The Ramsey Show - App - Navigating the Guilt Trips of Motherhood (Hour 2)

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

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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. Thank you for joining us. Open phones as we talk about your life and your money. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Justin is on the line in Bakersfield, California. Hi, Justin. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, what's up? Hi, thanks for having me. Sure. Hey, so we have our, you know, we've learned about financial peace about a year ago, and we have, I have student loans, and we're in a house on a 30-year mortgage, and we have some credit card debt, but if we sold our house, we would be debt-free, even of student loans.

And I'm wondering if that is certainly the way to go. How much of student loan debt do you have? About $52,000. And how much on credit cards? $5,000. And how much on your car? Zero. And how much other debt?

The solar system on the house. And what is it? $37,000. Good Lord. Okay. And the first mortgage on the house is how much? We owe $230,000. Counting the $37,000 or not?

Oh, not counting the $37,000 for solar, no. Okay, $230,000, because the solar has a lien on the house, too, I'm sure. And it's a second or third mortgage. Okay, so the $230,000 and the house is worth what? $310,000. You would not be debt-free. Solar would have to be paid off. It wouldn't pay off your student loans.

Yeah, not entirely, but, I mean, would that be the way to kick-start it? Yeah. Do you like your house? Yeah, we love it. What's your payment? $1,550,000. What's your household income take-home? Take-home, $62,000.

Okay, you're right about even on the line um you've got a little bit more house than i would have signed you up for but not a ton um but you got a ways to dig here you got,094 in debt, making $62,000 with a $1,500 house payment. How old are you two? I'm 30. What do you do? I'm a safety director for construction. What does she do? She's a stay-at-home mom.

We have three kids. Okay. All right. It would kick-start it. It's the last thing i do to sell a house if you like the house okay and you do like the house okay so if i were in your shoes i'm 30 years old i got some kids at home mom's at home with the kids i got a pretty big hole i'm in my shovel is medium size i'm gonna try this for a little while because you're just starting this whole process. I'm going to give this like a year of beans and rice, rice and beans and extra jobs and selling everything else in sight.

What are your cars worth? We have, I have a company vehicle, so that's not mine. And then we have a minivan that's worth maybe $4,000 or $5,000. Do you have anything else of value that's not in a retirement account? No. Okay. So you don't have $20,000 in a mutual fund or something? We're not talking about money sitting in savings.

My 401K has $10,000. But no money in savings of any kind other than that? No. Okay. All right. Well, it's just pretty tight. I'm like you. I'm looking for a piece of dynamite to throw into the log jam to get this flowing again.

And that's what you were trying to do. And mathematically, what you're doing is good. The problem is this. Moving and selling a home is the most expensive way to access money out of everything else we have. It's going to cost a lot emotionally and financially to move. And so what I'm going to do is try to avoid that if I'm in your shoes by working an extra job. Mom is a new newly dubbed home economist meaning she's cooking from scratch she's uh the coupon queen the consignment sale queen um she's the one helping us make the budget

we're living on nothing nothing nothing nothing and nothing we're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless we're working there oh and you are working an extra job or three and you're going to attack these other debts and get these stupid credit cards cut up tonight. Are they chopped up yet? No, but we have actively paid them off in the last six months. But they're back? No, they're not back. Oh, they're paid down, not off. Yeah, yeah, correct.

Okay, all right. I didn't know what paid off meant. Okay. You've been paid down to $5,000, so you're making progress. Yeah, I just want to turn up. What I'm trying to do, if I'm you, I'm turning up the heat on everything else to keep the house. A year from now, if I'm completely out of breath and I don't feel like I've made enough progress, we can always put the house on the market then.

But I'm going to make a run at this and see if I can save it. Does that make sense? Okay. Yeah, it sure does. Now, it's up to you. You can just sell it and move if you want to. If you do move, do not rent any dime above $900. Super cheap, because if you're going to take the sacrifice to move,

as much trouble as it is, you've got to play through and get this mess cleaned up so you can buy another house someday yeah and the higher your rent is the nicer a place you rent to offset the emotional pain of having moved the slower you're going to get the rest of the way out of debt and i don't want to do that if i'm going to sacrifice this house on the altar of debt freedom we're going to play all the way through you got to you got to be hardcore with the balance of this anyway so um but i if i'm you i'm gonna you like your house it's not completely out of line it's a little higher than i want it's a little over the bubble i'd like to be more like 12 1300 in your situation a fourth of your take-home pay is what i do make sure you've stopped your 401k

too don't be putting any money into retirement right now. And hold on. I'll send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, which will show you step by step by step exactly how to do these baby steps, exactly how to do the stuff we're talking about. Jump on every dollar and download the app and start doing your budget for free there because you're going to need it. And you and your wife sit down together and hold hands and pray and say, all right, God, we're going to plow this field. Please make it rain. We're going to plow this field. Please make it rain. We're going to plow this field. Please make the sun come out. We're going to plow this field.

Give us a bumper crop. And because, you know, your work is your part. God's blessing is his part. And if you want to keep this house, Lord, show us. And stuff will start showing up. You'll have opportunity to make a lot of money doing something. You'll build a deck and make a gazillion dollars. You didn't even think about that.

I'm not talking about working minimum wage part-time jobs. I'm talking about making some money on a side hustle, some serious money, like make another 30 grand next year and throw all of that at this debt, that kind of thing, and tighten the budget down. But you're working all the time. You're going to be exhausted. And I've done that for short periods of my life. You can do it for a year and see if it's worth it to you and your family to save this house

and your situation. I think you can do it. I think you can do it. You call me back if you need some help. I'll walk with you as you're doing this. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. There's nothing smart about smartphones if your wireless plan is blowing your budget each month. Pure Talk USA offers smarter wireless with unlimited plans starting as low as $20 per month. You never pay data overage fees and we never turn off your data.

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That's puretalk in Kansas City. Hi, Emily. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Dave, it's an honor to talk to you. Thanks so much for taking the time. Sure. What's up? My husband and I are questioning if we should use our non-retirement investments to pay off our mortgage. We have $300,000 in non-retirement mutual funds, and we owe $180,000 on our mortgage.

Our smart investor pro told us to continue to pay down the mortgage via our monthly payment due to the compound interest of growth in those non-retirement mutual funds. So I guess I should give you more numbers here. Combined, our household income is $170,000 per year. What's the house worth? It's around $475,000 to $500,000. Okay. Well, I disagree with the SmartVestor Pro. He's giving you wrong advice by our standards.

Here's the way I look at this stuff. The Harvard Investment Newsletter came out several, several years ago. I probably read it 15 or 20 years ago. I read this particular article, and it stuck with me. And it's called a sunk cost analysis. And the way it teaches you to make a decision on things like this is reverse engineer it and ask yourself, would you do it? Okay? Okay.

And so in this case, it would sound like this. Dave, I have $120,000 in my non-retirement mutual funds, and I have a paid-for home. Would I go borrow another $180,000 on it in order to have $300,000 in my non-retirement mutual funds. No, you do not. It's the same thing, isn't it? Yes. You see what I'm talking about, reverse engineering?

It just makes you look at it differently. Because in a sense, mathematically, by not paying it off today, it's as if, mathematically, tomorrow you borrowed that $180,000 at that mortgage interest rate in order to invest it in those mutual funds. Right. Okay. And I would never do that. But once you finally got debt-free, oh, my God. And you're there.

You've done a wonderful job with your money. How old are you guys? We are 34 and 31. Wow, you're killing it. What do you guys do for a living? I am a project manager for a health care IT company, and my husband is an account manager for a transportation brokerage firm. You guys are both just going zoom-zoom on your careers,

and you've been smart with it. Well, thanks to you, we've been following you since 2013, so you keep us motivated. Well, at 34 years old, I mean, you're set up to be millionaires at about 37 or 38, the way you are right now, if not sooner. No, you're probably there now, wait a minute, with your 401K money. Yeah, we did the numbers. We're pretty close if we're not already there.

So the mortgage was the last thing kind of hanging over our heads. See, the interesting thing is this equation doesn't change your net worth. Oh, okay. So you're just moving money against debt. Right. Because your net worth is reduced by debt and increased by assets. So we're reducing an asset by the exact same amount we're increasing, or reducing the debt by the exact same amount we are decreasing the asset.

And so the net worth calculation is exactly the same when we finish the conversation. All right. But you're free of debt. So hold on. I need you to tell Kelly who our Smart Investor Pro is so we can school them up. We've got some new ones, and we're having to school a few of them. This one got it wrong. My listeners could answer this question better than he did.

Thanks for calling in. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Mariah is with us in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Hey, Mariah, how are you? I'm good. How about you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Oh, so my husband and I have a little over $6,000 worth of debt after we have labor and delivery bills come in. And we make about, combined, a little around $6,000 worth of debt after we have labor and delivery bills come in. And we make about, combined, a little around $30,000 a year. And I just, I feel like we bid off more than we can chew.

I'm not sure where to start on getting debt-free. Okay, but you're in the middle of having a baby, right? We just had her in February. Oh, okay. Okay, I'm sorry. I missed that part. Okay. And so you're home still, or are you back to work? I am back to work.

Okay. And what is your household income? It's around $30,000 a year. Between both of you working? Yeah. Well, somebody's not working much. Who is that? I make $800 a month, and he works in construction, so it can vary.

Rainy days can change it. I mean, if on a good month, you'll make... But you're not working 40 hours for $800 a month. No, I am part-time. Okay. What do you do? I'm a child care worker. Okay.

All right. So we've got $30,000 a year, and you've got what kind of debt? It's a little over $6,000. Most of it is credit cards. Okay. And no other debt? No car payment? No student loan?

I do have a car payment, so the car payment is $18,000. Oh! The car payment is $319,000. I'm sorry. Yeah. We owe $18,000. Sell the car. You cannot afford an $18,000 car on a $30,000 income.

Okay. The car is killing you. Okay. And if it hasn't killed you, it will slowly kill you before you realize it. You should never own vehicles that equal more than half your annual income. All of them together. Okay? If you own another car, it would be added in that same equation.

Yeah, you've got a car you cannot afford here. It's killing you. There's a complete impulse. Did you buy the car because of the baby? Yes. Yeah. Is it a van or something? It's a Tahoe.

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Babies have survived in cheap cars even before there were cars. So your baby will survive in that. And then we've got to work to get out of debt. The answer to getting out of debt and building wealth then for you all is twofold. One, it is the part-time job for your husband.

The good news is he's in construction and construction is booming so he can work all he wants to work somewhere yeah and so he's he's just about to double his hours because y'all got a mess to clean up and so he's going to work all the time till he's just exhausted to clean up this mess that's the the short-term answer, along with selling the car, and you're going to get you a beater car to get around in. Then the long-term answer is you start asking yourself, what do I want to be doing, you and your husband, 10 years from now that makes two or three times more money than I'm making now

because it's tough to raise a family on $30,000 a year. Right. So we've got to do something to get our incomes up, and that may mean take some classes. It may mean a certification. It may just mean a career change. It may mean he's in the construction business. Maybe he apprentices on a carpentry thing or one of the mechanicals. Maybe he learns to be a plumber or a heat and air, whatever.

I don't care where we go, but doing what you're doing 10 years from now would be bad. And the only way you're not going to be doing that is to be very intentional. So work like crazy people on the short term. Let's get your income up, get the $6,000 cleaned up, get you an emergency fund, get you a paid $4,000 or $5,000 car car get rid of this eighteen thousand dollar car long term you're going to have to adjust your careers and make some decisions on that so good question thanks for joining us open phones at 888-825-5225 well we always talk about what we're talking about with her getting a different job having a different thing and a different way to create income.

We always hear about people on this show changing careers in order to make more money. And it's not just to make more money. It's also to have more satisfaction and just to live a better life. It's that simple. So Ken Coleman is our Ramsey personality that speaks on careers. The proximity principle, the proven strategy that will lead to the career you love, is his book. It comes out in May. We are pre-selling it now. It's how to help you find your dream job. Just exactly what I was talking to her about just now. So Ken is our trusted voice

on careers. The book is only $19.99. It's called The Proximity Principle, the proven strategy that will lead to the career you love. You buy it on a pre-sale right now. Since it comes out in May, we're going to throw in $20 worth of goodies. That includes the proximity book, principal ebook, and a video lesson from Ken called discover what you were born to do. Go to the online store at Dave Ramsey.com or go to Ken Coleman.com or call Ramsey concierge at triple eight, 22 piece, triple eight, two,ACE, 888-227-3223. Thank you. Thanks for being with us, America.

Courtney's with us in New Orleans. Hi, Courtney. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you so much for talking with me today. My husband and I have had a wonderful few years, and he and I have both been really fortunate in our careers and also blessed with our first little one. Yay! Yay!

And we, in fact, have been so fortunate in our careers that we've hit a point that we're pretty certain we could live fairly comfortably off one income, and I'm really contemplating leaving my job to stay at home with our one-and-a-half-year-old. But I am having a really hard time making that decision and pulling the trigger, the idea of leaving half of our... What do you do? I work remotely for an advertising firm. And what do you make? I make about $120. And what does he make?

He makes about $140. How much debt do you guys have? We have zero debt. We're in baby steps four, five, and six. Woo-hoo! Yay! So it's a great problem to have, but really we've been so fortunate to be able to save.

What do you do for the advertising firm? I'm sorry? What do you do for the advertising firm? I work in our corporate consulting team, and I've been with our firm for about 15 years. What do you tactically do? What is your job description? I am a director in our firm, and I work with some of our corporate clients on reputation and positioning. Okay. Okay, good. Brand positioning.

All right, good. Well, there's a couple things pop into my head. One is if you're going to quit and you want to quit, you should. Okay? You want to be home with this baby. Your husband makes $120,000 a year year your own baby step four touchdown quit okay if you want to be sure that that's what you want to do financially you could say for 90 days we're going to bank 100 of my check and run the budget as if it was his because that's what you're about to take on

right and that could be like your little acid test and then you would feel emotionally a lot more comfortable i mean when you just say out loud i've got to live on 120 000 a year well most people can figure that out right so yeah do it the second thing that's the basics. Yes, you should follow your heart on this. There's nothing wrong with what you're doing. You could be raising the next president of the United States. I don't know. It could be a really great job you have right there. Okay, so the, not the next one, but a president of the United States.

Probably not the next one. But the, unless this one becomes emperor, but anyway. No, God help us. But anyway, the aside from that, the second thing that pops into my head is you are doing branding. Obviously, we have a lot of marketing folks on our team here that do similar things. And, you know, positioning with individual clients. You could do a lot of that during nap time and go part-time remote and, you know, keep a couple of key clients that you have, you know, really good relationships with.

That would be advantageous to you and your firm. And, you know, go to halftime or something and make 60 while the kid's asleep. I mean, you really could. That's very possible from a, you know, a time management type of a thing. And for that matter, you could afford a nanny to come in and just to be there in the house with you for a few hours a week, not full-time, but just a few hours a week to enable you to, I mean, you could pay somebody 10 grand a year and enable you to make 60.

Right. And still be there and be mom, you know? You'd be a full-time mom still. But just if they start screaming while you're in the middle of a Skype call or something because they woke up from their nap, then you wouldn't have that. You'd have somebody to step in there, right, that kind of thing. You don't have to do that, but what is running through my head is you are a very well-accomplished lady executive, and so my guess is you're not miserable at work.

You just want to be with a baby. Absolutely, and, you know, we've been really fortunate both of us in our careers you know just grappling with leaving behind what i've what i've built i kind of think you might want to scratch that itch just from a self-identity professional thing you don't have to you don't financially have to but if you just wanted to that's a way you could do it is just keep a few key clients if the agency wants you to's a way you could do it is just keep a few key clients if the agency wants you to if not you could just do some side branding as a hustle as a side hustle is it morally wrong to to leave that kind of you know income and opportunity on

the table no when who knows what you know no you don't know what life brings no listen you didn't leave your brains on the table you didn't leave your brains on the table. You didn't leave your experience or your education on the table. They're still in your pocket. And if you need to do something, you can go back and do it. But basically, you know, I'll reverse engineer that on you. That's a phrase I'm using today for some reason. But let's just say, is it morally wrong to take $120,000 a year to be away from your kids?

You know, that's a guilt trip the other way, right? Absolutely. So there's lots of guilt trips to go around in motherhood. Thank you. But no, you're not morally wrong to raise your kids. I mean, you know, I always think about somebody like Billy Graham's mother or Franklin Graham's mother, for that matter, Billy's wife, right? And you think, okay, wouldn't you have liked to have had that job? Absolutely.

Wouldn't you have liked to have had Abe Lincoln's mother's job, you know? Would it have been morally wrong for her to go be a professional lady and miss out on the training and the income or whatever? No, it's not. The whole thing is God gave you sets of skills, and he gave you sets of instincts, and you're going to use those at different parts, at different seasons of your life, and right now you've got a baby at home, and you want to be there with that baby, and you only got one shot at that, and that's what you want to do. I'm with you. I'm with you.

I want you to do it. I wouldn't tell you to do it if I thought you were going to lose your house or something like that. That's not what we're discussing. We're just talking about how fast you all build wealth versus not fast. Whoop-de-doop-dee. Yeah, all you got to do is look in that kid's eyes while you're changing their diaper and you'll have to answer that question.

You'll know you're not morally wrong. You're not morally wrong at all. And you're not morally wrong if you want to keep doing it either that's not a not a bad thing to be a lady executive if that's what you want to be but um you got a pretty clear situation here i think you're going to do something part-time on the side while kiddos sleeping because i think you're going to want to scratch that itch but that's not a moral statement or a spiritual statement or even a financial statement. I think that's more of a career coaching thing. I just think you're going to want that part of your brain activated because I think that's who you are after talking to you.

But you're just too articulate and so forth. But if you want to apply all of those skills to full-time motherhood and not make another dime for the next 32 years, I'm fine with that. That's what my wife did. And she's very, very bright and very well-read and very accomplished. And now she's full-time Mimi, the keeper of Rufus the Shih Tzu. And somebody's got to do it, right? Hey, thanks for the call.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. 888-825-5225. Jim is on Twitter. What do you think of rent-to-buy schemes instead of mortgages? I think it's a really good deal for the landlord, not for the buyer. The property is still in their name.

You're overpaying for the rent, and property is still in their name. You're overpaying for the rent, and the number of people who actually close on and end up owning the property in one of those is about 4% to 5%, four or five times out of 100. Those things actually close. And so what's it end up being? High rent.

You paid more for the rent because you thought you were going to buy, and you got sucked into and I think the word you used, Jim, was right. A scheme. I don't think there was a Nigerian prince involved, but I still think it was a bad deal. This is

The Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Daniel is with us in New York. Hi, Daniel. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. How's it going, Dave?

Thank you for taking the call. Sure. What's up? So I have a question. I just graduated from university this past May, and I'm carrying about $20K in student loan debt from the federal government. And I wanted to get your take on whether I should be investing some of my savings or whether I should be focusing on paying down the debt as much as I can.

Okay. What's your degree in? My degree is in finance. Oh, good for you. Okay. Well, what we'll find is this. There's a couple things. I got a degree in finance as well and several other letters and licenses after my name. Some of it that they taught me was really good stuff, and some of it was hogwash. But one of the things you and I were taught to do was to mathematically assess things and for instance a

normal person in your seat might say something like i'm going to compare my investment returns to the interest cost on my student loan which is less and it appears i'm making a spread it appears i'm making money on that. Yeah, which is the way that I'm doing the math on that right now. That's how you and I were taught. The problem with that formula is it's incomplete. Because do you remember in investment class, a different class that I'm talking about earlier,

they even taught this back when dinosaurs roamed the earth when I was there. When we're comparing a risky investment with a non-risk investment that we don't compare them apples to apples and adjust them using a mathematical measure of risk called a beta. Beta, and then how it factors into your risk premium. Exactly. How come that's left out of the formula that we just did? Let me help you with that.

Debt, having debt, is risky. Not having debt is less risk. Agreed? Yes. But there's no beta application, no application of the beta to carrying debt when we were taught to do leverage the way that you and I were taught, and that's why it's wrong. Okay. Your formula's incomplete.

If you were to say, I'm going to adjust my personal finances for risk, then the perceived spread between the student loan interest rate and the investment interest rate would disappear when adjusted for risk. Again, it's like comparing a very risky investment with a non-risk investment. It looks like the high-risk investment that's making a high rate of return is the way to go until you adjust it for risk, and it looks a lot like the medium-risk or low-risk investment then, right? Gotcha.

So based on that logic, would you say that... I would pay off the student loans. So, for example, I've got more than the $20,000 that I'd need to pay it off. Oh, good. In my brokerage account. Right. I would write the check today, then. I would be debt-free.

The second reason I would do that is not only the logic that we just worked through, but I've been doing this about 30 years now, and we just finished, our company did, along with Chris Hogan, a study, the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America. We studied over 10,000 of them, which is like probably 10x of statistical significance. And the research was airtight. And what we found among them was 79% of them had received zero inheritance. Did you receive a big inheritance? No. Okay, then you're in line.

Okay, so to be a millionaire, then you would do what those 79% did, and if you followed their steps that we found in the research, the things that they did, then you would have a higher probability of becoming wealthy. And what they did was any debt that they had, other than mortgage debt, they got rid of it as quickly as possible. And they never borrowed to make money. They never attempted to make a spread.

They stayed debt-free on cars, student loans, credit cards. They don't pay everything off in cash. They pay everything in cash, and they use that increased cash flow to invest in brokerage accounts and 401ks and Roth IRAs, all in good mutual funds. Yes, so I'm all maxed out on my Roth and my 401k. There you go. And I'm saving all the other stuff because I'm currently living at home. Oh, you're killing it. You got a really good start, but I kind of thought you were already on that track, but I thought it would be a good idea with you.

We've got 15 million people listening to our conversation, so it's good for them to hear you and I discuss this. But also because of where you just came from and with your field of study, I knew you could grasp very quickly both of those reasonings, the beta issue as well as the research. It's the fastest and shortest point between where you are in building wealth is to become debt-free and stay debt-free. Your most powerful wealth-building tool is your income. Hold on.

I'm going to send you a copy of Chris Hogan's book. It's not got all of the study in it. It's only got 140 of the statistics in it, but it's called Everyday Millionaires, and I think you'll really enjoy it. It's not a white paper, okay? It's not a research paper, but it's all about stories, and it's got 140 of the statistics in it, though. It's very, very interesting stuff. Everyday Millionaires, number one bestseller.

I'll send you a copy as a graduation gift. Honored to talk to you, Daniel. Open phones this hour at 888-825-5225. Scott's with us in Kansas City. Hi, Scott. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call, and thanks so much for your ministry. You're helping so many people.

Thank you, sir. Thank you very, very much. Thank you. How can I help? Hey, quick question. So, my wife and I followed your program. We're on baby steps 4 and 6 now. We kind of had to weave step 5 in, because once we understood your concepts,

we didn't want our kids taken on debt. So while we were paying off our debt, we cash flowed them both through college. We have one graduated and one is graduating in December. We skipped five, but we kind of wrapped it in. Got it. You cash flowed it. Yeah, cash flowed it, exactly, while we were paying off our debt. So interestingly enough, when we were following your plan, our income went up along with our debt went down.

So we're having a pretty good run. Good. So here's my question. My wife and I live in a traditional two-story home. We're empty nesters now. We want to move into a house that more fits our next lifestyle. I'm 55. My wife's 50.

So I'm planning to work about 10 more years. And the house we want to move into is considerably more money than the one that we have now. We do not have this house paid off yet. We have about $200,000 in equity in this house and about $100,000 cash that we could put with it on a $600,000 house. My wife is all in on that plan, and I am not all in on that plan because I'm only working 10 more years, and I thought, you know, is that really the right thing to do? So we agreed that if there was any way we could get your guidance on something like that.

What is your household income? Last year, 2018, we filed taxes on $228,000. Phenomenal. Well done. What do you do? So I'm in sales management, and my wife's an accountant. Excellent. Excellent.

What a great household income. Okay. So obviously you could pay off $300,000 in, what, five or six years? Yeah, I think that's exactly what my wife's feeling as well well i mean six years six years would be 50 000 out of 200 i think you can pull that off dude right but i mean that's that's 228 gross dave it's not i know i know i know about taxes i pay them too but i mean you can you can try that's why I'm here. The kids are finished up. You know, you're down to we've got to have the house paid for,

and we've got to have a nest egg by the time you quit. That's the goal, right? That is absolutely the goal. So we've got to have a 10-year or less plan on the house, or we don't do it. Right. And if we have a six-year plan on the house, and we throw the rest of the other four years real heavy into investments, in the meantime, you continue your 15% going into retirement.

What size is your nest egg now? So we have about $725,000, and that's between 401Ks and a self-directed IRA. And we're both doing the full $24,000. Right now I've been doing the $24,000. My wife just moved from 18 to 24. Not counting what you're adding, you're going to have $2 million by the time you get to 65. Well, I would love to believe that. However, I am a very conservative investor,

and I'm trying to follow your program of the four different types of mutual funds. However, I've never been able to take the full plunge on that. Well, that's a different issue. Yeah, if you were following our program, I think you're going to have two to three million dollars by the time you get to retirement and a paid for house. I would buy the house. But I would put it on a ten year mortgage and pay it off in six. Amen. Thanks for the call. You're killing it. Relax. You're killing it. 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 Dave Ramsey.com slash show.