The Ramsey Show - App - Real Help for Your Toughest Money Problems (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 3, 2018

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show, America. Thank you for joining us. It's a free call anywhere in North America. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Brittany starts off this hour in Houston, Texas. Hi, Brittany. How are you?
Starting point is 00:00:57 Hi, I'm good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I'm going to bind right now. I graduated college in 2015. I took a year off, and I finally got back into my career in media. And I'm a single mom, and I stay at home with my parents.
Starting point is 00:01:19 There's been a lot of arguments about the car note that my grandmother is helping me pay. And I just can't afford it by myself. And I have student debt. And I just want to move out. But I'm really scared because they always tell me I'm going to fail if I move out. And I'm just not going to make it on my own. So I'm just kind of lost because, you know, I have a one-year-old son. So I'm just really scared to kind of make that move.
Starting point is 00:01:44 And I don't know if I can do it and pay off my debt and pay off this car note. And how much do you owe on the car? It's not in my name. It's in my mom's name, but it's almost $600 a month. Okay. What are they saying? Are they saying it's a bad idea? Um, well, I mean, she's helping me pay the note, but she wants me to pay all of it. Um, or just get a car in my name. And she's just let that car go. We had a car previously before,
Starting point is 00:02:22 and it was almost, it was almost paid off and I was a co-signer on it and she got it repoed and I had no choice because I was in college Oh you have a lot of choices. You just made a bad choice. Because you can't afford a $600 car payment.
Starting point is 00:02:40 Yeah, no I can't. That's just insanity. And so yeah, you need to sell the car. The car is in her name? It's in her name. Right. And so she wants you to let the car go? Yes.
Starting point is 00:02:55 We had a car previously, and when I got pregnant, she felt like, okay, I'm going to give her a new car. And she thought she was doing a favor for me because the old car I had wasn't any good. And now she holds this over my head as if it's a burden. Well, it is a burden. It's not holding it over your head. It's a burden. You guys did a stupid thing together, and it's costing both of you.
Starting point is 00:03:21 So she's right about all of that. But I didn't tell her to get the car. Yeah, you did. What's the car worth? Well, I don't know how much it's worth, but she has three years left. She got in a five-year deal to pay almost $600 a month for a Nissan. Okay. What do you make?
Starting point is 00:03:42 I make $3,700. Okay. And how much other debt do you have? I have $60,000 in student loans. Yeah, that's about it. Okay. So what if we did this? Okay. What if we said, you know what, Mom, I agree with you. I shouldn't have let you do this. You shouldn't have let you do this. It's a bad deal. Let's get the car sold, Mom. So you don't want to be repoed.
Starting point is 00:04:14 Let's get it sold. And the $600 a month that I was supposed to pay for a couple months, I'm going to save that up and I'm going to buy me a little hoopty, a little $1,500 car. Okay. Okay? Okay. So I have $1,000 saved because I was planning to move. Yeah, but you can't move out. You don't have a car.
Starting point is 00:04:34 We just sold you a car. So we need to get you a $1,500 car as soon as we can, and then you need $1,000, and then you need to move out. Okay. Now you don't have a car payment anymore, and can you make it on 375 in Houston, Texas? Yeah, you can make it. It's going to be tight, but you can make it. You're going to have to rent something cheap, and you're going to have to get on a budget. I'll help you.
Starting point is 00:04:57 I'll get you in Financial Peace University, and we'll get you on a budget and show you how to handle money. But this car has got to go, and you've got to get you a little cash car, a paid-for car. And lots of us grew up in cars that were not as nice as we're talking about, a $1,500 car. Okay? Now, are you going to drive a $1,500 car for the rest of your life?
Starting point is 00:05:18 No. You're not going to make $3,700 for the rest of your life either, are you? No. So we're going to save up and move up in car as quick as we can, get you up to about a $3,000 or $4,000 car, and then we're going to tear into those student loans and start working our way through those. But you need to be driving a $3,000 to a $4,000 car,
Starting point is 00:05:34 making $37,500 or $60,000 in student loan debt, and you need to be paying cash for it. And you need to be on a budget and be on your own, out from under your mother's toxic breath. Yeah. Am I right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But it's going to take you a little bit of time to get there you take a little time to get into this mess you're not going to get out of it instantly please don't repo that car it's going to destroy
Starting point is 00:05:54 your mom she needs to sell it doesn't even care she's doing stupid stuff it's killing her yeah she needs to sell that car. But I think you need to go in and say, you know, I'm so thankful for you letting me live here, and I'm so sorry this car thing has gotten between us. It's a messed up deal. I agree with you. I'm going to start saving and buy me a little hoopty, and I want you to get this car sold. They don't want me to buy that car. I don't care care what they want what they want so far has been a
Starting point is 00:06:28 long list of stupid and crazy they're just scared it might break down i don't care what they want you're leaving okay it might break down but what's broken down now is your whole freaking life kiddo it's time to make some different changes and whether your car breaks down or not ain't your biggest problem is it no okay your cars are gonna break down count on it i got a brand new one broke down the other day they all break they're stupid cars okay that's just part of life but you can't go doing stupid stuff on the fear that a car might break down and stay in a toxic situation on the fear that a car break might break down or do anything based on your mother's opinion but with money ever again your mother is a financial doofus yeah i know she is yeah so what she what her opinion is about the money don't matter. Time for you to move on.
Starting point is 00:07:25 How old are you? I am about to be 25. Okay, perfect. Yeah, time to do your thing, kiddo. Game on. Game on. I'll help you. We're going to put you in Financial Peace University.
Starting point is 00:07:39 But you need to love your mother from a little bit more distance. Okay. Don't you? Okay, yeah. It't you? Okay. Yeah. It's driving you crazy. It's driving me crazy talking about it. It's driving you crazy.
Starting point is 00:07:51 You've got to go home there every night. Good Lord. What a mess. So, yeah, we need to, in the next 60 days, work our way through this and make these changes. Thanks for the call. Appreciate you. Hang on. Kelly will pick up.
Starting point is 00:08:05 We'll get you signed up for a financial piece. We'll walk through with you. If you've got any more questions, you call me and I'll walk with you through this. You're not driving a $1,500 car for the rest of your life. You're driving one so you don't have a $600 car payment anymore while making $3,750, which is the definition of freaking insanity. You can't live like this, kiddo. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. I get asked all the time, when in the baby steps is the right time to buy life insurance?
Starting point is 00:09:02 My answer is typically now. Life insurance is not part of the baby steps because it's needed when your family has debt and not enough savings to provide for their financial needs. That's when they're at the highest risk. And no matter where you are in your baby steps, it's a necessity, not a choice. This includes working husbands and wives, as well as stay-at-home parents. It's pretty expensive to replace those stay-at-home parent responsibilities. I only recommend term life insurance since it's the most affordable way to get the right amount of coverage and not break your budget. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. These are the guys I personally use. Term life insurance is inexpensive and your family needs this no matter where you are in your baby steps. That's Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Zander.com. Thanks for joining us, America.
Starting point is 00:10:21 We're glad you're here. Sean's with us in Montana. Hey, Sean, how are you? Well, you're so good? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, let me just lay down the situation real quick, and then I'll get to the question, if that's okay?
Starting point is 00:10:36 Okay. Okay. Presently, the job I have, I make like $22.3 a year. Me and my wife have $9,342
Starting point is 00:10:51 in debt. What do you do? I'm a direct care professional. You're a what? Direct care. So I take care of people who are developmentally disabled and work on behavioral stuff with them.
Starting point is 00:11:07 And you make $22,000 a year? Yep. Okay. So basically I have an opportunity to relocate from where I am in Montana back to Boston, which is where I'm from. And the single job would double my income. But in doing
Starting point is 00:11:36 so, I would not be bringing my family with me at first. I'd have the opportunity to stay rent-free with my father and work. Why would your family not go with you? Affordability. I can't afford to move them. I mean, we don't even have a foundation to have $1,000 to start paying off our debt. I mean, right now I'm dealing with, like,
Starting point is 00:12:04 negative cash flow. Right. Does your wife work outside the home? No. She takes care of the – I got four kids. You have four kids. Okay. Yep.
Starting point is 00:12:16 All right. And do you own a home? No, we rent. Okay. And so basically you can loan your furniture into a U-Haul and pull it across the country and be in boston and get an apartment right um well in the long haul yes but short term i would why a plane ticket why not load your wife up and go um i wouldn't have the money to put them in an apartment.
Starting point is 00:12:45 Uh-huh. Okay. So you're going to be making twice as much, though. So how quickly would you be moving them? Well, she's pregnant with our fifth, so the thought process would be in the summer, probably August after birth. Well, I'm not doing that. I'm not leaving my pregnant wife and four kids halfway around the dadgum world
Starting point is 00:13:15 and go live with your dad. Not a chance. I'm loading her up and moving, dude. Can any of your family help you a little bit? I mean, it won't cost much to get moved. Maybe the new employer would give you an advance to get you moved into your new apartment. There's a possibility with that. Yeah, you need to load up your family and get out of there.
Starting point is 00:13:38 But, you know, not being with your pregnant wife while she's carrying, what, your fifth child? You're in Boston and she's in Montana? Dude, that is not okay. I mean, you're not in the military. You're not required to be separated like that. You're just making bad choices. You need to scrape together a few dollars and go deliver some pizzas or something for a month and pile up $1,000, $1,500 and get you a month and and pile up you know thousand fifteen
Starting point is 00:14:05 hundred bucks and get you a u-haul and get your butt in gear and and roll on over to uh boston and take that job or move in with your dad for a month with the whole dadgum crew over there if you can something like that i mean you need to find a different way but this idea you're going to delay bringing your whole family and while your wife is no no no that's not going to work out for you that's going to end poorly i'm going to assure you hey thanks for calling in ben is with us ben's in colorado springs hey ben how are you good how are you dave better than i deserve what's up hey there i am self-employed. I'm a real estate agent. And we've got the $1,000 for your baby step one.
Starting point is 00:14:50 And we're kind of at crossroads on how to go about going on with the next baby step. I'm of the opinion, which isn't in your plan, that because I'm self-employed and money isn't always there, I need to have two months or so of income to fall back on to be able to make the budget. Does your wife work? She does not. She's a stay-at-home mother. So you're not making any money in the real estate business? Well, I mean, I'm making $100,000, $110,000 a year,
Starting point is 00:15:30 somewhere in there. Then you're not having any zero months? Not any zero months. During the winter in Colorado, there's some months that are slower than others where making the budget would be tighter than where we're at.
Starting point is 00:15:50 I never expand Baby Step 1 emergency fund. What I would do is if your income is truly volatile, and I think yours is not as volatile as you're acting like it is, you're making $100,000 and you're whining about running out of money. of money i mean really you really need to stop and think about what you just said but anyway if you're going to go to zero in december because nobody's buying a house in colorado springs in december you don't want to have zero money i'll go along with that part but i don't think that's what's really happening you're making eight thousand dollars a month average so uh eighty five hundred to ten thousand a month whatever so anyway some aside, but we're not going to call it an emergency fund,
Starting point is 00:16:28 and we're not going to add to the $1,000 account. We call it a hill and valley account. The hill and valley is the volatility of your income. The hill is when the income is good. The valley is when it's bad. And so if you want to set a couple grand over there in that, in addition to the $ two separate accounts one is for emergencies and one is for if you run out of money because you don't make any money in a month but
Starting point is 00:16:51 dude i don't think you're really doing that i think you need to go back and actually look at your cash flow analyze your revenue streams for however long you've been in the business and go how many times have i really run out of money? I mean, you can go make money. And so I don't think it's happening. If you told me you made $40,000 in a real estate business, I can imagine you having some zero months. But you're not, you know, it's not what you're telling me. You're making money.
Starting point is 00:17:18 You're just afraid of the volatility. And, you know, that's reasonable. So go back and track your revenues and chart your revenues. And if they truly are dipping down below what it takes to exist in your house and given in certain months over a long period of time, you can go back and go, you know, every January and February, I'm always screwed. This is where we are. Then, OK, set some money aside to cover that so that you do that. But I don't think it's as bad as your emotions are telling you it is. But, no, we are not changing the emergency fund. We might have a Hill and Valley account if you truly have a volatile income.
Starting point is 00:17:55 Mark's with us in Seattle. Hey, Mark, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Yeah, thanks, Dave. Hey, it's a great honor to talk with you. I know you had a great impact on changing my life five years ago. Thank you. Currently, I got a career question. I'm in baby step six. So the only thing right now is I'm paying off my home debt. Got a net worth of a half million dollars. What happened was five years ago, I left a small company with a great company culture.
Starting point is 00:18:29 When I hear you talk about your company, the company I was working for had a very similar culture. I was making an average salary for what I did. I went to a competitor. How much were you making? I was making $80,000 a year. What do you make now? I make $140,000 a year. And your question's what?
Starting point is 00:18:48 My question is, I really miss that small company culture, and I have an opportunity to go back to a smaller company of about 100 people, a startup. I think it would be really, really interesting to get back into that culture. I just kind of lost my passion for my work, and I show up to work every day. I get great reviews. I'd probably go back, but I want some equity or I want some indication that I can earn my way back up to what you're actually worth in the marketplace. This idea that in order to have a good work environment, you have to make less is not a necessary is not necessarily an assumption i'm going with so maybe that particular company can't pay you but if you want you can probably find
Starting point is 00:19:30 somebody with a decent culture and pay you what you're worth that's what it amounts to this is the dave ramsey show It's time to take another look at your budget. That means scouring every expense and making sure you're not leaving any money on the table. One of the biggest expenses is your mortgage payment. I recommend a quick Churchill checkup. In just five minutes, our friends at Churchill Mortgage can tell you if you could save some cash each month. They've helped thousands upon thousands of my listeners keep more cash in their pockets
Starting point is 00:20:13 through a smarter mortgage. I want you to call Churchill for your checkup and see if you can lower your monthly payment or better yet, see how you can pay off your house early. Think about it. What could you do with your money if you didn't have a mortgage? Call Churchill at 888-LOAN-200, 888-LOAN-200, or visit ChurchillMortgage.com for your Churchill checkup. That's 888-LOAN-200 or ChurchillMortgage.com.
Starting point is 00:20:40 This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLS ConsumerAccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jake's on Facebook. Follow me there, facebook.com slash Dave Ramsey,
Starting point is 00:21:33 and you'll get part of the messages we put on there. Because Facebook does not put everything through. They throttle our messages so they can make us buy ads from them. Well, it doesn't really work that way guys but they try anyway he says what's the difference between a credit union and a bank a bank is owned by stockholders that when the bank makes a profit and they should make a profit we want them to make some profit when the bank makes a profit, and they should make a profit, we want them to make some profit. When the bank makes a profit, the stockholders, the owners of the company,
Starting point is 00:22:14 get that profit, basically. I mean, if the profit's dispersed in the form of dividends or the value of the stock is increased because the bank continues to grow, whatever it is. But basically, the owners of a bank are stockholders, and that's where the profit goes. A credit union is operated more like a cooperative, where the owners of a credit union are – it's actually a not-for-profit, technically speaking, and the owners of the credit union are the credit union members, which are also the customers.
Starting point is 00:22:51 And so as a customer of the credit union, the services and interest rates and whatever you pay into the credit union, the profit that is created is returned to the members in the form of increased services or in the form of actual disbursements. I mean, sometimes you actually just get a little check from your credit union put into your account. And so that's the difference. A lot of banks don't like credit unions.
Starting point is 00:23:23 They say they have an unfair advantage because they have non-profit status. Well, that's really not true. It's real simple. The credit union simply does not make a profit because whatever profit is made is plowed back into cheaper checking accounts, better interest rates on loans, or higher interest rates on savings. And so basically they end up not making a profit. So if a bank wanted to make less profit, it could do the same thing.
Starting point is 00:24:01 So they don't have a disadvantage. They're just trying to keep stockholders happy and sell stuff to customers. The credit union has customers that are the stockholders in a sense. The owners are the members. And so it returns. And all of that really doesn't matter spit if you don't get good service from the organization. And so we endorse credit unions, not because of their nonprofit status, but because they have reasonably priced banking services for you to use, and you'll be treated not like a number.
Starting point is 00:24:40 You'll be treated by people that actually care. You'll also have that similar experience at a local community bank, a regional bank. And that's who I do business with personally. I don't personally have an account right now at a credit union. I'm not opposed to. I just don't. business accounts and our personal accounts are all at local uh regional and um uh community banks in our area we do business with several banks and so and it's very simple it's just because i need to be able to pick up the phone and talk to a human being that actually has a little bit of power
Starting point is 00:25:19 that can pull stuff off now i don't my cfo does but my controller does that kind of thing but but you know that's what you should want you should be able to walk in and talk to a human and not be treated like a number and you know so i do not understand why anyone would do business with people like wells fargo or bank of america it's beyond me they treat you like crap, and they overcharge you for most of the services. And this day and time, their online offerings, their web banking systems, are not any more sophisticated. They're not that good. They're not good at anything.
Starting point is 00:25:58 I just don't get it. So that's why we endorse credit unions. You'll hear me in some of your cities endorsing a local credit union or a local small-town community-type bank. And I'm just a huge fan of using that for your banking service needs. And it's what I do. Everything I endorse on this show is stuff that I personally do or would do, you know, in your situation, that kind of a thing. I don't have anything that's inconsistent, like I'm too big or too good to do that.
Starting point is 00:26:33 I'm not. I don't have a need for some of the things that we tell you to get. But, you know, in most of these cases, I'm a customer, personally. Ted is with us. Ted's in York, Pennsylvania. Hi, Ted. How are you? I'm doing better than I deserve.
Starting point is 00:26:50 How are you doing? Just the same. How can I help? All right. Well, I want to thank you and your staff for all you're doing. It's a blessing. Thank you. I will be needing a life-saving operation in about 10 to 15 years if I don't get hit by a bus.
Starting point is 00:27:09 And I want to know if I should continue funding an HSA with my employer, contributing a couple hundred bucks a year, or should I just put that extra money into a Roth IRA or a 401K? Why is it just a couple hundred bucks a year? The company. I don't know. They're cheap. Oh, they're matching a couple hundred bucks a year. But you could put in more okay so the the nature of what kind of life-saving operation have you got to have in 10 years what is it i need a liver oh i got psc so yeah fortunately it's something you can't live without yeah i've heard that yeah ouch okay uh but it's it's a it's a slow's a slow progression then.
Starting point is 00:27:45 Yeah, it is. They estimate 17 years out. Okay. I've got to figure it's right around the time I'm going to retire, so I'm trying to retire a little early. Well, I think the thing is what you're going to want is you've got to have the cash in your HSA or somewhere else in an investment to cover what's going to come out of your pocket. I assume you're talking health insurance is going to cover a large portion of this, correct? Yeah, that's if I don't retire, then I'll be on either COBRA or some other type of insurance policy.
Starting point is 00:28:22 Yeah, I think I'd be on COBRA or I wouldn't retire because I'm guessing this is a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar event, isn't it? Probably, yeah. Yeah, and so I'm thinking we're going to time retirement around this a little bit, and or COBRA, one of the two. If you want to retire early, you're just going to have to pony up for the COBRA, but the COBRA only lasts, what, two years or something. I don't think you can keep that indefinitely.
Starting point is 00:28:49 So I think that's number one. I want to make sure you've got health insurance to cover the vast majority of this. I don't want to time that poorly. But then how much have you got coming out of pocket? Over 10 years, you could put $5,000 a year into that HSA or whatever your big deductible is. What's your deductible? What do you mean, my deductible? Yeah, whatever the deductible is on the HSA a year.
Starting point is 00:29:16 Oh. Now. The HSA is a health insurance fund. I know. No, the HSA is a health savings account that is attached to an HSA health insurance policy that is a high deductible policy. It depends. It depends on the policy I pick. It's either $6,000 to $9,000.
Starting point is 00:29:35 That's what I'm talking about. You can put up to that amount per year into that savings account. That would be $6,000, yeah. So should I fully fund that? Yes. And I don't touch it until I you know yes yes and here's why when you're when you need the money out of pocket to cover the whatever it comes out of pocket on on the liver surgery uh and you keep your health insurance in place then you've got this big juicy health savings account sitting there in and i'd
Starting point is 00:30:02 use mutual funds in it and i'd let it grow over the next 10 years, be as big as it can. There's no downside to that. Whatever you don't need for the liver transplant or whatever the process is there, whatever you don't need, you can pull out and just pay taxes on it, no penalties, at 65. And so you're going to want to build that up. What you don't use, you can use for retirement, in other words, after age 65. And so you're going to want to build that up. And it becomes what you don't use, you can use for retirement, in other words, after age 65. So I would load that up knowing that you've got this coming down the road. We'll be right back. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. You know, Jade Steinfeld, my friend, started Blinds.com about 20 years ago
Starting point is 00:31:15 to make the complex process of ordering and installing new custom blinds simple. With Blinds.com, you get free samples free samples free shipping and with the new promos they run every month you're going to save even more always put in the promo code ramsey and you'll see the best possible deal out there that's the magic word ramsey at blinds.com today's questions from pam in memphis we've been debt free for almost years. It's allowed us to step up and help people when we feel led. The issue now is that friends and family expect us to pick up all the tabs and cover everything since we don't have debt. How do we handle this? Well, with friends, I would probably, you know, well, I'm going to address it similarly.
Starting point is 00:32:06 You can't end family ships. You can end friendships. Family is what you're stuck with, with life. Friends are what God gives you to say, I'm sorry for your family. So it's a little different. With family, you just have to set a boundary and just go, okay, guys, we're going Dutch tonight. I mean, everybody's paying their own, right i'm paying mine you're paying yours well you're
Starting point is 00:32:28 that free yeah i know but that's why i'm that free because i'm cheap so you're paying your own and so um you know you just call it out and you just have some fun with it laugh about it be sarcastic about it whatever your family gift is right and um and some of them are going to be upset but if they're going to be upset because you don't buy their food, then, well, oh, well, you know. And as far as friends go, I do the same thing. But if this is a continual thing, then we just aren't, you know, it's not a real friend because a friend that you have to buy the relationship. That's called prostitution. That's not friend.
Starting point is 00:33:00 OK. And so, you know, I don't have to buy my friendships my friends i've got friends that are wealthier than me and friends that are nowhere near as wealthy as me um doesn't matter i might buy dinner but that's on my choice not on their expectation um and i'm pretty generous about dinner a lot but i don't i don't think anything about it but to the point my wife is like you really don't need to pay every time but i i don't i'm not worried about it it's but if i ever since somebody be entitled i'd get all hillbilly in a second you know i'll be like no you're not entitled um and my wife is a little bit more uh she has this thing about fairness and so she wants
Starting point is 00:33:40 everything to be fair and i'm just trying to explain to her fairs what happens at the county it just fair is not going to happen but but you know you just that's okay i mean just talk it through is what i'm saying and you're going to find occasionally somebody that you're not going to be able to continue in relationship with and um that could even be family if it's extreme but hopefully it's not something like that. That's very hurtful for you. But most of the time, it's just like, no, you know, we're paying our share. You pay your share. You split it up. Or this time, we're going to give you a gift, and we're going to pay for everything.
Starting point is 00:34:15 But that's on your option. It's not a gift if it's entitlement. So it's a good question, though. And that happens more. It probably happens more to people with family than it does with friends. I mean, you got a real low-class group of friends of all your friends expect you to pick up the tab all the time just because you're debt-free. I mean, you're running with some trailer park trash, you know, I mean, really. You got to think about that.
Starting point is 00:34:41 Really, it's more of a family thing for most people. I will tell you that, honestly, as weird it is for us with Sharon and I, because we're kind of in the spotlight, we've had very little boundary issues with family or friends on this. We've been really blessed. We're really fortunate. And so that's a tip of the hat to both of them, that we've had almost no times that we've had to sit down with a friend and go uh nope and almost no times with family i mean it's um but our families are you know responsible
Starting point is 00:35:17 hard-working people i mean it's that kind of thing and so it's just that we're blessed in that way because i know people that you know they get their record deal and all of a sudden some cousin they didn't even know comes out of the woodwork you know and i've not had that i've got some cousins that i don't hardly know but none of them came out of the woodwork they stayed in the woodwork good for them so not looking for money anyway i wouldn't mind seeing some of them but i mean don't don't come looking for money i don't even know you are so um it's something everybody deals with but i think you know you hear people like hit the lotto and this and then crazy sets in in their family and or i'll tell you where else i run into it's
Starting point is 00:35:53 with these nfl players man they get a big signing bonus and crazy comes out of the woodwork on them i mean they get some dysfunctional crap in their lives it It's amazing. And people who feel entitled to a piece of their success. And it really is an illness. It's a problem. Stephanie is with us in Birmingham. Hey, Stephanie, what's up in your world? Better than I deserve. How are you, Dave?
Starting point is 00:36:19 Just the same, darling. How can I help? Well, I have a question about the mortgage. But first let me say thank you god and thank you dave ramsey i've been doing those steps and i am really close to any home run good for you got a question about the mortgage um i have about i guess forty thousand dollars saved up and i own forty thousand dollars on my. Do I go ahead and pay it off with an exception of $1,000? Then would the real intent be to build my emergency fund back up?
Starting point is 00:36:53 No. No, your emergency fund should be three to six months of expenses. Anything above that I would throw at the mortgage. Oh, okay. But I wouldn't take you all the way down to $1,000 on baby step six. I want you to be your baby step three is the emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. What's your household income? Right at $70,000 a year.
Starting point is 00:37:17 Good for you. How old are you? 50. I'm 50 this year. Have you got any other debt other than the home? No debt. You got any money other other than the home? No debt. You got any money other than this $40,000? I have money in 401K and IRA.
Starting point is 00:37:32 Good. How much is in that? Right ahead, $200,000. You're doing so good. Way to go. Well done. Thank you. Well done.
Starting point is 00:37:42 You're winning. Yeah. Okay. So what would you say your monthly expenses would be? A couple of grand, maybe three grand? Right about $2,500. All right. If we said three months of that would be $7,500, that means we would throw $32,500 at the $40,000 mortgage.
Starting point is 00:38:03 How fast are you going to pay off that other $7,500 then? Gazillion cents. Yeah? How fast? Three months, six months at the most. Yep. I'm working a day job in addition to my regular job, so I'm getting it done. Yeah, get her done.
Starting point is 00:38:18 You got it. And so six months from now, you're debt-free. But you were not left at risk of an emergency hitting and having only a thousand dollars because that's not what we do at these at this point in the baby steps at this point the baby steps we keep our three months and let's hold that 7500 there so if you have a little bump in the road you don't have a problem because i don't want you to have a paid for house and no money okay that's not that you know you have to dig up the bushes to eat or something later you know we don't do that so uh but you're gonna you're gonna be debt free by spring house and
Starting point is 00:38:50 everything if we do this plan and i tell you it is so lonely i guess at the top but i like loneliness so you don't have a lot of people in your life that are cheering you on then? No, they would not listen to me. I've been trying to sell this Dave Ramsey's baby steps for years. Well, I'm honored to have you as one of our cheerleaders, and you can consider me one of yours. I think you're impressive. You've done some really good stuff. 50 years old, $200,000 in the bank and a paid four hours by spring,
Starting point is 00:39:22 and your emergency fund, $200,000 in your 401K, I think you're a rock star. I think you're doing really, really well. Very good job. Very good job. And I suspect if you're like most families, that means you've changed your family tree. You've changed the whole way of operating. Probably nobody in your family has ever accomplished what you have because most families haven't.
Starting point is 00:39:42 It doesn't matter. You know, that's a huge huge deal jack's on twitter how can i deal with my spouse who wants to make payments on everything well i don't think she wants to make payments on everything she wants to buy anything she wants is what that really means and so it sounds like you're either married to someone who is not informed about how money works they're ignorant about how money works and so it sounds like you're either married to someone who is not informed about how money works they're ignorant about how money works and so we can do some teaching or you're married to a princess um our stuff doesn't help princess marriage counseling helps that um and that's
Starting point is 00:40:18 what you would do but if you want to do that if you if you think it's just a lack of knowledge then you can put you know go through financial Peace University together and see if that'll turn. Because often it does. Sometimes people just don't know. And once they know, they're like, oh, I'm not doing that anymore. It might be that simple. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, guys.
Starting point is 00:40:40 It's Blake Thompson, senior executive producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. This hour of the show is over, but feel free to check out our YouTube channel where we have over 2 million views each month of debt-free screens, millionaire hour clips, Dave rants, and more. All free, anytime, anywhere.

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