The Ramsey Show - App - Should We Cash Out an HSA To Pay Down Debt? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where dad is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, best-selling author, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today, also my daughter.

We'll be answering your questions about your life and your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Anna is with us in Jackson, Mississippi to start off this hour. Hi, Anna. How are you? I'm good. How are y'all?

Better than we deserve. What's up? We have got about $6,700 left in the HSA that we don't contribute to anymore because my husband is at a different employer now. And we wanted to know what your opinion was of taking that money and putting it towards a car loan that we have or keeping that in there for future medical expenses. Well, you're going to pay substantial penalties like cashing out a retirement if you do that, if you take it out. Right. And so I'm not going to give the government 30% of my money. Right.

Well, we just wanted to be sure that that was the right thing to do because we don't contribute to it anymore. We just wanted to see what you had to say. Yeah, I would use it for medical as it comes up and get it cleaned out that way. In the meantime, there's a company that we endorse and I personally use called Health Equity, and you can put mutual funds inside your ESASA and if you want it to work a little harder you can set it in a mutual fund and in my case I have never touched my HSA I've just added to it

every single year and it's become a whole separate investment strategy and so forth and that's what you guys do too right it is and I feel like that that is one area though when we talk about investing that doesn't always come up I feel like people just naturally gravitate towards the the 401k the roth you know all of that which is the first thing you should do absolutely yeah but it is a different vehicle which i don't think a lot of people realize i mean even talking to some of my friends they'll mention the hsa and i'm like well yeah we use that more for investing like wait why did that's for health yeah but you don't have to use it for health if you don't use it it just becomes a a tax deferred growth and you can take it out at 65 with no penalties yep yep and so you'll pay taxes on it but no penalties and if

of course if you use it for medical at any point uh there's no taxes at all on it so it's completely tax-free money for medical so yeah i would leave it in there for medical tax-free money for medical. So, yeah, I would leave it in there for medical. Tax-free money is a lot better than tax-penalized and taxed and penalized. So it's going to reduce it too much. So it's tempting, like it is when you're sitting on an old retirement account, to just speed your debt snowball up, but the cost is just too high. I mean, you're going to pay $2,000 to get four. That's crazy. You know, that's just mathematically crazy all right will's with us

will's in richmond virginia hi will how are you i'm good how are you better than we deserve what's up awesome um so i'm a pastor in the area and we i live in a parsonage and when my wife and i got married actually three years ago today, she moved in with me. Thank you. And she owned a townhouse that she bought not too terribly far. And because we live in the Parsonage, then we pay rent. We decided to try to rent out her townhouse through a rental company so that it was more hands-off. We're not in it to make a ton of money, but to still build that equity as much as we can while we're still renting.

And I've just heard too many horror stories of pastors who aren't building that equity as they're administering. They retire and they have nothing. So we're trying to pay that off earlier. We're in baby steps four, five, and six. And we're just wondering, since this is our only home, should this be a baby step six? Or after we max out our Roth IRAs, since it is an investment property, we're planning to keep it for

a while, can we even add more to it in baby step four as an investment property? Well, I mean, I would stick it in baby step six. I would just see it as your primary residence, even though you guys are renting, obviously, something else right now because of your situation. But, I mean, I would still just see it as your home because it is there. Yeah, just go ahead and knock it. Here's the thing.

Neither one of these answers are in the dumb column. Okay? You're going to pay it off, and you're going to invest. And so none of these answers were just go crazy, okay? So, you know, you're asking the right kinds of questions. You're sniffing around the right thing. But a simple way of looking at it, the parsonage is part of your compensation. You're living there free, quote, unquote, but it's part of your comp plan, really.

And then, as you said, a lot of pastors that have parsonages get to retirement and don't have any money for a house because they've lived in a parsonage their whole career. And that's a really dangerous, scary future if you don't plan around it. So you're very wise to do that. And I completely agree with Rachel. Yeah, let's go ahead and just stick it in baby step six. Treat it like it's your personal residence because it kind of is your future personal residence or the sale of it would be used for your future personal residence someday.

So, yeah, let's just stick it over there and pay it off as quickly as we can. For people that are in that position, would you ever recommend them just selling it? It doesn't hurt. And then keeping that money for a down payment later? You can. That's not a bad thing. If it starts to be a hassle, starts to be a problem, like you mentioned, possible problems with tenants, that kind of thing. If you get into all that, there's nothing wrong with that.

But you pastors out there that have a parsonage, what you have to do is you have to make some kind of a plan to have a place to live at retirement. Right. And that could be paying yourself a house payment into a mutual fund. And you could call that your baby step six. And I'm just going to pay you the equivalent of what would be a house payment into a mutual fund since i don't have a house payment now sure and uh and let that mutual fund be the house purchase fund at retirement idea so it's almost a sinking fund idea we're getting ready but and it's way out there you know it could be a 30-year distant future thing. But still, you can really get yourself in a pinch.

And pastors often do this. They are very generous people generally. They're very kind, very obviously. They're pastoral. You know, they're compassionate. But they don't stop and take care of their own looking out there that way. And God's going to take care of me. For the future, yeah.

Yeah, but God's telling you that in the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil. That's in the Bible. And so wise to store up some choice food and oil so when you need it. And this is the investment plan to do that. So if you're in a parsonage, make some kind of an arrangement, something like paying yourself a house payment into a mutual fund or being in his situation, Will's situation, where you've got a property that you're in a parsonage, make some kind of an arrangement, something like paying yourself a house payment into a mutual fund or being in his situation, Will's situation, where you've got a property that you're paying off,

you're going to use the sale of that property or move into that property even, but more than likely 30 years from now, that townhouse is not going to be where they want to live. More than likely they'll sell that, use the money from that to buy their retirement home. Sure, sure. But that's a good plan.

And pastors have some unusual things, you know, housing allowance as an example. If you're not in a parsonage, there's some unusual things in the taxes. They can opt out of Social Security for their pastoral income. They've got some unusual things in the tax law that they're allowed to do that if you use them properly and you think long-term with them, then it really can add to your wealth-building plan that we want you men and women serving in the pastorate to have. So there you go. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. What are your teens and preteens doing this summer?

If they're business-minded or are wanting some extra cash, the Teen Entrepreneur Toolbox is perfect for them. Best-selling author Anthony O'Neill created this toolbox to walk teens through eight easy, practical steps for starting their own business using our proven plan. Your teens can turn their ideas into a profitable business right from home. Teens love the ready-to-use tools, the interactive app, and of course, the money they earn. And you'll love the parent guide and the conversation starter flashcards that help bring up discussions about money and hard work.

Whether it's mowing lawns or selling handmade goods, the Teen Entrepreneur Toolbox will help your teen turn their ideas into a business. It will also teach them hard work, leadership, responsibility, and self-confidence. Buy the Teen Entrepreneur Toolbox at our online store at DaveRamsey.com or call our Ramsey concierge team athost today she's the author of the New York Times bestseller number one bestseller know yourself know your money discover why you handle money the way you do and what to do about it and also available now is the know yourself money assessment and it's available for couples if you are married

and you take the know yourself money assessment you're going to find out a whole lot of things about yourself and your spouse and you'll be able to look at each other and go oh that's what's wrong with you that's what that's what's wrong with you. That's what your mother did when I took the DISC profile 40 years ago. I come home and I go, this thing completely mailed it. It read my mail. And she's reading it. She's like, uh-huh, uh-huh.

I'm like, isn't that amazing? She said, yeah, that's what's wrong with you. No, that is me. That is me. That's not what's wrong with me. Oh, my gosh. Well, yeah, we love we love assessments i mean from disc or enneagram anything that kind of just like you understand more about yourself and why you do the things you do so obviously that's one of the reasons i wrote the book know yourself

know your money to kind of dig into the money side of that and then this assessment just pairs hand in hand i mean it really is to to be able to walk through and answer questions and something comes out in this pdf and you're like what yes that's it that's it that's it that's it that's her so great yep yeah the uh know yourself money assessment for couples it's very inexpensive jump online at ramsey solutions check it out you're going to enjoy it um socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living and uh so there's something i don't know because we're into transformation around here and into hope you know whether it's ken coleman or whether it's us on the money side or george or whoever we're always talking about what makes people tick and what

makes us what makes ourselves tick john deloney's like the ultimate right he's going to unpack more crap about you than you even wanted to know right and so uh but you know what makes you tick what caused you to do that what made why you react that? Why did I react that? And even when we're taking calls with you guys here on the air, you know, this whole human-animal thing is fun. It's just fun. Know Yourself Money Assessment for Couples. Check it out at RamseySolutions.com.

Jeremiah is with us. He is in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Hi, Jeremiah. How are you? I'm doing well. How aboutville, North Carolina. Hi, Jeremiah. How are you? I'm doing well. How about yourself, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right. So to kind of tell you where I'm at right now, I'm 22 and currently serving in the military. Thank you for your service.

Oh, thank you. I have about a year left on my contract, and I'm planning on attending school next year once I get out using my GI Bill. I have about $1,000 saved up in an emergency fund as well as three to six months of expenses and have no outstanding debt. I got about $50,000 put into a mutual fund, and with little expenses after I have budgeted for the month, currently I'm putting that money that's left over towards that mutual fund. But my question for you is, do I continue to keep putting money into that mutual fund, or is there a better alternative that I could be putting my money towards, like right now?

I mean, for right now, Jeremiah, I mean, the mutual fund, obviously it's a great place to be putting everything. We will say when you put money in the markets to know that there's going to be probably a five-year gap there just to know because the markets will go up and down. So doing short-term savings, for instance, this is why we don't advise putting your emergency fund in a mutual fund because you're like, hey, I need to get it to it quickly. And who knows what the market's going to do. But if you don't have a purchase that you have in the next five years, if there's something, a house or college, it's something that's coming up. I mean, the mutual fund is still a great spot to be putting that money because it's sitting there and growing. And it's a great insurance policy to say, okay, you've got the military and you've got the GI benefit for tuition.

You've also got a stipend coming, right? Yes. They'll give you what, $1,200 a month or something? Roughly. Yeah. And so you've got that stipend coming. And if you don't manage to live off the stipend and you don't, the GI bill doesn't cover everything, then you don't accidentally wander into a student loan debt. And so that's your backstop to make sure no student loan debt when you graduate. What are you going to study? Something in business or finance. I haven't really picked a specific area yet, but that's the direction that I'm looking more towards my career.

Well, you're wise beyond your years. You really have your act together i mean you got 50 000 bucks you've served in the military you're 22 you've got a fully funded emergency fund and no debt i take it right uh no no debt yeah where'd you learn all this um actually it started in high school but my mom my mom started me pretty young but they ran me oh okay so you're a financial peace baby. Yes. I actually got to see you in Louisville. Okay.

When you were just a kid. Just a little kiddo. Just wet behind the ears. So you're something else, man. I'm proud of you. I know your mom is. That's very impressive. Very impressive.

A lot of people wish their 22-year-old sounded like you. And it's pretty impressive. Very well done. You're going to be in great shape. And just use that $50,000 as a backstop. If you don't touch it, which is the preference, right, and you get out, then Rachel's right. It will have sat there and grown for five years or four years. And you'll be able to use it for a great down payment on your first house.

And you're going to be in really, really good shape because that $50,000 is probably going to be $75,000 or $80,000 by the time you get there. That's awesome. So very good stuff. Michael's with us michael is in bozeman montana hey michael how are you i'm doing well dave good how can we help well we are retiring and we've read your books and have been able to get debt free and we've we've paid for our building, for our office, and our home, and our cars. They're all debt-free. And we're just wondering if we should lease out our office building or sell it because prices are pretty high right now for an office building,

and we don't know which way we should go, whether we should lease it and use the lease as retirement income or sell it and put that into our mutual fund and use that for our retirement. It just depends on what you want as an investment. Both ideas are great ideas. I'm a real estate guy, so Rachel's husband, Winston, runs all our real estate, and he and I for sure would keep it. But we like it. We like real estate. I mean, the office we moved out of to move into the new headquarters here two years ago,

we've leased it up, and it's a wonderful asset now producing a great income. And so if you can do that and you don't mind dealing with real estate, real estate has a much higher rate of return overall if it's well managed and a good piece of real estate than mutual funds will, but it's also got a lot higher hassle factor. Yeah, that's the thing we're concerned about because right now inflation has, well, building prices are inflated much more than we think they should be. And so it's selling.

Yeah, I don't think you're going to see. I don't think you're going to see. You may see the rate of value increase slow down, but I don't think you're going to see a retreat unless there's some kind of structural problem with the Bozeman, Montana particular economy. And I'm not aware of one of those i think that you know it's a great little town and i don't see i would think you ought to be able to release that and keep it okay but but i mean it's it's if i were but if not if you're not real estate people okay if you hate it and you dread it yeah sell it yeah there's no it's no it's no fun to own real estate i mean uh tenants are you know it's sell it. Yeah, it's no fun to own real estate. I mean, tenants are, you know,

it's a freaking reality show sometimes. If we, I mean, we're going to, we're hoping in part of our retirement to be out of the country for a couple of years, so we'd have to have a management company to run the building, and that's part of our laundry. That's an additional expense, so we don't know how much we'd be making there.

Well, run some numbers on it. Have a property management firm or a commercial real estate person in the area run some numbers. Okay, if you lease it out on this, what you're looking for is obviously your gross potential rent, which is if it's full all the time, which never happens, minus a vacancy rate, minus your projected expenses. It's a fairly easy budget to pro forma to run, equals what's called NOI, net operating income. And you look at that and you say, that's how much money I'm going to make. Plus, it's going to go up in value. Plus, I get to shelter that by depreciating the building.

And so there's three places you get a return. Those three added together are called your internal rate of return in real estate. And my internal rates of return are north of 15 to 17 percent on most of our properties. Get a bunch of residential single-family houses you're going to be out of the country managing. I probably would sell them off. But commercial is a lot less drama and a lot more stable stream of income. We'll be right back. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, and my daughter is my co-host today. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Ted and Laura are with us. Hey, guys, how are you?

Doing great. Doing well. Good, good. So, where do you guys live? We live in the Austin, Texas area. Awesome. Very cool. Good, good. So, where do you guys live? We live in the Austin, Texas area. Awesome. Very cool. Welcome to Nashville.

And here to do a debt-free scream, how much have you paid off? $223,550. Whoa. $223,550. How long did that take? 27 months. 27 months? Yes, sir. Very months? Yes, sir.

Very cool. Good. Good night. And what was your range of income during that time? $155 up to $225. Way to go, guys. Wow. What do you guys do for a living?

I work in information security for a large health care company. Oh, that's horrible. That's a wonderful career right now i'm a cpa you're a cpa awesome man you guys got two great careers very well done no wonder you're making so much money so what kind of debt was this 224 000 it's our mortgage you paid off your house i'm looking at weird people proud of it wow look at you guys so what inspired you to do this well um we took fpu several years ago in uh 2014 uh just to get on the same page with money we didn't really have any big uh debts or anything but after we got on the same page we just started working the baby steps four five and

six didn't really think about the mortgage at that time at all. And then we had a huge blow up in our marriage, big crisis. And fortunately, God is so faithful and brought us through that time. And afterwards, we sat down and wanted to refocus our obedience on the Lord and what he wanted for us. And part of that was how can we honor him with our finances? And so before that time, we had a lot of discontentment kind of with the cost of living in the area that we live. We bought our house when we were 24 years old and the cost of living had continued to increase. And our income hadn't increased to match that. So we had kind of a lot of just discontentment leading up to that point with the cost of living.

And then after God had brought us through our marriage crisis, we had kind of a different perspective, different outlook on life, kind of adjusted our priorities. And now we had a perspective of gratitude and thankfulness. And let's see, we wanted to just honor God and be good stewards of the money that we did have that God had blessed us with. So we became faithful givers, tithing and supporting a few missionary families. In our church. In our church. Yeah, we became more connected in our community, our local church community, and our local community. What church do you go to?

We go to Hill Country Bible Church in Austin, Texas. Oh, yeah. Our church just did a debt-free screen for paying off the debt there. Yeah. So they did theirs last week. We're doing ours this week. I love it. Very, very cool.

Well, that's perfect. Yeah. Very, very cool. Well, that's perfect. Yeah, so this sounds like a crisis that caused you to flip your whole spiritual life on its head to where you said, okay, God, you're going to become the Lord of everything, of our marriage, our kids, our money, and that flipped your perspective is what it sounds like. That's right we had uh we got we totally got off of social media so we could focus on getting connected with our local community we had uh we had two more children since that time to bring the total to five kids now well why not yeah so god god has blessed us and just uh that backdrop, we had a vision of paying off our mortgage before we turned

40. And that vision required us to have faith and trust and rely on God to do that. Because at the time we had that vision, it wasn't feasible on paper for that to happen based on the amount of extra money that we had to aggressively pay off our mortgage at that time. And we're standing here today uh 39 years old touchdown what's this house worth eight hundred thousand dollars the market may be slightly inflated but

i'm putting it on paper i'm just saying that makes you guys into the millionaire status as well then. That's incredible. Because you've got to have some retirement going, I'm sure. Way to go. What happened in those two years though? Because you said on paper it wasn't feasible, but were there raises that happened? What cool things happened in your story in those 24 months to make it happen?

So I worked part-time. My part-time suddenly looked a lot closer to full-time. So I really cranked it up. Ted got a bonus. And really, you rarely say this, but the government helped us. They started handing out money. I heard about that. But not just that.

They also started feeding our children two meals a day, five days a week. And let me tell you, when you have that many kids, that really cuts down on the groceries. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. That's a good thing. Wow. Very good, you guys.

So proud of you. What a great transformation. I mean, paying off the house is awesome. Paying off the house and having all the life change that you guys have had is even, that's the best. Yeah. That's what really matters. This is just icing on the cake.

Yeah. Just shows the faithfulness of the Lord. Yeah, amen. Do you feel like you guys as a team, because I'm sure the crisis brought you guys to rock bottom is what it sounds like, and you kind of have this whole new viewpoint on marriage, right? Working together and the messiness of it all. Did that help you?

Do you think working as a team, as a couple? Yeah, it definitely helped us build momentum and be on the same page and just continue together yeah refocus on a goal in obedience together was was really great yeah it's been great for every marriage yes yes absolutely how's it feel feels like freedom yeah feels amazing no house payment no payments at all you don't have any payments y'all know that you have only payment in the world yeah i don't have any payments. You all know that? You don't have payment in the world. Yeah, I don't have to think about what's in the account at the end of the month because there are no bills at the beginning of the month. I live in an $800,000 house and it's paid for.

Go out and dance in the backyard. I love it. I'm so proud of you all. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Being on the same page. Being in obedience to the Lord. Tithing. I mean, if you are walking together with God,

with your finances, I mean, nothing is impossible. I mean, our numbers are pretty extreme, and it's only because we're walking with the Lord. He made it happen. Yeah, you knocked this out amazingly fast once you decided to lean into it. Wow.

Very cool. 39 years old, weird people. Alright, you brought the kiddos with you. Bring them up on stage. What are their names and ages? Okay, here they come. We have Kate. She's 11. We have Hannah is 9.

Oh, she's cute. Abigail is 7. Lindsay is 3. And the baby Ty here is four months. Oh, it's the boy. Oh, there he is. Yeah. All right.

Oh, sweet. So the little guy makes the scene here at the end. That's right. He's going to grow up in a house full of sisters. I love that. Very cool. Very cool. This is awesome, guys.

What a great family. You guys are amazing. We're so proud of you. We've got a copy of The Legacy Journey for you. That's the next chapter in your story. You've changed your family tree in so many ways in this story. The backstory must be absolutely incredible. And just so proud of y'all. You're heroes. You took control and you relinquished control to the Lord and set this stuff out front. So very, very well done. Also a copy of the Total Money Makeover to give away to someone so you can pay it forward and help get their journey started.

Big Ty's ready to do his scream. All right, Ted and Laura, Kate, Hannah, Abigail, Lindsay, and Ty. $224,000 paid off in 27 months. House and everything. Making $155,5 to $225. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

We're debt-free! Oh, my. Wow. So precious. Oh, I know. I could feel Laura was like, like all right let's do this let's do this there's time oh my gosh so fun you guys so quick before nap time i know i got that girl i know that routine i know that routine it's awesome so so great i've seen it at my kitchen table. It's wonderful. Oh, how fun.

This is The Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Thank you. bestselling author, New York Times bestselling author. The latest book is called Know Yourself, Know Your Money, along with the Know Yourself Money Assessment for Couples. And on top of that, she's my co-host and my daughter. But on top of that, we have the, speaking of their marriage, it made me think, and I ran out of time to get their debt-free scream into that segment, but they're talking about their marriage went through a metamorphosis, a transformation, and that led them to flip on a more spiritual, noble view of money. Yes. Handling God's money rather than handling our own.

And they had already been doing smart things, but their reasons behind it became more theological than financial. But we've got the Marriage and Money event coming up. Yes. Money and Marriage. Money and Marriage, yep. Coming up. On next Friday night. Next Friday?

Yes. Okay. So a little over a week now. God snuck up on me. A little over a week now, yes. You and John Deloney. Yes. So we'll be doing it together.

We tag teamed it last. This will be our second that we did. And our first one, I not gonna lie you guys it's pretty fun it's pretty fun we had you and deloney neither one of you neither one of you are short on humor because it's a it's a live stream so you're watching it from your home right and usually with with that kind of stuff people it's in and out this was i think the large the longest viewed viewed of any ramsey live stream event i'm not going to brag. I'm not going to brag. That was the stats that they gave us, which means it's really fun,

and it's really entertaining, really exciting, and it's an important topic, though, because when you dive into money and marriage, there's a lot of messiness. There's obviously a lot of conflict and fighting, but when you can get above it and a little bit below it, too,

just to say, okay, here's the pieces of what makes a marriage whole and healthy and how we can attack this subject as a team. It's huge. Yeah. Well, they're just tied together all the time. If you're married, it's money and marriage. I mean, ever since I've been doing this, I thought I was teaching money and people kept saying, you healed our marriage. And I went, I didn't do anything to your marriage.

Yes. Just confused. And then it turns out we did yeah you know and then people would come in and say well i changed my marriage like that couple and it made us refocus on our money yes and so it can go it's chicken and egg it can go either direction but you got to have both the chicken and the egg i mean you got to have both of them working together to really have a high quality marriage and a high quality wealth building thing very few horrible marriages build wealth uh very few people uh that are horrible at building wealth uh and are just chaotic there that that chaos doesn't run over the irresponsibility doesn't run over into their marriage yep yep and so it just it the things are tied to gather open phones at 888-825-5225

janine is in abilene texas hi janine how are you hey i am so glad to hear your voice my friend and rachel gosh you guys are phenomenal it's amazing to to hear your ads and all the stuff that you offer. I've been watching you and listening to you for a few years. I'm in kind of a sad sack situation. I can say, yippee, I'm debt free. I'm totally debt free. But I'm in a situation where I'm Farmer Janine from Abilene, but I got no money. And I'm 61 years old, and i'm getting ready to sell out i'm dealing with the toxic situation after my father's death who was my farm partner and um you know our tractor got sold off for parts

so um my heart's not in it here anymore and And what I make from this place, which looks like around, I don't know, $400,000, I'm going to put into the next place I go to. And I think for about half of that, maybe just maybe I'll find someone who has that love in their heart that needs to move on somewhere else. And I can find some place that I can still be the farmer, still make those grasses and meadows and the love that God gave us, and walk forward from there. But I'm kind of trying to, I'm overwhelmed.

I mean, this is like a 20-some-odd-year move. It's part industrial, part just personal. And, you know, I'm going through my house. I've done a lot of the sad, sad things I've had to do. The one thing I got from my father's life was a nasty note from my mother with a broken hammer and a bow tied around it. And I'm still grateful for that hammer. You know...

So what is it we can best help you with today? Well, what I want to do, you know, I've been watching recently financial peace cash flow planning. Like I said, I have no doubt everything's paid for. I have an old truck, but it works like a charm. You know, I'll take good care of it. And everything I have here is paid for. So my thing is, how do I best protect my assets and make that work for me walking forward? Because what I'm going to do is I'm going to try and find, as much as I love my

church here, that's probably the only thing that I'll miss right now, is that I just want to walk forward and into a new community. I've already kind of figured out the direction I want to go. It was a really odd move to say, I have to move away from toxic into something better. And I figure about half of that is probably what i'm going to need to make a new start and then that other half has to go into the rest of my life you know let me let me tell you let me tell you what i'm hearing okay yep um an amazing amount of the roots of your life are all being pulled up at once.

Oh, yeah. And the loss of your dad. And I'll say it will rank in place for a while. The loss of the dream that was you were going to be on this farm until. Yeah, the heart of it. The loss of what should have been with family and isn't because they aren't. And there's just a whole lot of pain in your voice, honey. And that doesn't make you a bad person.

That just means that's what's happened. And that just means you're human. And so, yeah, I think what's going to be really important is for you to move slowly in your future moves to give yourself some time to heal because you're pulling this up by the roots. Yep. And then you're going to move it over here and replant it. And we've got to make sure it takes hold before we start going crazy over here. So I don't want you to make a bunch of big investment decisions that are permanent. I want you to move slow and give yourself some room to cry.

Because if I were in your shoes and you've lost your dad, the dream of the farm, everything that the farm represented, the connectivity to your church, the connectivity to the community, the toxic family members that shouldn't have been but are, they're not filling their role properly. And so you're going to have to go over here and set some new relationships and as dr john deloney talks about the way you overcome trauma is grief the way you overcome trauma is community and you you need a lot of room to grieve before you start making a bunch of investment decisions. You're planning with a brain that's foggy right now. And that doesn't mean you're inept.

It doesn't mean you're not capable. It means right now you are hurting a lot. That's what I'm hearing. Oh, you can, I mean, yeah, I think everyone listening right now can hear that in her voice. And there's an urgency too, Janine. So I think that the advice, obviously, to slow down, slow down. It's going to be really wise because we do find people that are in these big transition periods that come from tragedy can make really poor financial decisions.

Again, not because you're unintelligent, but because you're literally just making these on the go with a foggy brain. So slowing down and then finding, okay, what is my dream? You said farming is something you love. So to have a goal maybe in 24 months, in 12 months, to slowly purchase it. I'm okay if you don't buy a farm and you don't do any investing for a year and a half. And you just move to the new community and just spend some time weeping spend some time building new friendships and new community at your new church spend some time getting to know the dirt in the area before you buy dirt spend some time

slow down a little bit give your toe give yourself a little wiggle room here to where then when you're telling the story, it doesn't go in circles. And that means you know the fog is lifted. But we all tell stories in circles when we're freaked. And we all have been there, honey. We all know how you feel. So I'll be praying for you. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life?

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