The Ramsey Show - App - No, You Don’t Need a Credit Card To Survive (Hour 3)

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

Budgeting, Career, Debt, Saving, Home Selling, Insurance, Home Buying As heard on this episode: Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/3rZTUAx Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2Q64HME Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/3sXwUn5 Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/3utmVXi Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3fHhbVE

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help you become healthy relationally, successful professionally, and peaceful financially. I'm George Campbell, joined this hour by my friend Ken Coleman, bestselling author and host of The Ken Coleman Show. Open phones this hour. Give us a call, 888-825-5225. We can talk about your work, your relationships, your money, all of the questions that rattle around in your head that keep you up at night, the frustrations at your job, the toxic workplace, the debt that seems to never go away, the retirement that you dream of. We can talk about all of it. 888-825-5225. Heidi kicks off this hour in Columbus, Ohio.

Heidi, welcome to The Ramsey Show. How many thanks for taking my call? Absolutely. How can Ken and I help? So I've been kind of just sitting here going over this month's budget and I use the EveryDollar app. I'm starting to see this lagging problem that we're having and that is we have a very high deductible insurance that we pay. So we have $11,000 out-of-pocket max, but we have to hit $4,000 before it kicks into 90-10. But long story short, my husband had major surgery at the end of last year. He's still recovering. Two of my kids had to have some procedures done. So guess what?

We've already got medical bills out the wazoo from last year and now already this year already. We've already hit $4,000 in bills. And I'm a stay-at-home mom. So this is where we're getting caught, though. My kids have a lot of health needs. Some of them are in a couple therapies a week, special issues. They're all five and under. So, you know, I'm trying to figure out if I could think of any other way, you know, to find jobs. I'm just, I'm struggling. And I'm feeling really

discouraged because when my husband and I were just making by, we were trying to stay on a budget, but every month, like, the bills just keep piling up, and we don't know how to keep our money spreading out when it just keeps going, going, going. Well, here's the deal. We can figure this out. I know it's overwhelming, but we've got to get realistic and say, okay, how much time do you actually have,

or how much time are you going to need to make to then be able to make money? So give me a ballpark. I'm not holding you to this. This is an exercise. How many hours do you have in a given week, including weekend days, to make some money for a season? I would say probably a max would be about 10 hours a week, to be very honest, just because my husband can't drive since his injury. And so it's me, you know, doing everything around the house. Okay. All right. So let's get realistic there. All right. So 10 hours a week,

that's the max you have. If you made $20 an hour, you'd be pretty thrilled with $20 an hour, wouldn't you? Yeah. Yeah, but that's $200 a week, right? Yep. And then let's add that out. So, I mean, is that going to make a huge difference? I'm guessing anything helps, but how much of a difference, if we just play this out, we're just playing round numbers now, how much would, let's call it $800 a month or $1,000 a month on a five-week

month, how much of a difference would that make? That would probably help since the medical bills right now are still sitting at $5,500 from last year and now $4,000 this year. You know, that would help at least put more towards the medical bills. Yeah, it would make a dent if we're looking at that a month. All right. So the challenge is you've got to do that from home, right? So I could tell you there are part-time jobs where you could make $15 to $20 an hour, but they're not at home. So when you start looking at home, you have to start looking at things like virtual assistant.

But again, that's if you can do that. So someone who's organized, but virtual assistant has become a really great opportunity for folks to make money at home virtually doing executive assistant roles. But again, it's somebody looking for just 10 hours a week. But that is one that can get you a pretty nice hourly rate. There's a sales function, right? So what kind of at-home sales, if somebody, if they've got a good product, they got good leads, and they're just looking for somebody to put in the hours, the 10 hours, you got to start looking for things like that, because this is less about what you really enjoy,

and this is actually more about what you can do, and we're looking at talent only because this is bearing down for a season. We've got to bring in some income, and so you want to be thinking, what are you best at doing? What are your talent and experience buckets? That's what you need to be looking for right now because it gives you the best chance to be successful. You only have 10 hours,

so if you get something that's $15 15 an hour that's what you're looking at so your ideas uh need to be around you know talent and experience right so there are plenty of blogs and you know we've got one christy right had done one you know at ramsey solutions on you know 25 things you can do from home there's's all kinds of lists. And so you've got to start matching up at-home work, things you can do from home that match up with your talent. You can do transcription services, customer service rep, like Ken mentioned. You can do tutoring virtually. There are a lot of options out there, but I would take a good look at your skill set, what you're able to do, and start to do some research on what would be a viable option for you, knowing you've got 10 hours a week now what's what's the household income it's about 60 000 okay and

is your husband able to work anymore he i asked him about today he said he possibly can't pick up any work at his work because it's all salary sure but he could possibly when he gets his foot repaired like maybe do some ubering he was even thinking about doing some instacart shopping you know yes i was going to recommend that if you've got someone who can do that outside the home you can make uh you know 20 30 bucks easily an hour with shipped and instacart and all these kinds of delivery services without even having to have anyone in your car so that could be a real flexible thing where he can turn on the app for two hours after work, and it's going to be a lot of late nights, long days, but this is what it's going to take to get out of this mess.

All right, so let's just dive into this really quick. Let's not think. Let's just rattle off the top of your head. What would you say are your top two or three skills that you know, if somebody paid you to do it, you could do it? Sure. I'm very organized. I've worked as a secretary of finance but that's my degree i love to teach um i even love to do fitness i am i love to talk to people so that would always be something all right so all right so i just want to give you a couple ideas to get

the brainstorming started okay so i heard very organized so actually the first idea i threw out there i think is a viable option for you and i think you need to look into virtual assistant i think you also need to challenge yourself a little bit and go could i give someone 20 to 30 hours because at the end of the day if it's emails and organization doing stuff with the kids are in bed i mean you got to buckle down both you and your husband have got to get this medical stuff fixed and get our income as a whole up and then we're going to be okay so this is just a season i like the idea of the virtual assistant i like the idea of online teaching online teaching is exploding there might not be that much of a qualification

process um there might be i don't know you need to look into online instruction and teaching i would also look into customer service roles because you said you like talking to people and customer service you know if you could pick up 10 to 15 hours a week, getting paid a nice hourly rate doing customer service, that could be nice. Yeah. Heidi, how much debt total do you guys have? We have about $12,000 between all the medical bills and a car. This is doable.

And we're getting a car paid off hopefully. Very doable. It feels like you just can't get the water out of the boat because there's a hole in there, but man, we're going to patch this thing up. We're going to get on the budget. Income, George. More income. More income is going to help.

Patches this boat up very quickly. This is $12,000. You can get rid of this this year. It's going to be gone. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey guys, Rachel Cruz here. I've got a money-saving idea for you. This Valentine's Day, skip the expensive dinner reservations at some crowded restaurant. Really, you guys, it's an overpriced, pre-fixed meal.

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ramseysolutions.com slash events. That's ramseysolutions.com slash events. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by my friend Ken Coleman. We are taking your calls on work, on life, on relationships, on money. You name it. 888-825-5225. Carol joins us in Providence, Rhode Island. Carol, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, thank you all for having me.

I appreciate it. Absolutely. I've got to ask, the accent plus Rhode Island, I'm very confused. As a New Englander myself. No, it's from South Carolina. Okay, that makes more sense. All right. Okay. How can we help? Hey, we have a question for you. My husband is sitting here with me. We purchased the house a couple of years ago for $372,000. We can now sell it for around $600,000, maybe a little bit more. The problem problem that we have is is one we're not really

in the position to buy a different property um for us to live in but if we sell this property it's always been a rental so we would have to pay capital gains on it so would it be better for us to continue baby step two and hold on to the house and not pay capital gains and maybe do like a 1031 exchange which our accountant had mentioned or you know sell the house pay the capital gains get out of debt and you know that's kind of where we're stuck at how much debt do you have we have about 120,000 what kind of debt um it's some credit cards um a couple cars um twenty thousand in student loans nothing it's nothing really major major like you know debt like that what's your household income um three hundred thousand whoa okay so before we go selling property what are we doing with the three hundred

thousand dollars that we can't pay down all this debt real fast? Well, I knew that was coming, and I'm prepared for that answer. We just started making this. This was a blessing, and my husband had a huge promotion and a huge raise, and we're not even used to making this. So, you know, everything is all new to us. That's awesome. Well, I know he's sitting there. Tell him that we say congratulations.

Yeah, this is fantastic. So here's the thing, Carol. You're not in a dire situation. You don't make $60K and you've got $200K in debt, and this house is going to solve all your problems. You said this is a rental property that you guys are living in? We're not living in it. We purchased it to live in it,

and then we kind of had some things fall through, and we ended up having to put it immediately as soon as we bought it to a rental property. Right now, the rent that we get, it rents as soon as it hits market, so it's in a great location. And right now, it covers the mortgage. They're fixing to put it up to market value, so we'll actually be making probably about $600 on top of what our mortgage is. Okay. And are you guys living in primary residence with another mortgage on top of that? No.

That's the thing. My husband's job travels, and so... So you're renting. Basically, yes. Yeah, we're renting right now, yeah. Okay. Well, if I'm in your shoes, I'm not going to get rid of this property and go through the hassle of that and the capital gain, everything you mentioned, when you now make $300,000

and you owe $120,000. What I will do is start to get on a budget, make sure that we've got our emergency, our $1,000 starter emergency fund, and then I'm going to get to work on that debt snowball listing everything small to largest regardless of the interest rate and attack it with a vengeance. Okay. Let me ask you this. Are you traveling with your hubs when he's traveling oh yes sir yeah that's what i thought so you guys are very transient yes and that's why we we thought we were going to settle down a couple years ago but it just didn't happen that way and you know fortunately we were able to buy this house in a great location, and what happened actually turned into a blessing for us.

So God worked it all out. What is the rhythm right now, and how long you guys are in a certain place before you move to the next? Well, right now we're here indefinitely unless something changes, but this is not where we want to be we where do you want to be in florida we want to be in florida where's the house we have to retire where's the house actually it's in arizona okay i've got a long distance landlord situation i do yeah but yeah we have a property manager that manages it for us okay all right now George

you're the money guy but we can we can disagree but I'm excited about this co-hosting here so I'm going to weigh in here I just wonder because this house in Arizona is not in their long-term plans yeah do you guys want to be long-term real estate investors? Probably not. I just heard the hubs in the background. He's like, no. So I guess here's my point. George, I'm serious.

Because it is not their primary residence, because it's in Arizona, and they're making $600 a month, it's not a huge number. It's not changing your life. They've got huge equity in it, if I heard correctly. Yeah, what's the equity? If you sold today for $600,000, what would you net? We would probably $300,000 is what we would get from it. All right, I'm just going to give you another option. I would sell that house because you're not in Arizona. You're long-distance landlords.

You're not making that much money. It's a hassle for not much return monthly, and yet you've got tremendous equity. And by selling that house, you guys are debt-free plus the new big income. Oh, my gosh. I'm selling it. I'm putting it on the market today. The only catch to that is that the price of the house is jumping $5,000, $6,000 every 30 days. I know, but... Yeah, but...

Okay, so play that out. This is like timing the market where you go, well, my stocks are doing well, so I'm going to leave them in for another six months. Imagine being debt-free. Now, let me just say this. George's option is a good option he's right you guys make really good money if you get serious about your budget i'm saying is you don't need to sell it sometimes i go oh my gosh it's time to sell and i agree with you is what i'm saying but my point is is that i i'm telling you what i would do i'd fast forward and i'd pay off the i'd pay off the debt but if you guys say no i like this

and it's going to keep going up every 30 days for who knows how long, you've still got to play that out and go, all right, but we've got to pay our debt off. So it would be worth it to pay the capital gains, you think, on that? Because we would definitely have to do that. You're saying even if you paid capital gains, you would net $300? Oh, no, not after capital gains. No, I think capital gains would be 15% or 20% of the profit, right? Okay, I still would do it, but that's me.

I mean, George gave you a very viable option. You guys have the income to be able to pay off your $120,000. But my point is, is why keep something that's long distance that's only making you $600 a month when it could be turned into something that actually fast-forwards your wealth? Oh, no, it's not $600 a month. The rent that we rent it for is $2,300, and it's fixing to go up to $3,000 a month. No, no, I thought you said you're making $600 a month

after you pay the actual mortgage. You did. Oh, okay, maybe I said it wrong. I don't know. Yeah, you're right. It does pay the mortgage. The mortgage is $22,000, and then they're fixing to put it up. So I guess we would bring home $500,000 or $600,000 after we pay the mortgage payment.

That's what I'm referring to. So Ken's saying, hey, that's about, what, $6,000 a year. That's not life-changing numbers when you make $300,000. Yeah. So that's not a reason to hang on to it. But what life-changing is is getting out of debt as quickly as you could, and now you're building up wealth. Do you guys have any savings? No, that's the goal.

I feel like I need to tell you what our goal is. I make this kind of money. I work a lot. I'm wanting to get debt-free, and if I can manage it on this kind of money, retire in 10 years. I don't know if that's feasible or not. It is if you guys take advantage of this

income. And I think you sell the house. I mean, if you sell this thing and pay off your debt, let's say you net $300,000, just ballpark numbers. You get rid of the debt. You're left with $180,000. You told me you don't have much in savings. We got to get you guys a fully funded emergency fund of three to six months. Let's just call it 30 grand, 40 grand. Does that sound good? So at that point, you still have 140 grand left that you could put in index funds. And while you guys are living this transient life, let that grow for you. And then when you're ready for Florida, you're going to be able to pay cash for a home, which is going to help you build that your assets up so that you can retire with dignity and

have an awesome retirement. Sell the house. By the way, we haven't even touched your $300,000 in income. So put that to work. Don't live on less than you make. Continue to live exactly as you've been living before you made this kind of money and you will be multimillionaires. You can do this.

Not the men in long distance homeowners who take pain. There it is. That's right. That's what I'm saying. Sell the house. Sell it. I could listen to those accents. There it is. That's what I'm saying. Sell the house. Sell it. I could listen to those accents all day long. George, tell it.

Sell it. Thank you. Sell it. Thanks for the call, Carol. Appreciate you guys. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it is tax time, folks. And many of you have been filing your taxes with the same software for years. But are you sick and tired of add-on fees? You've probably seen all of the ads saying it's free to do your taxes with the big

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Open phones this hour, 888-825-5225. Greg joins us from New York City, the Big Apple. Greg, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Greg, you with us? Hi, thanks, guys. Yeah, how can we help? So I have a question about term life insurance. My wife and I, after we got married five years ago, we purchased term life insurance. My wife and I, after we got married five years ago, we purchased term life insurance.

And based on salary increases, we've already gone above the 10 to 12 times. So basically, my question is, how do we determine how much more to get if, for instance, my salary, if, you know, speaking with bosses and my trajectory with my career, I could see my salary possibly doubling within the next five years. So right now I've got a million dollar term policy. I make 109. But if I could possibly be making 150 to 200 based on promotions, what would you suggest for the next policy upgrade?

Well, the easiest situation here is just to get more term life. And you can do that. You can just add another policy there for, let's say you went to $200. Well, you could just add another million-dollar policy to get you to 10 times your income. I mean, are you trying to – I'm just trying to think, like, do you limit how many times you're adding a policy because, you know,

as you get older, the prices go up, and then, you know, potential health differences and whatnot. Sure. I mean, you're saying, should I limit how much I get because I don't need 20 years 10 years from now? I don't want to sign up for another 20-year policy. Well, I guess a secondary question, which is, you know, the 15 to 20 years, I'm 32. So if I can't take any money out of retirement or my wife can't either until 59 and a half, wouldn't we want to be closer to 30 to get us up to that 15, 20 year, you are going to be what we call self-insured because you will have a paid for home and you're going to have lots of money in your investment account because of 20 years of compounded growth if you've been investing for that period of time. And so at that point, there's not a lot of expenses to rely on. If something happened to you, then your wife would be okay because she's got a paid-for home and she's got

a big old pile of investments that she would then inherit and be able to use. Okay, understood. So it's that simple. So you can get connected at RamseySolutions.com and click on Trusted Pros and get in touch with Zander and they can shop the best rates for you on that term life policy. And I'm going to have Ken jump in here as well. Well, you know, listen, I don't have any money advice on this one, but I got some real-life anecdotes for Greg. I'm here for it. This is real.

So, Greg, you're only 32. I remember, I think it was two years ago, you know, because we all use Xander here at Ramsey Solutions, all of us, and we got an email from him saying, hey, life insurance rates are really, really low. And, you know, I've got three teens. And so with income and everything, I was like, I need to bump up. And so, Greg, I just want to encourage you on this. Like, how often do you do it?

It's really not that big of a deal. And here's what I found out. Greg, I found out that rates were really, really great. And if I got, like, the unbelievable preferred, you know, unbelievable preferred health status, that it was going to even be lower. So I kid you not, I think I fasted for three to five days. Wow. Yeah, really. Exercising, working out for about a month up to gotten super.

You've had some kind of rocky routine going on here. Just tightened up a little bit because you want that blood score. So it was great. It was great. And I got the absolute preferred rate. Wow. Save even more money. Look at life hack.

Just don't eat for four days before you get your life insurance exam. No, no, no, no, no. That's not going to do it. But I'm saying you're getting really great shape. Yeah, Greg, you're a healthy guy, right? You're a healthy guy. Or if you get healthier 10 years from now, do that. You get lower rates the healthier you are.

That makes sense. I appreciate it. Greg's excited. I'm excited. This is the big stuff you come to the show for. That kind of hack. Ken talking about how he tightened up. That's what we all want to hear.

Listen, you get a health exam. Yeah. And now they do them without health exams, which is interesting. What? Yeah, it's a new thing. All the kids are doing it, Ken. It's all the rage. Because I had to go through the full blood test. Same. Same. Not doing that anymore. This is your version of, I had to walk uphill both ways back in my day. It's so true. Oh my gosh. Well, first of all, that hack is now irrelevant. You're right. Yeah. I mean, you still do exams, but there are versions where you can do

it without the health exam. So a lot of options out there. You can get connected with our friends at Zander if you guys are interested in term life. George, you're so smart. I'm here for you, Ken. Ben joins us in Spokane, Washington. Ben, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you so much for having me. Sure.

How can we help? All right. My name is Ben. I'm 19. I have about $10,000 in investments and about $5,000 in cash, and I'm debt-free. I just recently got my first credit card, and I'm having a really hard time going against my saving instinct. It was just something my parents kind of pressured me into getting, and I just am having a really hard time understanding why I need this intangible thing called credit. Ben, you are speaking my language, man.

How do I overcome this? Okay, so the truth is, and your parents are very well-meaning, and they love you, but they fell for the trap. And here's the trap. Telling your kid they have to get a credit card. And why did they tell you to get a card, Ben? To build up credit. Boom! To get your credit score up. And why do you need a high credit score? To pay for a house. To get loans. To get loans. That's the only thing you need a credit score for, and the truth is you don't.

And I can tell you this because I am a practitioner of this. I was able to get my mortgage, which is now paid off, without any credit score. Wow. Is that shocking? Why does everyone just seem to have a credit card then? It just seems as though I'm not. Ben, we are asking the same question every day on The Ramsey Show. Ben, it's called marketing. Think about how many...

I want you to watch TV the next three or four nights. You youngsters don't watch network TV. Watch how many commercials there are for a credit card. It's insane. There's a lot. A lot. Would your parents sit down and listen to a podcast with you, just one episode?

Yeah. Okay. I'm going to parents sit down and listen to a podcast with you, just one episode? Yeah. Okay. Ooh, I like this. I'm going to point you in the direction of my podcast, The Fine Print. Episode 7 is called The Dirty Truth Behind Your Credit Score. And if you want to talk credit card rewards, episode 2 is titled The True Cost of Credit Card Rewards. So if you want to have a fun hour, listen to both of those episodes with them, and we dig into all of those myths about credit. And your parents are not dumb people.

They're smart, but they just fell for the normal American traps of, well, you've got to have your credit score to build your credit. And how do you do that? Well, you've got to go into debt, and you've got to pay it perfectly and get more debt so that you can get a perfect credit score. But everything that they say you can't do without a credit score, I have done. I am like a unicorn. Ken, it's amazing. I rent cars. I rent hotels.

I bought a house. I pay cash for cars, which means they don't need to look at my credit score, which, by the way, is invisible. Ben, are you hearing this? George is living outside the matrix. You can too. I am loving it. It's so fun. Episode 7 of The Fine Print.

I'm not kidding you. Your parents will actually like it. George is very entertaining, as you can tell. It's a blast. It's a great listen, and I think it'll be fun. Now, don't sit there and go, I told you, Mom and Dad. Let them listen to it and process it.

But then, as soon as the episode is done, I want you to cut up the credit card in front of them and say, I love you guys. I have the credit card in my hand. Well, do it after the episode. Do it now. Film it and then send it to me on Instagram, at George Camel. I'd love to see that.

This is going to be fun. I can't wait. Ben, thanks so much for the call, man. You're doing great, but don't fall for the traps. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Our scripture for the day comes from Isaiah 54.10. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken, nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the Lord who has compassion on you.

Henry Ford said, The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one's destiny to do, and then do it. I bet Ken Coleman loves that quote. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Yeah. Figure out what you were born to do. Man, good stuff there.

All right. Matt joins us this hour in Indianapolis. Matt, welcome to the show. Hello. Thank you so much for having me on. Absolutely. How can Ken and I help? So I'm a college sophomore. I've been fortunate enough for my parents to be able to pay for my education, so I have no debt. I have a little bit over $5,000 in investments and mutual funds, about $1,800 in the bank. And I'm getting married in May, so I'm excited about that.

Hey, congratulations. Oh, thank you. Now, the issue is after graduating and being married, we're probably going to have roughly around $150,000 to $190,000 in student loan debt. Now, you said you didn't have debt? I don't. It is, yeah, it's from her, but the moment we say I do, it's a we. Okay, I just want to make sure.

What field is she going into? Public relations. Wow. And it was about $200,000 in student loan debt for her? On the high end, it's difficult for us to get an exact estimate at the moment. We're working with some experts in our area who kind of understand how much we can get in federal grants or in scholarship money once we're married. But now it's a little bit difficult for us to estimate that. That could help lower that number. Yes. But my question is, I have a little bit over $5,000 in investments for retirement.

So I was wondering if I should move that over into the student loan debt the moment we get married, or should I let that accumulate interest, hold it for retirement, or put it into that debt a little bit later? You're saying these are retirement accounts? Is this an IRA or a 401k? Not actually at the moment. Right now, it's just a money market. A taxable brokerage account. At the moment, it is, yes. The plan was to change that after college. I didn't know if I'd need the cash sooner or later. Okay. Okay. You were worrying me there. I didn't know if I'd need the cash sooner or later. Okay, okay, you were worrying me there. I don't want you to touch it if it's actually retirement accounts,

but you're saying you were just saving for retirement. For the most part, yeah. Okay, all right. If this is just a taxable brokerage account, this is not retirement, meaning you're not going to pay penalties on this, then yes, I would cash it out once you guys are married and use that to kickstart the debt payoff. Okay.

When are you guys getting married? The end of this coming May. Okay. And you're not working yet? Not at the moment. We do have various campus jobs. I have an internship this summer at a major attraction in Pigeon Forge, and then she's applying for an internship down there as well.

So we will have cash flow throughout the summer and also throughout the school years. We'll have a small cash flow. What's your major? What's your career going to be once you graduate and get a job? I'm currently a double major in marketing and business management with a minor in computer systems. And then I'm going into theme park management. So I'm looking to be making hopefully around $45,000 to $50,000 out of college with growth potential out of that. Okay.

And you assume she'll hopefully get a job in public relations and be making something similar to you? Yeah. Okay. Well, that puts you guys at probably, let's just say, round number is $100,000 for your gross income. And you've got a pile of debt that's $150. So this is a mountain, and you guys can do this,

but you're going to need to possibly work some side jobs and get that income up as fast as possible because I want you to pay off this debt very quickly. I don't want this to be a six-, seven-year journey for you guys. Yeah, that's definitely the goal, and we're definitely of the rice and beans mindset. We already have a worst-case scenario and best-case scenario budget set out for the summer. Good.

My parents are baby steps millionaires who teach financial peace. So we've been able to learn those things over time. But the main question is just over those investments, whether I should hold them or... Yeah, if they're not actually retirement, I would just cash those out as you guys get married and use that to make a dent in these student loans. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. Appreciate the question, Matt. All right, moving on. We are headed to Little Rock, Arkansas.

Stephanie joins us there. Stephanie, welcome to the show. Are you with us, Stephanie? Did you make it? We lost Stephanie. Oh, there we go. Talk to me, Stephanie, nice and clear, directly into your phone. Okay, can you hear me now?

Yes. Okay. Okay, so I'm calling because my husband and I are in a little bit of a debate. So let me just give you a little bit of background of where we're at. We're both 50, and we plan to work about another 10 years. The only debt we have right now is our home, and it's valued at about $225,000, and we only owe $164,000 on it. Okay.

My husband's going to be able to retire from his job in about a year and a half. He'll get another job doing something else. But when he retires, he will receive a pension. Are you wanting amounts? Sure. Okay. We have about $110,000 in a 401K. We have about $90,000 in an IRA.

And he'll probably receive around $400,000 in a 401k. We have about $90,000 in an IRA, and he'll probably receive around $400,000 for his pension if he makes it the full one and a half years. The thing is, we're just in a really volatile time right now, and we're not sure if he'll make it the full time because they're laying off like crazy, but we're praying that he's going to make it. We're thinking with the positive, you know, with our faith and everything and believing that he'll make to make it. We're thinking with the positive, you know, with our faith and everything and believing that he'll make it the full year and a half. So we're going to look at it from that perspective. Okay. So what's the argument? Okay. So the argument is he, he listens to you guys all the time. I listen when I can, but I'm a teacher, so I'm not going to be able

to listen as much as he does. So he works from home, so he can just put something on while he's working. So he has been understanding. You guys are saying pay off your home, pay off your home, get out of debt completely. Yes. Okay, well, my thinking is that we should take the money, invest it, and then take all the dividends and pay extra on the home and probably get it paid

off in 10 years or so, as well as the extra payments we already pay on our home. So, okay, so that's it. That's pretty much it. What's left on the mortgage? $164,000. It's going to take you 10 years to pay off $164,000? Well, you know, we don't have any other debt, and we both make pretty good. So if we, maybe it'll take longer than 10. What's your household income? Almost $200,000. Hold on. I'm just so confused. You make $200,000, and you're going to wait 10 years to pay off $160,000? Well, yeah. I mean, we still have other things that we do. our household bills and stuff

sure you could put a big chunk on this mortgage every month yes that's true and you guys have no debt right you got no debt and you have an emergency fund that's true yes we do have three kids so there's expenses how much are you putting extra on it you said you're already doing putting extra on the on the mortgage what are already doing putting extra on the mortgage. What are you doing? We pay about a payment and a half a year extra. You can do better than that. I'm going to push you guys. You're probably right.

You could probably, making $200,000, I mean, it's time to, are you guys doing a monthly budget together? We do. Okay. I mean, make sure, you know, four, five, six, we're doing 15% into retirement, no more than that. We're then putting some money away for kids' college, nothing crazy. And then we're putting everything extra we have, all the margin we can, onto the house.

Okay. And if you do that, start using the mortgage calculator, the payoff calculator at RamseySolutions.com, and make a plan. Not just wishing and hoping that it gets paid off in 10 years ago. You know what? We're going to put this much a month and two years from now, three years from now, this mortgage is gone. And once that's gone, now the rest of our working career, we can sock up for retirement and we're going to have an awesome life. But right now we're trying to do a lot of things at once, using the dividend money to pay off the house and all kinds of things. So that's what I would do. That's our plan. And if you do it that way, you're going to thank me later. Appreciate the call.

That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. My thanks to my co-host, my co-pilot, Ken Coleman, our team in the booth, James Childs, Ben Hill, Kelly Daniel, and you, America. Thank you guys so much for listening. We'll be back with you before you know it. This is The Ramsey Show. Have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life? Let them know about the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast. It's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes.

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