The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Use Savings To Pay Off Debt? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

Welcome, America, to The Ramsey Show, where we help you win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships, 888-825-5225 is the number, 888-825-5225. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell is with me. And we are here for you. Let's get it started with Natalie in Miami, Florida. Natalie, how can we help today? Hi, guys.

I'm in a major bind with my husband. We were doing pretty well at one point. And I guess with everything that's going on with the world, his business is not doing as well. I don't work because I just had a baby. And my husband is doing terrible at his job. and now he has to do Uber. We have Financial Peace University. We know about saving and putting money away, but we don't have the money to. I want to work, but we feel as though bringing my child to child care would be an extra expense. We just don't know what to do at this point. Sure. Tell us about what do you mean when you say he's not doing well at his job? Does he own his own business? Yes. He used to do property acquisition. He worked in real estate.

He sold and bought land. And he was doing very well. At one point, he was doing about $200K or so a month or, I'm sorry, a year. But now, I guess no one wants to buy I'm not really sure how that works but no one's really buying anything and he's just hasn't closed he only closed one deal this year and I think April and it was like 15k that used to be consistent but now it's not so we've only had one closing and it's just, it's just been really, really bad for us. Well, he's got some experience in real estate, correct?

Yes. In sales. In sales too. I just would, if he was on the phone, the first thing I'd say to him is, listen, man, the economy and demand can change. Something has happened there. And I honor him, Natalie, for jumping in the car and driving Uber, but it's just a horrible exchange for money for his time when he's got so much transferable experience and skill. And I think he's got to be looking at high paying sales jobs, or at least jobs that have high levels of commission. He just has so much more to offer both of you and his ability to earn money and Uber is not it.

So the first thing is you guys have an income issue, not a budget problem because you're down to one income and it's a very small income, correct? Right. And we have a high debt too. We have like $460,000 in debt. What kind of debt is that? Credit cards. We have our home. We have a HELOC. How much of the $460,000 is your home? $217,000. And what about the HELOC? $149,000. Wow. And I have student loans, too. Yeah, like he got the HELOC out to try and, I don't know, make it work for his business, but it failed.

So now it's like we're all... Well, he made a very risky move, and it didn't pan out because life happens. He's regretting it now. Do you have family around you all? We don't. That's another tough issue. What's your home worth? I don't know. I think he said like $400,000 or $500,000.

Okay. So you guys have $250,000, maybe $300,000 in equity in the home, which is good. What are you doing to pay the bills now? How much money do you guys have in savings? We don't have the savings. We use it all up because we haven't gotten any closings or anything in the past. So are you living off of credit cards right now? No.

We're very behind on everything. So you can't make any payments? Barely. Are you can't make any payments? Barely. Are you going to lose the house? Right now, I don't know. What were you doing for work before you were staying at home with the baby? I was an underwriter. I was a full-time underwriter.

What were you making? For commercial lines. This was like six years ago. I haven't worked in six years. Okay. But back then I was making about... So you were home before you guys even had kids? Yeah. After my first child, he just said, stay home. Okay. So you're second. Okay. Yeah. Okay, George, I'm going to give it over to you, but I got to jump in really quickly here. Natalie, you're going to have to get very innovative and creative with child care. I agree it's not a daycare because that's going to end up eating up a lot of the money, if not most of what you would go earn. But you guys need to

get involved in a church. You need to get involved in neighbors. You got to talk to anybody and everybody you know. Say, is there a grandmother that's looking to make a little bit of extra cash? Because you are going to have to get back to work. You guys are in an absolute big time emergency and you have to work, which means you find somebody older. My wife and I did this is why I'm giving you an example. Somebody who's not looking to make a bunch of money off of you, but would be very happy to take care of kiddos. You're not worried about them because you know they're in good hands with a grandmama or somebody like that who's raised children, and you know her and trust her. And she takes care of the babies for a fraction of the cost

of daycare. But you have got to work, and he's got to get out of uber he's only ubering uh the graveyard shift uh he's not sleeping um he's working two and three jobs but he's got to take that sales experience and go get a sales job immediately george and i don't see daycare as an added expense or child care if you're making $4,000 and daycare costs $1,500, well, you still have $2,500 that put food on the table. And so you're right. If you're not making that much to where it's just a wash, it may not be worth it. But I would want to see you go make $50,000 back in the underwriting world or whatever you were doing, whatever your skills transferred to. Or else they're going to have to sell this house.

And then what? That's the worst case scenario is we sell the house, we pay off all of our debt, and we rent once we have a foundation under us. So debt-free with an emergency fund. But I think you guys, your world just got rocked. You were living la vida loca, spending, enjoying your big lifestyle. And we have to choose reality, which is that life, we got to grieve that life. It is over for now. Maybe we'll be there again one day, and I think you will be. But for now, we got to live like broke college kids and just make ends meet, cover four walls, food, utility, shelter, transportation, insurance, and the rest of the debts. If you can't make the payments, you can't make the payments. The credit cards, tell them,

hey, we don't have money right now. We can't pay you. Here's what we can do. But the big thing here is your house. You can't get behind on this mortgage. What's the payment every month? $24.52, I believe. Okay. So if you guys aren't consistently bringing home $8,000, $9,000, $10,000, this house is not going to be sustainable on top of your other bills. But I think the key for you guys is looking at reality. It's scary at first, but if you list it all out in every dollar, which I'll gift you guys, that's our treat, one year of every dollar premium to help you through this.

You're going to list your income, your expenses, then begins the work of going, what can we cut from this budget? And the truth is pretty much everything. Yeah. Very little is necessary right now when we're in this phase. And then we're going to look at making more. So how can we spend less? How can we make more? And Natalie, we're also going to, we're going to give you one session with one of our financial coaches here in the building or wherever we're

going to put you with the financial coach, one of our coaches, because you need to be able to go beyond this phone call. We can't walk through the minutia of some of the steps you're going to have to take. So if you'll meet, agree to meet with one of our coaches, hang on the line. We'll cover the cost. We'll cover the cost of a financial coach to help you out. But you guys can do this. We're talking about the mindset is absolutely, we are in a five alarm fire and we've got to get out of the fire. We don't sit there and think about the fire. We get out with everything we've got. We're here with you. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show, where we help you win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships. 888-825- 5225 is the phone number. Alright, so George, I think I know the answer to this, but would you tell people to be on the sidelines right now if they're thinking about buying or selling a house? Or would you tell them to be in the game? If you're financially

ready to step into it, do it. Don't wait for the market. Good. So, I knew that was the answer, but I thought I'd tee you up. You know, I don't want to put words in your mouth. You made me look like a hero, Ken. Thank you. Absolutely. And so I want to tell you about our Ramsey Trusted Program so that you can find an agent you can trust to keep you on track with what we teach here at Ramsey and get you the best offer if you're selling and find the right house if you are shopping. And so we'll send you to some of the top agents in your area who we trust.

We've vetted them. And then you get to interview them. And you decide who you want to work with. These Ramsey-trusted agents have years of experience. They're going to help you make the right decision. Ramseysolutions.com slash agent. That's if you're looking for that agent for either one of those options. It's Ramseysolutions.com slash agent. Go check it out.

All right. Detroit, Michigan is where we go next. Anthony is on the line. Anthony, how can we help? Hi, how's it going? Good. How are you? Good, good. So my question is, are my wife and I's mortgages up for renewal in about six weeks? And we're going to have just about enough to pay it off. And the question is, should we pay it off and leave ourselves with almost nothing just for a little bit, or should we wait? What does almost nothing actually mean? We are going to be left with maybe around like just a few hundred dollars after we pay it off. We were thinking maybe we could, yeah.

That's a little tight for my liking. Now, if you said, hey, we're going to go down to about three months of an emergency fund in order to pay off the house, I'd say go for it. But anything less than that, I start to get, you know, just a little sweat on the breath. There's just no reason to take that kind of risk. Take it right to the edge. You're so close. How much longer would it take you if you did what George said and just said, okay, we'll back it down to three months emergency fund? Well, I don't know how the bank would allow us to set up that remortgage. Tell

me about this renewal. You said the mortgage renews. Oh, yeah. That's interesting. What is that? I only heard about this in Canada. Yes. I'm actually located in Canada. That explains it. So it's like you have this rate for five years, and then it moves to the market rate the next five years. Is that how it works? Exactly. Yep. Okay. So why not just, you have the new mortgage at the new rate, and then you knock it out in a few months? It would, they would make us do at least one full year. You have to make one year of payments before paying it off early? Yeah, you wouldn't be able to pay off the lump sum until the year's up.

Is there a penalty if you do? What's the stipulation there? They won't take your money? Yeah, yeah, there would just, you'd have to do like the full full year of the interest payment that's the dumbest thing so that's the penalty essentially is one full year of interest well you know what's left on the loan at that point let's say you put as much down as you could you left three months of expenses what's left on the new mortgage? Probably like five to 10 grand. Okay. So five to 10 grand, the interest may not be all that much. No, it would probably be at around a 5% rate. Okay. So we're talking like a few hundred bucks. That's the work around there, George. So if that's the penalty is you pay a few hundred bucks, I'm okay with that to leave you with peace instead of at risk where one emergency,

because that's when the emergency hits. You know that, right? Soon as you go down to a few hundred bucks, you have the car repair, the broken tooth, whatever it is. And so that's what I would do if I was in your shoes. I'd pay down as much as I could before the mortgage renews, leave three months of expenses in that savings account, and then knock it out as soon as you can, and you pay the penalty. Because that's Canada for you, man. I don't know what they're doing over there. I'll tell you what, it's just wacky.

Wacky, George. That is wacky, Anthony. But I'm proud of you, man. That's amazing. You're so close to complete debt freedom. Well done. I love that. Especially in Canada, which I don't know if you've seen the prices in Canada and the homes and the mortgages, but it's out of control.

So to be a debt-free homeowner in Canada, I think, is the ultimate flex. Yeah. What's going on? What's going on up there? They're like, milk is $17 a gallon, Ken. This is crazy, but they got the health care they brag about. It's always their thing. They're like, hey, but it's free health care.

Can't afford to live, but when we die, we're going to have great health care. That's all I hear from Canadians is how expensive housing is up there. So thinking of all my Canadian friends going through it. Oh, Canada. I see where you're going with that, Ken. You see what I did there? Let's go to Portland, Oregon, where Rachel is waiting.

Rachel, how can we help? Hi, I'm calling in today because I've got a question related to whether or not I should go back to school or what my husband and I should do planning for kind of going ahead and whether or not I choose to leave my current job and up in a position where I'm going to be making almost double the income that I'm making now if I return to school and do this three-year program. Tell us what this is. Three-year program to be able to become what? I'm currently a nurse.

I'd be going back to school for nurse anesthesia. Oh, okay. Gotcha. And do you have the money for this three-year program? No. How much is it? Altogether, it's going to be about $147,000. Ooh, wow. What school?

It's OHSU. Are there any more affordable schools that offer the same program? The big issue is there aren't a lot of programs on the West Coast. OHSU is the only program in the state of Oregon. If I chose to, I would have to go out of state for a different school. So you're telling me if you want to be in nurse anesthesia, you've got to go to this exact school and pay $140,000? If I didn't want to leave my home and my husband for three years, yes.

Right. We understand it. It's just amazing that that's your only option. That's pretty years. Right. We understand it. It's just amazing that that's your, the only option. That's pretty rare. Yeah. I mean, I can go, I mean, with healthcare, the beautiful thing is I can go a lot of different routes. But for my career, this is kind of where I wanted to go next step. Sure, I get that. Listen, I get it. And I want you to go after the thing that you want. I mean, that's my whole thing that I'm always espousing. My question is, is there a path that would involve a hospital or hospital system paying you or paying the tuition because they need someone like you?

Is that an option? I think in more rural areas, states you can move to. My current state, my current position doesn't offer that. The hospital I work for would pay a percentage, but it would be minimal at best. My husband and I, we do make the kind of income, and we've spoken about this, that we would be able between now and when I started school, we could probably put away about $75,000. Wow. But we'd only be able to come up with about half the money.

How long would it do? What was that? All three years wouldn't be due up front, would it? No, we'd be able to pay yearly, but I most likely would have to stop working. And so the big issue is that in the year before I start school right now, while I'm working full-time, we would be able to save the money, but we wouldn't be able to save any more. Once you're in school, you have an income, you couldn't continue to cash flow. And sorry, I spoke over George, Rachel, and that's why you couldn't understand this. My question is,

you're going to save the 75K in a year. Is that what I heard you say? It's a little over a year. All right, so how long would it take you to save up the entire $140,000? It would probably be just shy of two years, maybe. If I'm you, and you are not going to like this answer, but if I'm you, I wait. And here's why. I think if you make the mental decision to say, you know what, I am not going to go into debt.

I'm going to walk into this new career where I can make double, and I'm not going to owe a cent. No stress. Just the work I love, the results that matter deeply to me, and I don't have any stress with the money. I think that if you were to commit to that and say, okay, we think it's going to take us two years, I think the human spirit somehow rises up, and I think you beat the two-year mark. And if I told you to wait a year and a half and it would be free, it wouldn't have any debt, would you wait a year and a half?

Yeah. Then I think you can wait two years. George? I'm with you on this. I love this plan, and that patience is going to pay dividends because all of your fellow nurse anesthetists are going to be like, what? Debt-free? I got $200,000 in debt. How'd you do it? I'll tell you what you're going to be doing.

You're going to get in the car after a day of helping people, saving lives, making lives better. You're going to get in the car and go home and have zero stress with money and paying off $140,000 with interest. Wait. It'll be worth it. This is The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell is alongside, and we are here for you to help you win with your money, win in your work, and win with your relationships. 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225. From George Campbell to George in Atlanta.

George, how can we help? Hey, thank you guys for taking my call. So I've been on a string of doing dumb stuff, and I'm trying to get a second opinion before potentially doing something else that's dumb. Oh, wow. This is a great setup, George. I like a self-aware person doing dumb stuff. That's good. And before you ask the question on how dumb do you think it is right this very moment before you get our opinion? As it is, I don't think it's a dumb idea. I've been watching you guys show for a long time.

I'm on baby step three of the baby steps. Well, I'm working through baby step three right now. Sure, okay. I haven't completed it yet. So you have no debt? No, I don't have any debt. Okay. Well, no, that's actually not true.

I do have debt. Let's start with honesty, George. I do have have any debt. Okay. Well, no, that's actually not true. I do have debt. Let's start with honesty, George. I do have a car loan. Okay. Well, then how could you be on baby step three if you have a car payment? Well, yeah, you're right about that. Well, I do have the money in savings that I could pay off the car loan, but I haven't paid off the car loan, hence my dumb stuff here. So I'm trying to get a bit of organization.

Well, I feel like, George, we're off to a little bit of a dumb and dumber start here. Yeah, relationships are built on trust, George. So we need you to be vulnerable. Yeah. What is your question? Yeah. Well, my question is this. So since the past year or so, you know, just a string of crazy stuff.

I've taken on extra responsibilities. My income is, is like halved i was making um a hundred and ten thousand dollars um you know when i had my transportation business running um but you know contractual stuff changed um and you know they wanted a whole new fleet of stuff at a house that I ended up having to sell because it was just way too much to afford after my income changed. So you bought too much house. Your business has sort of taken a big dip. What is your income now? $50,000.

So $50,000, so huge change in income. Still working for yourself, or is that somebody else paying you? No. So as it is right now, I have a, you know, and that's another thing, too, even in the sense of school. Luckily, I got out of college without any debt. But right now I work as an IT technician. I have a bachelor's degree, even though that's not making too much money on it. Sure. What's your question, George? I want to make sure we get to it.

Yep. My question is, so right now I have my car that is, the car's worth $28,000, loans $40,000. So, you know, using those numbers. And I'm thinking uh do i take i have about fifty thousand dollars um ten thousand dollars in liquid cash forty thousand in the market and i'm thinking do i you know as it is right now you know put the difference get rid of the car and just buy uh you know like a used car um and that way i won't have a car payment. Yes, that's very smart, George. That's the smartest thing you've said so far. It's the only smart thing you've said so far. Okay.

What is option number two? Well, option number two is, you know, keep the car and continue making the car payments, but the only issue with that is on $50,000, you know, the car payment, insurance, and other bills, like, it's not making any sense. I would agree. Option one, George. George and I are picking door number one for you. So the car's worth $28,000, you owe $40,000. Let's sell it for top dollar, and the difference you have in cash, and then we're going to buy ourselves a very reasonable used car. We're talking about, like, a $10,000 car. So liquidate some of your investments for that.

And now with the money left over, which you said you have like 40K in the market, we're going to liquidate all of it because you need an emergency fund. This is your never going into debt again fund. Right. Now we're at a different place. Think about this. You're completely debt free, no payments. You have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. Now any future income

we can use to build wealth and invest. There's that. So this is a complete reset, but it's going to happen very quickly because you're actually in a really good spot because you have all this money sitting out there. You're just not doing the right things with it. And now you'll actually be in baby step four by the way we actually define them, George. Exactly. So what's your car payment? What are you paying all in for this car every month? Right now on this car payment, I'm paying $750. Plus insurance. Insurance is just crazy. It's $500 for insurance.

Why is your insurance so high? I have no idea. The only thing that I could hear from the insurance companies when I call is that state, whatever they got going on, insurance is high. You need to reach out $6,000 a year? As soon as you're off the phone. Yeah. You're going to reach out to our friends at Zander, and they're going to reshop your insurance because you are way overpaying, and you're getting hosed.

I think so, too. Unless you've been in 1,000 wrecks, and this is a luxury vehicle. I have not. I have zero accidents. Okay. $500 a month? Yeah. I literally have heartburn right now.

It's my, oh. And they told me that's on the low end of things. Yeah, how did that happen? You're going to go to Zander.com. They have independent agents who will shop across the top companies you're not going to be with these captive agents that you know i don't i think someone's honestly lying to him george oh my gosh george we're so close to doing things the right way but i'm you gotta just trust us on this that our way is going to lead to a better life we are are unbiased. We just want to help George. That's it.

Wow. Woo. That's a lot right there. I'm still having a hard time processing. That's his actual insurance. Six grand a year for one car. That's a lot. Yeah.

Oh, boy. By the way, I don't think I pay half of that for two cars. Yeah, but I will tell you, as a father of two teenage boys, it's a racket what insurance is doing to boys and those of us who help with the insurance. It's unbelievable what they charge. Yeah, I mean, it's all about risk, and the insurance world has gone crazy. I just got the update, and my insurance agent at Zander said, hey, luckily your insurance isn't going up, which is great considering a lot of people's insurance is going up.

Oh, sure. Across home, auto, everything. Insurance is just crazy. I think there needs to be reform on that. How do we do that? Well, again, it's lobbyists and getting the lobbyists out of D.C., getting some good people in Congress to go, at what point do we not get a better deal on our insurance? You know what I mean? We're paying a lot in there and we're not using it that much.

Come on. That's the whole point. Someone's making big profits here. Big profits. Speaking of Washington, Washington, D.C. is where Rachel joins us. Rachel, how can we help? Hi. I've been just, like, turned on to listening to y'all.

So my question is, I'm trying to figure out how I should go about clearing out some past debt that I had. For some context, I had to let about eight of my credit cards go to collections because I was having to pay for an attorney to go through family court. And so with that, it tanked my credit score a lot. And so I haven't been able to pay on those accounts. And I've been trying to figure out, is it worthwhile or in my best interest to begin calling them and set up a regular payment account to pay them off in full for what the balance was originally owed? Or if I should settle and take the 10% or, you know, try to offer them 10 cents on a dollar to see if that will help. Yes. You should try to settle with them and say, hey, if the balance is 10,000, say, listen,

I got two grand. Will you settle this in full and get it in writing that it is paid in full if I give you this $2,000? And you keep doing that across every creditor until this is knocked out. That's the right way to clean up this mess and get your credit score back intact. Now, you know, if you've been listening to the show, we don't care about credit scores, but having a terrible score will hurt you financially. So as you pay off your debts, your score will improve over time and you get back to being on time with your payments. So do you have any money right now? No, I'm pretty stretched thin and I'm trying to figure out like the type of a side job that I could possibly pick up to try to help create some extra income so that I could be able to start offering some settlement for these accounts.

Well, we're up against the clock, but you can go to georgecamel.com slash side hustle. I've got a great quiz that's going to point you in the right direction. We're also going to send you Ken's book, From Paycheck to to Purpose to help you figure out some stable core income along the way. So hang a line. We'll send you those. But here's the deal. There's only two ways to do this. Spend less and make more. And right now, I think we need to do both to climb out of this and get back to some stable footing. Yeah, you can do it, Rachel. We're going to walk with you on this. Just a lot of intensity and intentionality, and you will get on the other side of this. Thank you for the call. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Camel joins me. We're so excited you're with us. Our scripture of the day comes from Exodus 20, verses 8 and 9. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. And then our quote of the day from Mark Twain, don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. So Mark Twain would have been wildly offensive to all the whiners on TikTok who think they deserve a universal income. I'd love to see Mark Twain's TikTok. I think I literally think it would be it would combust.

He'd get a follow from me. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Let's go to Connie now in Memphis, Tennessee. Connie, how can we help? Yes, I'm going to try to get through this without crying. I lost my husband of 35 years. We were together almost 40

earlier this year. Thank you. We were already at baby step 7. Everything we own is paid for. I'm 61, so I plan to work until 65. Losing him really changed my perspective on a lot of things,

and I've got grandbabies I want to spend time with, and I want my time to be my own. We have a little over, the IRAs that we had are combined into my account now. And I've got a little over a million in that and a pretty substantial 401K. I've been with a very large hotel corporation in their legal department since 1995. So, you know, we were preparing ourselves for retirement. But he had a life insurance policy, and it's currently, I went to my local bank and I bought myself some time by saying, you know, I was getting 1.05%, and I ended up telling them

I really don't want to move my money, but can I earn more than that? And they said for 90 days, they were going to give me 5%. So I know I've bought myself a little time. I do want to make my money. I want to be a good steward of this money. I don't enjoy spending it. Um, well go ahead and move it after the 90 days. Absolutely. But I wasn't sure exactly where it can, I want it to be accessible to me. Absolutely. I want to be smart with it. Again, you know, I've downloaded it about a month ago. Sorry, you broke up, Connie. You downloaded what? I downloaded the app about a month ago.

Every dollar? Yes, the EveryDollar app. Great. So I know with spending and giving, I'm saving $500 a month. What is your actual income right now? And are you still working for the large chain? I am working. Okay, so what's your income?

I am working $72. Okay, and then do you have, what's the 401k amount? Is that above and beyond the IRA that you mentioned having a million in? Yes, it is $160. Okay. So your total nest egg, is that everything? Yes. Okay. So we got a little over a million. The life insurance was 175. Okay. So let me give you a few tactical steps and you got a paid four house, so you don't need any of this money right now, which is great. And you're going to continue to work, continue to invest. I would encourage you to try to max out all of your tax advantage retirement options that you have. I'm putting

18% in 401k. I've been doing that for a long time. Wonderful. So with this $175,000, number one, it's good temporarily in a savings account, but even then you may want to invest this money into the market. And here's what that could turn into. You even then, you may want to invest this money into the market. And here's what that could turn into. You're 61. Let's say you invest this into the market, and a smart investor pro, if you go to RamseySolutions.com, click on Trusted Pros, they can help you invest this in the market in a way that's diversified, and it can help you grow at market rates versus a savings account. And if you have seen the stock market this year, it's hitting record highs, just back to back to back.

And so like my 401k is up 20%. And so over time, what we've seen is the stock market, the S&P 500, the largest 500 companies, have seen about a 10% average annual return when you look at the long term, over decades. And so 61 to 71, with that money parked, 175k, you never add a dime. At 10% return, you'd have almost half a million dollars at 71 instead of 175 so that will at least help add to your nest egg and so i would encourage you if you don't need this money in the short term to invest it for the long term and you already have the nest egg growing for you and if we see 10 over the next 10 years, your money's going to double. So that nested the IRAs will go from 1 million to 2 million. Wow. And so I think you're going to be just fine

if you can learn to live on a budget. It doesn't sound like your lifestyle is out of control. And so you're doing the right things. And I love that you called in with this question. I did one crazy thing. My daughter and her husband have two little boys, and they're about to have a third, and I did buy them a car. That's sweet. Well, wait a second. Wait a second. Did you feel bad about it? Why do you think that's crazy?

Well, I mean, I bought them a brand-new car, and I wouldn't have necessarily done that, but I felt good. I did feel good about it. I don't feel good about spending it on myself, honestly. I'm sorry. That's okay, Connie. Listen. You've been taking care of everyone else your whole life, haven't you? Yeah.

You always think of others. You're just a selfless person. Yeah. You're a sweet, sweet person. You paid cash for that new car, didn't you? Yes. Okay. I had a jackpot.

There we go. We didn't go into debt. We didn't put ourselves in a backward financial position. You still have money. Oh, my gosh. You're not broke. You are so set up for the future, Connie. It's unbelievably exciting coming out of this awful pain.

I know, and it's sad because I'm doing this by myself. I know. It's not how you pictured it. That's the hardest part. I know. No, it's not. I know. I know.

And we feel for you on that. But the peace of mind is huge. So, George, on her specific question, I want to make sure, does she put that in a really good savings account? If I'm you, Connie, if you are really like, I don't want to put this in the market, we have friends over at Laurel Road. They're an online bank. It's FDIC insured, and they've got 5.15% APY right now. You can go to laurelroad.com slash George. That's L-A-U-R-E-L road.com slash George and get an account going there. And's 5.15 and there's no you know

gimmicks there no monthly maintenance get to it uh which is what you want liquid so that'll do for now but i'm saying long term okay you don't need the money and so i would still consider investing it into the market with a good mutual fund index fund and let that thing grow for you at an even higher rate over time yeah so but, none of this is on fire. But I like some of that, George, for Connie taking some trips with her grandbaby. Yeah, do something fun. What have you done for Connie? Yeah.

Well, we actually did go to Chattanooga this last week. I mean, I work for a very large hotel corporation. Connie, where would you really like to go? Where would you really like to go? And you can't say any place in Tennessee. Oh, no, no. Well, we stopped the state of Colorado for probably the last 30 years. We've probably been 40 or 50 times.

We love the mountains. What was the retirement dream with your husband? Yeah. What was the thing you guys were like, man, when we retire, we're going to do X? We actually bought a 19-foot GeoPro. It's more of a couple's camper. And I'm actually in the process of selling it or going to sell it because I really can't see myself. I get it. Going alone. Connie, I got an idea. Yeah. Connie, I have an idea. I think you should go on a trip with some of your best girlfriends.

Somebody else told me that. Absolutely. I should do that. Do one trip before they sell it. I don't know if I'll ever be ready to go back to Colorado. No, no. Go somewhere else. No, this is like the ya-ya sisterhood or the traveling pants or the fried green tomatoes or your best girlfriend. Just go somewhere and have fun. You've been through a lot. You're still grieving and some girl time doing something you've never done before. You've got a lot of cash to be able to do a really fun trip and celebrate you, celebrate all that you have still, and just do something fun

for you. I just, I really think that's a good idea. And like our friend, Dr. John Deloney says, you got to grieve what was the picture of what you thought it was going to look like. And now we've got to have a new picture of what's the next 30 years going to look like for Connie. And I think that's going to be sad, but also exciting to start dreaming again. And you're in such a great place financially. And so you guys, both of you created this legacy. And that is something that no one can ever take away from you. Something to be proud of. Connie, thank you so much for calling us and sharing your story with us. I know that was not easy and we're rooting for you. And sun is going to keep showing up and you've got a bright future ahead for you as well

george campbell thank you my friend always fun to be with you thank you america for listening this is the ramsey show Take care.