The Ramsey Show - App - Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Welcome to the Ramsey Show, where we help you win in your life, specifically with your money, with your work, and in your relationships. Alongside George Campbell, I'm Ken Coleman. Thrilled to be with you guys today. 888-825-5225 is the number to jump in. 888-825-5225. All right, let's start it off with Amy in Minneapolis. Amy, how can we help?

Well, I am turning 61 in two weeks. All right. That sounds exciting. Early birthday. And I have been good with my money all along, but I have failed to have a retirement fund. And I'm wondering at this point what I can do or so that I can retire maybe at 67. All right. Oh, okay. So we're working with six years to retire and you have zero. George is going to walk you through this, but just a couple of quick questions. You have zero or you have very little or you, what's the real, real here? I have no retirement fund, but I do have, I have cash, and I have no real debt. The only debt I have is about $9,000 that I took out a 0% interest loan and did some updates on my house. Okay.

Sure sounds like real debt to me. Well, yeah. But other than that, I have no debt. What kind of cash do you have? About $200,000. And what's that sitting in? A couple bank accounts. Just in checking accounts?

Or normal savings accounts? Are they making 0%? No, they're making a little bit there's a couple of them in in savings and then some of it's just cash okay so we can get that money invested working for you at least what is your income about i do child care um about it varies every year but but around like $57,000. $57,000. Okay. And do you have any pension or anything like that?

Any other retirement income we should be aware of? Nope. Okay. I have a life insurance, a small life insurance policy that's all I have. Okay. And are you living alone? Yes. All right. Right now. My 19-year-old is away at college, but I mean, he'll be here when he's not at college. Okay. And are you a homeowner? I own my home, yes. It's paid for? No mortgage? It's been paid for for, yep, no mortgage. Good. What's that worth? I'm thinking around $280. Okay. And what are your monthly expenses? Have you added this up to see,

here's my monthly budget, here's what I need to live? My monthly expenses are about $1,675. Okay, great. So here's some good news. You don't need a lot to survive. Now, I don't know what your retirement plans are. I don't know if you had big dreams. We might need to change that picture based on the reality of where we're at. Right. But based on my math, you're going to need, you know, and this is not including healthcare if there's any other needs you have, but you're talking about 20 grand a year is what you're going to be spending. Okay. So here's the good news. If you put the majority of your savings into the stock market, into a good growth stock mutual fund or an index fund, you would see on average over, you know, the next 20, 30 years in your retirement, 10 to 12% return, which means you put 200 in on average, again, not every year, you're going to

see $20,000, another $20,000. And so that gives me some hope that you're not going to be out on the street. But we're also not going to be eating out and going on vacations. This is going to be a bare bones retirement. Okay. Now, if you could invest a big portion of your income, now that you have a paid for house, how much could you invest every month from your income? Could you do, let's say, $2,000? Every month? Yes. Probably not.

I could probably do a thousand. Well, you told me your expenses are about $1,600. You're taking home probably close to $4,000, right? Yeah, it just depends on the time of the year. During the summer, I make a lot more because I have way more children. Well, Ken can help you fill in the gaps of income. But if you have stable income, you could invest $2,000 every single month from age 61 to 67. You'd likely have around $200,000 sitting in that investment account.

Okay. So that is one option on top of the savings you have putting that into the market. I also would recommend you sit down with a financial advisor and actually crunch these numbers and they'll walk you through to make sure you're understanding where you're putting this money. I don't want you to do it because George said or Ken said. I want you to do it because Amy understands. I've always, and that's kind of why I haven't done. do it because George said or Ken said. I want you to do it because Amy understands.

And that's kind of why I haven't done. I just don't understand any of it. And I've always been afraid of it. And I've watched too much American Greed. Well, I keep thinking of this line for you. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next time is today. And so I know you're 60 and you feel behind. There's probably some guilt that you could have done more. You should have done more. You should have been investing. But I'm telling you, it's not too late to have some dignity in retirement, but it starts today. We can't have the excuse any longer of, well, I just don't know what I'm doing. Ignorance was bliss until this call. Okay. Yep. I get it. Now let's talk about that seasonal income gap. What are you doing in the wintertime?

What changes that you don't have enough work? I have work. I do childcare. And so during the summer, I get a full house. I have all the kids from school, school-age children. So I have 12 kids all summer long. And then during the winter, kids go off to school, and I tend to have less. And this year I chose to have a few less because I took my first grandbaby. I'm watching her.

And with a baby, it's just a lot more work. And so I've had less children during the years. Are you getting paid to watch the baby, or is this just grandma stuff? Partially. Okay. So what would be— Not a lot. So let's say, just for sake of numbers, okay,

let's say that there wasn't a drop-off between the summer and the rest of the year. How much more additional money would you make of over and above the $57,000? What do you think that that number would be if you just had the same amount of kids all year round? Probably another $20,000, $30,000. I don't know. Yeah.

So that's the thing I want you to think about. George has done a great job laying out, okay, what you need to do. And here's the thing I want you to think about. George has done a great job laying out, okay, what you need to do. And here's the deal. That $200,000 is something to build on plus your existing money as you're putting in $1,000 a month. But I want to challenge you to just believe what you just said. Let's round down. Let's say you did something to go, okay, I'm going to be more aggressive

and talking about it. There are parents everywhere around you who would much rather have their child with you. It's probably even more affordable than what they're looking at in the marketplace. There is no shortage of children who need to be watched. So with a little bit of aggression, more intentionality, letting people know, let's say you were able to make an additional $20,000 a year over the next six years. Okay. That's a lot of money, George, coming back to your calculator. She can now put two, maybe three grand a month away. And all of a sudden... Changes your retirement drastically.

It changes it. And you might need to work until 70. That's right. You get to retire when the numbers say you do, not when you just decide. And so jump on a ramsaysolutions.com, get in touch with a smart investor pro. They can walk you through the investing portion. And this is going to take work. And you got to remember, inflation is going to be, that's going to be kicking your retirement in the pants. So you got to get on top of this thing and start investing instead of just saving. But George and I are both, we really believe, Amy, you can do this. I think this is extra income.

And I do think this is tightening of the expenses as well. And you can get there. All right, quick break. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back, America. Thrilled to have you with us alongside the incomparable and the very, very sharp-dressed man, George Campbell. I'm Ken Coleman. So kind. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. Taking your money questions and your income questions.

So George is our money resident. I might pipe in. I've been known to do it. You've got a lot of great thoughts. But I'm more in the win with the income, right? Are we winning at work so that we have the opportunity to make more money? So if you're feeling stuck professionally, we're going to equate that to our financial situation. So I'm here to help on that as well. Ken will help you afford eggs.

That's right. That's the goal today. Have you noticed? Do you eat a lot of eggs? I went out and bought eggs last night. All right. And I was shocked. I told the cashier, I said, I thought egg prices were supposed to be jacked up. This is a reasonable price. I even opted for the pasture-raised. Did you?

I really went all out. You went high end. $4.99. Very reasonable. The cost of eggs are actually moving up, so we'll see what happens. But they're really good for you. Let's go to Jason in Houston, Texas. Jason, how can we help today?

Hey, guys. How are you? We're having fun. What's going on? Yeah. So I want to be, try to be succinct and, um, not really reveal too much, but as much as I can, um, what do we need to know here? Do we need to be careful in how we ask follow-up questions? I'm beginning to think your real name isn't Jason. Oh, anything you need to ask. Um, okay. Basically, um, me and my fiance are, uh, getting

married. Um, we're just doing a one-on-one ceremony, me and her in the, in about a month. And we had decided, um, to, uh, fund this ourselves. And our budget was around 10 to $12,000. Um, in In the initial discussions I was going to bring X amount of money. She was going to bring a significant portion so I was going to bring around $2,500. She was going to cover the rest. When we had this discussion, when we planned this, I had decided, or excuse me, I had budgeted based on projected income for the month of January and how much margin I would have in my budget. That did not come to fruition and it's created a strain because I'm not able to contribute the portion that I thought I would be able to. I'm in a very tight

budget right now. I will follow that up with, I am bringing debt into this marriage. From the second we even discussed marriage, she's had a full look into my finances. She sees what I spend. There's nothing hidden. And we have agreed that when we combine our finances when we get married, that we're going to do the marriage we plan to bring the debt, to attack the debt that I'm bringing into the marriage. So a couple things. There is a lot of shame and guilt on my end too. And on her end, I think there might be some not necessarily

resentment building, but I don't want that to happen. And yesterday there was kind of some expression of that. Well, let me ask you a quick question. She's fully aware of your finances, which means she's probably very fully aware of your work and how you get paid. And that sounds like you had no control over this income. So she's disappointed, yes. But does she understand the circumstances by which the money hasn't come in like you thought it would? Yes, yes. And that's kind of the question. All right, second question. Second question. I thought, and I don't know if, George, you heard this, so I'm coming to you, Jason. I thought you started off the call by saying we're having a one-on-one wedding. Yes, sir.

We're open. So why $10,000? Yeah, I don't understand. This was kind of the dream that she had and what we had thought we could budget for. And so there's been deposits placed, airline tickets placed, thin money already spent that would be really hard to sort of bring up. Okay, so hold on a second. Hold on.

So she had a vision for a wedding, and now we can't afford it, so now we're opting for the one-on-one at the courthouse? Well, no. It's still affordable, Just the portion that I was supposed to afford. I just don't understand, George, why we're spending 12 grand. Let's say you can't give this $2,500, you can't give a dime. What changes about this wedding a month from now? What can't we do that we said we were going to do? Well, that's exactly the question. We can do it, and per our conversation last night, the sort of thought is just get it done. But my question is more relational.

I don't want there to be any harbored resentment or doubt from her because I was not able to uphold my end of the bargain. Here's the third question. Is there a pattern of you making a promise, telling her something, and then it not coming to fruition? Are you letting her down? Is this the first time this has happened? As far as I know, absolutely not, no. And 100% transparency, no. Have you told her about this yet? Just be honest with her and say,

hey, listen, I was expecting this income. Oh yeah, they talked about that. But she expressed some disappointment. She was upset about it. There's a lot of emotion already with planning a wedding and doing this even if it's just one-on-one it's a big life change and i think this just probably triggered something inside of her going this man is he going to be able to provide is he going to be able to be the partner and leader that i need him to be so it's probably causing some bigger questions in her mind and i think that's worth a second conversation with her okay and it's the same that i'm feeling as well and that's and i guess i just curious about how to uh how did i support approach that well so okay i think that andably i can do between now and then okay so we can't really answer that until we understand what happened. What is the nature of your job?

Or could you share with us briefly the circumstances that led to you not getting paid what you projected that you might? What happened? Yeah, very easily. I do two things. I'm a field inspector, and I sell real estate. And my field inspection job is my main source of income. I make basically just enough to pay my bills to get by with that. And then real estate, I switched brokerages back to a brokerage that I have been affiliated with before. So when I made this change,

we discussed it and said, hey, I can either focus my attention at this real estate and see the benefits from that three to six months from now. I've done that before. I know what it looks like. Or I can in the immediate, in the next three months, go get a job doing whatever on the side to stack cash for this elopement. And we decided that the first option was how I would proceed. There was about a $2,000 job through this field inspection job that I do that I was anticipating and told would happen in January, and that money was earmarked for the elopement,

and that work never came to fruition through the company that I'm working with. Okay. So you have another month to go? Is this wedding in March? Yes, sir. Okay. So you can go do a side gig, you know, one of these kind of Instacart, Uber Eats, whatever it is. You can go sign up for one of those and go make

$500 a week until the wedding. Okay. And that is my thought. Do whatever it takes. I think that'll prove to her that you're serious about yeah i i get it george that's a great suggestion jason honestly bro you you've got some self-belief issues okay so that's going to need to be dealt with number one but the best way to kind of deal with this you're down in the the dumps. Dude, you sound like what maybe a balloon that's lost all its air would sound like

if they were talking. That's what you sound like. And I'm not making fun of you. I'm saying that's what it sounds like. You sound so deflated. But George is right. Bro, you can make $2,500 between now and that wedding day,

and I would start doing it. Okay. Now, sell something. If you can't sell something, come up with $300, go sell it for somebody else. Go to all your friends. I mean, I'm telling you, bro, like this is your chance to feel good about yourself. I understand why you're deflated. But, man, this is an opportunity for you to go, wait a second.

I can earn $2,500 between now and wedding day, and I'm going to absolutely die trying. And I'm going to do it. I'm going to find all the ways to do it. And that's all I'm doing. I'm waking up going, I've got a, you need a poster board in your bedroom, on your mirror, looking at some type of a thermometer that people do like $2,500 or bust. If there's 35 days for the wedding, say, I'm going to make $100 every day no matter what. Come hell or high water. Yeah. So, I mean, let's go.

And then here's the deal. And then enter into this marriage all in with your wife-to-be on the baby steps. How can we, let's give them a wedding gift, George. What should we do? Oh, I love it. I think Financial Peace University for the two of you would be great, along with Breaking Free from Broke for you specifically, Jason. Read the Margin is Breathing Room chapter. I've got 10 ways to make more, 10 ways to spend less. If you do both of those things, you're going to find that margin to save up.

And I want you to have that next conversation, not with a mopey attitude, but with optimism, with an excitement, with an enthusiasm that she goes, oh, my gosh, this is a new Jason. That's right. And tell her, I'm going to come up with a $2,500, babe. Don't worry about it. I may not see much of you, but it's going to be a great wedding. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way,

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them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show alongside George Camel. I'm Ken Coleman. Phone number is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Hey, it's time for our question of the day, brought to you by our good friends at YRefi. Now, you know we don't recommend refinancing on everything, but for distressed private student loans, there's YRefi.

We trust YRefi because they help you with a low fixed interest rate that you couldn't get anywhere else to help you stick to your budget and get out of debt. Learn more at YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. It may not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Felix in North Dakota. Bitcoin has been going through the roof recently, and it looks like it's becoming more and more of a stable investment.

Do you now recommend it as an investment, or do you still believe it's too dangerous of an investment and that people should steer clear of it? Oh. Good question. I'm actually interested to see what you say about this. I'm excited to clear the air on Bitcoin, because people really want to know my opinion, said no one.

Here's the deal. I've never been anti-Bitcoin. We took a call yesterday, Ken. Young man had every single one of his dollars in Bitcoin. Had nothing in savings, everything in Bitcoin. And he'd been doing really well. And he asked us, well, what's wrong with this? And I'm going, you've been alive for four days.

So, yeah, if you just think this is And I'm going, you've been alive for four days. So yeah, if you just think this is how it's always going to be, then sure. But we've seen things. We've seen Bitcoin drop 50% in value in 2022. It's 24-7. There's a lot of fraud and scams around the crypto world right now. It's been on a wild trend up lately. And so you're going, well, why invest in the stock market to get a measly 10% when I could get 1,000%? So what it really comes down to is what I call the three stooges of wealth, which trips people up, especially young people. It's fear, greed, and pride. So it's the I'm so scared.

There's the FOMO of I got to get in this now or else I'm going to be broke forever. There's the pride of well i know better there's a little bit of arrogance there and then there's the greed of just like i'm not gonna settle for 12 and a slow way to wealth when i can make it a lot faster and so with bitcoin it's like investing in any single stock that's been on a wild ride you know you see nvidia going up and then deep seek from china came out and Nvidia takes it. And there's all this just gyration and fear in the market of what anything's going to do. And it's why I recommend diversifying. So it really comes down to diversifying versus Bitcoin equals bad. And it's more that you got

all your eggs in one basket. That's too much risk for one person to handle. And so if you want to invest in Bitcoin, I can't say invest. If you want to speculate in Bitcoin, put some money in that after you've already invested 15% of your income into retirement, into tax advantage, retirement plans, proven mutual funds and index funds, be my guest and use your fund money to do that. Knowing this is money you could burn on the table. But putting all the chips in on Bitcoin, I'm telling you, I think history is going to show that was a very risky move. now there's bitcoin billionaires out there who are going haha and they're laughing from their private islands

right now that could be the case well I think it's here I think I think there's no question that cryptocurrency is here to stay so um as a technology the blockchain it's here yeah and I would say bitcoin is here I'm not saying bitcoin can't fall I'm not saying I disagree with anything you said in fact I agree with everything I would say to somebody here. I'm not saying Bitcoin can't fall. I'm not saying I disagree with anything you said. In fact, I agree with everything. I would say to somebody, yeah, if you want to invest in Bitcoin, I would treat it just like we tell people to go sit down with a smart investor pro and learn about the strategies so that you understand what you're doing. But I agree with you that it should be a part of a diversified strategy,

not all eggs in that basket. I agree with that. And that's just smart investing strategy. But I will say this, my position on crypto and Bitcoin early on was, it's risky right now, but there will come a day, and I still hold this. And I think Trump, by the way, is already rattling his saber on this. Well, he's already made a bajillion dollars doing it. He has. So, of course, he's a fan. I know, but I'm saying you're going to see this become regulated just like banking, just

like their stocks. And I think when it becomes regulated, because it will on some level, some people would take issue with me on that, and I'm okay with that. I am making a prediction here. But I believe that once it's regulated, I believe it becomes far more stable. I'm not a fan of regulation as a whole, but there needs to be – it's the wild, wild west right now. Yeah. No, I'm with you on that.

I think there will be a mutual fund filled with different cryptocurrencies. So diversification is the answer. I agree with you. I just wanted to add that little two cents there that I don't think you should feel like, oh, it's stupid to invest in it. No, I think it's just like any other investment. You got to do your homework. What level of risk? Have you sat down with a good professional? So we talk about the smart investor pros that are out there, okay? And we link to them and you can go meet them. You talk with any investment professional. One of the first things they're going to talk to you about is where are you at?

We're in your finances. And what's your level of risk? And so I would treat any crypto thing as a high risk thing right now. And the other piece of this we didn't talk about is that Bitcoin isn't based in anything. When you invest in a mutual fund, it's filled with 90 to 200 stocks of actual companies producing real products and services and real revenue that's right you can attribute to that and therefore what is it based on well a lot of hype a lot of well my buddy said and they're investing so it must be good well it is a currency it is you're investing in a uh an alternative currency and that's the bet it's like like gold. People that invest in gold,

well, you're investing in crypto. And the last thing I do is I go, what are actual wealthy people doing with their money? And what I found is most of them aren't saying, oh dude, you got to get in on crypto. They might be dabbling in there with a very, very tiny percent of their world. They're not going all in on it. And so if you want to know how actual wealthy people invest, Dave Ramsey will be unpacking that in a two-night virtual event called Investing Essentials. I'll be joining him. And here's the deal. We know that if you're following social media, you're going to get investing advice from a 60-second TikTok reel or Instagram reel. That's dangerous. At this virtual event, over two nights,

two hours a night, we're going to walk you through how to maximize your retirement plans, how to choose the right funds, how to get the most out of your money, how to invest with confidence. Plus, it's the only place you're going to hear Dave unpacking his personal playbook on real estate investing, which is fascinating stuff, something he's never done here on the show. This is brand new information. You're going to get the clarity you need to invest. So join us March 4th and 5th in the comfort of your home.

It's completely virtual. Tickets start at $199. Get yours today at ramsaysolutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes if you're on podcast or YouTube. All right, great. Let's go to Alicia who's joining us in San Antonio, Texas. Alicia, how can we help? Hey, thanks for having me. Sure. What's going on? So my husband and I are trying to get out of debt. Right now we have a $26,000 car loan. We want to get rid of that for an $8,000 2012 minivan. But we would be rolling over negative equity if we decide to roll over.

Can you just not? Why are you trying to go into debt again? Well, that's the thing. We're trying to get out of this car loan. What's it worth? We owe negative equity about $4,000 to $6,000. Okay. So it's worth about $22,000? And my husband?

$20,000 or $22,000? Sorry, what was that? The car is worth $20,000 to 20 to 22 grand if you sold it today. If we sold it to CarMax today, 22. If we sold it to the dealership, about 18. Well, why not sell it private party and get 25? I don't think it would be worth that much. Well, you know, CarMax is buying it at 22,

and they're going to sell it for 28. They're buying it at $22,000, and they're going to sell it for $28,000. They're buying it at a discount from you, and so you're getting screwed on these kind of trade-in deals, and they're going to try to then sell you on a car you can't afford again. I'd rather see you sell at Private Party, clean it up, sell it on Facebook Marketplace for $25,000 or $26,000, and be as little underwater as possible if not break even. The thing about private party, it just doesn't sound safe. And I don't want to screw myself over selling a private party. It doesn't sound safe.

You mean meeting strangers to look at the car? Meet in a public place in daylight, bring someone with you. No, no, no, not like that. Like, I mean, like, legit. Like, if I sell at private party, I would have to make sure that... Go to the bank with them. Yeah, go to the bank, ask for a cashier's check, go to the bank, have it cashed. They'll verify the funds are there. This happens all the time.

It's not worth losing $4,000 over. Do you guys have any money in cash to cover the negative equity? Yeah, we have about $3,000. Okay, that will clear it. You still don't have the $8,000 for this minivan, so we need to figure out what we're going to do. If that's going to a local credit union to get the difference so that you can get a cheaper car. But I think we still need to figure out how we get an even cheaper car for now until we can upgrade to the $8,000 minivan. But I would not roll the negative equity. Bad plan. This is going to keep you where you're at. Thanks for the call, Alicia. You can do this. I've done this so many times over the

last couple of years, buying cars for my teenagers and selling. All right, quick break. We'll be right back. He's George Campbell. I'm Ken Coleman. This is The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system.

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at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Thrilled to have you with us, America. Alongside George Campbell, I'm Ken Coleman. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. Hey, there's a lot that happens in your mind, in your emotions, and just activities when it comes to buying and selling a house. And that leads to feeling paralyzed, feeling overwhelmed. And so we created Ramsey's Real Estate Home Base, right? Just kind of a safe place. What's there at the Ramsey Real Estate Home Base? Calculator, start to finish guides, how-to articles, a podcast, a book, and even a video course, all with steps that you can take to navigate the buying or selling process.

So if you're ready to take the next step, do it with confidence. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate, ramseysolutions.com slash real estate, or you can click the link in the show notes if you're watching, listening on YouTube or podcast. Let's go to Ottawa, Canada now. Sue is there. Sue, how can we help? Hello. How are you, Sue?

Hi, thank you. I'm good. Thank you for taking the call. I'm calling from Canada, Ottawa. So I have a couple of collections. I think it's seven. Yeah, I have a couple of collections I think it's seven I have seven different collections three of mine, four is mine

and three from my husband Are you talking about collections? Yep we are in collections right now and the amount is not too much it's around $14,000 each around $2,000 and so last month $14,000. Okay. Each air on $2,000.

And so last month, my husband started working full time. We are new in Canada. We came as a refugee. And first three years, we didn't speak English. So all three years, we were just educating ourselves to speak English. Where are you guys from? To get a better life here. We are from Turkey.

Wow. Okay. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So first three years, we got an English course from college, so we had all stuff, like student loan. But it wasn't the best course because it was an academic course, but we didn't even speak English. It didn't help us.

It didn't help you actually get a career? No, it wasn't for career. It was just to learn English, but we chose the wrong option, to be honest. Okay. Instead of three English courses, we chose to go to college, and we couldn't finish the course because it was a heavy academic English course, and we didn't even speak English. You couldn't understand it enough. No, nothing. So our community, our Turkish community gave us bad advice,

and they told us we have to get two cars on loan and do Uber during those times. That's what we did, and everything went even worse. So I sold my car, and my husband finished his loan this month. Yeah, this was the last month. And during that time we find a free PSW course from government. We take that course, first me, and then I start working and then my husband. So last three years we were just having one income coming in the home. So we just avoid all the debt.

And this month my husband started getting his salary. So we just avoid all the debt. And this month, my husband started getting his salary. So our income is doubled. I'm earning around $3,500 and he earns around $4,000. This is the money comes to our account. This is per month. That's your take-home pay after taxes get taken out. Yes. Wonderful. So you're making $7,500 take home every month. Yes. And our, how do you say outcome? No, income expense. Our expenses are around $2,500, but also the food.

So we can say $3,500. Okay. So $3,500 a month. And that means you should have four thousand dollars left over if you're doing a written budget which is just a plan for your money where you go income minus expenses here's every dollar we're going to spend it looks like it like this was the first month we got the money so we decided to start paying everything and fix the five years mistakes we did it but when I called the collection agency,

they told me that I have to pay in full amount today, and the next seller will come next Friday, and I have to wait. So they told me that I have to call a debt consolidation company. No, don't listen to them. They're lying to your face. They're trying to bully you into paying. You don't have to do anything.

So I told them that I will pay it in six months the whole seven collections, but they all want me to pay this month. They keep calling me ten times a day. I'm it's killing me right now. So we decided to talk with

the debt recovery agency just to learn what is that and they made resettlements all the debts and they said that now it's ten thousand dollars they send us the paper thank god we know english now so we can read it and it says uh that we will pay back $26,000 back. They're scamming you. Unbelievable amounts. Yeah, so we said no. But now, since yesterday, my phone is, like, they keep calling me

because they got my numbers now. Don't answer. Every single agency. And every time I call them, they will be snowballed. They're trying to pressure you to get so stressed that you'll do anything it takes, even taking out a debt consolidation. Sue, don't answer the calls you talk to one person in a supervisor role at all these different places and say we are going to pay you back and and and this is when i'm going

to do it and you get it in writing say every friday i'm going to call you with an update but don't call me i will not pick up yeah you don you will hear from me. You don't have to answer their call. They are not the law. But they told me that there will be legal in secret. I don't know that word. Listen, if they want to take you to court over a $2,000 debt, be my guest. It's going to cost you more in lawyer fees than it will what I owe you.

They are threatening you. So you let them know, hey, I'm trying to pay this off aggressively. Here's my plan. Here's what I can do and when. Put the ball in your court. Don't let anyone bully you. Don't let them take advantage of you. Don't fall for these debt settlement companies.

Don't fall for debt consolidation. This is on you guys to pay off on your own, and you will do that with your newfound income. This is an amazing blessing. You're going to have over $4,000 a month to throw at this. You're going to be done with all of this within four months. Think about that. Oh yeah. We did a math and it was saying six months. We can do it for amazing. George Math says four months. You guys are going to live off nothing. You're going to grocery shop

and just enough rice and beans to where you don't need anything else. You're not going to buy clothes. We're going to really look at every dollar. We're going to have full accountability with you and your husband. We're not going to spend anything we don't need to for the next four months. Can you do that? We are doing that last five years, so for sure, we can do that. Good. You guys are warriors. You have been through a lot, and I hate that you're getting taken advantage of after being refugees and moving to Canada. You guys have had a lot of life change. It's been really hard, and you've been grinding it out, learning a new language, entering this new atmosphere, and all the while getting taken advantage of. And we have to also remember,

we did this to ourselves. So there's a personal responsibility of, yeah, we chose to go into debt. We chose to put ourselves in this position. But you guys are getting out of this. The biggest problem, one of the biggest problems, we have one debt in collection. It's $75. Like, I don't even know how we did that. I can't understand. I mean, it's just $75.

We didn't see it. We didn't know how to use the online system. I need written verification of all of these debts before I pay a penny. Oh, we did all. They send us. Yeah, they send us. We really have that on one of the credit cards. We just didn't know how to use the online system, and we thought we'd pay it. It was four years ago.

So now what they're telling me is it's not just about money. If I pay all these debts, my credit score will be still the same, so I have to do this loan to get my credit. No, again. Is that true? No, no. This is all they're doing is using tactics to try to get as much money out of you as fast as they can.

But they have no – they're not going to sue you. They don't want to do that. This is a tactic. So you mean – I mean, is there anything, any money that you have that you could pay some of this stuff off today? Any? That'll get them off your back if you just pay something. Not all of it, but something.

George, I mean, I know we got the snowball. I paid two collections yesterday, the minimum ones, the $75 and $660 ones I paid yesterday. It was a big relief. It was a good time. Good. And get written confirmation. Everything, get written confirmation and don't give them any access to your checking account.

Yeah. That's the key here. And once you do that and you put the ball in your court, you're going to feel a sense of relief and confidence. You're going to get out of this. But do not let anyone bully you any longer. We're done with that. Yeah.

And it's really important when you use the right word. What would you do if you were on a playground right now and somebody started bullying you? Be an adult knowing what you know. You know what you'd do? You'd go, knock this off. Knock it off. What are we doing? This is the dumbest thing I've ever... This is stupid. You're not going to punch me.

Get out of my face. And you've got to do that with these collections, folks. They're the worst. Alright, Sue, we're rooting for you. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome to The Ramsey Show, America, where we help you win with your money, win in your profession, and win with your relationships. Phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Thrilled

to be alongside my pal, the smartly attired and well-equipped financial guru. He is the one, the only. That's impressive. George Camel with a K. I'm elated to be with you, Ken. Elated. Elated? That's a good word. Let's see if we can keep that going. Looks like we're going to Ken in Denver, Colorado. Oh, there's a lot of Kennergy right now. Ken, how can we help? Hey, guys.

Hey, Ken, you okay? Yeah. You didn't acknowledge the Kennergy joke at all? Just went right over your head? Not interested? I did. I guess I'm processing how over your head, not interested? I did. I guess I'm processing how much Kinn is in the room, I guess. But basically my question is, so right now I feel really stuck in my career.

My wife and I are in the middle of baby steps too. How much do you have left? We've got about $50,000 left, so we're plugging away. Right now, I feel like looking to change careers to find something that I have a growth plan on. My job currently, I feel like I've hit the ceiling without having to move away from where I am. Tell us what you do. So I work for my state agency. I am an equipment trainer.

Basically, I help new employees obtain their CDL license and help with other heavy equipment. Okay, gotcha. And what do you make? So right now I make $57 a year. Okay. All right. Well, let me just tell you, the reason you feel stuck and that you've hit a lid is because you have. Nothing against state employees.

I have been criticized before when I say state government is kind of a dead end, and it is. It's not because I think it's bad. It's because it is, and I used to work for the governor of Virginia. So, sheesh, people, when I say facts, understand what I'm saying. And Ken, you can agree, you're stuck because it is a state agency and there's only so many rungs on the ladder, correct? Right. All right, great. So you're stuck. But the great news about this is it's not because of you. It's because of where you are. So the question becomes, where do you take all this experience you have up to this point in your career and all the skills you've developed, how do you transfer those to the, let's just say, private sector

so you don't have to leave the Denver area or surrounding area, and you can go, okay, I can step in, and I've got not only a chance to make more money, but I've got a ladder of growth. So what does that look like? If I were to just say to you, Ken, based on your skill and experience to this point, what would be the low-hanging fruit or the obvious choices to at least kick the tires on? I mean, for me, it would have, it would involve some type of teaching, whether it's adult teaching, whether working within a company that needs someone to help train new employees on their processes. Great. Because that's what I do, and that's one thing I love about my job.

I love what I do. I have a great job, but just, you know. You just have no room for advancement, and that is a depressing place to be. Right. The only room for advancement at all would be supervising and I would not be doing what I thought. Exactly. So you exchange a little bit of extra money for doing something you don't enjoy. So you've already nailed it. So I love this. So we want to write down, if you and I were in a room with a whiteboard, I would write down training slash instructing.

That's if we can get a gig where you spend the majority of your day training or instructing. That's, if we can get a gig where you spend the majority of your day training or instructing, you're going to be a pretty satisfied fellow, right? Yeah. All right, so we start there. So now we start to look in and around Denver. We go, okay, what are anything that's got the word trainer, instructor in it? I mean, this could be across the board, a lot of different industries. You acknowledge that? Yeah. Well, so I'm not from the Denver area. That's the closest big town. So I'm like from

like Southwest Kansas. So, yeah. Oh, okay. Take everything I just said and just delete the word Denver. But the point is, you're looking in your area, let's say a 30 mile radius, right? Yeah. Let's look. And so you've got to see what's out there and see what is transferable for you. And I would tell you that your skillset and your experience is transferable to probably a lot of different places. And so the the story the narrative is great too uh ken why are you uh considering leaving your current job i love it i love the work but i'm

in state government and so there's very little opportunity for advancement the only advance would be into a role that's not doing this and so i'm ready to move in the private sector that's a great answer george isn't that a great answer doesn't sound flaky no and it also sounds impressive you've been trained by the state and so we got some credibility there you got a long track record good performance reviews correct yeah let's go that's what you're looking for now okay i wanted to jump in right away but now i want to give you a chance to ask any questions around what i've said because that's what i wanted you to hear right out of the gate. That's where you would start. I'm not saying you're limited to what advice I just gave, but you would certainly start there. So what questions do you have that we've not answered?

Well, so my other, I guess part of the question would be during us going through baby step two, would that be the good time to switch careers? Sure, as long as there's no interruption of income. Okay. If it's going to mean going back to school and not working and going to $0, then no. But if this is something where you could do this on the side, get the training you need, and do it on top of, or make that, instead of a leap, it's just a little jump, then we're talking. Yeah. And what's your wife's income?

So my wife is a teacher, so she gets about $47,000 a year. Okay, so you guys are making about $110,000 gross per year? Yeah, about. And on the current trajectory, how long will it take to get out of debt from here? Last I checked, it'll take us a little bit over a year because I work a side, I guess you'd call it a side hustle, as an interim pastor. Okay. So we're able to put most of that to the debt. So we're able to probably be able to get that done in just over a year. So I would continue to do that as a side hustle, do as much of it as you can, figure out what training is needed to move into the private sector, if any, and then pursue that, you know, all that at the same time as you get out of debt. Okay. It sounds like you have,

you know what you need to do is just the confidence of going, should I make this, this move into maybe the private sector? Yeah. You've got a few years of experience at this job, right? Yeah, I've got about three and a half at this position. I've been at the state for about 11 years now. Okay. Yeah.

You're just doing a search for training, instruction, instructor work, and seeing what all is out there. And I think there might be some contract work you could pick up right now before you even decide what's the next full-time move. That's what I would be looking for, just to get momentum and baby step two. But here's the deal. You're going to be okay. Yes, you can make the transition, but you make the transition when you step off of one boat right onto the next boat all right no jumping out in the water yeah yeah you got this ken let's go man i need some kennergy out of you i'll give you the last word are you confident are you confident now i'm getting there all right my man he needed a little kennergy george that's all you need sometimes yeah i think

that's my allotment for saying that word yeah notice i stopped no done. Notice I stopped. I think that's like three or four times too much. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Thrilled that you are with us. Alongside George Campbell, I'm Ken Coleman. The phone number is 888- 825-5225. Let's go to Austin, Texas, and Jake is waiting for us there.

Jake, how are you? Good. How are you doing? We're having a good time. We can't hear you real well. Give me another little sound check there. Hello. Can you hear me now?

Oh, there we go. I don't know what you did. The flick of the wrist, man. Nice move. Awesome. Well, thank you all so much for having me. Quick question. I am just curious. My financial advisor is recommending that I open a whole life plus 100 life insurance policy.

Of course. And so I would just love y'all's wisdom and input on that. Well, here's the simple wisdom. Fire them. Okay. You don't have a financial advisor. You have an insurance salesman posing as a financial advisor. Yeah. So I guess the situation is they are recommending to open this to supplement income if the market is down. No, no. We know all this, Jake. No, we know how the scam works. We're just telling you it's a scam. Yeah, so saving you a little bit of time,

anything you tell us that they told you, we've heard. Yeah. So George is feisty today. Very feisty. I just hate. I believe you ate and left no crumbs. Is that what the kids say? Yeah, yes, ate and left no crumbs.

Thank you for that. Yeah. I'm trying, folks. I'm really trying. I hate nothing more than when people get ripped off, and I'm glad you're catching this before you jumped into it. And we have to tell you, cancel the whole life policy and fire your financial advisor. And so I understand what they're telling you. Here's the key. Any good financial term life insurance. But you should not mix the two. It's a very crappy product. Just the internal cost of this thing could implode eventually because of how expensive it is and how high the commissions are for the insurance agent.

And so they don't have your best interest at heart. That's the bottom line. And any financial advisor who's worth their salt would tell you, oh, Jake does not need whole life insurance. He needs to invest in XYZ fund. And so they should be, I don't know where you found this person. Is this an old buddy of yours? Mutual, one of their like sister companies. Okay. I would say no, thank you. And I'm going to actually pause and I'll circle back when the time comes and then just never circle back. You do it as politely as you need to. And if you want a trustworthy financial advisor, jump on ramsaysolutions.com and click on Trusted Pros. And I can guarantee you they're never going to be pitching you whole life insurance. You just gave me a great idea for a segment that James will never approve.

Hit me. Pitch it. We could do old school shock jock kind of radio, but nothing shocking. And we would be on with Jake. Well, listen, hear me out. Okay. We would be on with Jake right now and we would have James and the fancy, you know, they're all smart back there and they could dial up this guy's

advisor. Oh, we hear it live. And the guy answers, Jake's on the call. We're over here. And Jake goes, Hey, so-and-so, uh, listen, I'm getting back to you on the proposal. I got a couple of guys with me on here and we, you and I now jump in and we go, Hey, so-and-so it's, it's Ken and George from the Ramsey show. And we just had a great talk with jake and jake has authorized us to say this to you no thanks and we hang up the phone that's it we do it for him it's not ugly yeah it's not unkind i'm sure but you just said no thanks and i like it's no thanks i'm down ken i'm down let's do it do you like that it's not unkind and we're not trying to be rude but it's a kind of you're fired, but it's like, by the way, you're on the Ramsey show, and no thanks.

I'm just impressed James liked one of your ideas. You know how rare that is? Well, to be fair to James, my ideas are not necessarily very easy for him to like. Ken's eaten food on the show several times, so I'm pretty sure I don't turn down Ken's ideas that much. I know. I'm actually making James out to be.

He's very nice. He's one of the nicest people on the planet. So pleasant. No, I thought it was fun, James. I really didn't think it was a serious pitch. But if we could do that, I do think it would be entertaining. Here's why I'm saying this. Jake calls.

Here's what's going on. How many times do we get that call in a given month about whole life? Probably five, five or six at least. But this is an industry that still thrives yes they're still out there and boy if you've ever heard dave talk about whole life holy smokes i mean when i get a whole life about it oh my gosh when he calls i put a helmet on i think somebody calls hurt dave as a. There's that level of anger and trauma involved. Anyway, no thanks, Jake. George gave you, I like those very kind, because you're a classy guy. Yeah, I don't want to be a jerk.

No thanks. That's our new thing. No thanks. Kathleen is up next in Chicago. Kathleen, how can we help? Hi. Thank you for taking my call, by the way. I am currently living with my daughter while I'm looking to buy a house.

And what I've been looking at, it feels like the prices are way high for what the houses are. You're breaking up on us, Kathleen. Speak directly into your phone. Kathleen, I don't know if you're in a bad cell zone, but we can't hear you. Come closer to the window. I'm by the window. Can you hear me now? I was going to suggest that, but I didn't want to be too bold. So you feel like house prices are very high right now and you want to buy a house. What's the question? The question is, should I go ahead and throw all my money into the house, or should I hold off and wait for a housing bubble, if there is in fact one, to burst

while we recover with our energy production and reduce regulations? Wow. You're very trusting. Well, Kathleen, let me tell you what Kathleen is. Kathleen is paying attention to the headlines, aren't you, Kathleen? You're in the news. Well, I'm watching it, for sure.

I know. That's where that comes from, George. Tell her about the bubble. The bubble, we talked about this last time this came up, which was around kind of post-COVID. Everyone was freaking out, and we did a whole real estate event talking about, hey, there's not going to be this market crash. It's not going to be 2008 all over again. And there's a lot of reasons for that. We covered it in the event. The TLDR on this is I would not wait. I would not sit on the sidelines

waiting, hoping for some bubble. And here's how I know that. If mortgage interest rates go down, what's going to happen? It's going to cause more buyers to flood the market, right? Correct. Correct. What happens when more buyers flood the market? Prices don't go down. They go, they go up. Exactly. Right. Right. And so I don't see a drastic change in home prices. We've seen a little fluctuation here and there. And, uh, I think you're going to look back six years from now and go, Oh my gosh, why did I wait? That house that was 600 is now 750. And so the right time to buy a house is when you're financially ready.

So when you said, I put all my money, what does that entail? Well, I shouldn't say all my money. I'm retired and I have my retirement investments and that's set aside to not be touched. But this is money that I have from when I sold my last house. Okay. How much are we talking? We're talking $350,000. And how much is the house that you would like to buy? I'd like to buy a house for $350,000, but they are not looking like anything I can actually live in over the long course. I want something that I can retire, that I can age in, age in place. Okay. So what would that cost? Is it 400, 450, 500? Yeah. It's looking like, to touch it,

it's 400. Okay. So let's say you took out a $50,000 loan. Could you afford the payment on that with your retirement income where it's 25% or less of your take-home pay? I believe so, yes. Then I would do it, and I would pay it off, and in a few years, it'll be gone. I mean, most people have car loans bigger than that, and so taking on $50,000 to get into a house now before it becomes a $500,000 house four years from now, I'm going to do that. I agree. So you don't have a moving target on your hands.

I agree. That's a smart play. Thank you, thank you. That's the lesson of inflation. And you wonder, well, okay, which side should I be on, the inflation or the bubble first? Yeah, I just, I don't have a crystal ball. And so I live my life like I'm in control of what I'm in control of. And I hope they change the regulations and that we're flooded with more supply in the market. And that helps the housing market as a whole. But I don't put a feather in my hat. I've got to live my life. Yeah, and Kathleen, this is a little extra advice you didn't ask for.

I'd look at your cell phone carrier. I might switch carriers. That's a good call, Ken. You don't want to be near the window all the time. You deserve better cell signal in retirement. That's all I'm saying. I agree. You don't want to have to be stuck in one place of the house just to make a good call.

So I think you deserve better. I'm not calling out any— We need to look into Wi-Fi calling on the show. Is that a thing, James? Maybe. I've got to look into it. He's going to look into it. We've pushed way too much.

We need to settle down. Hey, quick break. Don't go anywhere. People are lining up to get coached up. You don't want to miss it. This is The Ramsey Show. For free tools and resources to help you reach your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate or click the link in the show notes.

There's a time in your life and the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely. Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment will be a consistent, manageable part of your monthly budget. Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest expense. Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards turning you into a baby steps millionaire.

So get started on the American dream of home ownership today at churchhillmortgage.com. That's churchhillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLS consumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee, 37027. Welcome back, America. You're joining the conversation about you, your life, how to win with your money, win in your profession, win with your relationships here on The Ramsey Show.

Alongside George Campbell, I'm Ken Coleman. Phone number is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Let's go to Detroit. And William is there. William, how can we help? Hey, how's it going, guys? We're having a blast. How can we help?

Yeah, so I'll get right to the point. So me and my wife, first off, huge fans of the show. We've been doing the baby steps for about a month now. We're totally sold out. Changed our life. Changed everything about a month now. We're totally sold out, changed our life, changed everything about us. But I guess, yeah, the issue that we're having is we've been attending a church for about 10 years, 10, 11 years, I can't, I don't, somewhere around there. And, well, our pastor isn't aligned with this viewpoint of debt that we now have.

And we're just wondering how to navigate that. Because, like I said, it's changed everything about our life. When you say he's not aligned, has he, from the pulpit, talked about debt? Let me think. From the pulpit, no, but I have a close relationship with him. I know his viewpoints. Okay. And the waypit, I know, but I'm in a close relationship with him. I know his viewpoints, and the way, you know, the church structure is. And I'm not hating on him. I love the guy. He's done so much for me, but, you know, it's mentally straining. You know, his mentality is,

you'll always have debt. Debt's a part of life, right? Wow. Has he read, there's a book out there, it's called The Bible. Has he looked into that? Yeah. Okay. How does he reconcile, you know, Proverbs 22, 7, the borrower is slave to the lender? Yeah, like I said, I don't think he's, I don't, you know, I don't think he's preached a message on debt or used that passage. I think, you know, he just, you know, he looked and, you know, everybody, you know, just like everybody else, you know, looks at the world we live in and, you know, everybody uses debt. You know, they think they leverage debt or whatever. Okay, let me throw another one at you.

Be not conformed. You know that one? To the pattern of this world, be renewed by the... Does that not ring a bell for him either? That we shouldn't conform to culture and the stupidity of it? No, I totally get what you're saying. I'm not a pastor. I don't have a theological basis for this.

These are just like, just spitballing. Listen, you're dropping scripture, George. There's no shame in your game. Here's my question. So, William, the pastor is not, you're not calling because the pastor is preaching this and trying to lead the flock and all this. He's not anti you and your wife being a part of the baby steps and FPU and all that stuff. It's just when you guys are having conversation, you're kind of on fire and you're talking about all this.

And this is just kind of two dudes talking. And he just kind of glibly throws out, yeah, you know, and this kind of just bothers you a little bit. Is that what I'm getting? Yeah, because it's different than a friend. You know, he's my pastor, and I love the guy. Yeah, but here's my question. What is your question for us? Yeah, I don't, you know, it's, so for me, me and my wife now, this has become part of our doctrine, you know, for me, because I've struggled for so many years. When me and my wife got married, ever since we got married, debt has been such a huge thing

for us. It's kept me up at night, you know, everything you guys talk about. And then we started the baby steps, and there's peace now. But to be in a position where you don't feel comfortable to talk with someone, you know, you respect because you know their response. It's just, it's mentally draining. Got it. So are you having this conversation all the time with him? No, no, that's the thing. Like I said, we just started. I haven't really brought it up to him. Yeah, I don't know. Okay, so here's what I'm trying to get at. So, William, I feel you. I understand what you're saying. However, I think you've got this thing worked up really big in your mind, and I think it's actually not that big a deal. And here's

what I mean. If his view on debt as your pastor has got you to a place where you just are uncomfortable with him on other issues, it's time for you to go find another church. However, I want to point out that as a pastor's kid, that you have to decide, what is it? What does that relationship look like? What do I want it to look like? And is this something that is worthy of me leaving the church? And if it is, fine. That is your prerogative.

I got zero problem with it. But if you can still sit under his preaching and you feel like he's leading the church in a fiscally responsible way, because a lot of churches, here's the other not-so-secret secret, a lot of churches out there that have debt and use debt, and they pay it off, and they use it to build buildings and everything else. So I'm not quite sure. You don't really have a question for us. You're just kind of going, what do you guys think? And so what I think is, is that if this is a stumbling block for you, another scripture, and he is a stumbling block for you, then remove

yourself out of the path of the stumbling block. He doesn't think he's stumbling block. So you're not going to change his views on debt. And this is a guy that knows all that scripture. He knows it backwards, forwards, most likely. I hope so. And he's glib about it. So don't let this be a distress to you. It shouldn't be.

You're giving that way too much power. George? Yeah, I'm with you on that. I'm not saying, hey, you need to leave the church tomorrow. I'm saying if you can't deal with the incongruency and you also don't trust his leadership anymore, then I think that's going to weigh on you just like it would in a career. If you don't trust your leadership, you think there's a lack of integrity there. It doesn't align with your values. Eventually, that's going to eat away at your soul. And so I'm telling you that would be a reason to leave. But if you're like, hey, good guy, theologically sound, we disagree on debt as

a tool, all right, that's a different situation. But there's a piece of this, Ken, and my church, we inherited, there was a church merger, they inherited $7 million of debt, and they looked up and said, we're giving a million dollars in interest to lenders every single year. What if we aggressively attack this as a church, and we freed up that million dollars to interest to lenders every single year. What if we'd aggressively attack this as a church and we freed up that million dollars to do the work of the church? And that's exactly what they did. And now they're able to fund ministries and new projects and they're building centers for recovery and they have a whole ministry for single parents to fund car repairs and furnish cars for them. That's the

kind of stuff you can do when you're debt-free instead of, oh, we got to make payments. So that's what your tithes are going to, kids. Yeah. And this is a relational issue, and I want to hang out here for just a second, George, because I think this is important, and I think I want to help William as best we can. But I have very good friends, George. I mean, very good friends. I love being with these friends. But we don't agree on some stuff. I mean, like, the kind of stuff that's like big stuff. And if we were to constantly talk about that, it would create a real tension. But I have found we don't need to talk about it because here's what I know. They have thought and decided a long time ago this is what they think about this particular issue.

This is their worldview on this issue. That's right. So have I. And I'm not changing it. And neither are they. Everybody's aware. We didn't sit down and have this conversation the way I'm laying it out, but we just kind of know that.

You know what? There's sort of an unspoken boundary there. We kind of know where we are. And because we value being around each other, we just steer clear of that particular topic. And the relationship is one of my favorite friends. So I just got to tell you, I appreciate William, but there's this crusader mentality. We have it here in the building. And when people's lives are changed by the baby steps in this philosophy, you want to share that good news. It's the same as somebody

coming to faith. Maybe they were an agnostic or an atheist, and their life is transformed literally by this good news, and what do they want to do? They want to share it everywhere. Why don't you get this? Why don't you get this? And not everybody gets the baby steps. Not everybody thinks it even matters, and it feels like this is the case. So it's this real weird deal for William and a lot of us when we are so passionate and convicted about something that has transformed us. So here's the deal. Not everybody's going to get it. And that's not up to you.

Yeah. Well, you just gave me a light bulb moment. I think William should lead a Financial Peace University class in the church. Start a groundswell movement of people going, hey, we became debt-free in our personal life. What's going on with the church? What if we could become debt-free as a church? What could we do? And the pastor's probably not going to be against that. The pastor just goes, you know, my personal life, I don't mind carrying this, and I don't mind this. You know, I get it. It's a tough situation. But you don't

have to lose relationships over some of this stuff, is my point. Do you? You do you. I mean, it's hard enough to live your life, you know? Trying to live someone else's? Ay, ay, ay. I don't know. So, anyway.

Food for thought. Thanks, William, for the call. You're a good man. Quick break. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel, do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like, hey, you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you

didn't order? Yes, I have, George. Sketchy and never trust them. And that's why we recommend Delete.me. They help with that. Yeah, they do. Delete.me actually goes in and removes your information from data broker websites, and it is an incredible service that everyone needs. And there's a lot of shady companies out there that solely exist to sell your personal data information from data broker websites. And it is an incredible service that everyone needs. And there's a lot of shady companies out there that solely exist to sell your personal data to bad guys. And that means your info, like your email address, your home address, your kids' names, your name, everything is just out there for scammers and spammers to find. That's right. And then once they remove your information, then they're going to send you a detailed report telling you where they found your information, when they removed it, how many hours they've saved you. I mean, it is incredible.

So detailed and it's beautiful. I love these reports. So far, get this, they've reviewed 27,000 listings on my behalf, removed me from 240 data broker sites and saved me 77 hours of time. It's incredible. Absolutely amazing. And Winston and I now get fewer texts, weird emails, spam calls, all of it. I love it. So you got to be sure to check them out. Ramsey fans get 20% off their annual plans. Just go to joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. That comes out to less than nine bucks a month. Super affordable. It's amazing. So again, that's joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. Make sure to check it out, you guys. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show alongside George Camel.

I'm Ken Coleman. So glad you're with us. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. Our Ramsey Network app question is from Derek today. Derek writes, my New Year's resolution is to max out my Roth IRA contribution. I'm 30 years old and I want to know if it's best to contribute to a target date index fund that will automatically adjust risk as I age, or should I just invest in an S&P 500 index fund? Great nerdy question from our friend Derek. He has been doing the research. Yes, he has. Okay. So I'll give you one man's take on this. I am personally not a fan of target date

funds. And here's what they do. They start out with mostly equities, right? Stocks. And over time, they'll start to introduce more bonds into the equation, which will reduce your quote unquote risk, but it also reduces your returns. So think about this. You get to retirement age at 60 and you could make it to 90. So for the next 30 years, you've basically stunted the growth of that account to the point where it might run out. And so here's my take, and Dave would back me up on this. It's wise to just stay invested heavily in equities. Now, if you talk to your financial advisor at 60 and you take into account your risk tolerance and

all that, they might go, hey, let's put you in 20%, 30% bonds, whatever. But I'm not a fan of target date index funds doing that on your behalf, especially for a young 30-year-old. You want to stay heavily invested in the stock market versus moving towards those bond funds. So yeah, S&P 500 index fund is great. Growth stock mutual funds are great. In those retirement accounts, mutual funds are awesome. Like you're talking about a taxable brokerage account outside of retirement, that's where the index funds really come in handy because they're low turnover and you'll have lower tax implications on that. So great question, Derek. I'm going to go with no to the target date fund and yes to staying in the equities, my friend.

I'm going with what he said. A lot of nerd speak. Well done, sir. You should do this for a living. Well, a lot of people just, they set it and forget it. That's the beauty of target date funds, and you can do worse. It's not a terrible, terrible thing, but my take is you want to stay.

I want to keep that 10% to 12% return instead of getting a 3%, 4%, 5% return in retirement. Couldn't agree more. Let's go to Salt Lake City now where Bridget is joining us. Bridget, how can we help? Hello. Hi. Hi. I'm so excited to talk to you, Desmond. Well, that's fun. The excitement is shared. I like that little chuckle, little pre-question chuckle there from Bridget. This is exciting, Bridget. How can we help?

Yes. I have recently become the main breadwinner of our family when my husband retired from the military. And now we are looking at how to protect our family's well-being in case I become unable to work. So we have been looking into disability insurance, but we are also pretty sure that I will have at least a couple of exclusions from coverage. So we're wondering if it's even worse. Is it due to the nature of your career? No, no. It's just pre-existing conditions that I have been

living with for two decades now. Okay. So you have a pretty good idea that you're going to eventually have to stop working. Do you have a kind of a timeline? No, not like that. It's like things like hypertension, and I have a few spines and stuff like that. So those are things that if they happen or if they become worse, I'm going to get me disabled. But they may never become an issue. Of course. Gotcha. Yeah, very well might. Okay, gotcha.

Can you purchase this through your employer? No. Okay. So if you're going to go kind of look at the marketplace, have you gotten some quotes yet? I have talked to vendors. Okay, what did they say? And they're currently, all of my information is in underwriting, but they said that I should probably expect a premium around $100 a month.

That sounds reasonable. Yeah, I was also surprised, but with all three of my conditions excluded. So if you're unable to work due to those conditions, it won't be covered? Correct. Got it. Yeah, that's a tough one. Your goal should be to become self-insured at that point. I would take the disability insurance for $100 a month,

and then on top of that be working those baby steps to become self-insured over time and make sure that you have other insurance in place, like term life policy, for example. Do you have that? Yes, but I need an op-ed. I was covered for the little bit that I was making as a stay-at-home homeschooling mom, but I need it now that I'm the main breadwinner. What do you make a year? Last year I made $71,000, but I wasn't working full-time, so it's probably going to be more around $90,000 this year. Awesome. So you're looking at a million dollar policy and some of these you can even do no medical exam completely online. And so, you know, you might be able to, you know, especially if you're just trying to get a little bit more on

top of the one that you already have, it's going to be very affordable. The disability insurance, you just mentioned a hundred bucks a month, very reasonable. Usually it's one to 3% of your annual income and it's going to cover 60 to 70% of your income should you need to use it. Yeah, they told me that I can, they understood that I can probably expect around $3,000 a month, which is perfect because it covers our mortgage. Awesome. And then my husband's VA disability in retirement just has to cover our groceries and all of those things, which should be very easily doable.

And remember, here's the point of insurance. It's just a transfer risk so that you don't have to shoulder it. So to pay someone $100 a month, $1,200 a year, you do that for 20 years, it's $24,000. Over 20 years yeah i will happily pay that for the peace of mind knowing that if something should happen i'm going to get that 3 000 a month for the foreseeable future and so that's that's where i'm is it worth the investment absolutely for the 100 bucks a month you're paying and for the risk that you're transferring it's definitely worth it yeah absolutely thank you bridget for the call great question yeah not every day you get to talk about disability insurance.

It's fair. That's a good point. And Ramsey, we have ours covered through Ramsey, so it's a good thing to check with your employer to see if they already cover it, if they offer it. Usually it's very affordable through your employer, and that's a great way to go. And you saw Xander. She went to Xander. You got a great quote there that's very reasonable for a lot of peace of mind, as you said. Let's go to Boston, Massachusetts, that area. That's where Georgia hails from. Mike is there. Mike, how can we help? Hey, good afternoon, guys.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I have recently, sadly, I guess, come into some money through an inheritance. My wife and I's plan is to pay off all of our debts. And even with that, we'll have some money left over. My specific question is, we currently have a mortgage that totals about $450,000. $350,000 of that is a 20-year mortgage at 2.875%, and we have about 15 years left to pay on that. The other $100,000 is a HELOC. That's about 6% right now. We're going to have enough to pay off the HELOC and get the first mortgage down to about $250,000. My question is, and I've asked a couple folks,

I'm getting competing answers, so I'm hoping you guys are a tiebreaker. I have the possibility of refinancing that $250,000 balance to a regular mortgage at 6%, but for 10 years. What would be the point of that, to lower the payment? So if I lower the pay, yeah, my payment's currently $3,300 a month. If I refinance, I can get that payment down to about $2,400 a month, and then I'll be able to actually put $1,000 per month towards the principal alone. Well, you can just do that on your 20-year mortgage. You can still add more to the principal.

It's not going to change the numbers. Well, with my income, I wouldn't be able to do that. What's your take-home pay? About... Every month? Monthly, $10,000. Okay. I think this is reasonable.

I would just attack that mortgage with a vengeance. What you can look into is a mortgage recast, where they can just recast it without changing the terms, without changing the interest rate, and that can get your payment lower while really accomplishing the same goal. So I wouldn't refinance at this juncture unless you're going to ROI on it real quick. Thanks for the call. That's one man's take. This is The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show, where America comes to talk about their life, specifically how to win with their money, how to win in their profession,

how to win with relationships. 888-825-5225 is the phone number to jump in alongside George Campbell. I'm Ken Coleman. We'll be taking you through this hour. Phones are lighting up. 888-825-5225 is the number to jump in. We start with Darian in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Darian, how can we help?

Hi. Thank you guys for taking my call. Of course. My husband and I started the Baby Steps about a month and a half ago. We're on step two. We have about $38,000 in debt, and we're having a really hard time navigating budgeting. We've reached out to one of the Ramsey finance coaches, and she called our income unusual or inconsistent or something. Yeah, irregular income?

Yeah, irregular income. So we're just having a really hard time budgeting because we get paid weekly, and it makes it really hard to schedule payments for certain areas. And I'm just looking for guidance. Sure. Does the number you get paid change every week, or what would make that difficult? Knowing what came in every week would be easy for me. I'm not understanding what's happening.

We get paid. Yeah, me either. I don't know why she said that, but we get paid minimum $1,400 every week. I do some overtime. My husband does some overtime, so it can go up. It seldom goes down, but then we have bonuses that come in at the end of the month, but we don't calculate those into our monthly income when we're budgeting. Okay, that helps with that part. What do you think is the reason you guys are struggling to actually keep a budget? So my husband recently moved jobs, and with his last job job he had something called daily pay and he was pulling his

pay out uh every couple of days and it was making it really hard for me to do do everything and now that um we're getting paid on the same day every single week and i'm walking him through the steps and what my plans are, he's like, oh, I'm going to put money on this credit card or whatever. I have to tell him, no, you can't do that right now. We have to wait because that's supposed to be on this date instead. And so it's really hard to navigate it. Have you guys used the EveryDollar Premium? I'm paying for the EveryDollar app subscription.

Okay. So inside of there. I do use that. You can use the Paycheck Planning Tool, and that's exactly what it's created to solve. So it'll show you exactly where you're going to run out of money. Did you adjust those around to manage your risk of overspending? Yes. And I have done that, and we've already set up the budget for next month um but even though

like on paper it's it's saying that we're fine um because we have we have we're getting nickel and dimed uh with our debt um on paper says it's fine's fine, but in the app, it keeps saying that we're going to be at high risk, and it's making me really anxious. Well, all you need to do is move those around, and it's just showing you here's where the bills are going to fall, and here's where your income is going to run out based on these bills. So it's just math, and so if you're saying, hey, this doesn't reflect the reality, you can go in and change that. So let's say it's your food budget. And it says, hey, you have $1,000 for food.

Well, in every dollar, you can actually split that up and go, no, no, no, give me $2.50 a week. And fund the budget with that so that it doesn't look like $1,000 comes out on the 15th. And so that's where you might be getting tripped up. You can actually adjust those to sort of fund every single week since you guys get paid weekly. But you're doing all the right things. And budgeting will take about 90 days to get dialed in. That's what we found. It takes three months of doing that budget for you to go, okay, I got the hang of it. Month one, it's messy. Month two, you're like, all right, I'm working out some kinks. Month three, you're starting to feel good about it. And so give

yourself some grace as you go and don't let the technology of it get in the way of you guys making progress. Just go, hey, we brought in this much. Here's how much we're going to apply to the debt. We have to cover our four walls first. Whatever's left, we're going to tackle this thing. Okay. Is there anything that you would recommend? Because neither of us really have any experience on the budget, and we're just kind of winging it.

Do you have anything that you would recommend on this? Because we're tackling it really hard. It's just that we feel like we're underqualified. Yeah, well, hey, it's brand new. It's like learning how to ride a bike the first time, right? What I found is daily check-ins together with the app is going to really give you guys some confidence. And what you'll do, you have the premium version. So it's tracking your transactions from your bank

account. And as those come in, just once a day, just jump in there with both of you and go, hey, let's track that. That was this transaction. Are we aware of this? Yes. Let's drag it up to the right category. Here's how much we have left. Are we in alignment? Great. We're going to fight another day. Okay. And so I don't want you to get overwhelmed by it. It's meant to be a tool to help you and simplify things versus make you feel like, oh, gosh, this is a whole other thing to manage. All it is, it's a reflection of what we plan to do with our money. And as long as it serves that purpose, you're doing it right.

There's no wrong way to budget in that sense. Yeah. I think that's the smaller issue, you know. I think it's just a symptom. Yes. And a lot of, you know, a lot of people set up their budgets differently to make it make sense for them. And so I encourage you to do that. A lot of times there's, hey, there's three different ways you could approach this sinking fund. Do what makes sense for you. And as long as you guys are making the progress you set out to make, you're crushing it. And here's the deal. I'm going to send you my book, Breaking Free from Broke. I have an entire chapter in there called Budgeting is

Freedom. And I walk through a lot of these, my budgeting tips, and I hope they encourage you along this journey that you're doing the right things, you're doing it the right way. So hang on the line. Christian's going to pick up. We'll send you my book, Breaking Free from Broke. And that's great, George. While you're there, let's just do a quick introduction to EveryDollar. We mentioned it a few times in the call, but why don't you just tell our audience, we have a lot of new people coming in, what the product is, where they can get it. Absolutely. So EveryDollar is a budgeting app that our team at Ramsey created,

because Dave, for 30-something years now, has said you've got to make a plan on paper, on purpose, and so we know that sometimes on paper in the modern century means I need an app in my pocket wherever I go. And so this is an app that both of you and your spouse, if you have one, can be jumped into, logged into. And all you do is you list your income at the top, your take-home pay for the month. And at the bottom, you're going to list all of your expenses. And the goal is let's make a plan for this because too many people make good money and they look up and they go, I don't know where it went. I mean, it just sort of disappeared into gas station snacks and spending and online purchases. And the budget is not restrictive. It's freedom to spend. It's just

you telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went, as the great John Maxwell once said. And so that's the key with the budget. It's not meant to be this restrictive thing for nerds or broke people. It's for people who want to be intentional and happen to their money instead of their money happening to them. So you list out your expenses. If you want fun money in there of 300 bucks a month, you do that. And if you want to build wealth, you can have that line item for saving and investing. And so it's really set up to help you win with money. And if you want to go check it out, it's free in the app store. Just search EveryDollar or click the link in the description if you're on YouTube or podcast. And again, the premium version has even more features to help you with this bank connectivity,

paycheck planning, financial roadmap, and so much more. And one more reminder, even with a great app like EveryDollar, you yourself are going to have to change behavior. It's going to take a little bit of time to figure this out. And yes, it's going to be a little bit intimidating because you're learning a new process. But if you just let it guide you and you just keep playing with the numbers and don't do anything crazy, you'll figure it out. All right. Good explanation there, George. Thanks, everybody.

Hang on. Real quick break. We're not going anywhere. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. So glad you are with us. 888-825-5225.

I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell with me. Let's go to Noel in Portland, Oregon. Noel, how can we help today? Hi there. Thanks for taking my call. My question is for a couple that is older. I'm helping my parents with their investment portfolio. They're 76 and 73. And I'm wondering if Dave Ramsey suggested the four different types of mutual funds he suggests, the growth, the income growth, aggressive growth and international,

like does that apply for a couple of that age and like in what percentages is suggested in each of those, like growth and income? Yeah, that's a great question. So you're right in that Dave recommends those four types. You might see them listed as large cap, mid cap, small cap, international. And Dave himself still invests that way. And he's in his 60s. And he's going to do that until the day he leaves this earth. And so I'll tell you, Dave is not a fan of the asset allocation theory, which says, hey, over time, we're going to move closer to bonds and switch that up. Now, if you talk to, you know, if they have a financial advisor they talk to, they might recommend, hey, we're going to move them more into bonds because

of their risk tolerance, because of their portfolio. There might be situations where a financial advisor would advise that, and that makes sense. But to Dave's point, what you're going to see is over time, you're going to get better returns and you're going to keep that money growing if you leave it invested in the market versus pulling it out into bonds. Yeah. So what's their financial situation? For their fixed monthly income, they have $4,500. That's with the Social Security and my dad's pension.

And then they sell 10% of their investments. They have a million. So they get the RMD after age 73. You take your RMDs every year. It's required. So that goes into their income. So... What are they invested in now?

Oh, goodness. Well, I'm actually going over there to help them move things around tomorrow to see what stocks they have, what mutual funds. Okay, so you're not sure what they're invested in now. I think they have a good mix of stocks and mutual funds. My dad's wanting to get out of stocks at this time. And why is that? Oh, well, his health has failed with Parkinson's, stage 4, and Parkinson's dementia.

So it's like, no, daddy can't buy and sell stocks anymore because he forgets, right? You know, if he's talking to you or doing something, he forgets. So he just doesn't need to manage his money anymore and um have that stress of watching does he have a financial power of attorney we're working on that okay that would be the next right move i'm so sorry he's going through that um thank you but again if you know what i found is that most people are too conservative in retirement with their investing and it actually puts them at more risk. So if you think about it as a spectrum of super risky on one side to, I have all my money in cash under a mattress, well, that has a lot of risk too. You're not

beating inflation at that point. And so there's also a risk of deterioration of this portfolio if they're not careful and if they're not invested for growth. And so it sounds like they're going to be okay. I mean, they make $4,500 a month not invested for growth. And so it sounds like they're going to be okay. I mean, they make $4,500 a month without touching the retirement. They have the required minimum distributions coming up. They're taking out 10%. And if they're invested wisely, that 10%, that'll actually last them a long time if they're invested in the market versus super, super, super conservatively. Right.

And if you want a second opinion, I would reach out to a smart investor pro. You can jump on ramsaysolutions.com and have them connect or you connect, Right. and help their parents in this situation. And I'm glad they have something to actually manage. A lot of the times we get these calls, Ken, and it's, they got nothing. What do we do? And so it's a blessing to have even a million dollars in a nest egg plus pension and Social Security. And sorry that you're walking this out with your parents. I just, I've got several people now in my life, it's just happened over the last year that they've got loved ones that are going through dementia or Alzheimer's.

And it's just as you're a friend or you're a family member to someone else who's got a family or going through that, it's just brutal. Yeah. Really brutal. So sorry for you, Noel. You're doing honorable things there. So rooting for you there. Blake is going to join us now in Minneapolis. Blake, how can we help? Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call. You bet. So a few months ago, I lost my job, and while I was having my 9-to-5 job, I ran a side woodworking business.

And then as that kind of grew and grew, as I lost my job, I said, all right, Lord, this is what I'm going to be doing now. So I started doing the woodworking business full-time, and now somebody at my church offered me a CNC machine. It's a big high tech machine that would mass produce a lot of things in my shop to build a business. And he said, I want you to make a living on it first. And then we'll talk about the details of how you're going to pay me back on this machine.

Super nice man. So the machine is worth $19,000 and he wants it paid off within three years. Or he said I could give him 25% of my business. I'm just trying to figure out what to do. Pay him the $19,000 back. I don't see a world where giving him a giant part of your business makes financial sense for you. I don't like that at all. I admire him for being creative.

I mean, I think he took a shot. This is a nice guy. He took a shot. You know, you've got your free will. You've got some logic. He threw it at you. But that's just a bad idea. I would never in a million years take that option. Well, the thing is, I make around $2,000 a month. My wife's a teacher, so we're just scraping by with what I'm making right now. And that's not paying him anything. So if I were to have this paid off within three years, it'd probably be about $555 a month, and that just doesn't seem feasible. Was there anything on paper? Was this just a handshake agreement? This was just a handshake agreement.

He just said, I'd like to get paid back, or was it like, no, you're paying me back within three years, or else? He would like to get paid back within three years. He's pretty flexible, I would imagine. Well, let's reframe the conversation. You're thinking about paying it back now. You don't have to pay it back now. You got three years. This is a fledgling business. I don't think you should be full-time in this right now unless you feel like in the next 90 days, you're going to start making more money than you are. Or else if you're just only bringing $2,000 a month from this, this is still what I would call a side hustle, and that's what I would be doing.

Okay. What's your full-time income? That's it. This is my full-time income. He left the 9 to 5 to go do this. And again— Are you doing this 40 hours a week? Yeah.

Yeah. For sure. the hourly rate on this is abysmal it's terrible that's why I'm saying what I'm saying I mean this is a no-brainer I would go back to the nine-to-five or find another nine-to-five where you're making good money what were you making previously before you walked away from that job um the same amount of what I was doing now good gracious my man what were you doing in the nine-to- what I was doing now. Good gracious, my man. What were you doing in the nine to five? I was a low level kind of like designer, engineer type thing. But you were getting paid $11 an hour?

It was probably about 20 bucks an hour, actually. Well, your math doesn't make sense. That's 40 grand a year. You told us you were making $2,000 a year. I mean, $2,000 a month. Yes, that's what it averages out to be. Yeah. Okay, but that's not $20 an hour. Are you tracking with us? I am, yes. Sorry, sorry. It was $20 an hour, and now I'm making a little bit less now, yes. Yeah, sizably less. You're making closer to $11 an hour.

And so you can do a lot better doing literally anything. Yeah, go... Do you have kids? No. Okay. If you really want to get this woodworking business going, then you have to have a full-time job that allows you to take care of everything else.

And then your woodworking projects are extra on the side, extra crazy overtime hours. And that's to keep the thing going and build up a pipeline of clients who will then pay you and you grow the business. It's just going to take some time. So you're not paying $550 a month to this guy because he didn't ask for a monthly payment. And you don't have the money. And you ain't got it. You need more money for you.

Forget him. You got three years to make enough money in this woodworking business to pay him the $19,000 back. That's your mindset. Back to work. I see this all the time. And I love your heart, Blake. Love your vision for this. Listen,

this dream job is going to become a nightmare pretty quickly. Don't go full-time into your side hustle dream until it can pay you what your day job pays you. Simple. Trust me. See so many dreams broken because of that move. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome to The Ramsey Show, where we help you win with your money, win in your profession, and win with your relationships. Alongside George Camel, I'm Ken Coleman. The phone number is 888-825-5225.

Let's go to Las Vegas where Colton joins us. Colton, how can we help? Hi, I've earned myself about $193,000 in debt between vehicles and toys and fun things. And I've gotten, I'm really close to like 100% debt to income. So my question is, how can I get myself out of this? Because most of my vehicles are worth less. Run the numbers for us. What are these toys? What's the total debt? List them out for us. Okay. I've got forty three thousand seven hundred in a side-by-side forty thousand two hundred and truck thirty five thousand seven hundred in a car thirty, $14,456 in another side-by-side,

$9,300 in a secured loan that I had to get to pay auto repair, $8,000 in a dirt bike, and $5,000 in another one I had to get to pay a car repair. What lender is dumb enough to give you another dime? Like this is kind of on them. Who needs two side-by-sides? This is the question I've got. Oh my goodness, Colton. Can I ask what got you to this rock bottom moment?

Well, the thing is, I had about half that debt with a job that I couldn't pay for it. And then I got this other job that pays pretty dang well and got excited and went and got some more for fun. And now I'm. Are you single? You know, I'm married. Okay. What is. Two children.

What does she think of this? She's on the same page as I am. Has she been complicit in this? Is she an accomplice to these crimes? Yeah, definitely. Seriously? I would take probably 90% of the blame. Yeah, I got to tell you, I don't know any wife on the planet that says yes to a second side-by-side.

Yeah, it was kind of a situation where a family member was going to pay the payment on the one I had before. And so I gave that to them. They were supposed to make the payment. Oops. And they're not. Oh, boy. All right, so what's the total? Did you add it up, George?

You said $193,000? Yes. Okay, and what's your household income? I make it vary a little bit. I drive truck. I haul fuel. And, you know, when the traffic slows down, my job slows down, but I should be about a hundred, 110 a year, maybe. Wow. Is your wife staying home with the kids?

Yes. Can she work? Yes. She is trying to find a job to, because I work nights, so she's trying to find a job to, you know. When things slow down, how do you, can you keep up the pace by doing other things? Side jobs, side gigs. But it's kind of hard to find a side gig with spare time in the middle of the night. Oh, my goodness. Okay, well, the good news is you can get out of a lot of this. It's going to hurt.

You have negative equity in most of these, I imagine. But the good news is you can at least sell it. Yeah. So if you sold everything to your name, how much do you think you could make from this? Probably, I don't know, $120,000 maybe. So you're telling me you're underwater on these by about $60,000 or $70,000 total? Yeah, I could tell you the underwater number on each of them but just thrown together in my head that's better listen that's better than 100 that's better than the amount of debt you're

carrying right now i mean yeah you've got to you've got to give yourself some space if you could be 50 000 in debt instead of 193 you'd take it i mean you can't even make that can you make the minimum payments on this with your income? Right now I'm fighting everything off of 30 days late because it's all almost there. So when you called us a minute ago, where was your head at as to what you think you should be doing with this? Well, my head has been in the space of like sale things. And I don't own a single thing right now that is not listed for sale for well they're listed

for sale for what I owe and even like some of them got listed five grand less six grand less whatever and I'm just not getting any bites just almost zero yeah well I mean the stuff there's quite a price tag on these all these things you have yeah who's in the market for a 44 000 used side by side are there a lot of people

yeah not not a ton no no and all the other cars so i mean so i are you pretty low key personality i'm just curious i think you are but i'm so I, are you pretty low key personality? I'm just curious. I think you are, but I'm just curious, or are you just really deflated? What's going on? What, tell me about your personality. I'm, I've always been a pretty, you know, public guy, I guess. Okay. Here's what I'm getting at. I don't sense any urgency out of you on this call. Oh, sorry. Yeah. I definitely am in a state of urgency okay well urgency though is not a personality thing that's why i asked that question i was just really curious it's not an emote it's not i don't have to like act urgent i've got to be urgent and what i'm saying is like

your response is to george's question just as i'm trying to be your friend right now i'll just shoot you straight you you should have been like i've got three jobs my wife's trying to get two jobs like is that what i should be doing george like that should have been the question you know is it okay for a human being to work 20 hours out of a day and sleep for four hours i would like to heard that question because that's what you're dealing with right now because of the reality that you're not selling these items. You're not getting any bites on them. So you're going to have to look at the pricing slash that. And all of this is George said is painful, but you need to come up with a difference because you're not going to be able to sell it. If you've got a loan attached to it, what is the first three things he needs to

do? Let's maybe helping with that. What are your thoughts? Number one, you guys need to sit down with your wife tonight and do a written budget. You can use the EveryDollar app. I'll gift it to you. I hope it's something to get you on the plan here. You're going to need to go, here's what we're bringing in this month. How can we limit every single dime we spend to just the bare necessities, four walls, food, utilities, housing, transportation,

anything beyond that needs to start getting thrown at these debts from smallest to largest balance, ignore the interest rates. And then on top of that, we need to figure out what is the right price point to where this thing will sell and how do we get the most out of it? You probably need to go to your lenders and talk to them and say, hey, here's the deal. I'm underwater on all of this. I'm trying to get out. Can you help me? You got some bad collateral here because this thing is not worth what I owe. And see if they'll give you the difference to cover it so that you're, instead of 43 grand in debt,

you're now seven grand in debt for the difference. You see the difference here? Yeah. And the good news is you don't need any of this to live. Nope. So all of it can go. Not one thing. You don't need a camp trailer because you're not going anywhere.

You don't need a side-by-side because fun is not in the picture for the next two years. And if your wife works, get the kids in a daycare, and you work extra jobs, and we get your income to 200 grand, we start selling this off to now you're 100 grand in debt, now this is a solvable problem. You see how the math changes here? Yeah, Cause now if you throw 50 grand a year at the debt, we're debt free in two years. But right now there's no way out of this unless we change the numbers. Okay. And so I think you've got your homework cut out for you. I mean, you, you've already started the process. I'm proud of you for getting to this point where you actually list all of this stuff. That's a big step.

But we need to figure out, do I need to take better pictures? Do I need to juice up the listings? Do I need to work with someone who knows what they're doing, who's actually sold this kind of stuff online before? And I hate to say this, George, but at some point, I think there's a time frame where he has to then just maybe sell these to dealers. Yeah, and just take a hit. Get out from underneath as much as he can.

He's taking a hit one way or the other. We got to get him some margin. You okay with that idea? Yeah, I mean, I'd like to see him private sell it. That's the last-ditch effort.

But right now, we get to get this income up and figure out how underwater we are, start crunching the numbers, talk to the lenders. This is not going to be fun, man.

But you can dig your way out of this. It's going to take a serious life change and maybe no more no more fun in the for the next three years is my guess we'll be right back this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman.

George Camel is alongside. So fun, by the way. Just got to see Mama Camel, Father Camel in town to see. My wife, Whitney. My little daughter. The whole crew. Sweet, sweet, sweet. Came by just to see the Ken Coleman.

They wanted to get a glimpse in person. That's why they were here. Worth it. Mia's very excited. Worth every penny it costs. She loves Uncle Ken. She does. She really does.

So fun, though. Okay, let's get right to it. Our Scripture of the Day, Romans 13, 8-0-1-anything. Oh, that would have been handy when we took that call earlier. For our pastor friend. Yeah, yeah. Except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. George, I feel like that's appropriate.

I should tell you, I love you. I love you too, Ken. All right, very good. Means a lot. Thank you. We're strong enough to say that as two grown men. You know, I think that should be said more. Oh, yeah, 100%.

That's not weird at all. Our quote of the day from Ronald Reagan. We do not have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough. man you know i think that should be said more oh yeah 100 that's not weird at all uh our quote of the day from ronald reagan we do not have a trillion dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough we have a trillion dollar debt because we spend too much oh yeah listen and if he only knew where we'd be today yeah when he said that it was a trillion i was like that'd be cute we're barreling towards 30 35 36 now 36 so we're on our way to 36 while you were speaking it's now 37 and just for that 38 right it yeah okay wow holy smokes by the way i said this prior to the election i'll say it again if there was one

issue that ought to unite all americans left, right, liberal, conservative, whatever you are. Brain worm, donkey, whatever. There it is. It ought to be that we have a balanced budget amendment, because that's what you'd have to have is the entire American. You'd have to have a large swath of people, and then we balance the budget, and we kill the national debt. We pay it off. Meaning it is law that you can't spend more than you make. 100%. debt we pay it off meaning it is law that you can't spend more than you make 100 most state

governments have that in their constitutions where you cannot spend more than you take in and yet we the people are just kind of we're just kicking rocks ourselves well just yes let's go to 50 trillion and by the way this is a major issue i'm not trying to be dark it's a major issue it eventually could be a massive problem for the American society, like not the government, like all of us. So anyway, just throwing that out there. Think about that. Ponder. And we'll get to Mary. I'm picking up what you're putting down. Thank you. Let's go to Mary in Virginia Beach. Mary, how can we help? Hey, thank you very much for taking my call. Sure. I'm 62. My husband is 73. I just finished chemo and mastectomy, and I'm in remission.

My husband has dementia. My issue is I'm trying to figure out how to plan my future. We're still living at home right now. We built our house together in 1990. My issue is I'm trying to figure out how to plan my future. We're still living at home right now. We built our house together in 1990. I've been wanting to downsize for a while, but there's no way I'm going to be able to get him to move. I owe $78,000 on my house.

I doubled up payments 10 years ago. We both have Social Security, and he has a retirement. I want to know how to plan if I have to put him somewhere because everything I've looked at is going to bankrupt both of us. So I need to know I need to pay off the house

or I don't know where to go with this. and i have a 401k that has 35 000 another one that has 6 000 i have 16 000 in my checking 12 000 in my savings and my oh 78 000 on my, which I could sell for $850,000. But you're saying, hey, we're not going to move right now in this current health state that we've got going on. I've been trying for two years, but he's not leaving at this point. Okay, so I get it, but how advanced is his dementia

and at what point, and this is horrible. I hate even asking this, but we've got to talk about it. At what point is he unaware of it anyway, and this is a brilliant move for you if you can sell that house and downsize and really stack a lot of that away for your retirement. Right. How bad is his – He's still coherent, and he knows where he is right and his biggest thing in life and summer is cutting the grass because we have three and a half acres right he just cuts

the grass i mean that's his thing i get it but at some point you are going to be able to sell this house and downsize i have to i know i think i mean you're Let's be honest. Your retirement is in your house. Yeah, that's the huge chunk you need. George, run those numbers for her. Let's say you sold the house and paid off the mortgage. You'd probably net over $700,000, right? Right. Okay, and you're going to be 63 this year or next year?

Yeah, but I can't work or anything yet because my health hasn't come back after the chemo. Sure. Well, that's what I'm saying. If you sold and you just rented, for example, you could put this money into an investment account that could make 10 to 12% over the next 30 years of your life, God willing, and therefore you can survive. You'll have a decent retirement at that point. Or you downsize and say, hey, we're going to pay cash for a $300,000 house or $400,000 house and put the rest away into an investment account. And that becomes essentially your nest egg. But I don't see a way where you guys can live off of Social Security and the small nest egg you've built while staying in this house. I don't think

we can have all of it. Right. So I think what's going to happen is it's going to, you know, push is going to come to shove. You're going to have to sell the house in order to fund, you know, end of life care at some point. No question. And that's why I like George's recommendation, Mary. If you were my mom, I'd be saying, I want you renting. Let's get you the best renting situation with the Social Security payments, you know, cover the basics. And then the huge chunk of the profit on this house goes to the long-term care for him and your actual retirement. And, you know, 10 years from now,

that number is going to add up to be much better than where you are right this moment. And I'd love for you to buy something reasonable in cash. That way you've removed your biggest fixed expense, which is going to be housing. And over the next 30 years, if you just rent, well, that number is going to continue to go up versus just property taxes and insurance. Oh yeah. I'm sorry. I should say a short-term rent until she, we got to, we got to figure something out on housing while he's in his situation. When you say short-term, Rand, are you talking like two, three years?

It could be. It depends on what's going on with your husband's health. That's right. But at least in the interim, because we don't know what the care is going to cost, like you mentioned. And so we have to wait until that shakes out to see what's left. And is that enough to buy a house? Do we actually need to leave it invested so that you have a way to cover your expenses? Does that make sense, Mary?

That's why I suggested that. Let's say you get that big lump sum from the home. We don't know what his care—well, you have an idea what his care is going to cost. You actually have run those numbers. Oh, I have, and it's like, unless you want to put him in a ditch and pay $300 a month, I mean, it's just ridiculous the place give us a number uh but a decent one is going to be 12 000 a month so you're talking about two years 300 grand right yes right which is why we got to figure out you

know you don't want to buy a smaller house all cash and not have you know some cash so it's it's a really tough situation really tough um but we would like for you to be able to leverage that money for your housing your housing long term but i would not deplete all of your savings and retirement to pay off the house it's not going to solve the problem i agree it'll remove your mortgage payment. Yeah, that was my main question. You know, what's your mortgage payment every month? Well, it's $17.95 a month, but I paid $200 extra on it the last 10 years, which most of my money has gone towards principal and not interest.

Okay. And then what are you guys bringing in a month from Social Security and any other income? It's $7,800 a month. Great. So the good news is you can live a pretty good life off of $7,800 a month. That's right.

And so even if you pay that mortgage for the foreseeable future, you're going to be okay. And then, like Ken mentioned, we're going to have to sell this at some point if we're going to be okay. And then, like Ken mentioned, we're going to have to sell this at some point if we're going to need to pony up two, three hundred grand for care. That's where it goes.

There's no other option. So I'm so sorry, Mary. That's not a rock and a hard place there, but the good news is you guys aren't destitute. You have the money in the house. You have a sizable income coming in every month. You're going to be okay, but we can't have the cake and eat it too. Yeah. I'm wishing you guys the best. Yeah. So sorry. Such a tough situation. George Goodhour, thank you, sir. Thank you. Thanks to James Childs,

our fearless producer, and our crew. Thank you, America, for listening. This is The Ramsey Show. you