budget, the money that you would be taking in between 73,000 and 83,000, because you've said that, hey, this is probably what's going to take place. And what happens is if you buy your home based on $140,000 and she decides to stay home,

you're going to feel strapped big time. So 25% of the take-home pay based off of the $73,000 to $83,000 salary is what I would do. And if that, I mean, if this is your first venture into real estate, I'm not mad with, you know, a townhome that's two or three bedrooms, because here's the thing, when it comes to real estate, A, you buy when you can afford, not when the market says, not when, you know, the economy says when you can afford and you buy what you can afford. You don't just buy, well, this, you know, in my area, here's afford and you buy what you can afford. You don't just buy, well, this, you know, in my area, here's what they are. No, there's always a spectrum of price. And it may not, like you said, it may not be a single family home, but a townhouse may not be,

you know, a bad choice for you guys. So I'd probably start looking there. It sounds like you're just by the language that you used. It sounds like you're pretty acclimated with what we teach here at Ramsey, but we've got a really great calculator to calculate how much home can you afford. And literally, if you type that in, how much home can I afford, you know, Ramsey Solutions, that calculator will pop right up and you can plug those numbers in and see exactly what you need to put aside. Oh, and I can find that on the website? Yeah, absolutely. Matter of fact, if they can get it up on the screen in time, we'll put it there for you. Maybe they'll put it in the show notes for you, but we'll make sure that you have that information because it's super, super helpful.

There it is right there. You can put it in, figure out what's going on, and it'll help you out. Yeah, absolutely. And have you guys, have you taken FPU? Have you done any of that yet? We have. I think we have. We've kind of like dragged it out. I mean, we listened to your show, but we've kind of like dragged out the lessons. I think we have like two more lessons. All right, good, good, good, good. I was thinking of a baby gift. So maybe Total Money Makeover. I

feel like we need to give them. Yeah, let's give them something. Even though the baby's not there yet, it's kind of an exciting time, exciting season, getting ready to start a family. So hang on the line. We'll give you a copy of Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. This is a great book just to, as you're listening, watching the show, you got a few lessons left in FPU, read a chapter a day, and then talk about it. Turn it into a discussion. And, and this is a great way to solidify this process to really understand, you know, like you said, you like, you get it, but we don't want you getting it. We want you doing it because it's going to really set you guys up long-term. Let's go to Reading, Pennsylvania.

Now, Howard is on the line. Howard, how can we help? Hey, how you doing today? Good. What's going on, sir? So a number of years ago, when we were pregnant with my second child, my wife was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. And so we were concerned that in the future our children,

if they were to come down with something, they wouldn't be able to get life insurance. So we went ahead and got whole life policies for them. And I know you guys take on whole life insurance. I didn't know how you felt about this situation, knowing that the potential in the future that they could have something or, you know, to that extent that it wouldn't be eligible for life insurance. Would you keep them? Would you get rid of them? What would you do? Well, I wouldn't do this. Here's why. When it comes to insurance, the purpose of insurance is to replace income. That's the whole purpose of it when it comes to life insurance. So, for instance, the policies that you have, whether the one you have or the one that your wife has, it's there so that if something happened to you, the people who depend on your income would be okay so policies on kids doesn't really meet that criteria because they don't have an income and there's nothing that you know is at risk at that point and you would be better off if you were really concerned about them having medical problems you'd be more you'd be better off just investing money

aside for them you know in a brokerage account or something like that if that was truly truly a concern which i wouldn't necessarily recommend that either i think a lot of this is kind of based off of a fear i'm not sure how irrational the fear only you would know that because you know their health situation right well it was when it was when they were first born. So, like, literally, as they were born, we put life insurance, well, whole life insurance policies on them just to have insurance in place. Because I know a lot of them are transferable later in life. So, if you do come down with something, you can still add money to them

without having medical exams and stuff like that. Yeah, but whole life, it's life insurance, not medical insurance, number one. And number two, it's the worst possible life insurance. So I kind of feel like you're using the wrong product to solve a problem that may not even be a problem. It's kind of like you're just, I feel like you're, I feel like you have in your mind what is a problem and what you're telling me,

I'm like, it doesn't sound like it's a problem. And then you're using the wrong method to solve the problem that doesn't even seem like it's really a problem. So we just cancel them at this point. I would cancel them. And if there's something that it's like, hey, you don't want to say it on the air. That's medical going on with the medical wise that you feel like you need to have a pile of money. Let's just get with a smart investor pro and figure out the best way that you're putting aside for their future. And I think that's a better way because these whole life policies,

it is the worst possible investment for your money. Okay. There's nothing worse out there. So I want you to know that. And like I said, if you do have a concern about needing a chunk of money for their health, there's better ways to do that with a SmartVestor Pro. Yeah, absolutely. Get out of this product, Howard. There's so much better things you can do. And we really recommend that you visit RamseySolutions.com, click on SmartVestor Pro, find some of these folks in your area, have a conversation with them about it in detail.

They can go in-depth with you and they'll help you do everything you need to do. I love your focus, though, and I love what you're trying to do. And I think you're going to find a much better, much better strategy, um, and that we teach. And so again, talk to a smart investor pro in your area, come up with a plan and move forward from there. Um, you know, it occurs to me that, um, this, this, this month is almost over. It's hard to believe. I can't believe it. You know what I mean? Kids are back at school in the Southeast, certainly. And this is a big month for us. It's kind of like a secondary Christmas at Ramsey Solutions. And I want new audience members, current audience members to know about our cash giveaway. So all month long, we've been giving

away cash weekly. We have a $500 prize, and then there's a grand prize of $3,000. And you can enter at ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. You can enter once a day, and no purchase necessary. You do have to be 18 years old to win. So go do that and win some of Dave's money. I mean, come on. Who doesn't like free cash? I know I do. Unfortunately, you're ineligible. I'm not eligible. This is the Ramsey Show.

Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to ramseysolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.