The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Sell My Car To Pay Off Debt?

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Rachel Cruze & John Delony discuss: Paying for kids' college, Paying off your car or selling it, The absurdity of "digital fashion," Handling a 401(k) from a previous job. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

I'm out. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I am Ramsey at Personality. Rachel Cruz alongside of me today is Dr. John Deloney. And we're here to answer your questions, to talk about your money, your life, your relationships, anything and everything. So first we have Kevin out of Denver. Hey, Kevin, welcome to the show. Hey, guys, how are you doing? Doing great. How can we help? I think I have the answer to it. I just want some validation, maybe getting ahead of ourselves a

little bit, but we are on track to be out of debt in August with the recent change here, which is what I'm calling about. Our youngest son is signed up to start his diesel mechanics program, and he'll be starting in June. And we're going to cash flow that tuition, but the question comes down to moving from Baby Step 2 to 3 with the six-month fund and this tuition. So we have more than enough to cash flow the tuition. The question is, do I or do we save the money all for the tuition, which is about $35,000, and pay that in as large chunks as we can? Or do we pay the monthly tuition, which is about $2,700, and put towards the six-month emergency fund. The way we always answer these questions, Kevin, is if I were to wake up in your shoes tomorrow, you know, what would I do? And if you have enough money to be able to say, yeah, let's do the monthly installments and save up for the emergency fund. That's the route I would take.

Absolutely, 100%. The chances of something going sideways, the chances of your son changing his mind halfway through and he wants to go through another program or something like that. I just worked with college students forever. Everybody changes their major. Everybody changes their interest. Not that that's something that's going to happen, but I would much rather see him have some skin in the game. You guys have an emergency fund and let's take this one step at a time. Yeah. And Kevin, it's, I mean, it's such a

noble and honorable thing to help your kids with school, right? Anything beyond high school to say, Hey, we're going to be able to help assist you financially is a gift. That's a huge gift. But I also, you know, when we do the baby steps, that ends up being baby step five, where you already have you and your wives, everything is settled, or you have a solid financial foundation of an emergency fund, you're funding retirement, all that before you get to this step. So you're jumping ahead, you're jumping ahead a little bit on the baby steps. Now, if you're able to kind of cash flow it and keep that in your expenses, you can. But also, you know, your son, I mean, he can get a part-time job too. He can help, you know, throw some money at this. Because I do want you guys to be stable.

Because if something were to happen, Kevin, and you guys don't have that emergency fund, then you're in an unstable situation. He then is in an unstable situation because he's not getting his monthly stipend from you guys that he's used to, all of that. Do you know what I'm saying? So having more of a foundation there would feel good. So even if you said, hey, we're going to pay for the first two months, son, if you're able to put some money aside so that by that third month, you have money as well while we're saving up, you know, you guys can kind of go at it at a team effort. But's a very generous team effort from you kevin i just

want you to hear that um that you you don't have an obligation to pay for your son's stuff if you have the money it's awesome how do y'all feel about him having some skin in the game participating in the payment you know we we definitely want that i mean he's he's, you know, we cash flowed his brother's four-year tuition. And, you know, so we did that. And they do work during the summers. And our thing has always been, look, you know, as long as there is commitment and good grades and you are working, you know, when school's not in session, then, you know,

that's what we were, you know, willing to do. And he is working now. He has, you know, some money in savings. And so, you know, the plan isn't, hey, that's, you know, not blow money to blow now that's money to go towards your gas and other expenses and what have you as you're going through the program. So, so, so I would, I would go ahead. Go ahead. I'll just say, I would articulate those things, um, and sit down and say, hey, here's what I'm going to do. Tell him I got the money and I'm going to make sure our whole family is financially secure. And here's what you're teaching him. You're teaching him how you handle money, which is a gift in and of itself.

I'm filling up our emergency fund so that we're all safe. We all have food. We all have bills no matter what happens. And then here's how we're going to do college. My expectation for you is that you take care of gas. You take care of insurance. You take care of your food, right? Let's be very clear. The number of college students like, no, no, no, my mom's got it. And then mom calls me and is like, no, son's got it. Man, that clarity can be so much. And you're right.

Skin in the game, man. It means different things for different people in different places. Sometimes skin in the game is grades. I'll take care of the money. You make sure you make good grades. Sometimes it's you pay for a semester and otherwise. But you've got to have the clear conversation. Yes, because it's not a work ethic conversation

for me and your son. I mean, you know, Kevin, he may have a great work ethic. So it's not like, oh, no, we have to instill this by making him pay. I just want to make sure, Kevin, that you and your wife are in a good spot, that you guys have an emergency and everything. Because if something comes up, then everyone's kind of out. But it's a great, great question, Kevin. Thanks.

Up next, we have Dylan from Greensboro. Hey, Dylan, welcome to the show. Hey, Rachel, how are y'all? Doing great. How can we help? Just got a question with paying off a truck. Really not sure which way to go. I've got a little gift up.

I currently owe about $23,000 on it. Okay. And I have about $15,000 saved, and I actually have a couple toys that I really don't want to part with, but that might be a way I need to go. Maybe so. Okay, Dylan, how much do you make a year? Roughly from $55,000 to $68,000. Okay.

And then what other debt do you have? That's it. What toys? I have a side-by-side and a motorcycle, and I'm leaning on selling the side-by-side. How much is it worth? I can't. Uh, probably 16 to 18,000. Okay.

Today. Sell today. Yeah, so Dylan, let me tell you this. Our rule of thumb is not to have more than half of your annual income that have a motor and wheels attached to it. Okay, so you're already bumping above all of that with that side-by-side motorcycle. This, you got anything else with wheels and a motor? I have a Camry that I'm also selling oh how much can you get for that uh four or five okay i'd say okay and see that that's my question uh i'm trying to figure

out do i pretty much deplete my bank account and pay it off with the car and then use my taxes to pay off the rest and keep all the other toys or do i sell the side beside and keep the money in my pocket yep uh if i were you i'd sell the side by side i would sell the civic whatever remaining left take out of the 15k and then whatever's left of the 15k is your emergency fund that you're going to continue to build on but you got a lot of wheels you don't make enough money, brother. A lot of motor for your income, Dylan. But get rid of it all.

Keep the truck. Pay it off. You're good to go. This is The Ramsey Show. For a lot of you, last year was another year of just trying to survive. But you don't have to live like that. You can have confidence in your money and your future. So if you're tired of being stressed out all the time, you can decide to make a change. You can follow a plan that works. For almost 30 years, Financial Peace University has helped millions of people take control of their money you'll learn our proven plan to save money pay off debt build wealth and give generously

watch fpu on demand or get plugged into a class for encouragement and support from other people you don't have to face another year of stress and worry. You can have confidence in your money. FPU is only available with a Ramsey Plus membership. Start for free by visiting ramseysolutions.com slash FPU. That's ramseysolutions.com slash FPU. welcome back to the ramsey show hey r. This is a big shocker. You're more fashionable than me, right? I mostly wear T-shirts and black dress shirts over and over and over again. I'm going to say correct,

John Colony. Correct. You're bejeweled and bedazzled. So, all right. I need you to help me with something because there's a thing going on in the Americas, in the world,

that I literally don't understand. It's in the new world. Yes, yes. It's in the internet. Literally a new world is what it feels like. So here's what the article says. Imagine it's 2050. You're walking around Times Square in a puffer jacket.

Nope. I'm just going to stop right there and say no, but I'll continue. I can't. Made of pixels and the code that made the matrix itself. You look cool in the green fit, to say the least. I'm going to disagree. You don't look cool, but continue. You've even paired this out-of-the-world garment with some dark shades to elevate the wow factor.

What if I told you it already exists in the digital world and you could wear it? Rachel, not only am I not cool in regular world, in real world, in America, I'm not cool on the internet world where I guess I have another life where I can buy digital fashion. I guess

it became through skins with gamers. It's a $40 billion a year. to buy clothes we could solve hunger in america with less money than that then people who buy imaginary clothes in an imaginary world with swords and dragons and stuff now listen adidas armani calvin klein have dabbled in digital fashion. What is happening? What is happening?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. The metaverse conversation, I really don't get it. I will say, we bought an Oculus. Yeah. And you put that thing on. Oh, it's a trip.

It's one of the weirdest experiences that I've ever had. Because you kind of live in it, whether you're on a roller coaster or we did a bar fight. Yeah, I got an inoculus fist fight the other day. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And I get physically scared. You really feel like you're there. And then you take off your goggles and you're like, I'm just in my living room. It's so weird.

So that's as much as I've dabbled in. Is that considered the metaverse? That's considered the metaverse, right? I think that's as much as I've dabbled in. Is that considered the metaverse? That's considered the metaverse, right? I think that's the controlled version. That's not the live-in version. But again, you're asking a guy that... I want to buy a cow. You know what? I want to figure out how I can fix my fencing

so I can buy a real cow that exists in the real world that makes real cow plops and that makes real milk. That's what I'm looking to spend my money on. It never occurred to me to think, you know what? You could buy a fake cow. I've got enough Armani in the real world. I want some digital Armani. My Calvin Klein section in my closet is really overflowing, so I'm actually

going to go digital. I don't know. But the metaverse is going to be $800 billion by 2024, according to Bloomberg. What does that mean? What are you doing?

Where's this money? So you create a person. I may sound so stupid right now. I feel very ignorant. No, here's what's awesome. Do I have me there? Is it my face or do I make up a new person? Whatever you want to be.

I said that in my creepiest metaverse voice. Yeah, here's what's cool. Digital clothes don't require raw material. Duh. Or labor or manufacturing or shipping because they're not real. Listen, if you make a budget and you have a line item for,

I would like a digital fishing pole to fish in my digital river and catch digital fish. Go fishing! Go fishing! Go fishing! Are we going to melt as a culture? This is a culture that's got access to not—

Is Jesus coming back soon? Oh, there you go. You had to go get all— No, this is too much. This is our basic needs have been taken care of, and we have access to too much capital. You know what? My husband does not like to be the forefront of my conversations on national radio slash YouTube slash podcast. But Winston says that all the time.

When something big blows up, he's like, because we literally don't have to go out and get food and spend our energy finding clean water somewhere in the world. We have everything taken care of. It's like we're bored. Are we just bored with our real lives that this is what's happening? Or we have become so anxious and we're unwilling to deal with the discomfort. We've pathologized discomfort to the point that we're creating a whole new world. So social media like doesn't even scratch the surface of this stuff. This is like a whole other.

It's an immersive other world. It's WALL-E. It's just another plane. So here's what I would suggest. Let's live here. Let's live here. Let's be well here. If you're going to spend money, spend it on

real things. And again, playing video games, that's real. That's fun. It's entertainment. Sure. It's not a place to enter into. You know what I mean? That's so cool. And hey, in five or ten years, if I'm wrong, I'll be the first to tell you.

I screwed this up. I'll be the first. If we have FPU in the metaverse. And I think we probably would. I mean, honestly, if this is where life is going, don't you want to meet people where they're going? Nope. I don't know.

This is a business conversation. I don't know. I want to go to the woods. I where they're going? Nope. I don't know. This is a business conversation. I don't know. I want to go to the woods. I want to go to the woods. I don't know. I mean. I'm going to get a cow and another dog. And you're like, get off my lawn, you Gen Zers, you millennials, whoever's here.

You know what? I would love for a ball to just mysteriously fly into my yard because that would mean kids are outside playing with one. With a real one. With a real ball. If a digital ball not if a digital ball comes on my digital lawn i'm gonna pop it let's let let's ask the next caller if she had five hundred dollars if she will buy clothes in the metaverse the next caller is a travel nurse she's

not she's natalie from milwaukee natalie welcome to the show hi Hi, how are you? Good. Natalie, if we gave you $500, would you spend it on digital clothing in the metaverse? Absolutely not. Oh! I'd charge my student loans. Yes! Hey, and I see it on the screen. You're a travel nurse. That means you deal in reality every day.

With real bodies, like real people. Real blood. I'm a travel nurse's spouse so i'm not the travel okay oh so you you get to wash the clothes okay so how can we help um i just wanted to uh first of all mr uh dr john deloney i recently purchased your book i'm really excited to get it thank read it. Thank you. Thank you. I had a question about being a travel nurse's spouse. We're in a new city, away from family, friends, and I feel like I'm holding my own pretty well. Going to the gym,

exercising, have a church family here. Basically, my day-to-day tasks, I take care of our dogs, go grocery shopping if I need to, fix dinner, exercise with my husband at night. But I feel like my mental health isn't going so well. I struggled with it in the past. Definitely, I know the steps that need to be taken. Probably the lack of social interaction is one of the biggies. But what suggestions would you might have for someone in my situation? That's such a great, great, great question. And with so much mobility happening in the country right now, people moving and changing jobs, and then the last study they just got there

and now they want to move again. Thank you for asking this question. It's going to help a whole bunch of people, okay? The first thing is if you've got past mental health challenges that you've worked through, one of the first things I would do when you move to a new community, you set up, you know, find out where the dentist is

and find out where your primary care physician is going to be. Find a local counselor that you trust. Or if you're able to, if you're in the same state and you can keep one and you can meet up electronically, make sure you've got that anchor point, okay? And that's for dealing with any of the mental health challenges that you struggled with in the past. This is going to sound counterintuitive,

but I want you to act like you're going to live there forever. I want you to develop relationships and friendships because you've got a brain right now that's screaming for connection. And it's hard with shallow roots because there's that part of you

that wants to make friends and connect and hey, what's up? Why don't you all come to dinner? And there's that other lingering part that knows we're about to move anyway. I want you to not live that way. Invite people over to your house. Be hospitable. Go first. Take a risk. Say, hey, y'all want to come have coffee? And if they say no, that's because they've got things in their life that's not a reflection of you. Go first. Go first. Go first. Make it a regular part of your calendar, a regular part of your week,

and hang on to those relationships and do it again in the next city and do it again after that. We'll be you next time. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. And our last caller mentioned it, John, but she said she pre-ordered your new book, which is so exciting. Own Your Past, Change Your Future. I know that makes two sales, my mom and the last caller. That's so exciting. Natalie. And Natalie.

Oh, so glad. But you can pre-order. Again, today, it's April 4th, and you get the free e-book. They'll just ship it to you today. Yeah, or tomorrow. Two weeks before the book is available to the public. I know. I found out about that on Friday. They don't they don't run any of this bias that's amazing yeah

that's great that's amazing um okay so i want to i want to hear from you because we haven't even really talked i mean i haven't heard yeah i mean i know about it obviously but i like me and you have not really talked about the book and books are exciting they really all if you have a message that you're like man i just want more and more people to hear this, a book is a great way to do it, right? Okay, so for you, what's the motivation? What's about? Tell me all your thoughts around that.

If the number of people that I get, I get calls all over the place, all over the country for people, hey, would you be my counselor? Would you be my coach? Would you sit with me and my wife, whatever? And I can't do that. If I was to sit down with somebody across the table for several hours and listen and ask questions and ultimately end up somewhere this is what that book is right this is so good 10 years of in the making it's me walking with a

whole bunch of people over the last few years including that ugly idiotic guy that I see in the mirror every morning and figuring out what is happening to me, to my marriage, to my friends' marriages, to our culture, to this country, what is happening and how do we reverse engineer this, man? Because I got two little kids staring at me. And so that's this book, man. And somebody brought this up in an interview and I'm glad they did. I've read a thousand mental health books and relationship books and they're all so good. There's a bunch of great stuff out there. But the thing I wanted to make this book different is I'm not talking at you in this book. I'm walking with you in this one.

So it's not another mental health book. Not everybody needs a mental health book. Not everybody needs a new relationship. This is me walking alongside you and I don't care where you are in your life. I've had seven-year-olds read it and I've had middle schoolers and high schoolers read it and they all said,

man, I feel like you're walking with me in this deal and that's the highest praise I can get at this point. For sure. Yeah. Well, and there's so much to be said. Number one,

I feel like we're a culture that's shifting. Well, you've lived in this world, the counseling world and everything for years, but I feel like we are shifting as a culture to become more comfortable with,

hey, I kind of want to figure out and dig into why am I the way I am, everything from your past, right, all that, to just become, and I hate the word, I mean, healthy, I feel like it's thrown around so often, but it is, it's to become a healthier whole person because it affects everything in your life.

It affects the way you parent. If you're married, your spouse, it affects your friendships, it affects your work, everything. And so being able to kind of dig into that, I think is massive in this book. Yeah, I mean, it's for, if you're married, your spouse, it affects your friendships, it affects your work, everything. And so being able to kind of dig into that, I think, is massive in this book. Yeah, I mean, it's for if you're single, it's for if you're right out of college, it's if you're married, it's if you're in your 70s. Like everyone, everyone can take something away from this book and this conversation. So it's so good.

So On Your Past, Change Your Future, Dr. John Deloney, pre-ered your copy today, you guys, at RamseySolutions.com. All I know is Dave told me he got tears. And I didn't know that was possible. Well, I'll be honest. He cries more. Oh, man. I thought I had something. He cries more than my mom.

He does. He does. Great, Rachel. I'm sorry. I was like, man. Sorry. I called my mom. I was like, Mom, I made Dave cry.

She was like, wow. And Rachel's like, oh, he does that all the time. Yeah, and in movies. I remember going to see Jack Frost, the movie with the snowman. Oh, he was like, in the scene next to me. I was like, Dad, it's about a snowman, isn't it? He's like the father. I cried the other day in a movie.

And my daughter, what movie was it? Sing To. Oh, it's so good. Dude, it's so great. It is so good. But I i have a thing what part of the movie that song i still haven't found what i'm looking for oh she's out there a little porcupine no forget porcupine when the lion comes out at the end because he's he's he's he's changing his future john he owned his past and he changed his future and bon daughter six I think she was like what did I do what did

I say what did I do why is dad crying and then I told her I said sometimes um I cry movies like it made that made me sad and it made me hopeful for him made me sad for him and she said sometimes I get sad and chose to dad and like she was trying to comfort me and it's so beautiful but yeah I cried. Oh, well. It's a good one. Well, thanks for ruining that for me, Rachel. And a good book. I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to say that. It's so funny. Dave, he's a crier sometimes. And he loves babies. That's another thing that people don't know about Dave Ramsey. I do too. Gosh, give Dave an infant and he takes the baby from you. Takes the baby from you and holds the baby.

So funny. Okay. Up next, we have Jennifer from Dayton. Hey, Jennifer. Welcome to the show. Hi, guys. I'm so happy to be with you. Thanks for calling.

How can we help? Okay. So we went through the Financial Peace University a couple years ago, and I'm excited to say we are on baby step three saving nice emergency funds congrats thank you and I've done the math around I'm a planner and I know it's going to take us 24 months to fully fund that for six months and I'm very excited about that so looking past that I'm like okay so then baby so then baby, step four, five, and six is, you know, put 10% to retirement, 10% to our kids' college fund, and then, or 15%, I'm sorry,

and then anything left over, you know, pay down the house. And so then I've done this, I've crunched the numbers, and I'm like, okay, well, that's an extra $13,000 for retirement, an extra $13,000 for college. Where am I supposed to get that extra $26,000 a year from? I mean, if all of our bills in two years is exactly the same as right now, I just don't know where that extra money is supposed to come from. Yeah, no, it's a great question.

Well, the money that you're saving now for your emergency fund obviously will be freed up. And how much? Yes, that's $400 a month. So I definitely have put that, yeah, that'll go into that. But then I'll need an extra $600 to get it up to the $10,083 for the retirement. I'm sorry, $1,083 for the retirement and $1,083 for the college and then the extra for the house. Jennifer, how much did you guys make a year?

$90,000. $90,000. Where did you get the number 15% for college? From Dave Ramsey's book because I just finished it from the financial piece. I reread it. I mean, I read it years ago when I went to the university, but I just reread it now, and it said 50% for retirement, 50% for college, and then anything extra paying on the house. Yeah, I don't know.

I could be wrong, Jennifer, but I want to say I don't think we put a percentage with kids' college. I've never heard it. He may have put it in the book. I'd go back and check that. Yeah, put it in the book. I'm looking at it right now. Okay. My guess is if you have the ability to do that, because I'm going to tell you, you may have to sit down and say,

okay, 15% for our budget is not, we're going to have to have different conversations about college. Right, right. Because that's just going to be a hard reality in our home. Not every family can put that type of money down for college. Yeah, how many kids do you guys have and how old are they? We've got an eight-year-old and a two-year-old. Okay.

So you have time on the college aspect. So I would say your first focus is that 15% into retirement because I want you guys to start, you know, funding your 401Ks, Roth IRAs, all of that to be at a point that when you do want to retire that you have the ability to. So that's obviously first and foremost. Yeah, and then any money.

I'm going to step away from the 15% from kids college because for some reason, I don't know why, I'm not, I'm not, I don't remember it being that hard of a line. I know going to step away from the 15% from kids college because for some reason I don't know why. I'm not I don't remember it being that hard of a line. I know your retirement has to be because after the math and all of that over years and decades that's about how to keep your lifestyle the same at retirement when you

guys start. But the kids college thing you may just kind of want to tap your brakes on. Number one, you have time to fund that stuff. I would probably tap my brakes get comfortable with all of that once you start funding your 15 into retirement it'll come out of your paycheck if you're if you're working your your company has a 401k um so just so get comfortable like a month or two with that right three months and then look up and say okay how is it because

hopefully in two years to jennifer you know the hope is over the course of your career that you're going to be getting raises that you guys will get bonuses. You know what I'm saying? That you'll be at a place that you'll be hopefully growing in your career and making more money 10 years from now than you are today. That's our prayer too, especially with inflation being as crazy as it is. I'm like, we're already losing money right now, right? No, absolutely. crazy as it is. I'm like, we're already losing money right now, right? In your retirement, you're hanging there. I would rather you I hate to go against the TMMO

Bible here. I would love to see you just have a number. We want to have $25,000. We want to have $100,000 and you can reverse engineer that for college. Yeah, absolutely. I want $200,000 so they can go to any school they want or we're going to reverse engineer this thing. Yeah, yes. And say, I want $200,000 so they can go to any school they want, or we're going to reverse engineer this thing. Yeah, yep, absolutely. So, yeah, take your time, Jennifer. Breathe. It's okay.

But that 15% for retirement is going to be your number one goal. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. find out for yourself why blinds.com is the number one retailer, online retailer for custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you save even more. So use the promo code RAMSY to get the best deal. Rules and restrictions apply. Today's question comes from Ethan in South Dakota. Ethan writes, my wife and I have been married for two years and are in baby step three. We agreed that we would have my mother-in-law, our last living parent, live with us when she needs care as she ages rather than putting her in a nursing home. With a nudge from us, she has just started contributing

$40 a month to her company 401k. She is 55 years old and earns between $15 to $20 an hour and we have mentioned it's important to start contributing now to help her offset her retirement costs. We're happy to help contribute into mutual funds. However, she does not seem to feel the same urgency we do. Any thoughts on how we can get her

to contribute to her own upkeep? Number one, don't refer to your mother-in-law as a lawnmower. She's not... What? She's not her own upkeep. Number one, don't refer to your mother-in-law as a lawnmower. She's not, you know, she's not her own upkeep. Like she's not like an appliance. Um, but yes, just, yeah. Don't, don't use the word own upkeep. Okay. Her own. Well, I think it, I think it's hard to make someone have a sense of urgency that they don't have themselves, right? Psychologist, Dr. John?

Well, so number one, she's making 15 to 20 bucks an hour. She's an hourly employee and she doesn't have a lot of money to begin with, right? So this sounds like it's a practice more than a principle. The second thing is I want to go back to what y'all decided early here, early, early here in your marriage. When she needs us, we'll be there that's where the period at the end of that sentence is y'all have made a value statement on that's a cornerstone of your relationship y'all made it early on if this then we will right fill in the blank and so now you're just talking about what kind of contribution what kind of what kind of

extra support is going to be in there because you've already made a values choice? Man, you're right. You can't. I mean, what are you going to say? Hey, you're going to die someday, and we want you to take more of your already incredibly limited thing. Or you need to go get another job and make more money, right? I mean, you can sit down and have those conversations. Those are going to be hard, and they're all going to come to or what, right?

Like, or what? Are you going to really not take her in right those are just hard and they're a recipe for fighting and for hey why are you spending money on that i mean you know what i mean it just becomes a caustic relationship mess yep absolutely so that boundary they set yeah you think has created like a or that door they've opened i guess not really a boundary hey, you can live with us in the future. I think they decided that. And what's important about it is they decided it, which means they are going to be responsible for taking care of this thing.

Of her, yeah. And it would be great if she came with a million dollars in a 401 to help build the addition on the house and to pay for all the in-home nursing care and all that. It's not going to happen. Yep, yep. It's just not going to happen.

Yeah, so, I mean, really, yeah. I yeah i mean i would encourage her she needs a different job i mean if she's 55 and doesn't have retirement and she's making 15 bucks an hour it's not going to be sustainable like it's just it's not so um she neither needs to find two more of those or find something different which is always uncomfortable and i always kind of hesitate and i don't know why it's so bad saying that because by the time you're 55 you've had your you know you've find something different which is always uncomfortable and I always kind of hesitate and I don't know why. It's so bad saying that because by the time you're 55 you've had your, you know,

you've lived enough life that you kind of feel like, okay, I should be good now and when you change something as big as a career, it is uncomfortable and it's not,

it's not fun but that's, I don't know. I think at the end of the day, Ethan, you have to be able to. You're going to have to make peace with y'all are going to be footing

the majority of this. She's 55. She's making $15 an hour. She's making $40 a month. And it took a nudge from y'all just even to get any sort of contribution. The other thing you can do is sit down and say, hey, we'd love to come up with a game plan with you. Would you be willing to do that with us? Yes.

And we want to talk about your will. We want to talk about your long-term care insurance, which is big thing um that y'all can start spending 60 any number of hey let's map this thing out so in 70 years here's how much we're going to have we're going to call a smart investor pro to sit down any of those things could be hey we want to just make sure we're all in the same plan there's only you're our last living parent and we want to honor and love you the best we can. But you're dealing with just math here. And at this current job, it's just not going to go very far.

That's right. All right. Up next, we have Mark from Wisconsin. Hey, Mark. Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me, guys. Absolutely. How can we help?

A question for you. In July, I lost my job. Yeah, that's okay. And it's okay. I have $600,000 in a traditional 401k there. So my question, I'm able to leave it there. Last year, I made almost $100,000. So should I leave it there, roll it over to my new job, or we just recently paid off our house?

Congratulations, man. Thank you, sir. Or thanks, guys. We still have like $13,000 of debt on a truck, but otherwise we're debt free. So we started just a normal IRA through Edward Jones. So my question is, should I leave my 401k where it's at, move it to my new job, or roll it over to the other company? Yes. So rolling it over, yeah, to a traditional IRA, sitting down with a SmartVestor Pro 2 will help you kind of navigate all of that. But being able to, yeah,

you could roll it over to the new company. I would do that. But I would roll it over to just the traditional IRA, leave it there and start new with your company. But don't take any of that out for the truck, I heard you say. And you guys did awesome. You're completely, you don't have a mortgage or anything,

so you should be able to knock out that truck payment, but do not use any of that money for your debt. So here's what I did in my life. So I have had multiple jobs at multiple different universities. I called a Smart Investor Pro. They pulled all of them from the other different places. This 401 here and this 403B over here, we rolled them all into my own individual retirement accounts and they split them up in the ways that we teach here. And then I've got another one with Ramsey Solutions. That's a separate account, right? And that keeps everything clean and simple. And if, not if, when Dave fires me, which let's be honest, I will take what's here and I'll roll that into the other one too, right? Yes, yes.

Hopefully Dave doesn't find it. Rolling it over. That's right. That's right. All right. We have Karina from Orlando. Hey, Karina. Welcome to the show.

Hi. Thank you guys so much for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? So my question is, I am about $42,000 in debt and I am just starting the program now. I'm in Baby Step 1. Welcome to the gang. That's exciting.

Yes. But one of my, looking at my, you know, debt story here, one of my debts is my car loan, which is about $15,000 right now. Okay. And it is a used, I bought it used and it's already at 88,000 miles. My question is, should I just sell the car, you know, tackle that loan or get another car? My concern is getting a beater car and then having a lot of maintenance issues because, you know, I won't be able to afford anything better. And I don't have anything saved. What do you make a year, Karina? I make roughly about $72,000. $72,000. Okay. Yeah, the car is not a huge factor in that because we really say if you can pay it off in 18 to 24 months,

it's really our rule of thumb. And so for you with your income, I think you're going to be able to do that. But you're going to want to do the debt snowball. So what other debt is the $42,000? Mainly student loans, some credit card as well. Okay. And one in collections from an insurance company. Okay.

So that car is kind of in the middle toward the end of your debt snowball? Okay. Yeah. I mean, if I were you, I think it's fine. I mean, if we were talking about a $30,000 car loan, I would have a different answer for you. But at $15,000, I think you can pay it off in 18 to 24 months. And right now, not that you would make this a huge factor, but it's always something to think about. Specifically, as we're speaking, the market is just insane with cars.

So honestly, having it at the miles don't scare me. The $88,000, I think you're fine. So if I were you, I'd keep it, pay it off, put it into that snowball, and get an extra job. Even if you can get that $72,000 up for a short period of time as you're building your starter emergency fund of $1,000. And then you're going to be doing your debt snowball. The more that you can increase your income for a short period of time and decrease your expenses, cut your lifestyle, the faster you're going to be out of this $42,000. And Karina, I think you can do it. I mean, I think in 24 months, your life is going to look totally different.

So I'm really, really excited for you. John, fun hosting with you again for another segment. Thank you, America, for listening. This is The Ramsey Show. If you want to do your debt-free scream live on the show, visit ramsaysolutions.com slash debt-free scream. We'd love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash debtfreescreen.