The Ramsey Show - App - Online Education Can Be A Legitimate College Option (Hour 3)

Episode Date: December 12, 2018

The show about you

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show. Where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones this hour as we talk about your life and your money. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Tim is with us in Baltimore.

Hi, Tim. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, sir. How's it going? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, a quick question for you, Reverend Student Loans. My wife and I, we both work for the government, and she's on a student loan repayment plan. So she has about six years left in a $50,000 student loan. And the question would be, should we go ahead and search and pay it off, or should we just wait out the timeline?

I'd pay it off immediately. There have only been 96 people so far have their loans forgiven. Tens of thousands have not. That program is screwed up and broken. And I would not be sitting around waiting on student loan forgiveness because son it's not occurring no i'd be paying that off as soon as i possibly could 96 people so far have had their loans forgiven with a student loan forgiveness program and tens of thousands are screwed so no i'm not no way I'm not. No way.

I'm going to be out of there as soon as possible. Get it paid off. Get it out of your life and move on. Don't wait six years to be free. Steven is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Steven. How are you? Hey, Mr. Ramsey.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I have a question about education. Right now, my wife and I, we started your program. We're on Baby Step 2. We already had pretty much Baby Step 3 then before we knew about your program. So right now we're working through Step 2.

My question is about education. Right now I'm having a lot of trouble going to like a brick-and-mortar school like I have around here at California State University. But my question to you is, is online university an option, or what do you think about online universities profit or non-profit ones um it can be an option most major universities now have some kind of an online i would not do a a standard for-profit online only thing uh but if one of your local california uh institutions has some online programs i would look at that uh liberty university has a very good and legitimate online program it's probably the

largest in the nation right now and um all right but liberty is a legitimate brick and mortar university as well it's not just um you know one of these sidebar things and so uh you know i want you to go to something that has a name on it that you recognize as being a university does that make sense that does and then that's part of this is like the second part of my question so i'm stuck either between pushing forward to finish through school in one of these ways or should i continue with with baby step two? Because baby step two, I have about a three-year plan to get out of paying our two cars that we have, or should I push through to get education to help my income to get it done faster?

So it takes two years to finish your degree? It'll be about two years, yeah. Okay, and your degree will be in what? I want to go for business finance with financial planning to do exactly what you do, help people out and get out of debt. Okay, and what do you make now? Right now, I make around $21 a year. Okay. And my wife makes about $45.

And with the degree, you would make more than that considerably. Oh, definitely. At least double, yeah. That's what I'm looking for. Yeah, I think you're right. What do you owe on your cars? Right now, one is for $21,000 and one is for $29,000. Why don't we sell one of them, like the $29,000 one,

and let's make this progress happen. That's what we're thinking about doing as well, too. That way that already saves us $29,000. Exactly. Get a little beater, like the $29,000 one, and let's make this progress happen. And that's what we're thinking about doing as well, too. That way that already saves us $29,000. Exactly. Get a little beater, like you say. Just for a short period of time, because we're paying a price here to win. You know, we're not only paying a price to get out of debt, we're paying a price to finish this degree to get my income up, which makes this whole thing all go faster.

So, yeah, I think I'm selling the $30,000 car, and then I can do both. I can finish up the other car debt while I'm going to school. Yeah. And then my job is similar to, like, what you do for your employees. They offer, you know, pay for your school. If you get it done, they'll reimburse you as long as you pay for it and cash yourself. There you go. We'll save up and pay for it.

Once you pay for the first one, then they give you the money. That pays for the next one. Then they give you the money. That pays for the next one. It keeps it rolling. So all you got to do is pay the first one and get the pump primed and get it started. That's all, you know. So you got a plan here.

Get with that. That's very good. Excellent job. Open phones this hour at 888-825-5225. If you're starting to panic about getting all your shopping done before Christmas, you missed out on Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Got good news for you. There's another color.

Green Monday happened this week, which is kind of like Cyber Monday 2 is what they tell me. I didn't know we had Green Monday. I think we're just making up crap to sell stuff, is what it sounds like to me, but it works. So there you go. And so we're having Green Monday sales. Everybody's having them, and we're going to have one, too.

Go to DaveRamsey.com. Almost all of our number one best-selling books are $10 each. The Total Money Makeover. People are buying the Total Money Makeover by the case at $10. It's a stocking stuffer at $10. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it's really. And the Adventure Pack for Kiddos, the top-selling kids bundle.

It's got the banks in it. It's got the Financial Peace Junior in it. It's got the bedtime storybooks to teach the lessons of work, give, save, spend. Man, good stuff. Get all of this. Green Monday deals end this week. So if you want a deal, go to DaveRamsey.com and take advantage of the latest color, green. Today's color, boys and girls, is green. I feel like I'm on Sesame Street.

DaveRamsey.com or call 888-22-PIECE, 888-227-3223. That's how it's done. Well, on Instagram, we're at 1.1 million, almost a million on Twitter. And I can't even tell on Facebook anymore. It's like 5 or 6 million. Speaking of Facebook, we have our own Facebook community. It's the official Facebook community. It's called the Ramsey Baby Steps Community.

And you can be part of that if you want. My husband and I, Tammy says from the Ramsey Baby Steps Community, are just learning about the Baby Steps. We have only one credit card. We use it for groceries and gas only and pay the bill off every month. We never use it for anything else and never carry a balance. It's always paid each month. Should we cut this credit card up? Well, obviously, with the way you were fighting through those sentences to not cut it up, you don't think you should. But I think you should. If you're paying it off every month anyway,

you could use a debit card and have the exact same effect. The credit card has zero advantage over the debit card if you're doing what you say you're doing. It doesn't change a thing. You have the money in the bank, you pay it off. It's the same thing, right?

Yeah, so get your debit card, cut up your credit cards. On a debit card, you don't accidentally run a balance. Yeah. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. There's nothing smart about smartphones if your wireless plan is blowing your budget each month. Pure Talk USA offers smarter wireless with unlimited plans starting as low as $20 per month. You never pay data overage fees, and we never turn off your data. No contracts, no hidden fees. And if you're thinking our low cost means less coverage, think again.

Our voice and data service covers 99% of Americans, and our 4G LTE network provides the fastest internet speeds like more expensive carriers. We operate on the largest GSM network in the U.S. to ensure you receive reliable coverage virtually anytime, anywhere. Plus, you can keep your same phone and number and add multiple lines to save more. We're so confident you'll love Pure Talk USA that we invite you to try our service risk-free. Just visit puretalkusa.com, enter promo code SAVEDAVE, no spaces, and receive 50% off your first month. That's puretalkusa.com, promo code SA joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

We're glad you're here. Common sense for your dollars and cents. David is with us in Longview, Texas. Hi, David. How are you? I'm doing very well. Thank you very much. How are you, sir?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Sir, I'm in an insurance question for you. Long story short is about a year and a half ago, I lost my job. And then I moved to take on another job and I hurt my back that job. So now I actually can't work that job or that field anymore. At least in that place, I'm starting up a new company. It's kind of my side business that I've had going for quite a while, making that into my primary gig. But the insurance side of things for health insurance has kind of got me.

One of the reasons why we picked where we moved to is because the insurance that they had was going to cover a surgery that my wife has to have, but that specialist is in another state. And basically it's such a specialty thing that it's probably the only person in the United States that can do it. So every insurance policy that I'm looking at, I'm trying to make sure that that person is covered. And I've never played with an HSA before. I've heard you talk about them and their advantages. And so I'm trying to figure out if that seems more the way to go or if the other traditional kind of, you know, co-pay

and then your co-insurance that's there. And I've got three plans kind of in front of me, two regular ones and one that's there and i've got three plans kind of in front of me um two regular ones and one that's hsa and i just do they all cover the guy you're talking about and the procedure you're talking about yes sir okay so they all cover that that that that variable is equal with all three of them yes sir okay then it's just a math thing after that. And so the HSA basically is a, as you probably are observing with what's laying in front of you, is basically a high-deductible health insurance plan that generally pays 100% once you meet the high deductible. Is that what your offering is?

It is. It just almost seemed too good to be true because from the top tier of the regular plan, it's about $5,000 a year cheaper once you cover all of the premiums and then the maximum out-of-pocket because we know we're going to hit that with the surgery. Right. I just don't want to step into quicksand on that one. The thing I don't want you to step into quicksand is on this surgery. I want to make double double triple sure that covers and that's got to

do with the individual carrier and what you get from them you know in writing is is that going to be uh you know some kind of a problem if it's not going to be a problem then it's not too good to be true it is a hundred percent coverage above the deductible most of them are mine is okay and um and it's basically a high deductdeductible health insurance plan. The reason it's so much cheaper is, you know, across the board of a large number of people, which is how insurance is calculated, right? It's not calculated on one person. Right.

Most people's health expenditures fall under that deductible. And so by taking that large deductible, you are taking the vast majority of the risk on average. And so the premium, thus, is much cheaper. It's just like if you had a car insurance plan and you had a $250 deductible or $1,000 deductible. It's going to be a lot cheaper on a $1,000 deductible because you're taking more risk at that point. yeah i definitely would do that and um but is the

thing you've got to dial in is you have to make triple quadruple sure that this main event that you've got here is covered and you know i maybe want to get that in writing from the from the agent that's working with you on this stuff. Or from the carrier, one of the two. Something along those lines. Azure is with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hey, Azure, how are you? I'm good.

How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I have a question for you. My 10-year-old had her first year of 4-H and took two animals to the fair. She got third place with her steer and got grand champion lamb. So she got the opportunity to sell both of those animals. Wow. And she made $6,300. Yay! Yay! So she took $100 and bought a toy that she wanted. And we have $100 she's going to put in the collection plate at church. Good.

We have $6,000 left to deal with. And I guess my thought was we have two other children, and I thought about taking $2,000 and putting that in each one of their 529 plans. And I didn't know what you thought about that. They also helped with the, you know, it wasn't like the 10-year-old did the whole thing by herself. They all, I mean, we've all worked on the projects. The 10-year-old also was the only one that has gotten money put in her 529

from my parents when she was a baby. The other two children didn't get that, so that's kind of what I was thinking. Okay. Well, I mean, if you feel like this was your project and she just got emotional credit for it, that's fine. If this kid did all this work, giving it to their brothers and sisters, I am not okay with. But it sounds like it's more of a family project is what you're outlining.

Then, sure, if you want to do that, you can. Okay. There's not any problem with that. I mean, I just want to make sure that this 10-year-old doesn't lose her zest for winning. I mean, she got paid big for winning. Yeah, she did. And so you can talk it through with her and say, you know, everybody helped on this. I helped.

The other kids helped. Your daddy helped. Everybody helped. Everybody, you know, we paid the feed and we paid the light bill for the barn where the steer and the lamb were or whatever, you know, all that kind of stuff. And so, you know, help her understand that there's a whole village involved here and and so we think it's a good idea to uh put 2000 in your college and 2000 in your brother's college and two brothers sisters college and uh you know we'll kind of get her agreement on that i don't know that i would force feed her on that um but i think you can make a reasonable statement uh a reasonable case to a 10-year-old, and you sound like you're that kind of a mom.

But I want her to have some buy-in because she did such a good job, man. And she can just kind of feel generous as a part of this. You know, that would be great. David is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hi, David. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm at the very beginning of my seven-step journey, and I know that the biggest thing for me, so I do have debt, but I know that the biggest thing for me is going to be I have a car payment of $468 a month. I think it's a 12% APR on it, and I still owe like $17,000 on it.

So I'm trying to figure out what my best option would be with that, because if I figure that part out, then it would definitely free up a lot of money for me to start putting towards my $1,000 and then start working on my debt. Yeah. Sounds like it's a noose around your neck. It is. It is.

What is your household income? I make about $26,000 a year. Yeah. Okay. Well, a good rule of thumb is to not have a car that is more than half your annual income because you've got too much tied up in things that are going down in value, and that's why you're feeling the pressure of this yeah it's mathematically punching you in the face every month and going 12 pop right you know 400 bucks pop it's a lot of money yeah i'm selling this car

okay get you get you a beater because i listen i want you to get whatever you want as far as car goes i want you to enjoy vehicles but you're not enjoying this thing it owns you yeah and if you'll get out of that and continue to grow your career and continue to grow your wealth you can drive whatever you want to drive later pay cash for it but right now let's get a beater and get this mess cleaned up you made okay make sense yes sir yeah let's talk about getting rid of it let's get way down in car i want you to drive a two thousand dollar car right now until you get this mess cleaned up and start getting some savings built up and then save up and pay cash for a little better car but in no case even if you're paying cash should things with motors and wheels in your life all added together equal more than half your annual income? That's kind of a mess.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. So so Did you know that if you combine the data breaches that have occurred in the past 12 months, almost every American has had their personal info compromised or hacked. Over 50% of our listeners and viewers tell us that they or someone in their family has been a victim. And 70% of those folks have had it happen more than once. See, this is unbelievable. Once thieves get your info, the risk never goes away, and they can use it whenever and however they choose.

It truly has become an issue of not if, but when. That's why the only plan I've ever recommended is through Zander Insurance. I actually sat down with them, and we put together a plan that I felt provided the best protection, but didn't waste dollars on things you could easily do yourself or were just gimmicks. The key is getting protected before you're a victim and it's too late. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. We are all at risk and it doesn't make sense to wait. Numbers don't lie.

That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. Question of the day comes from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window covering. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code RAMSY to get the best possible deal. Rules and restrictions apply. Nicole in Idaho says, Dave, my husband and I are completely new to the idea of budgeting. My question is, does the EveryDollar app replace the envelope system?

We're paying on debts that are based online and require a card in order to pay them. Would it be effective to use and stick with the EveryDollar app? Sure. EveryDollar app is just your budget plan. Instead of using paper and pencil and writing down your income at the top of the page and then spending every dollar, giving every dollar a name down the page until every dollar is gone, income minus outgo equals exactly zero. That's a zero-based budget.

And that's how a budget is supposed to work. You need to every single month give every single dollar an assignment and then make sure it goes and does its assignment and nothing else. And that's what your game plan is. That tightens it up. And then the methodology by which you pay it, whether it's with a debit card, that's fine. Whether it's with e-checks, that's fine. And whether some categories, a few categories, you can use the envelope system.

All the envelope system is is where you say, okay, we're going to spend, I'll make up a number, $600, $800 on food this month. We're going to spend $800 on food this month. We get paid two times, so we're going to put $400 out of each check into the grocery budget. But instead of just writing a check or using the debit card at the grocery store, what I'm going to do is I'm going to use the power of cash to do two things. One, remind me that I'm spending money.

And two, when the envelope's empty, it tells me to quit spending money. And so I'm going to put $400 cash in an envelope. Instead of writing a check at the grocery store, I'm going to write a check to myself, cash it out, put $400 cash in an envelope, write food on that envelope, and then don't buy anything out of that envelope except food. And then when you go to the grocery store, you use actual money. And if your total is more than $400, you're going to have to put something back. It keeps you from going over the budget, the allocated amount for that category.

If you had a clothing envelope and you went clothing shopping you could go clothing shopping without any guilt because whatever you spend on clothing out of the clothing envelope is okay as long as you don't spend more on clothing than is in the envelope because there's not enough money there to pay the register to pay the bill when you go up and try to check out right so that's what the envelope system is when you are actually handling cash it activates the pain centers of the brain you realize you are spending money there's emotional friction involved and it causes you to spend less and spend more carefully but most of all the purpose of the envelope system is to keep you from going over in a couple of categories.

The only thing you would use the envelope system for are things you don't do at home. You pay a bill from your computer sitting at home. You pay your light bill. You don't use the envelope system for that. But if you're buying clothing out walking around the mall, you're doing Christmas out walking around the mall, you've got a Christmas envelope, right, with cash in it. And when the Christmas envelope is empty, go home. Get out of the mall.

You're about to be over-served here. Get financially hung over. Time to move a different direction. If you're out of your home spending money, you can use the envelope system and it will keep you on track. We're multi-millionaires. We still use the envelope system for a few categories, not as many as we used to. We used to have it really dialed in. And back in the day, we first started this stuff 30 years ago. Every little thing had its own envelope and we were just like fanatics about it. But that's how we got out of the mess.

That's how we got it turned around. That's how we ended up with some money because we didn't give it all away to stupid stores. And we weren't constantly busting the budget. So the EveryDollar app is the game plan. You can have that on your phone that says this is how much I'm supposed to spend for a given category. You can have that on your desktop. That's what I'm supposed to spend for a given category. I decided that this month. You decide what you want to do.

But then the envelope system is just cash for out walking around money and it keeps you in line for those things. So, hey, good question. Victoria is with us in Boston. Hi, Victoria. How are you?

I'm great, sir. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Awesome. So I took your financial peace class about six years ago. I got really excited about it up until it got to the hard part, the debt cancellation part or the debt payment part. And I work for the local government, so I told myself, oh, apply for public service loan forgiveness in 10 years. I don't have to worry about it. And so that was,

again, six years ago. About a year ago, I started working with a Primerica financial advisor. And we got on a plan where I would max out my loss and then put about $400 in mutual funds. I also, in the last year, purchased a car car and so that is about $200 a month in car loans. So my question is, at this point, I'm really praying and considering stopping all of my investments, paying off my car loan, which I have cash in the bank, and then putting all of that money towards my student loans. It's about $45,000. My advisor is really recommending that I don't do that and that I could really lose out if I paused for the two or three years it would take me to pay off that debt. I could really

be losing out 30 years from now on a lot more if I just kept that money in the market. So I'm wondering what your advice would be. Well you know what my advice would be. don't wonder it's true you already knew you took a class you you know exactly what i think i didn't i didn't change my advice you just didn't follow it now you're thinking about following it and your advisor doesn't think my advice is good right right so you're gonna have to decide which horse are you going to ride do you think even like the ross that there isn't any level of continuing to contribute and really thinking about that compound interest that i could potentially lose victoria you went to the class. You know what I tell people. You know what I tell people, don't you?

It's true. Temporarily stop all investing and work your baby steps. Get out of debt because your most powerful wealth-building tool is not compound interest. Your most powerful wealth-building tool is your dadgum income. But that doesn't pay your Primerica rep any commission. You're getting bad advice, I think. But he thinks you're getting bad advice from me, so you're going to have to decide, aren't you?

That's true. You can't half-butt do this stuff anymore. You're going to have to decide which horse you're gonna ride and ride it then okay but you know what i'm gonna say yes temporarily stop all retirement yes pay off your stupid car but i didn't tell you to buy the stupid car on payments to start with you know that and yes i'm gonna tell you to not wait around on the government forgiveness because only 96 people have received that so yes i'm going to tell you to not wait around on the government forgiveness because only 96 people have received that so far i don't think that's a very good bet i'm going to pay off my student loans the shortest path is not compound interest to wealth the

shortest path to wealth is to get out of debt because you got control of your income so you need to decide which advisor you're going to follow because your advisors are in conflict. And by the way, you ought to fire one of them or the other. So don't call me for advice anymore if you're going to follow his because you know what I'm going to say. And by the way, if you're going to follow mine, you need to get a different advisor,

because the Primerica guy is not telling you to do what I'm telling you to do. It's pretty simple. It's okay either way. I'm not mad about it. I'll be okay either way. But you need to decide. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Decide.

And then stick with it. Ride the horse. This is unstable in all his ways. Decide. And then stick with it. Ride the horse. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 27, 17. As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Rick Warren said, experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you. Don't waste your pain.

Use it to help others. Now, I got a good friend of mine. He says, I don't trust someone that doesn't walk with a limp. If you've never had any pain, I mean, you've never been busted. You've never been knocked down. You've never been so scared you can't breathe. Yeah. It's a different place, you know.

Puts you in a different position. Carl is with us in Syracuse, New York. Hi, Carl. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hello. Thanks for taking my Ramsey Show. Hello. Thanks for taking my call, Dave. Sure. What's up? I have a pretty simple question probably for you.

I'm leaving one job and going to another, of course. With the job that I'm currently leaving, I will be taking a check for $10,000 from the retirement system that they have offered me. I have a car that I owe $8,000 on with a $220 a month payment. Should I pay that off? And I don't know about the fees and the penalties, however. How old are you? 55. Okay. Now, you will be penalized 10% plus your tax rate.

And so depending on what brackets you're in, you're going to be paying somewhere north of 30% on this money to pull it out. I would instead roll it to an IRA and keep from having to pay any fees or penalties on it. Okay. You wouldn't borrow money at 30% interest to pay off the car. No. And it's the same thing mathematically so no we don't cash out retirement plans to pay off debt unless it's to avoid bankruptcy or foreclosure rick is in denver hey rick merry christmas to you thank you thank you i want to compliment your call screener

she makes decisions quickly ah very good thank you how I help? I've got an insurance policy that I bought 50 years ago on my life. The wife owns it. She's been listening to you and thinks maybe we should cash it in. I'd like to keep it, so we're going to let you give us the advice. The annual premium is $454 a month or a year. The cash value right now is $121,000, a little over $121,000. The insurance amount is $149,000. It's a participating policy. Last year, the increase was $5,400, about a 4.69% increase. Right. How old are you?

We're both retired. We have no debt. Here's the situation, Rick. When you die with this policy in place, they're going to pay your wife $149,000. Right. So you do not, and you lose your $121,000. I what? You lose the $121,000.

They're going to pay $149,000. They're going to keep your $121,000 savings. They don't pay her $150. They pay her $149. Well, but every year that goes up. No, but you're misunderstanding me. You've been paying extra all these years to create this savings account called cash value. You've been paying five times extra over what term insurance is, probably as much as 20 times extra in order to create this savings account of $121,000.

So you really don't have $149,000 worth of insurance. You really have about $20,000 worth because you've got $121,000 of your money sitting there that they're going to keep, and they're going to pay her $149, 149 so the net of those two is really all the insurance is worth do you see what i'm saying no i've paid 24 000 over the 50 years yeah i know let's try this way let's try this stop stop stop a second let's try this way if you had a if you take this out and cash this out, you'd have $121,000 in the bank, right? Uh-huh. And so when you die, there'd still be $121,000 in the bank, right? Mm-hmm. And if you took out a $20,000 insurance policy, you'd have the same amount of money for her, right?

$121,000 in the bank plus a $20,000 policy is $141,000. It's the same deal. So you're paying an awful lot of money for basically $20,000 worth of insurance net, like a ton of money. So the answer to your question overall is, yes, I would cash this out in 20 seconds. I'd get out of there fast because I don't want to die tonight with it in there. I want to get it out of their hands as fast as I possibly can. Put it in investments.

Put it in investments. You'll make a lot more than 4% to start with. And on top of that, when you die, they don't keep it. But right now, they're going to keep it. You've got $149,000 life insurance policy with zero savings, or you've got $121,000 worth of savings and $25,000 worth of life insurance. This is what totals $149,000. You can look at it however you want to look at it, but it's one of those two.

It's not both. You don't get $149,000 at death plus $121,000. And you've paid extra to have the savings all these years and then they're going to keep it when you die effectively so um the whole whole life investment type life insurance is one of the worst financial products on the planet and so i yes i would get out of this so fast scaring me that we're not out of it already. Get out of it by the end of the day as quickly as you possibly can. And that's the reasoning.

I mean, it's real simple. It's a lot of money that you have built up in there. It's your money. And so, effectively, you know, it's gone because you're paying a lot of money for $149,000 life insurance policy. Okay, that's enough. Yeah, cash it out. All right, Sarah is in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Sarah, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Thank you for taking my call, Dave. Sure. What's up? My question is, my husband and I have about $5,000 left to pay off in Baby Step No. 2, and we are wondering if we should cash out some single stocks to pay off the remaining debts, and that is non-retirement. Yes. Okay.

Anytime you have any money that's non-retirement, we use that. We cash it out of wherever, all the way down to $1,000 until we're debt-free. Okay. So how much have you got in single stocks? We have $12,500 in single stocks. Okay, great. And do you have any debt other than the $5,000? No.

I've been listening to you since April, and I've paid off $20,000 already. Way to go, kiddo. Awesome. Proud of you. Thank you. And do you have any money in your emergency fund? Yes, $1,000. Oh, you're following the plan.

Look at you. I like it. Okay, so cash out the entire $12,500, and let's pay off the $5,000 worth of debt, put $7,500 with your $1,000, and now we're on our way to finishing our emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. Okay, and how much would I expect in taxes and fees, do you think, out of that $12,500? How much should I set aside for that? Depends on what you paid for the stock. Your basis is what you paid for.

Do you have any idea what you paid for it? Well, my husband started with $5,000 and it's grown from $5,000 to $12,500 in the last 15 years. Okay, then that's a $7,000 gain, and it would be at 15% of $7,000, so probably roughly $1,000. Okay. But if you want to calculate it very precisely, the proper way to do it would be to contact the stock brokerage firm that has the stuff, or even the company that you have the stock with, and find out what your basis is, meaning exactly what he paid for it, and then exactly what it sells for, and then the difference exactly times 15% is going to be your taxes. Okay. Your gain, your capital gain is taxed at long-term capital gains are taxed at 15%.

Wow, you're doing so good, Sarah. Congratulations. Very, very, very well done. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thank you for joining us, America. Merry Christmas to you. We're so glad you're with us. So many of you are doing so good.

Man, there's so many good things happening out there. You are really doing good. I believe in you. Keep it up. Keep it up. That puts us out of the Day of Ramsey show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace,

and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, it's Kelly, Dave's phone screener. We finished 2017 with a bang as the fourth most downloaded podcast of the year. Thanks to all of you for listening and helping us spread the word.