The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Go Back to School for My Ph.D.? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: April 20, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king. The paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Christy Wright, Ramsey Personality, the creator of Business Boutique. And all things Christy Wright is my co-host today as we take your calls about your life and your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Speaking of Business Boutique, you were saying right before we went on the air that popped up on your phone this five years ago today that the book was in launch mode. You were in your first week of launch. Yeah, it week we were in nashville for the signing it was one of

those memories that came up on my phone it's hard to believe five years ago the book came out but it's it's incredible too because this book continues to sell you see this and it continues to help people it's the plan to help them get their business idea off the ground and grow it so equipping women to make money doing what they love yeah I can't believe we've been saying that five years. It seems like it's 20 minutes. Of course, the book launched as a number one bestseller, and it's all about equipping women to make money doing what they love. To go with that, around that same time, I guess maybe in the months following that,

we launched Business Boutique Academy, which is all about Christy teaching ladies how to start and how to run a business. Yeah, so this is really just our coaching model because it came out of our first event in 2015. We had these amazing success stories, but women would come home from the event and they're fired up, but then they're like, oh, well, I ran into something I didn't know how to deal with, or I lost motivation, or I got discouraged a few months later when I thought, you know, I want to walk with them over time in their business. I want to help them have the motivation, but also the advice and tools and steps they need

to take. And so we launched the Academy back in 2016 and it has been incredible. I've had women that joined in 2016 that have stayed with me and you have some that have been joining since then, but it's a six month coaching period. This is not a, you know, a private Facebook group where we just sit around and talk. This is you actually teach them to freaking do stuff, and they go freaking do it. Yeah, we have a... This is serious business.

It is, and it's interesting, too, because it doesn't matter what type of business you're in. You're all in business. The most common question I am asked, Dave, is, but what about this type of business? But what about a salon? But what about fitness coaching? But what about multi-level marketing? Nonprofit, for-profit?

You're all in business. And that's what I specialize in. I want to teach you the business principles that you take and apply to your specific business to help you win. And so, yeah, we only open twice a year. We're open right now. We opened yesterday. We closed Thursday night. And what we do is we have an open enrollment where new members can come in and join.

And then I walk with them for the next six months in their business to help them chase their goals, their dreams, figure out what their version of success is, and then give them the tools to get there. And that keeps you in the class, you know, if you're a freshman or you're a sophomore or you're a senior. There's not people joining every day and leaving every day. Right, exactly. They're in there together, and the community is part of the aspect of it. It is. There's such power. I actually put them in buddies, and so it makes the big group feel smaller.

And then I give them weekly emails and curriculum on what you're going to discuss with your buddy, what you're going to work on in your business. And we're all on the same track, focusing on the same things together. We do something really cool, Dave, that I actually started last year out of COVID. And we were all pivoting, trying to figure out how to make it work with COVID. One of the things that we came up with is a $250 challenge.

So the cost of your membership is $244. So I came up with a $250 challenge and I challenged them to make $250 in seven days. And I give them a whole list of ways to do this. We all rally. The community gets so excited. You have people posting the Facebook group. And I give them a whole list of ways to do this. We all rally. The community gets a lot of it, gets so excited. You have people posting the Facebook group. And what's so cool is they do this.

The majority of them do this and they've made their membership feedback in seven days. And you've made ROI in the first seven days. So it's just, it's a really powerful community, but it's amazing to see how when women get the help they need, when anyone gets the help that they need, they really can do this thing. They think, you know, I'm not business-minded. I'm not cut out for this. No, you are. You just need help like we all do in any area of our lives that we need help with.

I don't think a four-year-old gets up and goes, I'm not bicycle-minded. Right. I wouldn't cut out for this. You're still going to have to learn to ride it, baby. Right. That's how it works. Enrollment for the Academy is open, as Christy said, through Thursday night april the 22nd just about 24 more hours 48 more hours and it's only open twice a year so you don't want to miss your opportunity to get in on this training the tools and the support

uh and it's odd that it's uh you know coming up on the week that is the anniversary of the launch of the book so uh join the academy at ramseysolutions.com slash academy, and you can become a part of this incredible community of women who are making money doing what they love. That's so important. The book is also on sale right now, among our other books, on a $10 special at ramseysolutions.com slash store. So Total Money Makeover, Business Boutique, Rachel's Books, Ken's Books,

virtually all of our best-selling books are in there on sale right now with a $10 sale at ramseysolutions.com. So be sure and check that out as well. But the Academy open through Thursday night, April the 22nd. It shuts off at what time Thursday night? 8 o'clock. 8 o'clock Thursday night, April the 22nd. It shuts off at what time Thursday night? 8 o'clock. 8 o'clock Thursday night. And, again, RamseySolutions.com slash Academy.

And you'll get the help from Christy, the one-on-one coaching, the community, the challenges, everything you need to do to get moving and get started in that business. Or take your existing business and move it to a different level. And it's a very unique community, and it's all about changing everything. The Ramsey Baby Steps community, Kim Little, our manager of that community, said if you want to be part of like-minded people, jump in on our Facebook group. It's called The Ramsey Baby Steps Community. And it's massive.

I mean, several hundred thousand people in there. Juliana says, I'm a single mom that's blessed to have my mom able to help me with my kids. I'm in baby step two. It seems like it's going slow. I want to get a second job. My mom is supportive, but I don't know how to balance my two kids that actually need my help. I know I need to get out of debt, but I'm torn. Yeah, this is one of those things that a schedule is your friend because if you're waiting until you have time left over to put money to work on a second job or start a side business from home or whatever that is, there's never time left over. And there's certainly never time left over when you have young kids.

And so I think that it can be in your favor to come up with a schedule, whether it's nap times, weekends. What is can do? Maybe it's from 7 to 10 p.m. You bust it and try to get creative with working from home or freelancing or that type of thing with some flexibility. But the reality is you have to have some type of schedule and structure. Otherwise, you're going to always feel like you're coming from behind. And so what is realistic but also a stretch goal to help you do what you want to do to maybe speed this up and get extra money but also realistic? All work is not profitable.

So you need to actually be doing something that makes money. I mean, would I take a retail job and be away from my kids for minimum wage? No. Right. No. You need to be doing something that's two, three times what minimum wage is, whether you're running your own gig, doing something on the side. I don't care what it is you're doing, but figure out something that's going to pay really

well, number one. Number two, then map it out and go, okay, this is only for two years, or this is only for 18 months, or it's 19 months. And then I'll be out, and then I can go back to a regular schedule. So if it pays really good and it's only for a reasonable period of time, you can lock it in. That'll give you the energy to do it. And the third piece of advice I've got is work while everybody else is asleep. Yeah, yeah. Do your 4 a.m. reps.

What can you do? What can you write? What can you, you know, what orders can you fill on eBay at 4 in the morning? What questions can you answer? How can you work when others sleep? Because those kiddos aren't, you know, and, you know, the amount of time people spend that's supposed to be spent with their kids in front of stupid television, you know, you can just take that out. Just throw a brick through your TV.

You'll find all kinds of hours. All kinds of hours in your life. Christy Wright, Ramsey Personality your marriage, and your growing family. While you're enjoying the present, you can't help but think about your future and your finances. As you explore your options, consider Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, for your health care. Their generous maternity program and budget-friendly monthly programs have been a blessing to members welcoming children into their families. Visit chministries.org slash budget to see if it's right for you. That's chministries.org slash budget. Christy Wright Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Carly's in Buffalo, New York. Hey, Carly, how are you? I'm well, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my husband and I recently, he was in an accident in September. We recently received a settlement of $100,000.

Wow. Is he okay? Yes, actually. He is nearly fully recovered. So we got really lucky on that one. Wow. Sounds like it was a bad accident. It was a very bad accident.

He broke his leg, surgery, all of those. And all those bills have been paid? Yeah, it was covered yeah okay so in addition you got a hundred thousand clear and he's okay now yes okay i'm with you all right and we're just not sure what to do with it i know there's worse problems to have but this feels kind of burdensome like i don't want to mess it up, you know? Yeah. Like, I feel like... Yeah. Until we don't know, I don't know, real estate or what to do. I understand.

Yeah, you want to be careful with it and wise. Well, we would apply it wherever you are on the baby steps. So let's walk through that a little bit. Do you have any debt other than your home? No. No home debt either. And no home debt. Okay. So you're completely No home debt, okay.

So you're completely out of debt, house and everything. What's your household income? About $33,000 a year, $32,000. Okay. And do you have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses? Yeah, yeah. Good. It's closer to nine months.

Good, good. You're in really good shape it was lucky to have that when he got hurt i bet i bet yeah you're you've done a great job you're in great shape congratulations well um you know yes you could buy a piece of real estate if you want to buy that and pay cash for it uh might be pushing it to find a $100,000 property in Buffalo. I don't know. Yeah, I think they're going pretty high. Yeah, maybe you could. But I would not want you to go into debt for a rental property. I think that would be a bad plan.

And so if I'm in your shoes, then that's going to put me in mutual funds probably. And you need to take your time and understand that investment and um you know move through the the process of learning on that before you actually make the decision a good way to do that is to connect with one of our smart vester pros click smart vester at dave ramsey.com all right ramsey solutions.com click smart vester too many changes for me remember all all this crap. No, it's a lot. And anyway, so yeah, RamseySolutions.com, click SmartVestor, and it'll drop down a list of the SmartVestor pros in your area that you can connect with. Sit down. In order for them to get our endorsement, they have to have the heart of a teacher.

They have to be willing and able to sit down and teach you because you should not put money in something you don't understand. And so, you know, when you're doing something new like investing, it's intimidating. Yeah, that's why you need someone that knows that specifically. And I think some people feel like, oh, I'm supposed to know this. Now, even inside this building, we use investment professionals for our investments because they are experts. That's what they do all day, every day. But to your point, you want to go to someone that is trustworthy, that's in line with what we teach, because if not, they could explain things in a way that you don't understand

and you end up making some mistakes. So you want to go to someone you trust. Yeah, I just sat down and spent an hour with our tax professional that does that handles the Ramsey family. Oh, God, tax bill and all the stuff. And, you know, there is no way I'm going to understand freaking 10 billion words that the IRS wrote and know them all. That's his job.

But I do need to understand enough of it that when I put my signature at the bottom of that return that I know what it's saying. I may not know every little nuance and every little thing perfectly, but I need to get the gist of what we're doing so that I'm not just blindly signing things and not looking at them. Yeah, exactly. And that's the same with investing. It's the same with doing your will.

These are things that you don't have to be, you know, you can put an expert in your corner, but even somebody working on your car, they come in and go, well, you know, it's going to be $1,800 to fix the jimmy gag. And I'm, what the flip's a jimmy gag? You know, you're going to have to tell me what the spark-a-mana flaps are. I mean, I'm going to have to get a figure out. Start over, please. You know, $1,800, you just got my attention.

So now I want to know what the flip's going on here. And so, you know, you have to be taught and you don't blindly trust anyone, not because we're cynical, but because it's our job to be responsible for our decisions. Where you get screwed on anything, from car repairs to investing in anything else, it's when you don't understand what you're doing, and you just went, oh, that's my guy. He takes care of me. That's my guy.

Or you feel like you're going to look stupid if you ask questions. Like, this is your money. It's $100,000 or whatever you're doing. It's your car. It's $1,800. Ask the question. Say, what does that word mean? Matt and I just sat down with our investment guy a few months ago to kind of do a reset on where we're going, what we're doing.

And there were several things he said that I go, what does that word mean? I don't even know what that word. And he explained it to me. I was like, okay. So don't be scared to ask questions. This is your money that you're investing. You can ask those questions, and really good people will answer them in a way you can understand. An attorney a few years ago, we were working on not litigation, but on just a contractual situation.

And he's like, you know, because I said so. And I went, hey, dude, you just got really confused. Let me help you with this. You work for me, and i'm getting ready fire your butt try again oh my god because i said so what do you think you are my dad he doesn't know you he didn't know not to say that bless his heart yeah right well he knows now irene is in san antonio hey irene what's up good. Ramsey. Thank you so very much for taking my call. My pleasure.

How can we help? I've been listening to you for about five years now, and I followed all your steps. So I have totally eliminated all my credit card debt. I've eliminated all my student loan debt. I have two vehicles. I have absolutely no car payment. I have $105,000 left on my home. And my question is, I want to go back to school to pursue my PhD.

And I was wondering if that's a wise thing for me to do. The reason why I want to do that is because I've become absolutely passionate about my field of mental health. And so I want to teach on a university level. Very cool. That's awesome. First of all, congratulations. Way to go. Yeah, paying off all that debt, that's amazing.

Yeah, way to go. Thank you. I followed each and every step of Mr. Ramsey, and it completely transformed my life over the past five years. You're amazing. That's awesome. So you're paying cash for the PhD. Well, what I'm going to do is I still have $40,000 left over in grant money that I can

put towards my education, and then I'm going to take the rest of it out of my savings to pay off the rest. So not that much, but I have enough to cover it, so I'm not going back into debt ever. Good, good. And you're not dipping into the emergency fund to do this? No, absolutely not. I have plenty left over. I'm just making sure I understand what we're talking about. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. I'm just making sure I understand. So you're going to pay cash for a PhD with a grant and the excess savings, and it's what you want to do.

Well, why wouldn't you do it? Because I couldn't find it anywhere in your book. Why didn't you write a chapter on that? That's your fault. Yeah, I don't write a lot about Ph.D.s. The only one I've got is in DUMB. So I was like, I i'm gonna call because now i've done all the steps basically and i just need to education is not really one of the steps other

than pay cash for it for your kids education and baby step five and in any purchases you want to do we're paying cash for it and this is not a luxury it's career advancement you're going to move into a whole new phase of your life and you've positioned yourself to do it this is fabulous you want to do it you have the money for it and it's moving you in the direction of where you want to go that checks all the boxes for me irene you got it touchdown touchdown well thank you thank you so much i appreciate it i appreciate you're asking our permission, but I think you're all right. You don't need it. That's right.

Yeah, you're a rock star. Absolutely amazing. Yeah, that's, and that is one, you know, if you're going to teach at the university level, then, you know, that is permission to play. You've got to have it. That's table stakes. That's right, yeah. You've got to have that to teach at that level.

And so, and it's a wonderful field, too. I mean, we've got John Deloney around here, and he's got two PhDs. He's fairly normal. Most days. Most days. Some days, not so much. Questionable. But most days.

Yeah. Yeah, we keep him fairly much in line, James and Kelly do on his podcast, but it's a full-time job. This is The Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today. As we answer your questions about your life and your money, Steve is with us in York, Pennsylvania. Hi, Steve. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

The company I work for was bought recently, and the pension I worked on for 12 years, or that I was given for being there for 12 years, they offered me three options. One was to do a lump sum, or two, to get a really small payment starting, like, next month, or three was to wait until I'm 65. Lump sum. I just wanted to see what maybe you would choose. Lump sum.

So no brainer. Yeah. And you roll it, direct transfer rollover into an IRA, and there's no taxes on it. Okay. How much money is it? $23,500. Okay. So let me tell you what happens if you die.

No, not if you die. When you die. That pension gives you zero. Right? Yeah. Okay. that pension gives you zero right yeah okay uh you die with twenty three thousand dollars in your ira you know what your estate has twenty three thousand dollars okay and you can invest it where it will grow faster and better than it will inside that pension by putting it in good mutual funds so you're better while you're alive and you're better while you die, when you die. And so this is like what's known as a no-brainer. You do this immediately.

Always take the lump sum pension when you can and run! Okay. Make sense? Yes, makes total sense. Okay. Thanks for the call, brother. Open phones at 888-825-5225. The old pensions are just about dead.

Yeah. We don't get a ton of calls about that, but that's interesting because I don't know the, I didn't know that when you die, you don't get it in a pension. I didn't know that. Is that any business? Any pension. Any pension. Not 401K.

Yeah, yeah. 401K is yours. You own it. The pension's actually an asset of the company. It's not an asset of yours. I didn't realize that. 401K is yours. You own it. The pension is actually an asset of the company. It's not an asset of yours. I didn't realize that. 401K is your asset. Yeah.

And so if the company goes broke, you can lose your pension, technically speaking. And you can't lose your 401K if your company goes broke. But if you work for a company that offers pension, do you take it? You don't have a choice. You have to. You get it. Oh, gotcha. You just get it.

Okay. Most companies, like 78% of them, have done away with pensions. There's just you have to get it you just get it okay uh most companies like 78 percent of them have done away with pensions there's just a few mainly bigger ones it's an old school thing and yeah and some old governmental agencies and things unions that kind of stuff it's mainly things that just haven't kept up uh is what it amounts to that are still doing pensions because the 401k is much more advantageous to the user sure so isn't isn't this back in the same kind of time frame when, you know, people worked at the same company for 40 years, got a gold watch and a retirement party? Yep.

And your pension built up over time. And the thing about the pension is you don't put anything into it. They put into it. You don't put anything into it. So it doesn't, quote, cost you anything. But what it can cost you is your future by counting on it and not having other other side things to do stephanie's in rochester new york hi stephanie welcome to the ramsey show hi how are you better than i deserve what's up in your world um well my husband and i are trying

to decide if um we should purchase a used vehicle or if we should keep a vehicle that needs to be repaired. What baby step are you in? We're in baby step two. Okay. Why would you, what's the repair? It's like a muffler issue, but it's like leaking fumes into the car, and they said it's going to cost about $800. What's the car worth?

I think it's about maybe like $2,500 with needing the repair. Who told you it was going to take $800 to fix a muffler? It's the repair shop. I know. I mean, just an independent repair shop or a muffler shop or the dealer? It's an independent car repair shop. Have you gotten other quotes? No.

Okay. That's the first clue. You always get more than one quote when something seems weird, because this sounds a little weird. That sounds super expensive for a muffler issue, and I don't know cars, Stephanie, at all, but that just sounds expensive. I thought so, too, but I mean, I might be missing part of it. Yeah, you could be, and we could be, too, but it's worth checking on further, because it could be $400, which changes the conversation, doesn't it? Yeah. You wouldn't even have been calling us.

You'd have fixed the car. Yeah. $800 puts it on the bubble. So how much do you have in savings? We have $5,000 right now, and we're expecting to get about $2,500 back from our taxes. And I've kind of been nervous about putting that toward our debt because of our cars and not knowing. They're both kind of older, higher mileage cars, and I was thinking, you know, within

the next year or so, we might need to replace them, but I don't know if it's smart to just hold on to that money in case something happens to the car or just not worry about it, pay down the debt, and then, you know. Well, you're working your plan. If something happens. If you're working our plan, if you're working our plan if you're working our plan you apply the money towards the debt yeah i just even even if your car is like possibly going to be breaking down honey cars are all possibly going to be breaking

down every one of them every car in this parking lot is possibly breaking down at any moment how much debt do you have um ten thousand seven hundred fifty dollars and what's your household income about forty two thousand so i mean with the money that you have and the money that you're expecting to get you just about out free soon yeah if you quit holding on to your muffler money you know i i don't want you to die from carbon monoxide poisoning, so I do want you to get this fixed and get some more bids on it and find out how dangerous it is or does it just stink and so on. So when we were going broke, I mean, we were coming out of going broke and trying to dig our way out, doing what you're doing, and we were so broke we couldn't pay attention and we were scared just like you are i was driving a car that the transmission main seal busted on it now let me tell you what that means that means the transmission fluid leaks out of the transmission you know where it goes onto the muffler and you know what it does it smokes like a james bond car

or something it's put out a smoke screen behind me it looked like a movie and i had to put transmission fluid in the thing almost every three days just to keep it running but i just kept pouring transmission fluid in it and smoking up the neighbors and um and finally finally we got the other side of it and i got the money to fix the stupid car after i got the debts cleaned up and uh but i limped through because I had to change my direction. And that's what I want you to do. I don't want you to do something that's dangerous. The car I was driving wasn't dangerous.

It just stunk. And the neighbors thought it's funny. And it's a funny story now. It wasn't funny. It was embarrassing as crap. But I did drive that old beat-up thing. And I got through. And now I drive whatever the flip I want to drive because I've got the money now.

And the reason I've got the money is I didn't keep falling back into the same trap. My 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee, Dave, it smelled like a go-kart. It smelled. Well, you probably hauled goats around in it because you had goats. I actually did, but that's not what stunk. Did it smell like goats? No, it stunk like that oil oil smell like a go-kart like if you were at the go-kart races i prayed that thing back to life more times than i can count like prayed prayed it back to life

cars don't have a soul that didn't happen that didn't happen you cannot lay hands on lazarus the jeep well the jeep the jeep came back to. You take that up with God himself. That Jeep came back to life when I prayed. But you're right. It's like it's embarrassing for a season, and then you get through that season. And she's not even that far. I mean, we're talking $7,500. She's so close. Yeah, she's $7,500 out of $10,000, and just boom, you're going to be right there.

Right there. We could see this, but you're going to have to change your focus on what do you believe in? What do you believe is going to take you to the next five years? Keeping this money in the account, limping along with these old cars and limping out of debt or busting through, kiddo? Our suggestion is bust through. You're going to make a decision now. What do you believe in? And all of us, let me tell you, for a whole bunch of us, a whole bunch of you listening that are out of debt and have become everyday millionaires, me and Christy, we've all driven that crappy car that was so crappy that you had to give it a name.

Old Blue. Bertha. Whatever her name was. I don't know why they get female names. And it's not the Dave car. Nobody names it George. Take it easy. They always give them negative female names.

Henrietta. I don't know. But you've got to give him a name. And if you hadn't been through that, then you don't know what that poor lady's facing. But we're with you, Stephanie. You can do this. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Christy Wright, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life and your money. Dawn is in Indianapolis. Hi, Dawn, how are you?

I'm blessed, Dave, thank you. Thank you, how can we help? I called because my four children just inherited $187,000 each from a life insurance policy that I took out on their dad when I was married to him 13 years ago. And I need to thank you, Dave, because we feel so blessed today that I did what you said in the financial peace class that I took back then. We put policies in place and their class that I took back then. We put policies in place and their dad just died a month ago. And now my kids have this money in hand from the life insurance company. It's a lot of money per kid. And we want to know how you would invite them. What should they do if they're only 25 years old, 20, 18, and 16, and you can only put like 6,000 in a Roth every year.

So we're here to ask you your advice, and we want to just thank you. You've blessed us. I'm sorry for your loss, all of you. So it was your ex, right? Yeah, we did divorce eight years ago. But 13 years ago when we were together, we did this. Right, that's what I thought I understood you to say. Okay. Well, I think different age kids will have different needs.

A 16-year-old has a different need than a 30-year-old. The 30-year-old, we're just going to apply it on the baby steps wherever they are. Okay. So if they have any debt, you apply it to debt. If they don't have any debt, make sure the emergency fund's in place. Fifteen percent of your income going towards retirement, kids' college is five, and six is pay off the house. So we roll that money up that list until it runs out.

Okay. Does that make sense? Yes, yes. Okay. And really, I would do that. You said 16 was the youngest, and there was an 18, 25 maybe? It was 25, 20, 18, and 16. What's the 20-year-old doing?

The 20-year-old. What is he doing? Well, yeah. We don't know yet, other than I've advised them that they need to set up. I mean, what's he doing with his life? Is he in school? Is he working? He spent the past year and a half taking care of his sick dad,

so now he has to find his life. He does have a two-year degree, but, yeah, he's been taking care of his dad while he was terminally ill. Okay, well, I would put him and the 16-year-old, you know, make sure they are reading through ken coleman's stuff on career and christy's stuff and you know just get get a handle on who they are and so some of this money there's a probability will be used for education as a matter of fact i might park it all just to the side and something really simple for the two youngest ones until we ascertain what educational needs they have.

And so if a 16-year-old says, I want to go to college, I want to go to a four-year school, then we make sure that the four-year school, room, board, books, tuition is under $187,000 for four years. Otherwise, you pick the wrong school. Sure. Okay. Yeah, they're community college kids. Yeah. And, you know, get the first two years out of the way and then go move and take two more years at the in-state university,

and he'll have some money left over. But I would just make sure we use this money to get them the education to start their lives. The other older ones have already started their lives, and you just apply it to the baby steps, I think. Do you see something else? Yeah, I was just wondering, Dave, when you're going through that type of a loss for these kids they've lost their dad is there any type of waiting period it may be different because they're kids or even if someone's older is there any kind of waiting periods like let's not decide to do anything with it for a period until a little bit of the initial grieving is over where it's like i don't know i just can you think clearly when you lost your dad

a month ago you know know? Well, exactly. Yeah, I mean, it's good to park it for a little while and let it sit. The 16 and 18-year-old are going to have to let it sit anyway. Yeah. Because they're going to have to make some decisions that are going to take more than 30 seconds. I mean, you're going to have to sit down and think about what you want to do, what studies are involved in, what it is you want to do, where you're going to get your education. And then you map out what that's going to cost and begin to apply the 187 towards that uh as far as the baby steps goes yeah before you start paying off but i mean i don't know that a 30 year old losing their dad can't uh decide to pay off

their car with his money 25 is the oldest right don knows yes she's 25 25 is the oldest okay so even that i'm like so is she married or kids or she is married and they just had their first baby two weeks ago okay so that one's yeah they probably have a pretty traditional set of baby steps to walk right and i probably can't give them much advice because they're married right yeah yeah well it's completely up to them but if if they were to call me and ask me what i would tell them to do would be to work up the baby steps in other words pay off your debts make sure you have an emergency fund in place make sure you got 15 going into retirement make sure the new baby has a college fund uh and you know then pay off your house do they own a house they do okay

yeah and i suspect that those steps will use up $187,000. Okay. What about, so the 18-year-old's college is already taken care of, so she wants to know what to do with it besides put some in a rough. How's her college taken care of? We've already fully funded that, and she's got three years left. It's fully funded. Broom and board and everything yeah i mean she we she she drives back and forth to school it's a four-year school and she drives

she lives at home with me still okay all right um you know that you do not have to get fancy uh you know what i would do is keep it very simple and very calm until you get out of school uh and to christy's point let's not try to be professional investors at 18 years old when you just lost your dad so you don't you don't have to you haven't done something wrong if you don't suddenly become a highly seasoned uh professional investing person you know so if if she wants to sit down in the next few weeks as your all's brains start to, some of the fog of grief starts to clear, if she wants to sit down with a SmartVestor Pro and begin to look at what she could do with investing, that's fine.

But when she finishes school, 16-year-old finishes school, with whatever money is invested, whatever money is left over, that's probably going to set up their adult life really well. They might pay cash for a house in Indianapolis for that if they're careful. Or they might, you know, move to another city or they might do a lot of different things. It gives them some flexibility. It's not a million eight. It's 187.

And that's a lot of money in one way. But in another way, you can kind of go, whoa, like it's all over. It's not over. This just gives you a boost. This is not the rocket. It's a booster shot. But for those younger ones, especially the ones that don't own homes yet, I mean, you make a great point because that could buy them a house in cash out of the gate. They never have a mortgage.

They are completely set up for the rest of their lives they never owe debt of any kind and that would drastically change their financial lives if they started on that foot a great legacy for a uh for her for their dad you know that the dad literally with this life insurance money changed the family tree um what a what a cool you know what a cool side note to a to a horrible situation um and that's what life insurance always is it's always a cool side note to a horrible situation you know uh we had a young lady out of south carolina that we videoed for some of the financial peace classes that um you know a brand new baby and they're in their 20s and he just it was just a freak thing he had a stroke or something and

just died I mean but they had you know he had a bazillion dollars in life insurance and it um you know obviously it's a young mother that had lost her husband. It's horrible. And this baby never really knew his dad. And it was a horrible, horrible thing. But the good side note is that she never has to work. I'm curious about this life insurance topic. What do you think keeps people from getting it? Is it fear of talking about such a horrible thing like death? Is it just they're too busy, they never get around to it?

It's not a fun thing to talk about. We can all acknowledge that. But in a situation like this, it's one of those things that, like, you have to have it. Well, it's in the category of smart things to do that give you no immediate feedback. Yeah. And, you know, if I'm doing something, retirement. Why don't people save for retirement? Why don't they save for the kids' college?

Because it's 20 years off. Right. And, you know, thank God it's Friday. Oh, God, it's Monday. Right. You know, and people have short-term vision windows. Yeah. And so they don't have any vision, in other words.

And where there is no vision, the people perish. And so when you look out in the future and you see, you know, this is what's coming and I've got to get ready for it, that's called maturity. Yeah. But we have a vastly immature culture. And so, yeah, you need wills. You need life insurance. You need retirement planning. You need a kid's college.

But these delayed pleasure things are all a sign of maturity. That's what it amounts to. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Thank you.