The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Live at Home Until I Pay Off All My Debt? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 17, 2020

Retirement, Debt, Relationships Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/2JgzaQR

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, 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, Rachel Cruz. Ramsey personality and best-selling author, is my co-host today. We'll be answering your questions. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Chris is in Baltimore. Hey, Chris, welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. This is amazing for me. I actually grew up listening to your show. My parents turned their life around with your advice, so I'm really appreciative. Well, I'm honored. How can we help today, sir?

So I'm 22. I graduate college on Sunday. Yay! What's your degree in? It's in economics. Congratulations. Thank you. I am lucky enough to have no debt from school, and I have a job lockdown. I also have three months' expensive save. And my fiancee is in school to be a physician's assistant currently, and because of her program, she'll incur some significant debt. So I'm trying to weigh saving for retirement once I start my job versus saving to be ready to hit that debt hard once we get married.

Chris, when do you guys get married? It's not going to be until she graduates, so it's over a year away. Okay. Well, for you, I mean, I would definitely be focusing on your retirement right now because praying everything, I'm sure you sound very responsible, very in love. So I'm sure this wedding is going to happen. But what I would do is still take advantage of the 401k at the company if you have that or a Roth IRA. And then on the side, if you want to save some money,

just in general and what you can earmark that for for a year from now when you guys get married that you can throw at her debts for sure because it'll be your debt together at that point or you could even use it as a down payment on a home um later in life too whatever you want to do but just earmarking it on the side but not i would still fund retirement how much student loan does she have? That is she going to have? It's likely going to be at or around $100,000. Ooh, that might change the answer. Okay.

And you make what? I'll be making $65,000 a year. Okay. And then she'll be making probably about that when she comes out roughly too. So you have $130,000 income with $100,000 in student loan debt. Yeah, with it being that much, I might delay retirement for one year. You would pause it, really? Yeah, and just let's pile up cash and get ready for the marriage. Because as soon as you walk down the aisle, you're $100,000 in debt.

And you've got to get that cleaned up then before you start retirement. And you're 22. You've got plenty of time to get to retirement. Either answer is going to be okay. Neither one of our answers are wrong. It's just a matter of I think it sure would be cool if out of $65,000 in 18 months, you had put aside $60,000 and you only had and you only had knockout 40 when you got married well you'd write a check after you walk down the aisle for 60 because you had a pile of money

laying there and and then you'd have to knock out 40 when you got married and she passes her her uh her bars and uh you know her her licensing and all that and is able to go forward but yeah i i because you're going to have to stop retirement after if you're only going to do it for you're only going to do it for one year that's fair that's and then you're going to stop it and get because you're going to be back in debt but either way it's okay i mean you could do your roth ira for one year like rachel's saying it's not a not a not a wrong answer here uh the fact that you're 22 you're graduating in economics she's graduating as a pa and you're even asking these questions makes you a genius i and you're even asking these questions

makes you a genius. I mean, you're just so far ahead of the rest of your classmates, because they're going to wander around, some of them for a decade, before they can find a checkbook. And so you're just way ahead, dude. So neither one of these things is going to mess you up. Good call. Thank you, man, and congratulations. Rondell is in New York City.

Hi, Rondell. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call, Rondell. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. I'm well. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help?

So I am looking to, so I just sold my house, and I'm looking to purchase a new home. So I'm wondering if I should get a two-family home that's going to be a bit more expensive. Obviously, real estate in New York is super expensive, but I plan on renting out half of it, and that income that I project should bring me down to that 25% debt-to-income ratio. So I was wondering, what are your thoughts on that, or should I just go for like a regular house? I probably would go for a regular house, and the reason I would do that personally is a

two-family home, the good news is your renter is next door, and you can watch out for what's going on. The bad news is your renter is next door, and if they want something, they're just going to be knocking on your door. I mean, it's a little bit awkward at times to be in the same property. The other thing is a two-family home, 90% of the time that it's sold is not owner-occupied, meaning it's going to be an investor buying a duplex, buying a two-unit product. And so your buyer on that kind of a thing is always an investor, most always, and therefore they're looking for a deal. Your buyer on a single family when you get ready to resell is retail. on that kind of a thing is always an investor, most always, and therefore they're looking for a deal.

Your buyer on a single family when you get ready to resell is retail. It's Joe and Susie just got married once at house or whatever, and they pay retail. So single families of the exact same price will typically appreciate better than a duplex will just because of who the end user is when you get ready to flip out of it. But it's not a bad idea. It's not the end of the world. But, you know, sometimes all we look at is the math and we're going, oh, the renter is going to help me pay.

And that's going to just be grand. And it's like, no. Yeah. There's a lot of crap involved in all that. That's not going to necessarily be fun. So, you know, I probably wouldn't i wouldn't personally because of quality of life i just wouldn't want to live right next door to my renter it's just i just personally wouldn't want to do that and that's just and i've got a bunch of rental property and

i'm not a snob i've been a renter that's not the point but i just that's an awkward relationship well it's the convenience of what they have towards you. Yeah. To do with anything. I mean, you're pulling in the driveway, and they're both pulling in the driveway, and it's like, you know, it's just a weird next-door neighbor. Weird relationship. But you can do whatever. I mean, it's not a bad thing, but it's certainly not a slam dunk, oh, yes, definitely take the income, because there's more to it than just that when you're renting property. Open phones at 888-825-5225. And by the way, there are, once you learn how to work with people in the real estate business

and you learn how to interview a potential renter for one of your properties, like you were interviewing a team member to come on board with your company. It's not dissimilar. You can learn to weed out people that are going to be a problem, and you can learn to put in really high quality folks. A lot of the rental property that we have, Rachel's husband Winston runs all of our real estate, and he does a great job screening the tenants in. And it's not unusual for one of our tenants to have been on a property five years.

And our friends, they become friends because they're good people. And so you can get, you never hear me say we're putting down renters. We're not because I've been one, and we work with a lot of really high-quality people that, for whatever reason at this point in their life, they're renting. So you can get, if you do the proper screening, you can get a good situation. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. This year has been unpredictable. Well, that's an understatement. But make this Christmas and New Year's your time to save money and give your loved ones gifts that will teach

them how to make a plan for their money and their future. Our famous $10 sale is ending soon. This is your last chance to choose from over 40 of our most popular books, audiobooks, and more, all for just $10. Get my number one best-selling book, The Total Money Makeover. It's helped millions get out of debt. Or invest in yourself and learn what it takes to build wealth with Chris Hogan's number one national bestseller, Everyday Millionaires. For a limited time, you can pick up Debt-Free Degree by Anthony O'Neill in the $10 sale so your teens can learn to go through college without student loans. Shop our famous Christmas $10 sale before it ends

at our online store at DaveRamsey.com or call Ramsey Concierge Team at 888-22-PEACE. 888-22 best-selling author, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. We're answering your questions about your life and your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Her new book, Rachel Cruz's Know Yourself, Know Your Money, will come out in just a couple of weeks. January the 5th we will be shipping it.

It is on pre-sale right now. And a whole bunch of you have bought it ahead of time. Thank you, tens of thousands of you. And we appreciate it. If you pre-purchase it before January the 5th, highly recommend that, by the way. Not only does it help us, it helps you. That's the important thing. You are going to get a call with a Ramsey Preferred financial coach.

This is for a limited time. You're going to get the Know Yourself, Know Your Money audio book, the Know Yourself, Know Your Money e-book, and an exclusive video lesson from Rachel Cruz as well. $150 in bonus items when you buy a $20 book. So why do we go to all that trouble? Why do we bribe you like that to get you to buy a book ahead of time? Because it's a great book, number one. You're going to get it anyway.

You might as well get all the free stuff up front because it helps us with the bestseller list to get a bunch of them pre-sold. And so it really does. And so that's why we push it like this, and that's why we give you so much free stuff. Okay. Can I interject? Sure. You're allowed to.

It's your book. Okay. And the reason for the bestseller list is not just for the title of it. It's because if a book gets on a bestseller list, other outlets pick it up. They see it. They read it. So then other people hear about the book to help them. I don't want people to think, oh, I want to be the best.

I don't know. Well, you've already been number one twice. You don't need another one. But to do it, yeah. It causes the book to be able to help more people. To go more. That's right. That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that it's out in the world more. Because, again, when people can understand why they handle money the way they do, everything from how they grew up to their tendencies, their dreams, their fears, all of it, it gives really this validity of what we've been talking about, that personal finance is 80% behavior.

It's only 20% head knowledge. But knowing why you have the behaviors you have help you change those behaviors that are unhealthy and win with money faster. So it's a fun, new, deep dive into how to look at money. And, yeah, when you preorder, you get $150 worth of free stuff. So check it out. Know yourself, know your money at DaveRamsey.com.

Washington, D.C., Todd is on the line. Hey, Todd, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how you doing? Great, man. How can we help? All right. Well, we actually live in Alexandria, Virginia. Thinking about refinancing our house, and I'm trying to really try to decide if it's worth it.

I wanted to give you some current scenarios to see what you think. What's your current interest rate? Current interest rate, I financed last year at the end of 2019. I got 3.25 on a 1515 arm. Okay. I've been paying extra because me and my wife are in our late 50s, and we want to get this damn thing paid off as quick as we can. I like that.

Okay, so it's a 3-2-5 arm. Yes, 15-15 through my credit union. Yeah. And what's the offer on the refinance? So the credit union's offering 2.5. I was going to switch to a 15-year fix, no points. They're telling me approximate closing costs because they currently hold my escrow and all that would probably be $6,500 to $8,000. That's the ballpark.

What's your balance? Closing costs. We owe $384. Oh, $6,500 included escrow setup, but you get your other escrow account back. What's your closing cost? Not the $6,500. It'd be about $3,200. Yeah, it's about that, right?

Yeah. About $3,500, I think. Okay, so yes, you're going to do this. Here's why. Here's why. Let's walk through the math, all right? Rough and dirty, you're saving three-quarters of a point, so I'm going to just say 1% of 385 is 3,800 bucks.

You're going to save 3,800 bucks the first year. Gotcha. You broke even after year one. Everything after year one is gravy on the biscuit. You're going to save 3,800 bucks or so every year until you get the stinking thing paid off. Not quite because your balance is going to go down. But overall, I mean, you're going to save tens of thousands of dollars over a 10-year period of time by doing this refi. Absolutely, I would do that.

And right now, I've been paying $1,100 extra every month. And right now, just paying that extra is saving me about almost $119,000 in interest. And if I switch to the $15,000 and pay just another about $300,000 extra a month to keep the same payment I'm doing right now, I'm shaving off another $40,000 in interest. So I'm thinking, it seems like a win-win to me. That's the shortening of the mortgage, which is one analysis. But the way you analyze whether to refinance is simply your interest saved,

the difference in the two rates times your balance, versus your closing cost. Gotcha. And that tells you whether to do it or not. And you have a one-year break-even point on a break-even analysis on that. And if you're going to stay in this house, that's a no-brainer. You do that. And considering it's an arm versus just a fixed. Yeah, getting rid of that arm is a benefit, too yeah that's um that never do an arm folks uh especially in the lowest interest rates

in 50 years where you think it's going to adjust from here up we just don't do arms no no no no no no open phones at 888-825-5225 ryan is in roanoke. Hi, Ryan. Welcome to the show. Hi, Dave. How are you now? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, so I graduated this spring from Virginia Tech, and I'm starting to take a look at paying off my student loans. And I was introduced to some of your videos through YouTube, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about that.

Cool. How much student loan debt do you have, Ryan? Just over $50,000, I think, like $51,000 or so. Okay. Do you have any other debt besides that? A car loan or a couple thousand that's still left. Okay. But it's paying off quickly, yeah. Yeah. And is the $50,000 student loans, is it broken up into multiple loans or is it one large student loan? It's multiple loans. And I guess that's kind of where the main question lies. I've been saving up to try to take care

of the highest interest rate, one of those loans to save myself some money. And after watching your videos about the debt snowball, I'm not sure if I should do that or take care of a couple of the smaller ones with lower interest rates first. Yeah. Sorry, one last question. How much do you have saved?

You said you've been saving to throw at the highest interest rate. Or you're just saying as you're getting money, that's what you're paying off first. Saving to do that, I still have a couple months, or I guess now only about a month, until they actually turn on six months after I graduate. Oh, yeah, that's fair. I think my payments start in January. How much do you have in your savings account? Right now, $11,000 after an end-of-year bonus. I think probably more like $13,000.

Okay, and what is your smallest student loan? $6,700, I think. Okay. And what is your smallest student loan? Uh, 6,700, I think. Perfect. Okay. So you probably heard this on YouTube. We're going to list your debts smallest to largest, right? So today I would pay off your car and your smallest student loan. And you think that that would be the best, you know, the best way? I mean, I'm definitely a saver. I know Rachel talks about, are you a saver or a spender? I'm definitely a saver, so I don't think there's a problem to keep going with it, but you think that I should take care of the smallest loan and the car first?

Yeah, because when you look at the debt snowball versus the debt avalanche, which is another way of looking at the debt snowball versus the debt avalanche, it's another way of looking at the highest interest rate, what you're doing with the debt snowball, not only have studies come out to show that it is the fastest way to get out of debt, but what ends up happening is, is you start knocking out those smallest debts and you eliminate it completely. And what you're not factoring in is just the emotional toll and what happens to human behavior when you start to get quick wins. And so by knocking off those small step first, you're actually doing so much to keep you motivated. And Ryan, as a saver, we're going to tell you,

if you have $13,000 saved off your bonus, putting it all towards debt except for $1,000 is going to make you feel very uncomfortable. So just heads up on that too. But that gives you an urgency as well. So by paying off smallest to largest, I'm telling you the behavior change that occurs in you, the motivation continues to get those quick wins. Absolutely. Now let's do a little math, okay?

$52,000, $53,000 minus 13 is 40. And you make, what did he say, made 51? Yeah. I can't remember. I don't know if he told us what his income was. But so how quick are you going to play off 40? Maximum of 18 months. You're going to do it real fast now, dude.

Get after it. Get it. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Retro Cruise Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Even if you mismeasure or you pick the wrong color, they'll remake your window blinds for free. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run all the time you'll save even

more use the promo code the magic word ramsey and you'll get a better deal today's question comes from monica in nebraska we are on baby step two and we are in a large amount of debt because of various stupid decisions my husband is really not interested in working this program. I am the one that does all the financial stuff and I am the main breadwinner. He has basically said, tell him what can be spent on various categories and he will make it happen.

So I've decided to work the debt snowball. Is it wrong to move forward when he isn't really supportive? Well, so Monica, the deal is when you're married, when you both can work together and be on the same team and go towards the same goals, you have the same vision, you're going to get there faster because you're both going to be willing to sacrifice. You're both thinking about it day in and day out. Like that is what you're working towards as a team.

So you're going to get progress a lot faster. It doesn't sound like he's not necessarily not supportive. He's kind of like, just tell me where I can spend it and I'll spend it. And that's kind of it. He's kind of checked out. I wish he was more emotionally checked in. My husband is not interested in working this program. But he said, just tell him what can be spent in various categories and he can do it. I would tell him, I'm not your mother.

Be a man. Go down to Walmart on aisle three and pick you up a backbone. Okay. No, really. Monica. You little wuss. Seriously. You need to step up.

You need a man up and walk with your wife beside her. Yes, he does. But he's not asking the question. It's Monica. So what does Monica do? I know. Monica needs to call him out can you imagine if i walked in and told your mother that i didn't really care and you just do whatever you want and you take care of everything and i'm just going to sit over

here in the corner and wish can you imagine what your mother would do she would unjoint my butt that wouldn't even come close no really i out. I know, but welcome to, this is a lot of people's situations, though, in America. It really is. And it sucks. The woman has become the one, she is the CFO of the household.

I mean, she really is the one doing the money, doing everything in regards to money. And so, you have to realize, women out there, number one, that when your husband is on board,

you win faster. So what do you do about it? Number two, go and I would say sit down and have a frank conversation as respectful as you would like or as Dave-ism as you would like to take it. That's up to you. But to say, hey, here's what I'm feeling. Here's what I'm thinking. Here are my fears. Here are my whys. Why do I want to win? Why do I want to get out of debt? And talk to him. Have a relationship. Have a relationship. Have communication so you guys can get on the same team.

And so when that doesn't happen, I'd also say bring in a third party. I mean, at that point, you have more marriage issues than money issues because you're not willing to work together. And in marriage, that's what marriage is. You are living life together and you're unified in every subject, including money. So Monica, Rachel's right about one thing. You are 100% more capable than he is. You have the natural gifting. You're the CFO of the household.

I am not discounting that at all. And so you're the one that's probably going to implement the plan. You're probably even going to design the plan. But this idea that he gets to sit over in the corner and be spoon-fed whatever he just tell me when i can spend oh brother that's just ridiculous that's absolutely absurd and so you're going you're probably the one that has the the greater talent in this area and obviously the greater concern for that's not going to change but he does need to step up and say all right i'll walk with you in this dream i'm gonna come with you let's look together at the budget you do the budget i'll look at it with you you're probably going to be the one that produces it because she's the cfo of the

household i don't care whether it's a man or the woman that's the cfo that's not my point but i gotta tell you she's gonna end up really frustrated with him being a wuss like this and it's gonna damage their relationship because i have coached people in these situations after ladies try to do this for 10 years, and she finally is tired of being married to a little boy. Yeah, that's what I was saying earlier, though, is a lot of women, possibly listening right this second, is exactly in her situation. They are finding themselves that their husbands do not want to participate, don't want to go along with it.

Not that they're saying, oh, I want to do this. No, he's just passive. It's the passive. Yes. It's just passive. Passive. Yeah. And that's just gross.

Seriously. It is. And this is, yes. It's the wussification of America. And the deal, too, is that we say life problems usually masquerade themselves as money problems. So there's probably other areas in her marriage I'm assuming that she's frustrated that he's not, whether it's kids or whatever the situation is. That's the person.

That's the roles that have been placed, not just with money. And so being able to help him get on board is going to help also the marriage. Exactly. Because we tell people that all the time. And it's a prerequisite to you winning here. Yeah, absolutely. You are not going to be able to pull this off with the with the formula that you're using it's not going to work i mean it may work for a little while but eventually it's going to blow up for relational reasons and financial

reasons um he may get tired of being dictated to at some point um you know being told well my wife don't let me do this i mean what kind of oh of, oh, gross. And so, you know, it's going to blow up. It's not going to work. We've done it too long. I mean, 30 years of doing this. I've watched this situation unfold over and over again. So what he has to do, and you have to call him out on this, or go see a third party marriage counselor together.

What Rachel's saying is exactly right on that. You have got to go and get not, he doesn't need to become a nerd, and he doesn't need to become the one that drives the budget, but he's got to be in agreement and has to actively, emotionally vote and say, all right, I look at that. I agree that taking those steps is going to take us to a dream I agree on. That's a lot different than – and then you go and do the stuff. That's fine.

No problem with that. But when he's just sitting back and you're trying to drag him along and he just gets his little allowance, oh, my gosh. It's true. It's true. I agree with that. Joe is with us in Rochester, New York. Hey, Joe, how are you? Good.

How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm on Baby Step 2. I've been watching you on YouTube for a few months, and I noticed you had a consistent message of saying be a contributing adult. So I recently accepted a promotion in my job, and I believe I can afford to move out. My family thinks this is silly, and they say I should live at home until I pay off all

my debt. I wanted to know if you agree. How old are you, Joe? 25. 25 25 how much debt do you have 45 000 and what do you make about 55 what do you do i provide solutions for my company well i guess we all do okay um are you married married kids no single okay no okay yep i mean so go ahead you go ahead you go ahead we've been arguing through this whole hour go ahead okay so so mathematically could you save money on rent for a year or two live with your parents use what you'd pay for rent to throw out the debt get out of debt faster yes absolutely uh but there is something to be said about being a self-sustaining adult and saying hey out of my budget i have rent and i have things i have to pay that i'm taking care of myself and there's a level of dignity

there joe uh that I think is really important. So I don't know. I'm kind of one way or the other. I mean, I probably would be for you to go and just pay rent and start living on your own. But if you're like really aggressive with this debt and you want to get it paid off, you're making sacrifices, you're doing whatever you have to do, and there's that intensity because you're working towards a goal, I wouldn't be mad about that all three of my kids joe are uh did extremely well i'm very proud of all three of

them including rachel and winston um but in and they were all hard workers and they were all responsible with money when they were under my care in college. When they came out of college and they went on their own with their own income and they continued to be responsible with money and they took on some extra expenses to not live under our roof to do that, in all three of these responsible young adults' cases, I saw them grow up two more notches when they were on their own. Something happens. Okay.

When you've got to pay your own light bill, and you've got to wash your own clothes, and you've got to pay the rent, and deal with the landlord, and something else happens. And so I would do it. I'd move out within the next few months. I'm not mad at anybody. I'm not being mean to anybody. But it's not just a math thing. It's a developmental adult thing.

This is The Dave Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Erin is in Tacoma, Washington. Hey, Erin, how are you? Hi, I'm doing well. How about you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Yeah, I just found you on Black Friday, and I have dove into yours and rachel's books and

been listening like crazy wow thank you but i'm yeah i'm still finishing baby step one on my four walls um we're required to re-roof however as i'm approaching baby step two um I have a possible funeral and burial in the near future. My estranged father has placed me as executor. I don't know how much these things cost, and I know there won't be any cash in his estate until life insurance is paid out. So how much does that cost? And I would assume that I need to start saving for that before i jump into baby step two where is he um he actually was in hospice in california but one of my brothers picked him up and brought him back to washington okay to call the funeral home in the town that he's in. Okay. And tell them you have two problems.

Number one, you have an estate that is going to be formed soon. He's in hospice, and there's not much money in the estate. So this sounds awful, but I'm going to say it out loud, okay? It's what I would do if I were in your shoes. I'm going to call the funeral home and go, I need the budget funeral. What's the bottom line? And you're probably going to find $5,000 to $7,000, okay? Okay.

As long as you're not in some kind of major metro area and you get a hold of some kind of crazy funeral home. But most of them have a budget process okay for families that don't have any money um okay that i mean and i you know you can explore all kinds of different options cremation or whatever it's up to you and look into those things just but you know gather up the dollars associated with the three best options and then you can think about the three best options, okay? Okay. And that's your first thing, and then you know what your target is. Then the second thing is ask them if they will accept, tell them there's a life insurance policy involved but there's no cash in the estate,

will they accept an assignment of the life insurance proceeds up to the cost of the funeral? Most funeral homes do that. Okay. Okay. An assignment of life insurance? You would just say, okay, look here, who's the beneficiary, the estate or you? I am.

Okay. So you can take them policy and show them, I am the beneficiary on this policy, and it pays X number of dollars, a lot more than you're going to need for the funeral, right? Okay? Yes. And you go, I'm willing to assign, let's just call it, if the funeral was $6,300, okay, I'm just making this up, but I'm willing to assign the first $6,300 out of this and have it paid directly from the insurance company or just give you an agreement, a written agreement, that the money, as soon as it comes to me, will go to you. But they will work with you because you can usually collect that money

with most insurance companies within six weeks. Okay. And so they're used to having to do that. It's not that unusual at all because a lot of families don't have the cash, but do have life insurance. So, two things. One is gather up the information, and then two, but the problem is it's icky to talk about. It's awkward. Even just you and me talking about it, it's awkward, right? Sure, yes. Yeah. Absolutely.

I mean, it's your dad. He's absolutely i mean it's your dad he's estranged that's icky uh you being having to fix this and take care of all of it when there's not much relationships icky again and now we're talking about the cost of funerals you know but it's just life it's just life i mean right and so we're just going um what's the least expensive way we can take care of his final remains in a way that you, 20 years from now, are proud you did it that way? You know? Yeah. I mean, up until I found you, I was just going to put it on a credit card. So I definitely want to plan that I don't do that.

Well, they may ask you to do that, but I would just say that's not an option. Push back on them okay again they're used to working with families that have access to the cash but they've got to get it out of the estate somehow that's not that's a fairly normal transaction because most people don't do good planning and most people don't have any money yeah well and i would assume too that in that part of business as well there's different levels there's ways you can probably spend a lot oh yeah um so making those choices i think what is is important to be smart and to have the date and the dignity and respect of course of your dad like you said i like that advice though like from 20

years from now you don't want to regret know, a lot of people have really strong opinions about their final resting place. And so if you're listening right now and you haven't really planned that and you care a lot, you can go to a funeral home and pre-plan. We do not suggest you pre-play, pre-pay. Don't pre-pay for your funeral. But you can sit down and go look

i don't want the freaking bentley i want the chevrolet you know i want the bentley i'm not going to care at this point whether what color the thing is it's not going to be that color for but about six months anyway so it doesn't matter you know and so you know you may have different you know we have wicked sense of humor in the round ramses. But, yeah, I mean, you can decide all that for yourself, and then your heirs don't have to. Because, you know, Rachel probably would, like, spend a lot of money to make sure her dad rested beautifully. And, you know, Daniel would put me, like, in a box.

No, Denise would. So I probably ought to go plan this so that I get what i want out of this oh man i'm gonna be in heaven so i'm not worried about what but what the box looks like so i'm not sweating it but for sure it's a it's a it's such a weird discussion and and it's hard and and i think too aaron is she's smart to be thinking all of this ahead of time. Yes. Because when a passing does happen, estranged or not, the grief comes. I mean, they're right. There's just the human spirit and emotion

that goes through when you lose someone. And when as many decisions can be made ahead of time, it's better. That's why we talk about a will. That's why we talk about having a legacy drawer so everything's in there. To limit as much as you can on the tactical side for your family is a way to say I love you as well.

Yep. So we have always said don't prepay, but always preplan. And how much detail you want to go to on preplanning actually causes your wishes. If you would be aghast that your children spent $20,000 on the casket and the vault, then go over there and pick out the $4,000 one and tell them that's what you got. You know, that's all I want. Or vice versa. Yes.

You'd be aghast that they put you in the $4,000 and little cheapskates. Instead, I wanted to be in the $20,000, you know? Okay, so another way of looking at this, too, I feel like we, I've heard you say this before, that in order to have life insurance, the reason you need life insurance is if someone is dependent upon your income. But if you don't have money, is there a reason to have life insurance, a small amount? Just for burial. For burial costs. That would be a reason to get life insurance as well if there's no one.

If you can. But that's a $10,000 policy. I mean, it's not a... No, no, totally, totally. You can get it with your checking account. It's not a big, expensive item. But the idea of pre-planning through anything that's highly emotional, certainly having your will, life insurance, funeral plans,

all those kinds of things, it's a gift to your family, folks, for you to do that. And it's end of the year going mama bear legal forms.com and you can get your will done in just a few minutes it's very easy to do if you don't have a will or you haven't updated it you need a will and you know if you go ahead and do it like this week then when everybody's around next week you can tell them if they're in the will or not okay sit down and have a discussion go ahead and do a reading of the will while you're alive if you want to piss them off do it while you're living yeah okay no but we say to do that

though right yeah i would do say to do that conversation though don't surprise everybody about it but for real talk about the stuff we uh we have a meeting once a year yes with the ramsays we call it the when dave dies meeting and it like, when something happens to dad or mom or both, here's what it is. But as a grown adult child, I'm so thankful that you guys talk about it and communicate about it. So it is a gift. It really is. It's my Monty Python meeting. I'm feeling much better.

It's just a flesh wound. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life? Let them know about the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast. It's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes. Check out the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.