The Ramsey Show - App - Should We Buy Land Right Now? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

Ken Coleman & Rachel Cruze answer your questions and discuss: "Should we buy land for our son and leave it to him in the future?" Investing as a recent college graduate, "Should we file bankruptcy?" "How should I invest $20k?" "Is college worth it for me?" Working with a spouse on the budget. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Take our FREE 3 minute assessment: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

We'll be right back. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win with your money, and we'll look at your work component, your relationship component, and around the all-important element of money so that you can win and win big and live that life that you desire to live. 888-825-5225 is the phone number.

888-825-5225. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by my colleague, the incomparable, the fabulous, Rachel Cruz. And we're here for you this hour. She'll take your money questions. I might pipe in. I might not. You never know. And if you've got any of those work questions that relate to making more money, getting out of a tough environment, but not losing that income,

I'm here to help in those specific questions as well. Let's go to Houston, Texas, where Layla joins us. Layla, how can we help? Hi. Thank you guys for both taking my call. You bet. I appreciate it. Sure. We went to Missouri. My husband and I are getting close to retirement age, and we're just looking for a place to get. We love Houston, but city life, we don't want to, you know, we need a little getaway from city life and retirement age. So long story short, went to Missouri, found a piece of property, fell in love with it. And we would just want to know if it's a good idea to buy

it or not. My son's in love with it. He wants to move out of Texas and he wants to work in Missouri. And he says he would love to live there and raise a family on that piece of property. So the end goal is just going to be him raising his family, but we're going to enjoy it as long as we're here. Okay. And you're calling us to get our opinion on this. I'm curious, what are you nervous about? What are you unsure about? What's the piece of information we don't have as to why you wouldn't buy it?

Well, I just want to make sure. Like, we're financially okay right now. What does that mean and i just want to make sure so um the uh we have we have uh our some investments um and we have how much are in those we could pay for the property okay so investments are about 800 800 000 and are those in retirement or just in the market? When you say investments, is it mutual funds? 401k, Roth IRA, or just strictly mutual funds? Mutual funds, Roth IRA, and I think a SEP.

Okay, yeah. My husband has a SEP. Yep, okay, great. And so we have that going. And then liquid or in the bank, we have 1.6. Nice. Great job, Layla. Thank you. Thank you.

Hard work. Hard work. Yeah, well done, though. Well done. How much is the land? The land is, well, they want 1.18 on the land. But we're going to have to do some work to the house. There's a house on it.

Yeah, but it's a little house. It needs a little work. It's a little farmhouse. Have you run comps on this? Or how many acres, too? It's 290-something. 293, I think. 293.

293 acres. Yes. Nice. But it, I think. 293. 293 acres. Yes. Nice. But it is a gorgeous piece of property. Oh, I bet. That's a lot of land. Well, I was thinking $1.1 million for a lot. I was like, I was confused. Okay.

And before Rachel breaks the money down, I just really curious. I want to make sure I heard you right. You and your husband want to move to Missouri and live on this, and then eventually your son comes and raises his family on it. Is that what I heard? Yes. So my husband and I, we don't want to move out of Houston. We're going to keep our home here in Houston. Missouri is going to be, you know, to get away from Houston whenever we want to get away from Houston, live there maybe for a few months in retirement, you know, and then just always come back to Houston. We don't want to give up the home here.

Gotcha. Okay. All right. Okay, and so the house needs some renovations. Do you know how much that will cost? You know what? It needs a paint job, bathrooms, rip out the carpet, maybe about $45,000, $50,000. On the max side.

I'm saying on the max side. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. And then your son may come on the property as well, right, and build his own thing, but you guys would just kind of gift that? Are you expecting him to buy a partial within that lot? No. My son's 17.

He's going to be off to college but oh okay gosh in my head he was yeah i'm sorry i got you i'm sorry that's my fault i didn't tell you that part but he is uh after college he fell in love with it he doesn't he wants to move someplace colder he doesn't like the heat in houston fell in love with this property he loves it um he's always told us this is not a spontaneous thing that you know that he always wanted a piece of land where he can drive his can out. Yeah, no, I think that's great. Okay, but you guys would buy this property not for the

17 year old that could meet sweet little Anna here in three years and move out and move up to Chicago with her family or something like that. Yeah, regardless of whether the 17 year old likes this property you guys like this property. My husband is in love with this property.

Okay, okay. And, yes, he's in love with it. I mean, you guys are in an incredible financial situation. I mean, you're everyday millionaires. Is your house in Houston paid off? Yes. Okay, so, yeah.

And how much longer are you guys going to work? He's probably maybe another seven, eight years. Yeah. And what's your house in Houston worth right now if you sold it? Maybe about four. Okay, yeah. So you've got the cash to pay for this land plus the renovations on the small home. Yes, we do. But, you know, I'm just thinking about, you know, when we get older, medical expenses, and then if we have to move into a retirement home, is it really worth it? Should we just keep the cash and just fund our own old age, or should we buy this piece

of property, which is a dream property for us? So you're asking not how to buy the property, but if you should buy it or not. Yes. Would it be wise knowing that, you know, we're going to be elderly and probably the expenses that come with it. I mean, I think it's something to consider,

but honestly, we talk about you live like no one else, so later you get to live and give like no one else. So Layla, I mean, honestly, realistically, in 10 years, if you guys hate it and want out, it's only going to go up in value and sell it and go do your own thing. You're not tied to it forever. If you pay cash and you guys need more money, then you've invested and you're going to make that money back and then some.

So I don't think it's risky at all. Not to mention, I think you told us you already got $800,000 in the bank and other investments. So you got your home in Houston that's cash that's worth almost a half a million, maybe in several, you know, in 10 years. So I just think you're sitting pretty, and this is not risky at all, Rachel. And you could always flip this property if you had to have it. Yeah, there's no risk that you're taking on here.

And you guys are still going to be working, funding be working um funding retirement that 800 will keep going up and i like it i like the move i mean i think it's great and again it goes back to a it's a layla and you're in in the husband conversation i mean i think at that point from the money side there's no big red flags um but but i want to make sure you want to do this too. I know he loves the property. Is this what you want to do with your money? You know, you guys are speaking to my heart. Yes, I want to, but I have a problem

parting with the money. I'm a little bit insecure with that. You know, but you guys are giving me confidence and saying, no, you're going to be insecure. Yeah, I think you're fine. It's a lot of money. I mean, you're writing a $1.1 million check. So nothing to sneeze at here. So I get that.

I would want to throw up a little bit, too, when you're like, okay, here it goes. I think you and the Hubs, a romantic dinner, talk it through. Maybe a little Rod Stewart forever young, maybe in the background. You know, this is like this fun young thing that's going to keep you guys young as you get older, and it's a big adventure that you could afford. I say do it. I love it. It's great.

You are listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by my colleague, Rachel Cruz, and we're here for you this hour, taking your money questions, also taking your work questions and relationship questions around these issues of money. 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225. It's time for our question of the day, and it's brought to you by Neighborly your hub for home services when you need to make repairs schedule routine maintenance or find local help for home improvement projects neighborly is

your source for reliable home service providers in your area go to neighborly.com to start your search and today's question comes from i see Al on Smart Money Happy Hour I said Al one time and it was AI is this AI is this a joke are y'all playing a joke on me I mean it says Al I don't know I feel like I've missed the entire thing I said Al one time

tell the story after the question tell the story okay I'm going to say Al in Silicon Valley okay no this is y'all AI in Silicon Valley they're pulling something they're messing with you this says i'm 23 and a recent college graduate i'm currently working making 50k a year graduate without debt currently have 20 in my savings 20 000 in my savings my monthly rate is 700 my car is paid for my question is how should i be investing my money at this stage of my life? Man, well, Al, AI, if you're even real, this is great.

I mean, I would, at this point, you probably, that $20,000, I would say, is a fully funded emergency fund for you. So I would take your income and start investing 15% of it into retirement. And if your employer offers a 401k, I would go up to the match, open up a Roth IRA, fund that. And yeah, fund 15%, 15% of your income there. Okay, so George and I were on a Smart Money Happy Hour podcast. And we have some notes for all the stuff we do. And I'm just kind of reading it i'm like yeah and uh and i said and it was about counterfeits i think it's actually out i think it's the episode that's out today and it talks about how there are companies now that will it'll go through a system to make sure that it's authentic right that the item is that it's not a counterfeit item and it said and it

has an an an owl helps out with this so i say owl Al helps out. Well, everyone loses it. And they're like, you're a 60-year-old woman, Rachel. It's AI. But it looks like Al. Well, because in your defense, it wasn't like the old school capital where you got a straight line and two crosses there. But it was just the one line. And you see Al. The uppercase I and the lowercase L look very similar.

And there's no periods in between those. So anyways, they all just made fun of me. In your defense, I could see how it happened. And I just had like PTSD right there looking at Al. And Silicon Valley, y'all did that to me. It was a real question, but we couldn't resist the opportunity to troll you with the fake names. We didn't. I've learned my lesson.

Wiser beyond my years. You are so stupid. You figured it out. So stupid. Joke is on them. There you go. So stupid. So, Al.

Unbelievable. Watch out for Al. It's going to take all of our jobs. I know. I was like, they have Al in the back. All right, let's get going here to the phones. Hey, we're having fun. I hope you are.

Let's go to Mark in Orlando, Florida. Let's see. Here he is. Mark, how can we help? Good afternoon. I was calling just in regards to looking over the numbers my wife and I have in front of us here and wondering if there's any way out except bankruptcy. Oh, no.

What's going on? We have about $235,000 in debt, about $214,000 of that. I'm sorry, about $180,000 of that is in judgments and in loans that weren't paid off and a judgment from us, from my company. We have about $50,000 in car loans, and I had to close the company,

and we're looking at a new salary with a new company I just started with at only about $55,000 a year. Wow. What happened with the old company, with the judgments and everything? We had taken out a few loans to try to keep things going over the last year and a half, and those loans kept deducting payments weekly. And then we had material that was backordered, and we weren't able to come up with the money after the money had continued to be deducted. So everything just kind of fell apart quickly.

Oh, I'm so sorry. Okay, do you guys, is your house, how much do you guys owe in your house? That's not, yeah, That's not even including that. We literally just moved into the house last April. We bought that. We owe about $300 on that. $300, okay. Any other consumer debt besides the car loans?

No, we don't have any credit cards. We don't have any student loans or anything. We don't own anything. So we just own the vehicles, which is about a truck, which is $34,000 we still owe on and $15,000 on my wife's car. How much are those cars worth? Probably a lot less than that. What were you making or what were you paying yourself when you were working for yourself what were you paying yourself um it depended on the time of season i owned an air conditioning business right uh so it was seasonal and it was there was never a consistent way to

right figure out what was it but were you making more than 55 000 at any point oh yeah yeah we were bringing home 90000 the last two years in a row. Yeah. The reason I bring this up is I want to know what your income potential is, because as you start to wade through this, the max amount of income possible for both of you is what we're going to need to try to figure out and line that up. So it allows us to dig out of this, or at least consider what would it take to dig out of this without filing bankruptcy. Is your wife working at all, Mark? She was doing, you know, stay-at-home mother, but she picked up babysitting now.

So making a little bit of cash, but not much. How old are your kids? Probably about $1,000 a month. My son is five. My daughter is about to be a year and two. Oh, wow. Yeah. thousand dollars a month my son is five my daughter is about to be a year and two oh wow yeah you're in the thick of it for sure um okay well here's here's looking at everything i would eliminate mark as much as possible like in as as fast as possible just to get some breathing room

so honestly even though the car is 34, maybe you can sell it for 20 and you would take a $14,000 loan for the difference. I would do something just to feel like I have a level of control over what's going on because I know you feel like you're spinning out of control with all of this. And so getting rid of the cars,

taking a small loan for the difference where you guys are. And then I would be looking at your 180 as almost like a student loan in my head, because we get numbers like this on the show of so much debt. Usually it's in the form of student loans when we see high six-figure debt. But I'm telling you, Mark, I don't think you're at the brink of bankruptcy. But I do want to make sure that your priorities and what you guys are doing with this new income, because it is significantly less, that it's going to the right things at the right time while you continue to maybe even look for a second job and do what you can to up that because food, shelter, utilities, and transportation

is our goal. And I know the house, you guys just moved in in April, but I want you to run a budget mark and see if it is over your mortgage payments, over 25% of your take-home pay i would look at selling and downsizing um i would do some drastic things uh in order to be able to attack this 180 uh really really well and again that's going to mean possibly downsizing home selling cars and even taking on another job or two just so you can get your head above water because you're scared, Mark. You have a baby and a little one at home, and your sweet wife is doing babysitting to bring in some extra cash. And so there has to be some drastic. I don't think you guys are at the point of bankruptcy.

I know it feels hopeless, but if you hold in the line, Mark, Austin's going to pick up, and we're going to give you Financial Peace University, and you and your wife walk through this. You have a road ahead of you, Mark. It's not going to be easy. You have years ahead of you of climbing out of this, but we avoid bankruptcy at all costs, and I just do not think you're bankrupt. You feel hopeless, but you're not bankrupt. I agree. Mark, you're going to have to work and work and work, and then when you think

you can't work anymore, keep working. You have a lot of skill set, and you should be making way more. You have to make more, and it will help, And Rachel's right. Hang on the line though. We're going to get you some help. You guys can do this. You just need a community and you need some steps and we've got it for you. Hang on. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by my colleague, Rachel Cruz, this hour. The number to jump in for your questions is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Now, Rachel, you're big on the talk and the gram.

More the gram. More the gram than the talk? The talk is there. It's there? Yeah, you and I don't actually do it. I know. Our team does it. Because I'm not a big fan than the talk the talk is there it's there uh yeah you and i don't actually do it i know our team does because i don't i'm not a big fan of the talk me either scares me a little bit i get it but uh you are the social media maven and i do love you're really good i love the gram though the gram is so really great on the gram uh if you don't know what we're talking about we're

saying the instagram uh it's kind of like the Google. You know, you got to check all these things out. And some of these amazing trends now are things like Bare Minimum Monday. This was made famous by a TikToker who said she needs a half of the day Monday to just get herself ready to work again. She had too much of a good weekend to bounce back. So she calls it Bare Minimum Monday. She tries to do the least amount of possible at work on Monday. And then, of course, you've heard of the quiet quitting phrase, which is, I'm only going to do the bare minimum so I don't get fired. And this is all about just not wanting to work. It's people

who aren't fulfilled. And instead of getting mad at these people, Rachel, I see is they don't have a reason for going in. They don't see something that they enjoy. It's not meaningful to them. And that's why we created a really popular tool here called the Get Clear Career Assessment. If you would like to actually enjoy your Mondays and not drink your face off on Friday afternoon because you're so miserable at the work, at the office, or in your remote job. You just want to enjoy your work and make money. This is the tool for you. It'll help you get a very clear report on how uniquely you are put together, what you do best, what you love to do, and then what motivates you.

And this is very helpful. It's a self-awareness tool. It gives you a purpose statement that kind of points you towards a real professional opportunity, and you know what you're looking for, and thus you can find it. It's called the Get Clear Career Assessment. It's about an 18-minute assessment, and it's really going to give you clarity and confidence. Go to ramsaysolutions.com slash get clear, ramsaysolutions.com slash get clear. And solutions dot com slash get clean i'll say it's amazing thank you very much it is amazing um let's get now to the phones billings montana do you watch do you watch yellow you know we you haven't watched it i can tell i'm gonna say i didn't get fully immersed

but everyone loves it so all right i see montana and and I got to talk about it. Yes. And I want to know, Linda, do you live on like a ranch, and are you like a cowgirl? Do you make fun of that show because it's not real? I mean, what's the story, Linda? You know what? I haven't had my TV on for 45 years. Whoa! Wait a minute. But I love Montana.

I don't live on a ranch, but I love it. And I ran into Kevin Costner, and when I did, he was so nice, and he was so humble, and I got his autograph. Yes, you did, Linda. And it's amazing you even knew who he was. I assume you've gone to the movies, just haven't turned the tv on in 45 years well it was one of these things i just bought my little you know sandwich and i looked and i'm like i know that face and then it was oh oh my word and it was him it was him and i said you know i love your body of work and his little kid just looked at me that's great linda. Great celebrity story.

I'm so glad to know that he was everything we hoped he would be. Yes, I'm so glad to know that he was nice and kind. Oh, that's nice. Love it. He was humble. So I'm calling to see should I sell his signature on eBay. Yes. Yes.

Make some extra cash. That's hilarious. Linda, you're a great spirit. Well, this is so fun to talk to you, Linda. How can we help you today? Well, my dear 97-year-old young friend just went to Be With The Lord, and she gave me $20,000, and I am just shocked. Oh, my gosh.

Wow. Yeah, we met doing prison ministry together, and that's when COVID was going around, and nobody would take her to her doctor's appointments, you know, kind of hung in there and did all, but anyway, it just, it was a joy. So I don't want to do something stupid. And, um, I feel like Lord saying sit on it for a year. And so what should I do with it? Local bank, uh, a CD. Um, I, yeah. Yeah. No, that's so great. Well,

a great place to park money short term would, we would always recommend a money market account or even a high yield savings account. Those are going to be your two best bets and you can do those. You know, some local established banks have that option, but also a lot of online banks that aren't brick and mortar that may make you I don't know how you feel about that. They're perfectly safe,

but sometimes you can get a better rate of return on an online bank at times. So like a bank like Ally, I would look into that's where my husband and I have our high yield savings account through. But that or a money market, I think is is a great option for now. And not that I don't want, I want you to be obedient to what you feel like the Lord is saying for you to do with that money for sure. But for you, Linda, in your financial situation, where are you at? Do you have debt? Do you have retirement? Yeah, I live in a 1961 mobile home. I have a used car with 371,000 miles on it, a Toyota. I just picked up a side hustle job at a box store, and I was goes up $13, you know, every year. But on the side hustle job, it paid, you know, every two weeks, basically, and it's about $600. My debt is about $17,119.55. But I just, you know, and I know from taking the classes that I should pay all the debt off, but I just don't know.

Big ticket items, I need termite, the dryer went out, so I'm hanging the clothes up, and a used car eventually, and a new bed. So that's kind of, you know, after all the debt's paid off. I did have the emergency fund and then during the whole COVID stuff, and then I retired at 58. I'm 63 now. I kind of went through, you know, that. So there's a little in the bank. So I'm kind of, you know, starting over, but I spent a lot on missions trips and giving to other people and helping them out and stuff. Yeah. And I'm very content, you know, with where I live. Sure, sure. I just, you know, I told her daughters when I just got blown away by this, I feel like she would want it, you know, for the Lord. She would send, when I traveled the world a lot in my 30s and 40s, she would give me

little missionary tracks from different languages, African and German, all over. And I just feel like she would want it, you know, to go for that. But when I drove her by my mobile home once, I said, what do you think, man? And she said, I think it's time for a new house. But I'm not really into all that. Linda, Linda, Linda, you're so sweet. I could talk to you literally. Rachel. I could talk to you literally.

Rachel and I could talk to you for hours. You're a delight. But I'm going to tell you something. You know what we're going to tell you. This is a gift that your friend gave you, and you don't need to attach all kinds of things to it. She's in heaven, and this is a gift. And to take care of you.

If you were my mom or my friend, I'd say pay this debt off and get that debt out of your life. At this age, you don't need to be carrying that debt. You've got your side hustles. You've got ways of bringing in income, but that debt needs to be gone, and then you can take care of the bed and the termites. And what a blessing that it's basically almost to the exact dollar amount. I mean, you may have $2,500 left, but that's an amazing thing, Linda, because something is true that releases, I think, not just financially, but emotionally, spiritually, physiologically.

Like when you don't owe anyone anything, when Scripture says the borrower is slave to the lender, there is wisdom in that. There is wisdom that you don't have the ability to be completely free, Linda, that when you make an income and you want to be able to be even more generous than you are, you have to be making these payments to this debt. So when you don't owe anyone anything, there is a freedom and a beautiful legacy, a beautiful legacy that you can leave, that your friend had left you. And I think that that is a wise way to use this to carry her legacy on through your story. So you are wonderful, Linda. I'm so glad that you called in today. And Linda, Rachel's right.

I think she's preaching. I think you need to hear the message, the sermon, because here's the deal. You pay that debt off, it frees you up to go on more missions trips, to give to missions. You need that out of your life so that you can give more of who you are, and you are fantastic. Linda, thank you so much for calling. What a gift. Use it. This is The Ramsey Show.

You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined in studio by Rachel Cruz. This hour, 888-825-5225 is the number. Our scripture of the day comes from Proverbs 1320. Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. And our quote of the day, Adam Sandler. Fantastic. Adam Sandler quote. I mean, I don't think I've ever had a Sandler quote this is great it's hard to shore with the eagles when you're surrounded by the turkeys that's my best Adam Sandler that's all I got that's back at the guys I don't know if that's any good or not I tried uh and you know what He's right He's right Hard to soar

When you're around the turkeys But hey We're all But we're all But we're all turkeys To a degree Are we Yeah you're right

You know what I think we are Look at me trying to act Like I got it all together We all can't be all eagles Not all the time It's really true There's a humility part

To a life That we all have a level of turkey in us. And you know what? Turkeys are awesome. Why are we banging on turkeys? Turkeys are tasty. They taste great. You know?

They help us take naps. They're fun to draw when you're a kid. You know, you've got the whole nine yards. Folks, I need to probably get my medication. I'm doing Adam Sandler voices, turkey sounds. What is happening? Seattle, Washington is where we go next. We're having fun. Micah is

there. Micah, how can we help? Hey, how are you guys doing? We're having fun. I just tried to impersonate Adam Sandler. We're at a new level, Micah, so good luck to you. I don't know what the advice is going to be. We're not sure what's going to happen, but we're here to help. That's right.

Okay, great. Yes, so I want to give you guys a little context here. So I'm 17 years old, and I'm doing Running Start this year. So I'll only have to do like around three and a half years of college to complete a bachelor's degree. And basically, I'm trying to decide between going to work at Starbucks and doing their online ASU program where they would pay for my college a hundred percent free. And like working there over the years, I would probably

make around like 50 to $60,000 in total. But as a Christian though, I want to go to this private Christian university near my home, and I would probably be able to pay it all off without loans and stuff. So my question kind of is, should I be sort of miserable working at Starbucks and not have as many friends for the years in college, but have a bunch of money to start out with? Or should I enjoy my college experience but not really have much money to start out with, or should I enjoy my college experience but not really have much money to start out with? Well, you know, if you're my son asking me this question, I'm going to go, hey, the fact that you can cash flow college and not go into debt is something you want to do. We're getting the money, Micah.

For a private Christian university, that has to be expensive. Yes, so it's about, so i have over 50 percent of the scholarships um sorry for the tuition so it's sixteen thousand five hundred dollars per year about um so it would be like a total of around fifty seven thousand dollars but basically i've i've been working a little bit so i I have around $7,000 right now. And also, my parents are going to be able to help with that as well. That's right. It's a no-brainer because you really want to do it, and you're not going into debt.

If that were not the case, I'd say, yeah, go bust it at Starbucks and get your education paid for. But you really want to do this. So I see no reason why you wouldn't. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely what I'm wanting to do. All right. Well, you didn't need our permission, but I appreciate the question because you're wanting to know if this is a sound decision. And here's what you were worried about. If I do this, Ken, Rachel, I'm going to come out and I'm not going to have much money, but who cares? You're not in debt and now you can go work. And as a young guy, you're not going to need a bunch of money. You'll

be fine. That's true. That's a good point. All right. So go do it, go enjoy it. And if you change your mind, here's the thing that I, that I want to just say, this is a little soapbox thing. We live in a day and age that if we go to college, because culture has told us, Rachel, that college is the best way to success. That if we go to college and we culture has told us, Rachel, that college is the best way to success, that if we go to college and we get in there and we realize this isn't for me, or we go one route with a major and then we realize, I don't really want to do this, we feel ashamed to just make a change. And I just want to say, be free. It's your life. That's right. That's right. Here's what anybody says. Make the change. Yes.

And by being wise in the decision, which he is, my kid is, I'm like, you're just, you're weighing options. You're actually looking at options versus saying like, this is the only thing I can do.

And so it is true that the college conversation is getting more interesting. I feel like by the, by the day, because we are getting so many calls we did a millionaire theme hour last week with dave and over half the callers never had a college degree you know right so it's uh ask me if i have a college degree do you have a college degree nope i thought you did i thought you went nope nope went to virginia and worked politics college dropout went to work on a campaign you didn didn't graduate from Liberty. Did not graduate.

Because I tasted battle. And then I went back to the classroom and was bored out of my mind. And I left with about. I don't think I knew that, Kenneth. I got about a semester and a half left. And I'm never going to do it. So there you go. A semester and a half left.

Could care less. Could care less. Yeah. Let's go to Sean next in Cleveland, Ohio. Here's to all the non-college grads that aren't losers. Sean, how can we help? Hi, how are you doing? We're having fun.

What's going on? I just finished Financial Peace University with my wife. Congrats. Thank you. Every three months that we've been doing it, we've been over budget. My wife loves Rachel and the way that she explains things. But she doesn't seem to be following them as much as I'd like to.

Just wondering how to get, we have our budget committee meeting tonight. And I want to make sure we're set up to not go over this coming month and try to work that in a way that she understands instead of, you know, me. What ends up being the problem, Sean? What's the, what's the over, like how much are you guys over? A couple, couple grand. A couple grand? Are we just ignoring certain things? We're making now. She has that student loan pause, and I want to attack that as well as the mortgage.

And I guess the student loan thing, I want to wait, like set aside X amount of dollars until they resume it so we can just write a check and be done. But I think she's thinking, oh, it'll be fine. We have money saved. And I just, we can't get on that right. Well, why are you $2,000 over budget? Because our daughters and cheer and competitions that come up, there's all these expenses that go into that. That's a racket.

Extra purchases. Yeah, wonderful wagons coming to play. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you got it. I'm like, it's not even summer yet. So once the money starts being spent in summer, it's going to be a lot more. But luckily we have savings, but I don't want to keep spending savings.

No, yeah, yeah, you got to get even. I don't want you dipping into your savings to fund cheerleading and all that so um tell your wife love her too but we have to focus on the we have to we have to do math and this isn't like a shameful um statement but it's just true it's fifth grade math. Our income is this, our expenses are this, and including giving and saving in that, it needs to equal zero. So we have to make choices, sometimes hard choices, within that income. So if our choice is we want to do competition cheer for the daughter, then other parts of our life are going to have to shrink in order to do that. Or we're going to have to go make some money for it or yeah maybe we make some extra money um but there there has to be you you you guys can't continue

to be in the red because your savings only is going to last you so long so that's not it's not a wise plan so your lifestyles both of you as a family are above what you make which is normal in america that's how people live but we're not talking about normal we're being weird here and so um there's gonna have to be some some hard yeah some hard decisions that you guys as a family and this isn't sean you pointing at her and saying well you were doing this and you know you need to say to what what sean is thinking and sean says Sean is feeling I'm kind of getting frustrated I want to be on the same page I'm you know you got to point it back to you don't point the finger yeah but tell her love her love her but but we have to get the

budget I think we need to cheer give me an s give me an i give me a d give me an e give me an h give me a u give me an s give me a t give me an l give me an E. Give me an H. Give me a U. Give me an S. Give me a T. Give me an L. Give me an E. What does that spell? Side hustle! Go pay for the cheerleading, mama, if you want it in the budget. Whoa! Watch out! Rachel Cruz, great hour. Thank you, James Childs and the team. This is the Ramsey Show.

Hey, it's Rachel Cruz. If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey baby steps, go to ramsaysolutions.com and click the get started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation.

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