The Ramsey Show - App - Quit Rationalizing the Misuse of Your Emergency Fund! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman discuss: Tackling unexpected medical debt, The philosophy of renting, Handling a beneficiary payout. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where dad 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, Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, host of the Ken Coleman Show, best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, is my co-host today. As we talk about your relationships, your mental health, your jobs, your career, and your money, it's life on the radio. We're going to talk about you right in front of you. It's a free call at 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225.

Bailey is in Oklahoma City. Hi, Bailey. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, David. Nice to talk to you. Sure. We're glad you're here. How can we help?

I have a question. Me and my husband have made it through baby set three on the 3B. We got our house paid 20% down. And we, you know, had after having paid off almost $20,000 in consumer debt. I just had a baby, our third child. But I had a lot of medical complications and I'm still not completely clear. So I'm getting bills. They're starting to come in.

And so my question is how best to go about paying them down. Since we have our emergency fund, I still haven't received all of the bills that will be coming. And then, of course, I'm still'm still like i said not completely clear so i don't know what this is going to mean for me medically long term okay well the um you know you got to pay the bill obviously um i'm assuming insurance has paid all it's going to in the bill you're getting is after insurance has done its part right that's right and i get a 20 discount because i'm employed by the hospital well that's wonderful okay so how much debt how much medical debt have you got well thus far it's not um it's on a ton so far

um right now we're sitting about five thousand dollars but that's before um getting an ic bill and then i'll also um we were able to stockpile a lot of cash while I was pregnant. How much? Well, it's our emergency fund. Oh, you have your emergency fund, and you said you were saving for a house, and you stockpiled cash, or the saving for the house was the stockpile? Well, we bought the house, so that's... Oh, you got the house.

Okay, so do you have money in addition to your emergency fund when you said stockpiled we don't okay how much is in your emergency fund um it is about we had it at twenty thousand dollars and then um now it's my husband was in a bad accident so i had to to cash flow a car as well. You didn't have insurance on the car? We did. The company paid for the car, paid about 50, they gave us $5,600 for the car, but we were a little bit short of that.

We had to get a car that would fit all of our car seats safely. I have 30 kids, and they're all in car seats. So we ended up spending about $5,000. So we're about $15,000 in our emergency fund. Okay. So write a check and pay your $5,000 medical bill. Okay. So I should pay, like, as they come. Okay. So I should pay as they come.

I don't need to wait until they come. Yeah. There's nothing to wait on. You owe them. You might as well just pay it. Right. And what's your household income? I just got a $20,000 raise. What's your household income?

About $140,000. Okay. Well, you could probably cash flow the $5,000 without touching it. And you need to get the bills paid and get your emergency fund000. Okay. Well, you could probably cash flow the $5,000 without touching it. And you need to get the bills paid and get your emergency fund rebuilt. Okay. Just start concentrating on this. Okay? Okay.

And let me give you a hint. The car that you had before it got totaled would fit the car seats. It doesn't. It didn't fit the car seats. So that means that you did not need a car that fitted all the car seats you justified this this was not an emergency purchase this was a choice we had a baby we had a baby i know but i mean what were you planning to do if he hadn't totaled his car we were we were saving money to buy to cash for the car no you weren't you had an emergency

fund you didn't have any money saved above the emergency fund i've asked this question four times you told me you had an emergency fund and you put everything else down on the house you had twenty thousand dollars and you took money out of your emergency fund to upgrade your car after your car was totaled and use the baby as an excuse to do it. So I'm not letting you get away with that one. That's rationalization. Okay? Now, I don't mind if you upgrade your car, but let's not take it out of the emergency fund. And let's cash flow out of the $140,000 and get the $5,000 paid as quickly as you can.

Just on a practical note, you can get a $5,600 car that will fit three car seats. You can. Yeah. You really can. It's very possible. Very possible. People do it all the time. And, well, I mean, actually, you could about three months ago, but now you can't.

I still submit that you can. I'm kidding. I know you is. But I'll say this, Bailey. Let me encourage you on this. I mean, you've got some unnecessary fear here. The same discipline, the same focus that allowed you to build up money to pay for a house to to build up a twenty thousand dollar emergency fund will allow you

to pay off the bills on a hundred and forty thousand dollar income nothing to be scared get to five thousand dollars paid off build up your emergency fund and then get on with your life the thing you've got to do out here folks and i'm just not going to allow you to do it because i had to stop it and if you're going to win you got to stop it you I had to stop it. And if you're going to win, you've got to stop it. You cannot use these life events as rationalization, as a reason to violate good principles. You know, it's like, okay, I'm trapped. I have to go into debt. No, you don't. I'm trapped.

I have to use my money. When you're purchasing a car and it's an emergency that's highly unusual almost always when you're buying a car especially if you're upgrading an existing car that's by definition not an emergency by definition so um whatever it is you're doing just don't rationalize that because here's the thing you drain the stinking emergency fund down you have a real emergency now you got no money and you're right back to being normal and broke again so you have to guard that stuff and go okay it you know is the new mattress an emergency is the bass boat an emergency answer no no no no no no no well the old mattress is bad

i don't care save up and buy it it's an upgrade okay i don't care i don't like my old couch i don't care i don't care it's not a freaking emergency my mother-in-law's coming over i need a new couch it's not an emergency tell her to stay at the hampton inn no it's not an emergency you know you buying a couch for someone else to sit on and be impressed with by the weekend because it suddenly occurred that she's going to come visit you it's not an emergency but we do this stuff we all we create these this hyperbole this drama in our heads that causes us to get off the tracks and run down the thing so here's a here's the thing medical complications are an emergency yes that's that is an unexpected event that is not an

expected event uh if you weren't down to 15 and you had 20, you'd be less worried about taking 5 out for the medical. That's correct. So, you know, thank God you didn't take 15 out for a better car because you had to have more car seats. Oh, and I have to have an airbag, and I have to have a... The automatic doors are an absolute necessity. I don't know how people around the world deal with life without automatic doors.

Unless you're driving your fun vintage car, then it's worth it. Well, says the guy who drove his fun vintage car. This is The Ramsey Show. Today we have the most tech-advanced society in history, but people have never been more stressed, medicated, or lonely. You know, life isn't supposed to be this way. You're carrying the weight of your past stories and it's holding you back. Ramsey Personality Dr. John Deloney has been there. He's felt the anxiety. He's felt lonely, overwhelmed, and disconnected. But he decided he deserved to be well and so do you. And now he is launching his new book

Own Your Past, Change Your Future to walk walk you through a not-so-complicated approach to relationships, mental health, and wellness. This book provides a clear five-step path to becoming mentally healthy by getting connected, mastering your thoughts, and controlling your actions. Dr. John Deloney wants to help you leave the past where it belongs and get you on the plan to healing. So pre-order your copy today for only $20 and get free bonus items, including a month of one-on-one therapy with better help at Ramsey personality, joins me this hour. Open for this today as my co-host. I'm sorry.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. You're out of here after this hour. See you, everybody. It's been great. Toss you. Alex is with us. Alex is in Nashville. Hi, Alex.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my call. I'll try to be concise. I work in IT since COVID. Overtime has been readily available. My base salary is $40,000. I've been able to make about $65 000 since covid uh annually for the past two years

i've used that surplus to pay out debt and cash flow a wedding i found out today our rent is going up by five hundred dollars and i'm wondering if i should do the budget for our rent as we plan to move or not move based on overtime or based on my base salary wow uh if the overtime is going to be there i don't mind you doing the point of the whole the whole thing there's no magic to the fourth of your income going to housing the the whole point of it is don't be house poor whether you're renting or whether you own if your house payment your rent is a huge percentage of your the money have available, then you don't have any money left after you pay it. It's kind of a simple big number concept. It's not a splitting hairs difference here.

But that's a lot of overtime. Are you going to continue to work that kind of overtime for a while to come? Just for another year, I should have my student loans paid off in the next six, eight months. So I'm looking forward to paying to paying that off. That's the ultimate goal. Um, from a numbers perspective, our rent is going to go up to $2,500 a month. If they don't come down, we've submitted like, like a, basically we've tried to get to negotiate. So our rent is either going to go up to 2,500 bring home per month

between my girlfriend and I, and we get married in october we bring home about seven thousand dollars a month uh net so that's you know it's a little higher than 25 so i don't know if we should move to someplace cheaper yeah you should what we should do you should if you can and and the reason is simple um the the rent is you know's patience. You're not investing in something here. You're parking your butt somewhere until you get some money and buy a house. And the more you pay in rent, the less money you're going to have for other things, like getting out of student loan debt and, like, buying a house. And so, you know, anything I can do to get cheaper rent anytime,

I'm going to try to do it within reason. And so, yeah. Yeah, I mean, rents in Nashville have gone through the roof because a stupid mayor raised the property taxes through the roof. The Comrade Cooper, the mayor there. I was hoping you were going to put that out there. Oh, my God. He just destroyed the economy over there. Not destroyed it, but it just hammered the businesses and everybody else.

And so those high property taxes are now being reflected in your rent because the landlord's costs went up. And so you get to pay the taxes is what it amounts to. Alex, what do you do in IT? What's your position? So I basically help our company keep people working from home. So we have thousands of people that work from home. When those thousands of people have an issue, they call a number. I talk to them and work, then help them stay online, keep them working.

So internal tech support would be one way of saying it. Correct. What's your goals in technology? Do you see a ladder? Do you have something you aspire to in technology? So I was in the midst of making a career transition before the overtime became available. So I'm just using the overtime as a vehicle to pay off my debt. Ultimately, my goals are not in IT.

Okay. Well, the reason I ask that is I think Dave's right. I would lower my rent, and I would also pretty quickly get out of this overtime reliance and move yourself up the professional ladder so we're increasing our income as well as decreasing that rent as we're saving for a house. So it sounds like he's got a good plan. Yeah, and that's exactly what I would do. Because here's the thing.

The rent is – I did that. When Sharon and I first got married a million years ago, we rented a – our first property that we rented was very expensive. And I was actually – I thought I was so proud because I was renting the Taj Mahal. Right. Of course. I mean, you know, it was great. It was an amazing property.

And I went to visit my old elementary school principal now that I had come back home to Nashville. Oh, yeah. Local boy does good. Just dropped by to say hi. I had a job had a wife i thought life was good and she said where are you living and i told her and she said good lord what are you paying and i told her and she said well that's dumb why are you paying that much in rent yeah really we literally moved out of that property at the end of the lease six months later and cut our rent in half oh that felt good in half that feels good so uh different numbers than alex is dealing with but it was a different

world in those days but i mean we moved to a one-bedroom apartment uh in a not so great complex uh to and cut our rent actually it was more than in half that's pretty bizarre when you think about it but but that was it placed up camp until we saved money to buy something? And so it was a complete waste to rent, to spend a whole lot of money on rent. Spend as little money as you can on rent. And, yeah, so, yeah, that's the premise I'm coming at this. So, Alex, you're getting the same advice that my own elementary school teacher, our school principal gave me when I went back to visit.

I would have loved to have been there when she dropped that on you. She was classic no-nonsense. Classic no-nonsense. What was her name? Evelyn Hyde. Oh, Mrs. Hyde. Everybody needs a Mrs. Hyde in their life. She was a wonderful lady.

That's cool. Just an absolute jewel. All right, let's see here. a wonderful lady. That's cool. Just an absolute jewel. All right, let's see here. Earl in Philadelphia. Hi, Earl. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Yeah, how you doing, Dave? A little nervous right now talking to you.

No troubles. How can we help? Yeah, I'm a government employee, and I'm looking to possibly retire this coming year. And currently right now I have in my TSP about $1.8 million. Way to go! Whoa. You're a rock star, man. Yeah, yeah.

And with the government, they provide a lot of money. You don't sound real impressed with you. I'm impressed with you. I don't know. Having that much money, it still makes me a little nervous um but um and it's traditional but um yeah with the government they provide you with like a um you know financial courses and um one of the guys who gave the course i guess he's like a financial guy and i just said let me just talk to. And he mentioned something about a fixed index annuity.

And I know how you feel about annuities, but this fixed index annuity, you know, he basically gave it a spin where, you know, when the market goes down, it doesn't really go down. And I don't know, I just don't really feel too good about it. And also, too, I did talk to one of the SmartVestor pros, and I'm going to talk to another one to interview them. But I just want to know, how do you feel about it? I mean, I don't know much about fixed index annuity.

I did a little bit of research, but I just want to hear it from you. Okay. Well, basically what we're talking about is an indexed annuity that has a floor to it. It's not going to go below a certain return, probably 5% or 6% or something like that. And it's probably indexed. Typically, it would be off of something like the S&P 500. Right, right. And indexed means it's not fixed.

Indexed means it follows an index. Okay? Okay. So, like, have you got your TSP in the C plan? Some of it? Yeah. Okay. So the C is an index. Mm. So the C is an index.

That's an index. So you have an indexed investment now. If you have money in the S plan, that is an index. It follows a small cap index. And so all you're doing is you're finding a group of stocks that the weighted average of those stocks represent an index. So an S&P 500 is an index, and so it follows that. The problem is not the index or indexing. The problem is not the floor.

The problem is that the annuity fees are double what you get with a mutual fund, and his commissions are 4X what he would get if he sold you the same mutual fund, same index, without it being in an annuity. And so this guy wants a commission. You need to run. Okay. I kind of got that feeling, but I said, you know, let me talk to someone. But I just didn't feel right about it.

Trust your feeling. Yeah. Yeah, your feeling was right. But that's all it is. It means it's a conservative way that gives you a floor, but you're paying dearly for it. It's not the end of the world. It's not an absolute horrible product. It's not as bad as like Whole Life or something like that, but it's not as good as just a group of mutual funds with your SmartVestor Pro, which will have much lower fees.

They make much less commission on you doing that. You've got a much better situation. You've got $2 million. You need to learn to trust your gut. You have a really good gut instinct. This is the Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. This is the Ramsey Show. We're so glad you're with us.

Kaylee is on the line in Provo, Utah. It says on my screen, Kaylee, that you are debt-free. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. It's an honor to be here today. Well, honor to have you. How much did you pay off? I paid just shy of $41,000. It was like $40,932. Way to go. Very cool. And how long did this take you? This took me 15 months.

Okay. And your range of income during that time? So my range of when I started, it was $50,000, and I was able to double my income within that time. Good Lord. What did you do? Oh, Dave, do you know what's so interesting? When I started this journey, I was like, I need to make more money to make this happen. And within a month, job opportunities were coming at me. And I was literally able to double my income. What were you doing before and what are you doing now? So I was a campaign manager for a growth company. And now I'm the vice president of marketing for a supplement company here in Utah. Of course you are. Oh my gosh. That is so

amazing. And all it was, was you looked up and said, I want more money. I'm ready. I was ready Of course you are. Oh, my gosh! That is so amazing! And all it was was you looked up and said, I want more money. I'm ready. I was ready for it, you know? I want more money. And I went and got me some. Yeah, shocking. Shocking strategy, by the way.

I'm surprised you aren't sitting at home waiting on the government to send you some. Instead, you just went and found you some money. I want some money, and I'm going to go find some. I like that's amazing how old are you i'm 33 cool you got a degree in marketing you know i didn't i went to school uh in political science i thought i was going to be a lawyer but didn't go that route okay so uh ken coleman wants to know how you did this okay you you just decided but i, how did you go identify the place and go get the job? Tell people how that's done. So it's really interesting. I mean, I feel like I've always known my value, but I just kind of took what was given me and it really, I know this sounds so cliche, but it genuinely was a decision.

It was like, okay, if I need to make this X amount of money to be out of debt in this time, this is how much I'm going to have to make. And I only applied for jobs that were going to pay me that. And guess what happened? People responded and it worked. All right. So what about the imposter syndrome? That didn't affect you at all. You go for a VP of marketing position. Oh, I feel it every day, but you at all you go for a vp of marketing position oh i feel it every day but you just you you fake it till you make it right there you go you stepped right through it so you're telling me you didn't need a marketing degree to be a vp of marketing no so i but i worked in marketing for about seven years prior to get so you know i mean it was on a

job experience there we go you didn't have to go back to school to double your income you just went and doubled your income yep learned on the job that's correct yeah apparently you're good at marketing and you marketed you well yes i like it this is powerful you're great okay so tell us how you started this whole journey this ramsey stuff of getting out of debt 15 months ago so I tell you what my dad preached Dave Ramsey when I was a teen and I'm not gonna lie to you Dave I eye rolled like every time yeah it was a cuss word at your house yeah oh yeah he gave us a total money makeover book you know every year for Christmas um so for a while I just tried it the Kaylee way which was wait until I had whatever left over my paycheck to pay it off, which you

know how that worked. It didn't. So I just started with baby steps and I'm telling you, I mean, it was a boring life, rice and beans, no traveling, saying no to going out with friends. And, but within 15 months I'm, I'm free. And so it was worth it. And I have my six months savings and it's just, everything's just falling into place so your dad's got to be like running around the house cheering oh he was the first person i called and he's like you need to get on the dave ramsey show but he did he just he it was the dave ramsey method baby steps and the total money makeovers so i'm so proud of you well done i know he is that's so cool very cool all right what do you

tell people the key to getting out of debt is double your income what else be consistent and i know this is the whole thing right live like no one else today so you can live like no one else tomorrow or in the future that's real so who cares what people think how you live you're going to be free and it's it's worth it the boring haul is worth it so did uh did any of your friends like to give you the eye roll like hey she's kind of lost it oh 100 percent oh when i'm sitting here eating ramen and they're like you want to go get sushi i'm like can't not in the budget this much getting out of debt getting out of debt i like making goals i like it okay so you went and you just applied for the job and walked in and they gave it to you or did you know somebody or

how did you get how'd you get your foot in the door where you got this new job so i did know someone and i started out as a brand manager and i mean i worked my tail off um and i am the only woman hey happy international women's day i'm the only woman. Hey, happy International Women's Day. I'm the only woman in an upper management role there as a VP. And, yeah, I had to work, but I did know I did have some connections and really just put myself out there. How long were you in the brand manager role? For about a year and a half.

Wow. So when you started this, you were already in that role yep and then you just went you went for the you went for an internal promotion then yep yes sir okay i got it all right okay good well but again uh not only are we hearing an amazing story here of how she worked the baby steps but now this is somebody who saw a ladder dave and said i'm gonna go step on this ladder and i know if i climb i'm gonna be able to climb into something and make the money I want to make. And you got in, and now you're the only female in leadership. Good on you.

That's fantastic. That's exactly how you do it. I don't think they care if you're a female or not. I think they notice that you do the freaking job well. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, 100%. That's right.

You're a rock star. That's what it is. Good for you. Wow. Well done. Well done. Touchdown. All right. It's what it is. Good for you. Wow. Well done, well done. Touchdown. All right.

It's Kaylee in Provo, Utah. We got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you. This time you got to read that Dave Ramsey book, not eye roll it. Because that's the next chapter in your history, baby. It's coming. You're coming. You're going to be a millionaire now. And then I'm also going to send you a copy of Total Money Makeover so you can abuse one of your eye rolling friends with it.

And keep the cuss word Dave Ramseysey thing moving forward it's part of my brand so uh good stuff i'm proud of you count it down let's hear a debt-free scream i'm debt-free yeah i feel like she yelled that so loud the three two one that the phone muted itself i think yeah that was that could have been a lot of passion a little stage gate there yeah oh my gosh you know what the thing i love about that though is it's not just uh positive thinking like i can speak my way into something. That's not true. But, you know, Zig Ziglar used to say, he goes, well, positive thinking won't guarantee you're going to get there,

but negative thinking will guarantee you're not. That's true. And so she just says, I mean, your whole thing on Paycheck to Purpose is, you know, I'm going to look over there and I'm going to reach over there and grab that and make it mine. That's right. That's right. I'm going to look over there, and I'm going to reach over there and grab that and make it mine. That's right. That's right. I'm going to use a connection, which she did. And this is how we get opportunities in life.

Doors open for us. We don't have to always kick a door down. That's been romanticized. Well, and there's no lightning strikes. There's not. It's not random. No. She reaches out to a friend. She gets in, and then she moves up.

Bust it. Bust it. She gets in, and she crushes it. She wins the now. Gets noticed. Then the next appears. Exactly. She gets in and she crushes it. She wins the now. Gets noticed. Then the next appears. Exactly. You got to win where you are.

You're not sitting there whining. No. You don't have any women in leadership. That's right. No, she went and became the woman in leadership. She went and got her done. That's good. You don't have anybody with a southern accent.

Well, you get your butt up off the couch and go do something. That's the thing man so you know whatever it is that you're whining about she didn't there's not a whine in her body she doesn't know how to whine no i mean she she saw the goal and she went after and here's a point that you need to understand about your opportunity to move up in this world certainly now more than ever before right this second is now it And people, listen, leaders need someone that they believe will help them win. And if you just show up, you show up early, you have a smile on your face, you do the job they've asked you to do, you do more than they ask you to do, you look for ways to help them, serve them, serve the team. Add value.

You're all in. Just be valuable. And here's what happens. You will rise to the top. You can't. You can't keep from happening. Because most people are takers. If you'll add value

instead of taking value. Well, you know, people walk into a job and they look at the place and go, I wonder how much they'll pay me. Why don't you figure out how much you can add value

and they will gladly give you money. This is how this world works with being a dadgum parasite. Man, she is awesome. Yeah. Got me fired up. I like it.

This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is a brand new book. It's in pre-sale right now. It will actually come out a little bit later here in April. We just got the shipment in, though, so we actually have them in stock. We're ready to go

when the book is ready to launch. We've sent them out to the bookstore chains and everything so they'll be in the stores on time, which is kind of a good thing given the paper problems and logistics problems and all that stuff out there. So, yeah, supply chain issues. But, hey, we got books, so we're excited.

It's going to come out on time. The book is Own Your Past, Change Your Future. If you've ever heard Dr. John on the Dr. John Deloney Show or heard him on here and thought, man, if I could just sit down with him for a few minutes one-on-one and have a coaching or counseling session, I really think I might be able to get a handle on some of the things that happened to me in my past and maybe move on with my future. Let me tell you what, that's what this book is. It's like having a personal counseling session with Dr. Deloney. And you ought to sit down and do it. Own your past, change your future.

It'll make you laugh, make you cry. It did me. It'll challenge you cry it did me it'll challenge you did me and you take the steps he outlines and take advantage of your free therapy because if you pre-order it you're going to get a month of free one-on-one weekly therapy from the folks at better health i mean they are incredible this is an incredible offer it's all including a a $20 book purchase. This is a bargain. Yeah, so check it out. RamseySolutions.com.

The book is Own Your Past, Change Your Future. Lisa is with us. Lisa's in Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, Lisa. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thank you for having me. Sure.

What's up? Well, I was married for 26 years, six kids. We struggled in our marriage. My husband had a lot of his own struggles. And so I found out about you, and I started to do the baby steps by myself. Got us out of debt, except for the house, and he had a lot of student loans, like $100,000. And we just, marriage kept struggling. So I finally filed for divorce. I moved in with my mom and dad last July, sold the house on my own um found a buyer gave him half the money um and then a month before our court date in december he died of covid oh my goodness and i'm sorry um and so now i have like

this you know huge chunk of money i don't know what to do with it i plan on buying a house my parents were actually gonna help me with the down payment um now they don't have to um and uh you know i was there a will house or he had no will so i was a beneficiary the beneficiary on what his life insurance he had five hundred thousand dollars So you're getting $500,000 and you got the house money. Yeah, and he had a $75,000 life insurance with his work. How much was the house? We sold it for $225,000, but we had a hundred and some odd equity line on it that had to be paid off. So you got like $600,000 or $650,000 by the end?

Yeah, and he's got $40,000 that an attorney's working on getting for me and $30,000 in retirement. And the student loan was in his name? Yeah, so those are all. Well, they're forgiven. If they're federal student loans, they're forgiven upon death. Do not pay those. Yes, yeah. You'll have to provide death certificates,

and you'll have to go through a myriad of federal paperwork. Oh, my gosh, what a horrible thing you're going through. Yeah. How old are your kids? The oldest is 29, and the youngest is 12. And I have the two minors and the college kid with me, but we're split up into two different houses right now. I really want to get a home so we can heal and just move forward.

But I'm getting advice from, you know, tons of different people. Don't pay cash for a house. You can invest that. Do you have a career different thing i'm actually um i'm writing on my award letters from social security for the three minors and my plan was to pay cash for a home and go back to school full-time i want to go for respiratory therapy okay what price range home are you thinking of? That's the hard part It's actually what I'm asking you

Everything in our area seems to be in about the $250,000 to $300,000 range Yeah, okay So if you have $700,000 and you put $300,000 towards the house And you pay cash for it Then you've got the money to go back to respiratory school And you put yourself on a really, really tight budget, right? Yes. Yeah.

That was my plan. That is my plan. Now, let me give you one other thing to consider in this. Normally, when I hear something like this going on, I tell people try not to make big decisions for a while. Yes. Because your brain is clouded. Twenty-six years of marriage now clouded by a divorce that

was underway um and the the trauma that goes with this you start wondering if you did something wrong deep down inside the inner voices start speaking to you you know all the stuff that normal human beings would experience if they were going through what you were going through okay and so my proposal to you is is that no normal human having gone through what you've gone through in the past two years uh would be thinking as clearly as someone who hadn't gone through all of those things agreed yes that all of this damage and all of this trauma and all of these problems and the grief and the weirdness of a divorce that's almost final but 26 years of marriage you're already grieving the loss of the marriage in a sense in the process of doing that and then he dies oh my

gosh it's like it's like this is stacked upon, stacked upon. Do you hear what I'm saying out loud? Yeah. So it might not be a bad idea to rent something for six months and let the cobwebs clear. Okay. And make a better decision six months from now. I think the numbers you're giving me sound okay, and I don't hear anything in the way you're discussing this your your sentence structure your voice tone can she sounds like she's got her stuff together right so we got we got a mic problem in here but anyway yeah i think okay that's okay the uh. So are you plugged in? But anyway, so yeah, you sound solid talking to you, but I would be worried if I were in your shoes

that I might not be making the most clear, perfect decision together. Yeah. And so it's okay to go rent you a nice house for six months, get all the kids and the family together, and you guys just all have a little margin, a little bandwidth to just process all this pain. Because your kids lost their dad. Yeah, yeah. And that's in this.

And they were already going to have a split family, and they had all that. So they're traumatized, right? Yeah, I mean, the relationships with their dad were pretty strained before this yeah and so they've got this weird thing of gosh i wonder if if you know they've got stuff running through their heads and i i just yeah uh it it would not be a bad thing for you to wait a little while to make a three hundred thousand dollar decision but if but you sound like you can go ahead if you want to i'm just warning you bad thing for you to wait a little while to make a $300,000 decision. But you sound like you can go ahead if you want to. I'm just warning you to be careful, and it's okay.

I want to give you permission to take your time, and I also want to give you permission to ignore any idiot telling you not to pay cash for a house. You have plenty of money. Okay. The other thing I would add, Dave, is take your time on the respiratory therapy school look at multiple options do your homework what's it going to cost make sure that's the right decision for you because this is the same kind of thing she's thinking about a new future very solid i feel she's very stable if you just pick that because oh i think i'd be stable i could make some money yeah that's the wrong choice that's right so let us send you a copy of ken's

book from paycheck to, as well. And that's some of your homework. You can read through that while you're making, verifying, in a sense. Oh, let me do this, too. Let's get you the Get Clear assessment. I think that'll really help. I'm going to give you the Get Clear assessment as well. I want you to take that assessment.

We're going to give it to you all free. And maybe we can help you kind of make, just make sure your mind is real clear on all of these career and house purchase decisions. So, wow. Weird thing. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Heavy stuff. Yeah.

Ken Coleman, good hour. Good hour to the folks in the booth. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, folks, Ken Coleman here. Did you know The Ramsey Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world? It's your daily dose of advice on life and money. Check out all of our shows from The Ramsey Network wherever you listen to podcasts.