The Ramsey Show - App - Paying Off Debt (Hour 3)

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I am Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with bestselling author Dr. John Deloney. And we are answering your calls. It's a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225. Talking about your life, your money, your relationships, your career, anything and everything. Give us a call. We're going to start off this hour with Maria in Denver.

Hi, Maria. Welcome to the show. Hello. Hello. Hello. How can we help? I just had a couple of questions. So I'm doing a career change from law enforcement to medicine. All right.

Yeah. So it's a big change. I started working for the station right at 21. So I am big. It's a big change. I started working right at 21. So I'm 23 now and I decided to make the change in the middle of last year. So I'm currently working as an office manager in a medical setting, trying to get my clinical hours, you know, working on what I need to do to apply to med school. I am in debt from my undergrad. And then as well as like a car payment and some credit cards. And I'm attacking it, but I don't know if my plan of attack is the most stable or sound.

Okay. How much do you owe on all those debts? Will you list them out with the numbers? So total is about 48. Credit cards is 10. Car is a little over 15. And then the rest is student loans. Okay. So for the credit cards, it was a move. I took out a card and then just moved. Um, I know not super duper smart, but, um, for that I'm currently putting a little over 500, close to 600 every month towards that. Um, to do, I just get it paid down and be really aggressive. Um, my loans are on the safe plan right now, so they're deferred. And then my car payment is about $300 a month.

Okay. How much are you making a year considering you're doing all this schooling and everything? Yeah, I make $37 now. I consider doing a switch, but I take my exams and everything for the med school admission stuff in July. Okay. And how much after all of that will you owe? So I've already paid for my exams, so I don't really have to worry about still paying on those. Okay. For the actual med school application cycles. I don't have numbers yet because, again,

I'm still working on my prerequisites and the exams and everything to even try to do the application cycle. Do you know what it's going to cost you going forward? Off the top of my head, I'm going to assume $2,000, $2,500 is just kind of a guess, an estimated guess for applications, secondaries, all that kind of stuff. Okay. All right. Maria, do you have any money saved?

I have $200 in an IRA. Okay. I don't have an emergency fund right now. Okay. Okay. What happened at your police job? It sounds like you just said, I'm, I literally, I'm done. Yeah.

So I was, my caseload was massive for me by myself. Again, I was like 21. Sure. I thought that was something I had wanted to do. Everyone told me, you know, this is something that'll be really good. You'll have a job. It'll be stable, blah, blah, blah. I wasn't making too much more than what I'm making now, and the stress was through the roof.

My caseload was, again, huge. So I realized very quickly, I don't think I want to do this forever. So I'm going to give you an analogy that's not going to be apples to apples. And then Rachel's going to walk you through this. I think this is, and again, I'm telling you this as somebody, A, who loves you and B, who has sat with countless college students and I was a graduate school professor. So I've been in your world. Okay.

You made a very, very quick decision. And here's the analogy. Again, it doesn't hold, it's not watertight, but it's close. You were driving a car that you didn't like. You're like, I want to drive such and such car. And you got it and you're like, I don't like this car.

And you just pulled over on the side of the road and you said, I want a Mercedes. And you just started walking to a Mercedes dealership. And I'm not saying you should have stayed in your job. We're desperate need of extraordinary law enforcement officials, but also are professionals, but also know that's a demanding, brutal job. I grew up in that home. Those are my friends. I get it. So I'm not saying that's the thing to do, but I'm also saying, man, it sounds like you are not in a place financially to swan dive into med school, which will be one of the most, if not the most challenging academic endeavor a person can enter into. It's tough.

So Rachel can help you pull apart the numbers, but you're in a bigger mess i think than you think you are yeah because i'm trying to think maria with your timeline i want i want what you've done so far to be credible in the future but i can't in good conscience tell you to continue down this path and go into med school eventually with money you don't you don't have while you're owing all of this and so what i how old are you 23 okay and luckily my i'm planning to actually do the applications and stuff in two to three years so that's not something i'm wanting to do like tomorrow okay um okay so what's your plan for the two to three years in the meantime yeah i just kind of pay off what i can okay prereqs yeah okay okay that's a good plan okay could you consider going to

nursing school for two years and making exceptional money and really digging yourself building yourself a pretty remarkable foundation and then deciding because I don't here's what I don't want you to I don't want you to go through all this go get all the prereqs and then go through three weeks of med school and be like oh this sucks too you see what i'm saying yeah yeah if there's some things you can do and especially with your age i mean your age is on your side right like you have the time big time um to be able to slow walk this because maria i think one of the best places you could be mentally is entering to something to john's point med school which is one of the most stressful environments i could only imagine that someone walks through where I would say, what if you went and got a job somewhere

and you made 60 grand, you paid off the credit card first, which is what I would do the 10,000. I would pay off the smallest amount of debt to the largest. So I would pay your $300 minimum payment on your car, like you said, but I would be throwing that extra 600 more at the credit card cut it up get rid of it pay it off work to pay off the uh the car loan next and then your student loans and you work your way down that's 48 000 and if you can do that pay that off and live like like you're in college maria like you're're 23. So live on nothing. Try to find a great job, hopefully maybe in the medical profession. If not, like something else, right?

Doing something. Because I just think if you can enter in to med school and make those decisions in two to three years without any debt, having some savings, three to six months of expenses saved in the bank, and then start making financial, making these career altering decisions and financial decisions from that place, from a financial aspect, it is way

less stressful than trying to juggle all of this. So, so yeah, if there's a couple of things you need to finish up here in the next few months, you can do that. But then I would pause. I would go find a job. I would, that pays well. Pay this debt off. Pay this debt off and then reevaluate med school, Maria, which I know is probably not the answer you want, but I think that's the best one. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way and that way isn't down.

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help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for 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 slash budget. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. We're answering your calls. And up next, we have Felicia in Waco, Texas. Hey, Felicia, welcome to the show. Thank you. Hi, how are you guys? We're doing great. How can we help? So last year, I had a property that was my primary residence. Me and my husband bought a solar through ADT and a partnership program. And they promised us that we would

roughly get 13, almost $14,000 on our, uh, federal tax return. I bet they did. Oh, they sure did. And that we get the returns, we pay it in our payment stays down to 187, some odd change. And so tax season rolls around, we file. Come to find out you don't get that money. You get a percentage. And I believe we got like, it was either just under or just over two grand by like a hundred

bucks. So clearly we did not have almost $14,000, um, to, uh, pay the, um, deferred portion. And so now our payment will be going up. It's either this month or next month that it takes effect. And I called the company and I talked to them and I told them, you know, what the heck you guys said, we would get this. You made promises you can't keep. Like, I don't know what to do.

I don't have $14,000 to just be like, here you go, keep my payments low. Yeah, what did they say? They were rude, to say it nicely and basically were like, well, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's your fault. It kind of boiled down to, it's my fault. I'm uneducated and, um, I did blatantly get called an idiot. Oh, I sound like a wonderful people. Do you have any of this communication in writing? Is it part of a contract you signed or any email or text message communication?

I have the contracts, which state that you get, um, whatever that percentage, which amounted to that almost 14,000, um, that we would get it in returns, which we,000, that we would get it in returns, which we were allowed to then apply to our overall loan

to keep the payment low from that deferred portion. However, once I told them, hey, by the way, we don't get that. That's not how that works. They were like basically sucks to suck and then told me I was an idiot. Well, so there's two different things here, three different things here. One, don't conflate legal matters with business matters with idiots. Okay. You, you, you're in a business relationship with them, with jerks.

Let me say jerks instead of idiots. You're in a business relationship with them. So let's put your emotional side. They called you an idiot. Like, you know, I'm never going to do business with them again. I will never recommend them. I'm going to call it a better business period, whatever. Cool. Let's put that over here. Okay. That's what our emotional side gets, gets fired up. And we do things that we wouldn't possibly otherwise do. Or we say things that aren't really us because we're fired up. Let's put that over here. If you're holding a contract that says, based on percentage X,

you're going to get $14,000 back that you're going to apply to the principal. It's going to keep your payment low. Then they have an obligation to meet the terms of the contract. If they don't, you have two choices. You can walk away or you can sue them. Okay. That's the point of a contract my guess is it's going to be in the middle somewhere that basically the language is closer to unless unless they put the number 14 grand they're going to say no no you get a percentage up to possibly including something like that you you may be entitled up to something like that.

And then when they actually did the calculations, it was $2,000, not $14,000. And so their salesman, which are unscrupulous, told you the highest possible return. You can make up to $5 million. Most of our people make $50, but you could make up. You see what I'm saying? Right.

How much do you guys owe on these? It's somewhere in the 40s. When we did our taxes, it says in our tax paperwork, it shows that full 13, almost 14,000, and we get a percentage of that. So that's the percentage of the total loan. And then we get a percentage of that $14,000 yearly as long, apparently as long as we own the house.

But it's within your payments, then it just lowers it. Right. Like when we file every year, we can get a percentage of that um 13 whatever thousand did you take let me say this did you take the contract to your tax attorney yes and they said i'm sorry this is what you're entitled to he told us because we don't owe taxes like we get lower returns basically because essentially we're too good with our money we don't get to get the money up front from the government you're not getting a big tax return you mean correct okay on the back end they don end. They don't send you a big return. Okay.

Sounds like one of two things. Either they ripped you off and you need to have an attorney look at the contract. My gut tells me they painted you a very, very, very rosy picture of a possibility that did not come true and probably almost never comes true, but came true once or twice so that they could tell everybody that this is what happens. And you entered into a deal with the devil. You took out a debt payment and now it's come back to bite you. And I think I, yes,

my gut tells me at the end of this, y'all are going to have to figure out how to pay this thing off. Right. Yeah. That's, that's a little bit of my fear, Felicia, that, and it sucks. We call it stupid tax around here of doing something. It just hurts. And you just think that was so dumb, but there's no,

there's no way out. Right. because i don't think with solar panels you can like dismantle them and resell them on a different market or something right like i think with a lot of these when we when we get this call a lot with oh my gosh we want to put solar panels on because it's going to save x y and z you know like this has kind of been part of right we've heard this discussion a lot, or not a lot, enough. That's, I mean, at the end of the day, it never ends up financially being a smart move. And so I hate to say it, Felicia, I feel like you may, you guys just fell for it. Great sales pitch.

And then as the numbers came in and it laid out in front of you, the facts, it's just not, it's not the picture they painted, like to what John said. But again, if there's more legal issues, issues and again getting a good attorney on your side just to look over some of it i mean if there if there is a case there and you guys want to pursue legal action because you do feel like we were lied to in a contract that's one thing but having somebody that from a legal standpoint be able to go through it with a fine tooth comb.

And if they're, and if they deliver the news, which I'm, I'm, I'm believing probably will be true is that it's like, yeah, y'all signed up for this. The return is not what they said it's going to be, but the way the language speaks,

there's something you can really do about it. And you're kind of stuck with a bad financial decision, Felicia, which hurts so bad and it sucks. Yeah, I wish we had better news for you. And by the way, Rachel, I'm a huge, I live out in the woods. I'm a huge fan of solar panels, but I'm not going to be under any illusion that I'm doing it to save money or that it's somehow a different alternative investment to buying a rental property.

And go into debt for it, right? Because that's the big thing is people get caught up in this idea. Oh, it's going to save here and all of this. And yeah, if we take out this loan, I mean, it's a little bit of kind of how Felicia painted it. I'm like, I feel like I've heard that verbiage, that language, that idea around this specific thing, solar panels. And you got to just run the numbers, right?

Yeah, I'm not saying they're bad necessarily, but I think a lot of people justify debt to go into them, and that's usually what we see on the show. And it's very similar with student loans. If you do this, there's a government program for this, and then this other thing. Anytime somebody says, hey, the federal government's going to dot, dot, dot, just stop and say,

I want to see this in writing because I don't believe you. Let's start there. Sorry, Felicia. I hate it for you. Wish we had better news. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Rachel, I want to talk about our first ever Illustrated Kids book, which I love it.

My daughter loves it. It's the perfect gift for parents who don't want to spend a jillion dollars, but want to get their kids something beautiful and something with a positive message. Tell me about it. Thanks, John. Yes, it's called I'm Glad for What I Have. And it is beautiful. The illustrations are just so cute.

And here's the deal. With our kids, one thing I want to teach my kids is it's okay to have stuff. Stuff is not bad. But if your motivation to have stuff is to keep joy and happiness going, you're going to be very disappointed in life. And so contentment is such a powerful principle in our lives and for our kids. And I have an eight, six and four year old. And our four year old said a few months ago, is the Amazon guy coming today, mom? I was like, oh my gosh, I created these like little monsters. And so I just thought you'll have to, you have to get this and understand it. But also drawn like what's funny. And you know, that's about parenting. Most parents do. I can, I can

say it and read the book and all of it, but my actions and how I live life and how I interact with money speak way louder. So the message, yes, is for the kids, but I also wrote it for the parents that at the end of the book, that there's truth that you can say, okay, I can settle into something so much greater than me and it's not stuff.

So it is called I'm Glad for What I Have. So this Christmas, I've gotten more DMs. I've gotten lots of parents that bought it. So thank you, parents. So many grandparents. Yes. Lots of grandparents are buying it for've got lots of parents that bought it. So thank you, parents. So many grandparents. Yes. Lots of grandparents are buying it for the grandkids. So we appreciate it.

And I think if you're grandparents and you grew up in an era when you didn't have a lot. You know that you can survive without it. You know, like, what are we doing? And then finally a beautiful message comes out in a cool book that's like, hey, y'all are going to be good. So that book, along with the 2024 Ramsey Goal Planner,

which is a planner that Rachel, me, and our great friend Jade Warshaw work together to help you line up your faith, your relationships, and finances through monthly teachings. For those of you, like my wife is still an OG, likes to have a planner in her hand that she can write in with this awesome piece of ancient technology called a pen or a pencil. The Rachel Cruz wallet. Thank God, Rachel, it's finally a navy. I know. So many colors. The navy's out. It's beautiful.

But I haven't been able to breathe until the navy one came out. So that's it. Our friend George Campbell's first foray into the book world, breaking free from broke. You can still preorder it. He actually is not just an Instagram hero. He uses real data. He doesn't just make up stuff like most of the people on the internet do these days.

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on how to make a budget and change your life. If you know somebody in your life, you would like to change your life for $10, go to ramsaysolutions.com slash store for that book and all the other products that are going to help save your Christmas. That's right. All right. Up next, we got Juliana in Charlotte. Hi, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. Absolutely. How can we help? So my initial question is, I'm interested to know what you guys think about consolidation loans for debt. Please don't.

Please, please, please, please, please don't. And the why behind that is what we have found is that debt is a symptom of behaviors that are going on. And if you can't control the behavior, you're going to get the same result. And I think a lot of people depend on debt consolidation or have the belief that it's somehow going to rescue them out of their situation. But what's going to rescue them out of their situation is actually changing their behaviors and learning how to deal with money. And so we find that, I mean, almost everybody can pay their way out of debt. They can get themselves out of debt. They don't need debt consolidation that comes with fees and everything. The one type of debt that would be okay with you consolidating is student

loans, because usually that's not a type of debt you go back into. So if you wanted to do that because you had a better interest rate, that's something we can talk about. But, yeah, just this idea that it's going to sweep in and save you, that's what a lot of people believe, and it's just not the case. So what position are you in or what's the situation that's causing you to think about that? Right. So I see what you're saying, but that really doesn't apply. I mean, I'm not saying.

So here's the situation okay um so recently um my husband um who has a history of some mental illness um snapped and there was a life-threatening situation which ended him up in in a mental institution which is still there now so sorry um I'm pretty sure um because of some things that happened on his job that he has lost his job but in the interim time I work and he is the breadwinner so all of our money would go to one account all of our bills would just come out of this account automatically and that's the way we've done this for years and years and years. And now all of this debt that we have, and mostly primarily because of his history of having to be in hospitals

previously, I've had to go into some expensive credit card debt, personal loan debt, and it hasn't been a problem to pay these things with his check because he was the breadwinner. But now my check is not going to do it. So am i looking into a second job yes i am however i'm 58 years old i have a medical condition that requires treatments every eight weeks myself so it's not like i can do a lot a lot of like two and three

jobs like i might can do another part-time job plus my full-time job and hopefully get some of this but in the meantime the thing is what's scaring me is all this debt is like my right now my checking account's going in the negative because these things are coming out my check my bank is trying to pay them and charge me for it you got to stop juliana jillian i want i want you to to you just got thrown you were on a boat in the ocean and that boat just exploded yeah i don't want you to keep trying to drive the boat as though it still existed as it did before all this happened okay so you're gonna have to think about all the way you've been doing things have to be different effective immediately yeah you want to stop all of those automatic transfers.

All automatic payments stop ASAP. Like right when we get off this call, I want you to call the bank or go to the bank and cancel all of them. Okay. If your husband is the only person on the account and he is... You're on it? Okay, good. So we're stopping all automatic payments okay if these are medical

bills we're gonna what kind of what kind of bills are running you into the ground so it's uh i'm about eight thousand dollars in credit cards and eight thousand dollars in personal loans and um they're just been set up to come out automatically. Yeah, we're stopping that. Okay. And in fact, we might have to get a new checking account

because I don't want any credit card company having my checking account number, period. End of story. Okay. Okay. And you might need to tell the bank, hey, this credit card keeps withdrawing from this account. I need to move my money to a new account and close this one.

Julian. Oh, sorry. Because I don't want them to have access. Yeah. Is it one credit card or multiple credit cards that add up to 8,000? Multiple. How many? Six. Okay. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to get very detailed i want you to list out all six credit cards separately okay and then the personal loan i'm assuming is just one loan correct three three different loans okay list those out separately okay so you're gonna have nine different debts on a sheet of paper and i want you to go through and figure out okay where i want you to mark down all the minimum payments on all of this. Because how much do you just bring in a year?

Well, I recently started a new job about four months ago. I did have to take a slight cut in pay, but I did that because the benefits. Okay, so how much? Hey, let's do this. Let's hold her over. Hey, Juliana, I'm going to put you on hold because we want to finish this call and help you out the best we can. But we've got to go to a commercial break. When we come back from the commercial break, we'll pick you up from that call because we want to help you the best that we can.

Hang on. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day comes from 2 Corinthians 5 at 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone and the new is here. Max Dupree said, We cannot become what we want by remaining who we are or what we are. I guess it's true. We cannot become what we want by remaining who we are or what we are hmm i guess that's true we cannot become what we want by remaining what we are yeah i think that's a hundred percent true yeah but what

if we're kind of okay with then you've become what you wanted to become good grief all right so um in the last segment we were talking to Juliana from Charlotte. Juliana is married to somebody who's been suffering from some significant mental health challenges who ended up in an institution, and they have set up all their bank payments on automatic draft. So the bank is coming in and taking out these credit card payments and personal loan payments, and they're running out of money quick. And Juliana is asking, is a debt consolidation loan a good idea? So we're walking her through, here's the mechanics of what you should do. First of all was stop all the automatic payments. And

since the credit card companies have her checking account number, she may have to go to the bank and close that account and open up a new one. So that's where we landed ourselves. Juliana, does that sound about right? Yes. All right. And I think we were asking you, Juliana, you took a new job, but we were seeing how much income you bring in a year. A year is around $33,000. Okay. And you took that new job. What was the reasoning for that? So for benefits wise, I don't have to pay, they pay my insurance. Okay.

And so that was a great benefit for me considering, like I said, I have medical conditions. And so it was just a huge benefit for me. And it's a few other extra benefits that I didn't have with my other job. So I did take a little bit of a cut in pay. But then again, having to pay the insurance on the other job, it kind of equaled out really. Okay. So I just felt like they offered a retirement plan and just things that I wasn't offered before.

And at my age, those are things you start thinking about. Sure, sure. Go ahead. Well, so I was going to... In the meantime, I didn't tell you that in the meantime of this happening, I also found out 100% sure

that my husband and I was having an affair. So I know that this time our marriage is over. I'm not going to go back into that situation. I've made up my mind. Okay. So I'm going to have to handle this on my own and I definitely have been in prayer about it, but I just don't want to make up my mind. Okay. So I'm going to have to handle this on my own and I definitely have been in prayer about it, but I just don't want to make another wrong decision.

Sure. I would contact, once you get the, Rachel, go ahead with the nine debts you have in order and we're going to add up the minimums here. Yes. Yeah. So I just want you to get a handle on just the minimums because I don't want you getting behind. But right now, Julianne, I think it's fair because of what you've just walked through. It's traumatic. Traumatic. And then you find out your husband's been cheating.

So there's a lot going on. So honestly, I would be okay, Julianne, if you just stay afloat, that you just can pay minimum payments. I don't want you getting behind because that's going to create a whole other mess and lots of stress. But if you can just keep everything afloat, pay minimum payments, stay current on everything and let some of this... Go ahead. I just don't make enough money to pay all the payments on my own. Well, since y'all are about to go through a divorce proceeding, I would actually contact an attorney, ASAP, and they may be able to freeze these

payments while they're sorting out what's going on because he's going to be responsible for a big chunk of the debt as y'all split up your estates. And if he doesn't have a job, then, well, yeah, but he's going to have to write you a check for some equity in the house, for future earnings. There's going to be some sort of settlement here. And if his claim is, well, I got fired from my job, I'll never be able to work again, then you'll figure out social security. There will be a process here, okay? Okay. But I want you to call a local attorney in your area that you trust.

Maybe somebody from your local church can help you with this. And you're going to have to be honest and you're going to have to tell the truth. And not that you're going to lie, but you're going to have to just be vulnerable and tell something that's going to be hard and scary and hurtful. But I want you to get somebody to walk with you and give you some on the ground advice. Okay? Okay. Oh, I'm so sorry. It's a lot, I know.

And walking through this, I think it is going to be so difficult. But I think on that end, I want you to make sure your lights are on, utilities are paid, food is paid, house is taken care of. So we call those your four walls. That's even before debt. So making sure that all of that is there and talking to an attorney and you may get to a point that you'll look up and your income will be sufficient enough to help pay down your portion of the debt, whatever they give you. And also if not, there's stuff, whether it's selling stuff, whether it's working just eight to 10 hours extra a week. I mean,

the things that you can do to get out of this, because we've seen it. People do this all the time and it's hard. It's not easy, but it is possible. So we really do have that belief, but you're walking through a really hard personal thing right now in your life. And I think it's okay to grieve that and to be that. But yeah, I would call an attorney ASAP, especially if you know that you're done with the marriage. I also, I don't know if this is going to be worth the breath I'm spending on it, but it may be worth calling each one of those credit cards and letting them know my husband's been institutionalized for a mental health break for a psychiatric disorder.

We don't know when he's going to be released, but he is unable to work at this time. I'm asking for a forbearance or can we push this off for 60 days or some sort of medical something or other. They may say go pound sand, but it's sure worth asking. And maybe a couple of them will say, yes, we'll give you 60 days. We have a special program. Send us the paperwork, his admittance paperwork or something like that, that might give you a little bit of breathing room. And here's the last thing I'm going to tell you. Find a friend. You cannot navigate this by yourself. Call a friend that will come over and have coffee with you every morning or a couple of days a week and have somebody that you can talk to. Thanks for calling, Juliana. All right, real quick, let's go to Morgan in Tulsa. It's going

to be a fast call, Morgan. I'm sorry, it's the end of the show, but you've been waiting, so I want to get to you. How can we help? That's okay. No worries. So I'm mainly calling just for some advice. My grandma has saved in a 529 account for me since I was really young. And I don't have any intentions on going to school. As of right now, I got married young at 19, started a family young. And my husband and I are making around $80,000 a year. We have $33,000 in total debt. And in this 529 account is around $40,000 is what I can assume. So I don't know how to go to her because she's very career driven. She really wanted me to go to school.

She didn't want me to start a family young and have a baby. But that's what I've wanted for my life. I don't know how to talk with her and say, hey, this money is just sitting there. It expires in five years. we could potentially really give our family a boost by paying off our debt and having a fully stocked emergency fund no well no you'll be well if you if you pull out of 529 and it's not on educational expenses you're going to pay income tax and a 10 penalty so with your income i mean it's going to be around 35 percent out of this 40.

So no, you're not going to have the total to pay this debt off. And a 529-2 Morgan, look into this, but if it's been open longer than 15 years, which it has, you can roll it over to a Roth IRA up to $35,000. So the majority of this can be rolled over to retirement, which would do you way better than cashing it out and having to pay taxes and the penalty and everything to pay off this

debt. So you and your husband, that's what I would ask her to do. And if she's a career woman, she's going to be like, good for you, because if accounts been open for longer than 15 years, you can roll it over to a Roth IRA. So Morgan, I would roll it over to a Roth in your name. It's been open longer than 15 years. And so that's exactly what I do. I would not cash it out. I think you would lose. I didn't even know it was an option. So thank you so much. Yeah, the Biden administration passed it. Something great happens out of Washington last year. And it's fantastic.

So yes, you can actually roll it over. So I would talk to a smart investor pro. If you go to ramseysolutions.com, you can look up one in your area. But I, yep, that's exactly what I would do, Morgan. And then another option, if that's what you and your husband choose not to do, you can also with 529s,

roll them over to another beneficiary. So you can actually earmark that money for your kids. You can actually split it up and have that for their college too. It's just, it is money that is, it's grown tax-free. I mean, it's just, there's so much benefit to leaving it in that account and protecting it that I don't,

I wouldn't want to touch it for debt. I think you and your husband can attack that debt. So thanks, Morgan. Thanks for the call. Thanks for all of you in the booth. John, great hour. And also with you. Always fun hosting with you. And thank you, America, for listening. Remember to take control of your money and create a life you love.