The Ramsey Show - App - Quit Doing Stupid Stuff! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: December 21, 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 actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jay Boshaw, Ramsey personality, and author of the new quick read, Money's Not a Math Problem. She's my co-host today at Open Phones at 888-825-5225. Merry Christmas. Thank you for being with us. We're so glad you're here. Megan is with us. Megan is in Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Megan. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you so much for having me.

I'm in the parking lot of the dry cleaners. I just picked up my wedding dress. Yay, how fun. Thank you. I'm getting married on the 1st of January, and I'm so excited. You should be. Congratulations. Thank you so much. So my fiance is amazing. He's incredible, but he's not that great with money, which is why I'm calling. Sorry. So we've been together for a while, and over the course of the last maybe year, he revealed that he's in a lot of credit card debt, about $58,000 worth. Yeah.

So in February of this year, I actually took out a home equity loan um at prime rate so what is that 8.5 i think well wait a second you said he's not that great with money you're taking out helocs what are you taking out a heloc for yeah i mean i knew where we were going i knew we were forever and I knew I wanted to just nip this in the bud. So he cut up his credit card, and we put all of his money. We consolidated all of his credit card debt into a HELOC, and he's been making steady payments since then to me to pay on that. Lord Jesus, okay. So he commits to about $1,000 a month to paying that off,

and we're predicting about a four-and-a-half-year to five-year payoff. Oh, no, no, no. What do you make? Oh, I only make $60,000 a year. What does he make? And he makes $120,000. Okay, so you make $180,000. You have $58,000 in debt.

We are not waiting six freaking years. You're doing this next year. Okay, okay. we have made some mistakes he had a bunch of credit card debt and was overspending apparently he has stopped that i hope it sounds like you made a mistake of financing someone that you weren't married to debt you're getting ready to fix that in about a week thank you god so you'll be safe at that point and uh we don't spoil the wedding with too much of this talk but as soon as you guys get home from the honeymoon now it's we have 58 000 in debt and we need to pay that off

with our 180 000 income as fast as we can and that means we ain't doing nothing till we get this mess cleaned up you guys have any either one of you have any money? Yeah, so I actually have about $55,000 in stocks that I got as a bonus from a job I previously had that I've never touched. Oh, okay. It's time to touch it. After you're married, cash that out and pay this off. Mm-hmm.

Great. Okay, that's what I was hoping you were going to say, but I wasn't sure if that's a wise decision. It a wonderfully wise decision now here's the trick the two of you from uh this day forward are going to lock arms and not borrow money and be on a budget together and communicate a lot more about money than you have been yes in other words his spending stays above his income and the credit cards grow back because the habits didn't change then the advice we just gave you might not have been smart agreed yes that makes sense did i hear you say it's a scary topic yes it's it's a little nerve-wracking to uh confront his you know weak links you know

the fact that he does like to spend a lot of money it's you too because he he did rack up that credit card debt but listen it was not a smart choice to roll it into a heloc i'm not gonna lie about that so i think you both have something some things to learn here i think we should give him financial peace university yeah if we give you the class will you go through it together so you got a book So I think you both have some things to learn here. I think we should give him Financial Peace University. Yeah, if we give you the class, will you go through it together so you've got a book to work from? I would love for him to have those resources and for me to be a part of that as well.

I think that would be amazing. Let me help you. That's not how it works. Okay. He doesn't need the resources. We need to go through the class together. So we are doing this stuff together. Not Dave's going to school him up.

I understand. I completely understand. I'm just listening to your verbiage, kiddo. So yeah, okay, you hang on. We're going to give this to you as a wedding gift and a Christmas present. And since we abused you right before your wedding. I know, we just yelled at her right before the wedding. It's just that she's picking up her wedding dress, calls from the cleaners, and at her so well nobody yelled at her we love her we want her to win but we kept

i kept telling her she was just as well she is she is they both i won't say the s word they both did silly things oh silly the s word oh my god they both did stupid things all right there you go come on own it there we go it's okay we love her and she's gonna win she's smart she makes good money he makes good money if but listen the thing is what we want for you this is the number one money and money issues are the number one stress point in marriage Megan and you're getting married so we want you guys to have real clean, honest dialogue around this. Both of you, we don't want touchy subject. We don't want, you know, you're not shaming him. We both are looking at this and saying, okay, from this point forward, we're not using credit cards. From this point forward, we're going to

agree on a budget and we're going to stick to the budget that we both agreed to. It's a marital contract. From this point forward, we're going to save up and pay cash for things because you're dumping $60,000 of money that you brought into the marriage against his mistakes. And so the two of you together need assurances that the two of you together are going to move forward in very clean stuff.

The old wedding vows, most people know in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, the old wedding vows most people know in sickness and in health for richer for poor in sickness and health the old wedding vows in the book of common prayer say unto thee all my worldly goods i pledge and so that indicates this unity this oneness in the marriage where we're sharing everything not your debt my debt not your checking account my checking out not your income my income it's our our our our our our when you get married you are french we we we it's ours okay that's what you're doing and there's a oneness to that and by the way not only is that a beautiful and romantic and wonderful marriage thing where the communication is very high and the quality of the

relationship is very high the uh interesting part also is the data tells us from studying millionaires that it increases the probability of you becoming wealthy vastly the number of people that become wealthy while dragging a misbehaving spouse is almost zero it's almost zero so this this idea that you work together it's like we're going to do this together we're going to raise kids together when you when you argue about what how to treat you know how to make the kids behave the kids are the only ones that lose you know and you argue about how to make the money behave the money loses you know so you're getting on the same page is a big deal and that's not just aimed at megan that's aimed at all of you out there this time of year some of

you are home for christmas you got a little time on your hands you need to sit down with each other and go hey this is what's going on this would be some confession is good for the soul time for some of you some of you gotta come clean on i'm kind of ashamed i've been doing this and i'm i'm really been doing some stuff I don't like, and I know you're not going to like it, and I don't even want to talk about it, but we're going to talk about it. You need to do some of that during the holidays, some of you. But hang on.

Austin will get you signed up. Jay just gave her Financial Peace University and EveryDollar, the world's best budgeting app. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Warshall, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Sam is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Sam. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. Appreciate you having me on.

Sure. What's up? Hey, so just a quick kind of background. A wife and I got married end of July. Around that time is actually when we first kind of discovered you guys a show and I've been listening to it ever since. We've been working our way through financial peace, have paid off about 21 grand of debt since then. Good for you. Thank you. Yeah, things are going really well for us. Had a lot of debt going into the marriage. But right now, kind of the question I have is our biggest debt is a truck that I bought about a year ago that I definitely shouldn't have. Safe to say it was before I had heard of you guys and kind of how you guys went about things with that.

No, I need to sell it. But my biggest issue right now is I have it out on the private sale market and it's still around are looking at 33 to 36 um and we owe 36.5 on it my biggest issue right now is i'm having a lot of trouble selling it been out probably for about three or four months i've been putting it on all the you know marketplace um ebay and all that stuff. What is your household income? Right around $100,000. Okay, so you can pay the payment. This just accelerates the get-out-of-debt plan,

and it is kind of the admission that you made a mistake when you bought it, and that's the reason we're getting rid of it. So my point is there's no panic. It's okay if it takes a little while. Don't give the truck away. Okay. You don't have to give it away. Yeah, because you'd have to give it away if we were about to be repoed. Right.

Right. Yeah, right now the dealership is they're offering it from $28,000 to $29,000. That puts about $6,000 under. Yeah, so it's probably not worth $36,000 because you're not getting nibbles at that it's probably worth 33 yeah that's kind of what i'm hoping to get private sales 33 34 and make up the difference on the loan because right now the payment each month is about 600 a month yeah i think what have you got it listed at um right now i have a listed at on marketplace and on Craigslist about $33,500. Okay, that's not bad.

I think you'll probably get some nibbles. Unless somebody was buying it for a Christmas present, you're not getting anything in December on it. So it's going to be January, and you're in Des Moines in January. Somebody's going to need a truck. Okay. I mean, it's okay. But don't panic. I mean, if it takes five more months, don't sell it for $28,000.

Right. Just drive it and pay the payment. Okay. All right. That seems simple enough. Yeah, because you're not panicking. See, you don't have to, you know, like we don't discount a house $50,000 to sell it unless we really have to sell the house.

Yeah, that makes sense. it's the same thing yeah my yeah yeah my view is like you said just kind of accelerate their process a little bit and everything but yeah i want you to i want you to sell it i want to be realistic in your pricing so it sells but i don't want you to give it away okay yeah that makes sense so just give yourself some permission for it to take a little while because it's a big old truck i mean you know selling selling the 20 000 our trucks a lot different selling a 40 000 our truck that's true it's a it's a lot different marketplace for that so um and you know the economy's bouncing around interest rates are bouncing around people are deciding whether they're sitting on the bench or whether they're coming into the game

you know they're jumping back and forth on real estate, on car purchases, everything else. It's not been a good season for car dealers. This last fall has not been like car dealer heaven. How long should he sit on it at that price point? How long would you sit on it? The thing is, the only reason we're going to adjust the price is that we're admitting that

it's really not worth that but we're not adjusting the price to motivate a buyer that's the difference okay so if the truck's evidently not worth 36 you got almost no activity in three months so that the range was 33 to 36 so let's get it on down to 33 and then you know we'll keep bumping it down a little bit at a time. Just a little bit at a time. Because we're trying to find the price. We're trying to find the actual value in the market. We're not trying to bring people to the table to get a deal. Right.

That's different. And so it might take four or five months. It really might. Kyle is with us in Greensboro, North Carolina. Hi, Kyle. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Merry Christmas. Yes, Kyle. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Merry Christmas. Yes, sir. I was wondering how

to navigate staying debt-free while also having no credit. Well, that's great. It's kind of the same thing, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. What are you trying to do specifically? So,

I was going to college in Asheville, and I moved back in with my parents, and I'm not going to live with my parents forever, so eventually I have to be able to buy a home and all that sort of stuff. How old are you? I'm 23 years old. Okay. What do you do for a living? So I work for my dad's construction company.

They call me a gopher when they ask me to go for them to do this and go yeah i got you i've done that myself it's not a bad job uh what uh so what do you make i make anywhere so i'm also a salesman so um i make anywhere between 35 and 40 depending on um you on how productive the year is. And you don't have any debt, and you've decided you're not borrowing money anymore. Yes, ma'am. I've never borrowed any money.

If I could help it, I bought my truck in cash. Yeah, so if you move out and make $40,000 a year and get an apartment, what's wrong with that? Well, so I've always, you know, I rented an apartment when i was going to college in asheville and it was it was so much money on something that was that what felt temporary to me well it is temporary yeah and i was living with your mama oh yes yes sir absolutely but i mean i give them 150 dollars for groceries in a month here and so I'm just saving up as much money as I possibly can while I'm here.

I just feel like kind of throwing away the $1,000 or $1,500 a month. Well, it's not $1,000 or $1,500 to start with in Greensboro, North Carolina. So you can find a one-bedroom a lot cheaper than that or get a roommate, and you'll be a lot cheaper than that, and there's no rush. But the next phase of your life is to be running your own household, being in control of your own house. Something happens inside your brain when you have to buy your own bread and wash your own towels.

Oh, yes, sir. Like I said, I'm out. Yes, sir. Yeah, so I want you to go do that sometime in the next six months. I want you to find a place to live. And then I'm going to just start building up cash and there is no uh back to your original question we picked up kyle there is no mandate that you go that you use debt there is no mandate that you have credit uh as a matter of fact the people that are the wealthiest are the ones that don't

and so staying away from payments like you have wisely done, you paid cash for a car. I kind of think you're a cheapskate. I like you. You don't want to spend money on rent. You know, you know, it's cheaper to live at home. You like piling up the money. You didn't want a car payment. You saved up and paid for a truck. I like that. That's all good, wise decision making. I think you're thinking the right way. And so just continue on down that path don't let some of your uh crazy friends or cousins or something convince you that you need to go get credit or go get a credit card or go get payments you don't uh those that don't are the ones with the most money because they don't give banks money when you quit handing banks money you have some money as long as you make some

and you know how to work and make money if you're in the construction business interesting how with this house this housing market i just think it's all the time how people are on such far extremes it's like you know renting is horrible and you're throwing your money down the drain and you never rent and then over here is grant cardone says never buy a house and i'm like guys why can't it just be in the middle you rent for a little while until you can afford to buy a home and then you buy a home like that's just i mean it makes sense and it's logical when you rent it's not for life it's not forever yes it's more expensive patience at different stages of your life there are there are times that you rent for a reason yeah and it's not um it's not a way of

life it's not a long-term thing but owning a home is wise as a long-term play as a part of your financial thing so you know people yelling and screaming on tiktok it's like these extremities it doesn't have to be like that who cares what they they say? It's not, they're not, they're not real people. That's just avatars. I mean, well, well, they're humans walking around acting like avatars. Okay. There you go. There you go. They're just, they're just extreme crazy.

And so just use some common sense. Think about your grandma, you know, think about how this makes sense. And yeah, when you first get married or you're first starting out of your mom and dad's house, renting something is normal. It takes you a little while to get your feet on the ground, save up some money, buy your first house. There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing out of line about that. But living at home until you're 28 and your mama doing your laundry, no. You need to get out on your own, young man, young lady.

You need to get out there and be like a grown-up and stuff. Hey, let me just tell you, an eagle that fails to leave the nest is eventually known as a turkey. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Merry Christmas. Thank you for being with us.

The phone number is 888-825-5225. Dinah is in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. Hi Dinah, how are you? Or Dina, I'm sorry. Hi Dave, yeah it's Dina. Merry Christmas to you and your team and thank you so much for having me on. I've been listening for a lot of years. I just want to tell you that I certainly have been trained by my parents to pay off my home. And that's what I plan to do this coming August. Yay!

Yeah, I know. Thank you. We owe about $41,000. And I'm a school teacher. So what I plan to do is I have a tax sheltered annuity that I've had since 1995. And there's not a lot in there but it's roughly around $28,000. So I was going to use that to pay off my house in August. And I've been doubling up on the payments to get it all cleared out. But here's my

dilemma. I have plans. I have a home that's about 24 years old and it is in need of like renovations as far as it needs probably the siding removed and put new siding up or fiber cement or something like that is what I really want to do. And also possibly put a little sunroom on the back of the house. And we have no debt, my husband and I, we drive very old cars. Um, we don't need out a lot. So we kind of want to do something, you know, to the, to the house like that. But I'm kind of scared as far as I want to retire at 60. Um, but I don't know if I can swing all this without, I don't know if I didn't have to get a HELOC or if I could use I know you're not going to pay off that house

and then borrow against it again, right? I don't want to do that. You're not going to do that. Don't even say it out loud. Yeah, it's not even an option. You've been listening to this show. You knew not to say that here. I know.

But think about what you were really saying. What's your household income? Our household income is $158,000. Okay, $158,000, and you don't have a payment in the world starting in August. How much is the siding? Get a bid. How much is the sunroom? Get a bid.

Save and do one, then save and do the other. Okay. If you can save to pay off a house, you can save to do these improvements. It's just going to take a little time. Right. Well, what I was going to do is if I have a house paid off this August, I'll be 59 1⁄2, and then I would still work the school year. So I could sock all that money away and at least do one of the improvements

and pay cash work two more years who cares you're just a baby work two more years yeah you don't have to retire one year for the sunroom one year for the siding you make 158 000 as long as you're working I didn't get the quitting work part until just now but yeah work a little bit more who cares well she's like i care dave you have to choose okay you got a choice do you want a florida room or do you want to work a year you're right no i get okay i got another question real quick can i i don't have any we don't have any heirs can i do a reverse mortgage what are you saying where is that woman that called and said that she listened to the show? Where did you do with her?

You didn't put her in a closet and lock her up, did you? I think you're playing games with us. Are you playing? No, I'm exploring options. Don't explore those. It's Christmas. We're supposed to be nice. You're making it hard.

You're turning us into Grinch and Scrooge and everybody else. Okay. Okay. You know the answer. All right. So here's the deal. Here's the deal. Get the prices on the stuff and then sit down and look at that versus your income considering

you have no payments starting in August. Okay. Right. And really, really i mean it's probably uh how many square feet is your home it's roughly 1800 okay all right so twenty thousand dollars does the siding yeah i hope so yeah yeah yeah and you know you're gonna have twenty you know twenty thousand dollars Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you can have $20,000 into the siding by this time next year. What are you putting towards your mortgage right now? Let's look at this. What are you putting towards the mortgage? You said you're making double payments. What is that?

I pay $3,360 a month. Okay. That's $36,000 a year. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So at $20,000, it leaves you $20,000. By this time next year at Christmas, you should be able to put siding on the house in cash. I should, yeah.

You're right. And then by this time next summer, you'll have a Florida rent. Six more months, you've got a Florida rent. And then you're done. Just plan it out. The problem is you've got these things floating around with no actual numbers attached to them and they're floating around in your brain in your emotions rather than in your math brain use your math brain and it'll calm you

down okay go get go get some actual bids and timeline this out in your actual budget like I just did and say, okay, based on being done in August, oh, wait a minute, we could be done in July or June. Oh, wait. Well, then, oh, my, by February, we've got a sunrise. Oh, okay. You know, and you start, when you actually get the actual bids and get two or three bids so that you're getting good contractors and um and you know quit entertaining these crazy butt

ideas that you know are crazy but yeah oh my god reverse mortgage you've got to be kidding me but there is something about that that's worth speaking about you know you you make it all the way through baby step six you pay off your mortgage there is still going to be things that come up that you have to save and possibly sacrifice in order to have it doesn't take away do you know what i'm saying like you don't you never have enough money to not watch your money exactly like there's no such thing there's going to be something you want to do and you're going to have to pull the purse strings in tighter and you're going to have to pull the purse strings in tighter, and you're going to have to decide, okay, what do I want to sacrifice or trade in order to get that over time? That part never goes away.

It just may not be to the extremes that it once was, right? Being debt-free doesn't make it where you have no boundaries when you do anything you want to do. It just frees up the vast majority of your income when you focus it with great intentionality to do the next thing john is in philadelphia hey john how are you hey mr ramsey miss warshaw hi big fan merry christmas merry christmas how can we help i have a uh a whole life insurance policy i'm sorry i know you hate that uh my mother took it out for me when I was a baby. How sweet. And it is now a cash value of about $13,000 and a death benefit of about $21,000.

Wow. That's what you get when you get one as a baby. Wow. I'm sorry. Sorry. It's only worth $5,000 as a baby. It accumulated over the years. What's your opinion on what I should do with that?

Cash it tomorrow. Really? Wow. Put the $13,000 in something that will actually grow. Okay. Yeah. You've been making 1% or 2% your whole life on this thing. You've got $13,000 sitting in a horrible product, making almost no money. The net is, because, by the way, they're going to keep the $13,000 if you die

and write a check for $21,000. So you actually don't have 21 in insurance what you actually have is a 8 in insurance okay 21 minus 13 so you put 13 in your pocket if you need some life insurance go get some life insurance the proper amount in term to cover your kids your mama your family your wife whatever okay but you you don't this is a joke it's just a it's a super small policy uh b it's a horrible rate of return c when you die they're going to keep the thirteen thousand dollars it's just you need to get it out of there before you die quickly like this week go ahead and turn it in and get your money and put the money in a good investment or

pay it on wherever you are in the baby steps but yeah, yeah, this is – I don't know if we'll ever get rid of all of those. The whole life plans? Yeah. But, I mean, they did – I mean, he's probably – I'm going to guess and say he's 30 or 40 years old, okay? So that was sold 25, 30 years ago. But most people now know that that's horrible product the vast majority of the public has a knowledge base that says whole life life insurance universal life sucks it's horrible it's the payday lender of the middle class most people know that so people

aren't running around buying five thousand dollar policies on their babies anymore much i mean gerber still sell still sell them ger. When you're in the hospital. Which just blows my mind. Gerber. Okay, let's get this straight. You're buying financial investment programs for your children from a baby food company. Have you lost your mind? I mean, seriously. That's just straight up. It's like I'm going to the transmission store to buy cereal.

Unbelievable. This is the Ramsey Show. Jay Walsh, our Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Merry Christmas. Janice is with us in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Hi, Janice, how are you? Well, thank you. Thank you so much for taking my call. My husband and I have been married for seven years. I'm 59 years old. He's 61 years old. We have four children, a seven-year-old, a nine-year-old,

25-year-old, and 26-year-old. The older two are children from my husband's first marriage. My husband took out parent plus loans for the two older children that amount to about 130,000. Oh my God. And now we're in the process of trying to figure out how to pay that back while trying to make sure we provide for our younger children and look towards retirement. We've got a couple options that I don't really like, one of which is we sold our main home because I was temporarily on an assignment and we weren't in the house. And we can use the proceeds from that sale of the home to pay off the loan, but that would make us without a real home. We have a second home that

we're currently living in that he would prefer if we sold the second home. But I don't feel like, you know, some of this is being paid off of money that I saved or saved to be able to pay for the second home. So one, I want to know what my obligation is. And two, we're looking for the best option of how to pay off these loans. This is interesting. Your obligation is the loans get paid. You married a guy who borrowed $130,000 to send his kids to school, and so that's what you married. And so the two of you got to clean. It's blocking the future, as you said, of your younger kids

and the future of the two of you. So you got to clean it up. So what are the proceeds from the sale of the other house? How much money have you got? It's now $230,000. It was $2 230 it was 280 but now it's 230 and you got 130 in parent plus yes okay so now you got 100 what else you got in debt that's it our cars are paid off good um our own the mortgage paid off and the house that you're living in is you all don't want to live there? It is my opinion that we should live here and save money and pay off the loan. My husband would prefer not to. It's close to the beach. There's nothing else around. He doesn't think he'd be

happy to live in this home. Okay. What is the home that you're living in worth? We paid $205,000 for it. It's probably maybe, that was three years ago, it's probably maybe $240,000, $250,000 by now. And what do you owe on it? Nothing. Oh, good. Okay, so if you sold that and you had $100,000 left over after paying off the loans, you'd have $350,000. Can you go buy something for $350,000 that you both like? Probably.

You know, it would be tough and i say that but um you know i feel as i've gotten older in life that i i cannot um live in a a smaller smaller home it would be hard to do but the home that you're currently living in is not smaller smaller it has three bedrooms and two and a half baths it is a town home our kids have a place to play. So it has all of the, I think, the necessities. I would take something like this. So the only issue is your husband doesn't want to live there. He really just preferred not to live in this area because he doesn't feel he would have enough things to do.

And, yeah. Okay. Well, here's the thing. What would I do if i woke up in your shoes all right i would write a check today and pay off the student loans that's done okay now you got a hundred thousand in the bank and you got a two hundred fifty thousand dollar paid for house then the two of you you and your husband need to sit down together and what what i'm now hearing is is that you are not in agreement on where you want to live you're fine with what you're fine with where you are he's not you're not fine with where 350,000 with these two sources would take you but you're perfectly fine in this 250,000 dollar store you

know house so uh somewhere in there you guys got to find something that the two that the four of you can live in that you pay cash for that is 350 or under and then you're set up to move into retirement well but you got no debt at that point you got your income house is paid off that's where i want you to end up you don't go out and take out a debt you don't go out and take out a mortgage because that's the same thing as borrowing on your house to pay off student loans then we're not doing that you got a hundred thousand plus this and you got to hold an emergency fund out of course if you don't have that separate already um and then you guys need to be investing in your retirement once you get the house purchase but

you know you guys need to talk about okay we have three hundred fifty thousand dollars to deal with to uh i'm comfortable here you're not so where is it that we can talk about going that both of us are going to be okay that's 350 and under and y'all start looking and talking about that and maybe that shuts him up and you stay where you are or maybe that you find something that fits that and does both okay i'm currently building a home in a neighborhood uh i personally would have built a home on my farm but my wife wouldn't live there so i would be by myself and so these are compromises you make when you're married and so we're building a house where sharon wants to build a house um um and i'll be okay with it

i'm okay with it but it's not my first choice it's my b choice yeah right yeah and so you do that sometimes and you guys got to look at that so So is this his B choice, but it's okay? But there's not a choice in this discussion that's $500,000 and you go in debt. That's not a choice. So you guys, I'd write a check today, pay off these debts, and the two of you then sit down and say, we've got $350,000, how are we going to live out the rest of our life real estate-wise? I'm wondering if there's a world where the stepkids are contributing to those student loans at all.

It depends on what they set up from the beginning, I guess. Yeah, I mean, they're not legally liable. They're not legally, but a lot of times they sign them. Yeah, because the kid can't sign anymore. I'm kind of guessing there's zero chance of that just the way the conversation went but i was a guess i i went with the assumption they weren't contributing and they're not liable they're not no it's in the parents name and you know janice is like what's my obligation you're freaking obligation you married a guy borrowed 130 000 you're gonna pay it that's

your obligation so uh yeah that's when you hear words like that that's when you know you gotta yeah it's not you have to pay it even though it was, that's when you know you have to pay it. Even though that's what Parent Plus is. That's why it sucks so bad. Parent Plus should be called Parent Minus, but it's not. Brandon is in Philadelphia. Hi, Brandon. How are you?

I'm good. How are you, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, basically, I started a new job job and the new job offers a 401k and my old job offered a simple IRA and I'm not allowed to transfer my funds from the simple IRA into the 401k. So I'm just not sure what to do with the money that's in the simple IRA account. Uh, regulations allow you to, but maybe your 401k doesn't.

But I wouldn't do it anyway, so it doesn't matter. You simply roll it to an IRA. Just get with a SmartVestor Pro and sit down and open an IRA and do a direct transfer rollover. Is it a Roth or is it a traditional? The simple. From what I know, it's called the simple IRA. No, I mean, yeah, but they make simple Roth and they make simple regular. So it's probably traditional.

Whatever it is, you just do an IRA that's the same. If it's a Roth, you roll it to an IRA Roth. If it's not, you roll it to an IRA traditional. Either one's fine. And you set it up. How much money is in it? I think around $12,000. Oh, not a ton.

Okay. Pick out a couple of good growth stock mutual funds and drop it in there. Roll it over. A direct transfer means it goes straight from them to the mutual fund company with the SmartVestor Pro. You don't touch the check, and 100% of the money moves in a zero-tax due, okay? All right. It's very easy to do. It's six or seven pieces of paper.

Sit down, though. It's a good experience for you to pick out a good SmartVestor Pro. Click RamseySolutions.com. Find the people we endorse in those areas, and they'll sit down with you. And, Jade, you've done it. I've done it, right? I've done it. Yeah, it's worth it.

It'll help you through it. Yeah, because if you cash it out, I mean, they're going to take it. The government's going to take half of it. Exactly, because you would be doing so before retirement and you don't want that so when you do as a transfer no it never it never leaves the electronic space yeah i never never leave never leaves the uh the matrix the warmth of the uh retirement covering there you go it goes from one retirement covering to another directly a direct transfer rollover goes straight from the old company to the new account doesn't come to your house see if they send it to

you they have to withhold 20 on it and yet you've got to put 100 in so you're not going to have but about 10 000 bucks and you got to put 12 in so that's why you do a direct transfer and the 20 withholding is not enough to cover the problem that you're going to create. So it's a weird, weird dichotomy. So the direct transfer and sit down with a smart investor pro, they'll show you how to do it. Good question, man. Merry Christmas. That puts us out of the Ramsey show in the books. you