The Ramsey Show - App - Should We Pay Off Our House Right Now? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

George Kamel & Ken Coleman answer your questions and discuss: "Pay off the house early if we're moving soon?" "How do I adjust my withholding to not pay taxes?" from the blog: What You May Be Missing by Getting a Large Refund, How to budget in retirement, Working a job where you're on call 24/7, Knowing how much term life insurance you need, from the blog: What Is Term Life Insurance? 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

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm Ramsey personality, George Campbell, joined by my colleague, Ken Coleman, this hour. And the number to call is 888-825-5225. We're here to help you to take your calls,

to help you with that next step in your financial journey, your journey through work and career and purpose, you name it. Let's get to the phone lines. Maggie joins us up first in Chicago. Maggie, welcome to the show. Hi, how are you guys? We're doing great. How can we help?

So we are about 45 minutes west of Chicago. So we're in the suburbs. And it's really nice here. I've lived here my whole life. But Illinois is not really going in the direction that we want it to. So we are thinking that potentially after our kids go off to college, we would be moving out of state. My son, my older son is 14. My younger one is nine. So about nine more years until the last one leaves. We have eight more years about to pay off the house with what we've been doing now. And so I'm just kind of wondering if that

would still be a good idea to continue to pay off the house if we kind of see an end in sight where we might be moving and if there's something we should do with that money instead. Well, if I'm in your shoes and that's how we answer calls on this show, I am putting that all towards the house and my goal would be to have that thing paid off before we move. Because what it really becomes is a forced savings plan. Okay. And if we do other things with that money,

it kind of gets a little squishy and it could disappear. We could invest it and lose some of that. And so I love having this goal of, man, what if we could be kind of empty nesters with no mortgage payment? And then if we want to move, what if we could be kind of empty nesters with no mortgage payment? And then if we want to move, what if we could pay cash for that next house? Because we don't have a mortgage. So all of that equity isn't disappearing. It's staying in your house when you go to sell it. And I want to ask a question on this. Are you staying because you don't want

to uproot the kids? Because you clearly don't want to be in Illinois. I thought you really suppressed your real feelings pretty well and don't want to put you on the spot. It's almost a decade of staying there. No, no, you know, we love our town. I grew up here. My husband was from not too far away. My parents live here. We love it, but we've started seeing, I don't want to say it's a lot of crime, but we're starting to see some, you know, like car thefts and stuff from the city or from Rockford. These kind of groups of people will come out, release people into neighborhoods, get what they can, and then go back. So, you know, again, in no way are we in a bad town at all.

It's actually, you know, a pretty affluent town. But, you know, the way that Illinois is dealing with crime and things, there's not really any penalties for things. So, you know, just maybe being a little jumping the gun a little bit on, you know, what's good, what this is going to look like in eight to 10 years. You know, maybe, maybe, you know, my nightmares are not actually going to come true, but you know, just thinking long-term, I didn't know if it would be better to kind of

pile up that cash, not knowing if, you know, we owe about $177 on the house now, it's probably worth just a little under $400. So if it would be better to, you know, if the market were to go down in that amount of time and it's not worth as much, you know, if we would be better kind of piling up that cash and just having that. I was just curious because I was going to challenge your thinking, but I think now hearing the way you're responding, I agree with George and I want to make sure you heard what he said. When he said forced savings, he's absolutely spot on because you just said, well, I was wondering if we just pile up the cash. Piling up the cash into your greatest asset, which is your home in a very good area outside of a major city, is not risky. That is

piling up cash. So I agree with George. I would do that because it doesn't sound like to me that you're super convicted yet. It sounds to me like you're worried, and worried is what leads to some conviction down the line. But right now, I would just say you're worried, and I think George's advice is spot on. That's not a risky move or a silly move in any way. Are you guys at a place, Maggie, to throw extra on the house? Do you guys have any debt? Do you have an emergency fund? Yeah, we don't have any debt.

We were, in the last two years, we had a refinance. We're at like 2.625 now interest rate. And we had, actually, my dad was sick at the time last spring, so I was driving him back and forth to Mayo Clinic a lot. And on one of those times, my very old Honda Odyssey kind of gave up on me. So we ended up having to get a car a little bit sooner than we thought we were going to, so I could keep making those trips. And we decided to pay cash for it and then just pay ourselves back in, you know, six to eight months that followed. So now that we're, we basically pay everything with my husband's income and then I'm a building substitute teacher. So I don't really make anything, you know, like maybe $18,000, $20,000 a year.

How many hours a week are you doing, or rather, how many hours a month are you subbing? I work five days a week so it's for the elementary school that my son's at so i just go every day and then i do whatever they need me to do but i don't get sick days i don't get days you know like it's an institute day today hey can i can i can i encourage and challenge you you can be making a good bit more money with your skill set and experience online with doing online teaching. That world has exploded. My wife's got a dear friend back in Atlanta area who is a full-time high school teacher but makes really good money teaching Spanish in her particular skill set

online for adults. I just think you ought to be looking at the world of online teaching and tutoring because you're spending a lot of time, five days a week, for very little return. And the reason I'm challenging you on this is your particular skill set and experience, the world has changed dramatically, and I think you could make a good bit more. Oh, I know, and I don't want to change with it. That's my problem. Well, okay, and that's fine. I'm a high school English teacher.

I get it. Oh, where are all of our VCI's that I used to use? Right. We're kind of, you know, I was home for 13 years, so I'm kind of like, you know, entering back into it. But, no, I totally agree with what you're saying. Here's my point. We pay off that house faster. We pay off the house faster if you dabble in that a little bit.

But again, you've got to make the call. I just wanted to challenge you because it speeds everything up. More income. I was actually thinking about it for the summer, doing something like that, or at least tutoring for it. What is your household income with you bringing in the extra $20,000? What's the total household income now? Probably like $120,000.

I think my husband's right around $100,000. He's salary, but he can get some overtime so he does that from time to time um and then like i said but we've kind of since we got married it's always we want to live on one income and then whatever the extra is either you know towards the house or vacation or whatever that's a great goal his his income you know he's fully funding the um his yeah obviously the insurance and the 401k and all that. So you guys are investing 15%. Are you putting some money away for the kids' college? Yeah, we'll end up with about $100,000 per kid.

Awesome. You guys are doing so great. I'm proud of you. That's fantastic. And I would set a goal with your husband. Yeah, he's more on the page of... My parents are divorced. My mom was on the side of pay after house as soon as possible.

She did. So when my stepdad, who we were taking back and forth, he actually passed away this fall. So, you know, she's feeling like it was good that they got the house paid off and all that. My dad on the other side is where he's like, you have a really low interest. And he kind of has my husband on that side. I'm taking mom's wisdom on this one, Maggie. No one has called in the show saying, I regret paying off my house. I hate having all this extra money. What do I do? It's a great feeling psychologically, and it's going to set you

guys up financially. So we're rooting for you on whatever's next. Thank you so much for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Ken Coleman this hour. The number to call, 888-825-5225. All right, folks, a lot of you have questions about taxes, and we get it. Taxes are confusing. So to help you get a better handle on them, let's unpack a question from one of our listeners. Here's what they asked. I want to avoid overpaying taxes each month. What do I need to change with my paycheck? This is a great question because Ken, you're all about helping people make more money. And this is one of the easiest life hacks to make more money. You've been given the government an interest-free loan. Let's stop that. And so here's what we do. We want to make that

money work for you instead of Uncle Sam and waiting to get your money back in the form of a tax refund. So there's two simple ways to figure this out. Number one, if nothing has changed in your tax situation, take your refund amount or the amount you owed last year and divide it by 12. That's how much more or less you want taken out of your paycheck each month. So for round numbers, Ken, let's say you got a $1,200 refund. Well, that means you were overpaying by a hundred bucks every single month for an entire year. So if your tax situation has changed, you can use tax software to do a fake tax return to kind of crunch the numbers here. And that will show you if you're paying too much or too little, and you can do that quick paycheck math again to figure out that

Goldilocks spot. And the next step is to then get with your HR team, with your employer and fill out a new W-4. That is the form you want to change to make sure you're not over or underpaying on your taxes anymore. So if you want more tax tips and software that can help you file with confidence, go to ramseysolutions.com slash smart tax. That's Ramsey Smart Tax. It'll guide you through our e-filing with low upfront pricing, no hidden fees like the other guys. Just go to ramseysolutions.com slash smart tax. All right, let's go to the phones.

Dan joins us up next in Fort Worth. Dan, welcome to the show. Thank you. And just following on, I want to say I just used your tax software this year first time, and it worked great. Awesome. And I used a premium, and I called, got right through, and got answers. That's awesome to hear.

We couldn't have asked for a better plug, so thank you for that, Dan. Yeah, well, see, I just retired, and so I got several of those papers for transferring money out of my company ira uh 401k so i very nice all of that tell us about uh real quick tell us what you retired from how long were you working in that field tell us the the details there i've had one and only one job and i worked in the you want to know the company name or just no you don't have to. It's up to you. I'm just curious. Well, I'm happy to say it's been a good company, but I worked in the...

I'm a software engineer, and I worked for a company that builds aircraft. Nice. Does it start with a B? No. How many years were you in the role? 37. 37 years. How long ago were you in the role? 37.

37 years. How long ago did you retire? Last July. All right. Are you enjoying it? Yes, I am. Very much so. How old are you?

I just turned 60 last month. Oh. 60 years young, man. I couldn't make it. That was my goal to get to 60 man. I couldn't make it. That was my goal to get to 60 and I couldn't do it. Well, 37 years is a heck of a career. Well done. Well, well done. How can we help today? They treated me very well and I'm pretty set financially, but that gets to my question, which is I'm so used to budgeting based on my income and using the EveryDollar app and not used to spending savings.

So this is a big mind shift for me. So I've got a pension of $5,200 a month. And then I'm pulling. I just now started pulling from my savings. And so the question is, am I pulling enough, not enough? We can live on what I'm pulling out, but this also gets into how do you do for, do you still do a sinking fund?

It's now spending savings instead of income. And we've been so used to- When you say savings, Dan, are you're, it's now spending savings instead of income. And we've been so used to- When you say savings, Dan, are you talking about your nest egg actually pulling from investment accounts, withdrawing? Yes. Okay. So not a general savings account. We're talking about, I'm utilizing my nest egg. Well, how much is in the nest egg? Okay. The nest egg is 1.4 million. Awesome. Yeah. And how much are you pulling out? We pulled out, we moved out of the taxable into the non, out of the tax-free,

pulled out so that I would get $3,000 a month for this year. So basically $2,000 a week, which we can easily live on and do. We've lowered our giving based on our income and the only major up is our premiums for medical until we hit $65,000 and that's $1,600

a month. So it comes down to when she asks like, hey, I'd like to get a new refrigerator, I'm not used to saying we're going to have to wait a month or two because we used to have a cash flow. And now that I get to decide my own cash flow, I don't know how to decide. And do I leave the big amount in the nest egg and only pull out, like, if I need a new car, which I don't plan on, when that happens? Or do I start taking out of what I'm pulling out monthly and let it build in this little sinking fund? I think you take what you need at the time that you need it.

And so you have your pension money that's coming in. That's $5,200, you said? Yeah, it's wonderful. So that's great. So how much do you need on top of that to cover your monthly expenses because i assume and hope you guys are doing a monthly budget where you're saying here's our expenses for the month including the luxuries you guys should be enjoying this money now and we are it's more of i need the permission to it's the do i put pull pull more to travel more yes which i just got hit it's like oh the house insurance went up and i hadn't allocated enough and i could but i'm used to just being able oh it's i had a lot of leeway in my budget every month

so we're we're adjusting things now because we don't have the same situation we did pre-retirement. So we have to adjust to our new lifestyle and what it entails. But you can create a cash flow from these investments. And so the key is to look at these numbers and go, all right, I have $1.4 million. If I withdraw 3% or 4% a year, that should help that money stay at $1.4 million or more. Here's what I'm not sure on. George asked you, and I don't think we got an answer. Does the $5,200 a month cover your living expenses? Well, it would not.

So how much more do you need, above and beyond that, just to cover the four walls and bills? bills you guys have a mortgage no okay we're we're debt free so what is the 5200 going towards at this point because it feels like that would be enough to cover bare bones expenses well out of the 5200 1600 goes to uh medical insurance okay now i have an hsa that we're using now to spend for the medical bills. We have a very generous food budget, which does eating out, groceries, and so that's $1,000 a month there. We have our giving. It's spread out. It's all in the budget. I believe you. So on top of the $5,200, you're saying I need about $3,000 on top of that?

Yeah. Okay. So it's about $8,000. So you're taking out about $36,000 a year from your nest egg is what I'm hearing. Yeah. And I'm thinking the question is, should I be taking more for potentials so that I don't... I think you're being conservative. Or what out of the nest egg is where I can just say, we want to take a big trip and take it out and not do it like I do every... save every month for it.

Yeah, that's totally fine. If you want to take 10,000 out... You've not touched. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted listening to you think through it. Here's totally fine. If you want to take $10,000 out, you've not touched. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted listening to you think through it. Here's the deal. You want to go on a big trip? I overthink things.

I'm an engineer. I know, and we're trying to set you free. Set your budget up the way you want to do it with the extra $3,000 a month to go above and beyond the pension. And when you want to go on a big trip to Greece with mama, pull it out of the retirement fund and pay for it. Don't save it every month. It's going to be fine. What you need to do is work with a SmartVestor Pro and crunch the numbers because right now it's all kind of a wish. And I think, and I hope the SmartVestor Pro will show you how these numbers run out and show you, okay, if you take 4% out a year, max, your money should last you

till 100 and beyond. And that will free you to spend with no remorse and with intentionality, my friend. So go to ramsaysolutions.com and connect with a SmartVestor Pro. You're doing great, man. Enjoy it. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined this hour by Ken Coleman. The number to call, 888-825-5225. Before we get to the phone lines, let's get to our question of the day, which comes from Joe in the official Ken Coleman community on Facebook. I always appreciate people dropping questions in there. You love the official communities, don't you?

I don't like the unofficial ones, that's for sure. So here's what Joe wants to know from Ken. Ken, what are your thoughts on a career that has a schedule of 8 to 5 Monday through Friday but requires you to be on call 24-7, 365? Well, you better love it. I mean, you better really love it because this description here says no boundaries. Now that's just the way a lot of jobs are and I get it. But if you don't love that work and what I mean by that is, is really enjoy, let's call it 75% of your day, if you don't enjoy it, then what's going to happen is

that becomes so wearing on you because you never feel like you can turn it off. But if it is a high level of enjoyment, as you know, I call that passion. And if it is in your producing results that motivate you and you go, you know what? I'm going to have to make sure that I'm taking all of my vacation days. I'm going to have to make sure that I am truly recreating myself on my weekends. You're going to be very, very specifically take care of you. If not, you will burn out in a role like that because you have no boundaries. So you better love it.

You better care deeply about the results So you better love it. You better care deeply about the results and you better take care of yourself. If you don't, it's not a good idea. I agree. And I do wonder if this is a hypothetical. I don't know how many roles are truly 24, 7, 365, even if you're a surgeon on call. Well, actually you might be on call for two weeks at a time or something. Fair, but you might be surprised at a time or something versus fair but you might be surprised like if you're a plumber or you're a you know even in a trade job situation in emergency situations uh i know a lot of hvac guys that they're on call and and they could get a call and depending on how the business wants to operate and how they want to serve their customers yeah and by the way i love those dudes i've had one of those show up at eight up at eight o'clock on a July summer night in Nashville. Yay, yay, yay. I've had one show up

at 2 a.m. after my roof was leaking from an ice dam. Yeah. So that's the idea. It doesn't mean you're always on, but you are on call and you just have to deal with that. And you know what? We were talking about this earlier. You know, I'm always trying to help people win in their work life. And I was telling you that, you know, I've realized that not everybody's going to get what I talk about because not everybody wants to put in the hustle. They just don't. And I think we have to understand this, that like not everybody is wired for that kind of an on-call mentality. Some people can handle it fine, but other people are stressed out of their mind and anxious. So you've got to know yourself above and beyond the other classifications. Self-awareness is key.

That's a good reminder there. Thanks for the question, Joe. Appreciate all of you in the official Ken Coleman community. You can find that on Facebook if you want to jump into that conversation. By the way, before we get back to the funds, if you want to make more money and you don't feel you're making enough, I'm your guy. I'm on call right now. Right now.

He's here. Phone lines are open. So many people feel like they just aren't making enough. And I'm telling you, we are sitting right now in a job economy. Well, it's one of the biggest complaints, Ken. They're going, Ken, the wages have stagnated. How can anyone survive the prices of eggs? And you're going, well, you can make more. Well, wages have not stagnated, which is why everything costs more. But saying the word stagnated makes us feel good. Well, you like to

say it because you like a good word. Yeah. All right. Back to the phones we go. All right. We're going to go to Kyle in New York City. Kyle, my friend, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help today? So I have a question. First of all, I'm 26 years old, and I just have a question on term life insurance. I don't know if I should do 10, 20, 30 years. Basically, I don't know if I should do a 30-year now just because I'm young,

and obviously it's going to be a lot cheaper. But then I'm afraid I'd be hammered with a crazy price once I'm like 56 or if it's better to do like a 10 now and then a 30 later on. So then it brings me to like I'm 66. It's a great question. So are you single? No, I actually just got married. Oh, wonderful. Congratulations. That's exciting. Thank you. So we generally recommend anywhere from 10 to 20 years with term life insurance. And here's why. If you follow the Ramsey plan, and I'm talking all in, not ish, here's how this would play out. You would get a 15-year fixed rate mortgage eventually in the next few years, potentially, right? Yep.

Once you're debt-free with a fully funded emergency fund. And so think about that. If you guys have kids, let's say in the next five years, is that a reasonable assumption if you do want kids? Yes, definitely. And so 20 years from now, 25 years from now, the kids are out of the house, you have a paid-for house,

and you've been investing for 25 years, 15% of your income, and then even beyond that, once you have the house paid off. And so that would cause you to become what we call self-insured, where if something happened to you, God forbid, your wife's going to be okay. She's got a million dollars in the bank. She's got very little expenses. She's going to be okay. So the point of term life insurance is not to have it until the day you die. Right. And so that's what I would do. Get 10 to 12 times your income. And as your income goes up, you can increase that. Some people get a new policy in place and cancel the old one. Sometimes

it makes sense to increase the ones you got. Some people do a ladder strategy where they may, you know, you've got the 15 year in place, you may 10 years down the road at another 15 year in place. And as long as you're healthy, those rates are the 15 year in place. You may 10 years down the road, add another 15 year in place. And as long as you're healthy, those rates are going to be so affordable. You're going to be really grateful. Anytime I see that life insurance premium come through, which I pay mine annually to get a discount, you know what I mean? I'll have a good deal.

Oh, yeah. And instead of going, oh, man, I'm grateful that it was another year that I said, I love you to my family through the form of term life. Oh, yeah. And this is before you're, you know, you even have kids when kids enter the equation. I got to tell you, um, we have ours automated, but I always get paranoid every year. I always check with Stacy. I go, did it go through, you know, because I can't think of a more shameful act that I could do then to die without life insurance to take care of Stacy and the kids.

I just, it is the most financially responsible, unselfish thing that you can do. And so I love that this question is here and this is, it's a game changer. There's a lot of peace, man. It really does. I mean, different people deal with death differently but i gotta tell you if you know that if something happens to you that your family's not going to want for anything that everything's going to be okay it's the final act of sacrifice and devotion and i think it's that serious it really is beautifully said kyle does that answer your question it does so you're basically able to cancel a life insurance policy whenever you want. Yeah.

And then replace it with something else. That's right. Okay. And I actually did that recently and I found it made more sense just to go ahead and get a new policy. You know, as your income goes up over the years, which it will, you want to make sure you're keeping up with that to make sure that you can cover, you know, your lifestyle and your expenses. And make sure your spouse has one too. Okay. 10 to 12 times their annual income. And make sure your spouse has one too. Okay. 10 to 12 times their annual income.

Thank you, guys. Yeah, you bet. And let me call out that for the stay-at-home moms out there, they need term life insurance. That's correct. Because if something happens to that stay-at-home spouse, you've got to get Mary Poppins to cover all the thousands of duties that we're taking care of.

And let me tell you, that gets expensive very, very quickly. That's right. And so stay-at-home parents, we recommend anywhere, we're talking $250,000 to $400,000 worth of term life insurance, and sometimes more depending on your situation, your cost of living. If you live in Manhattan, childcare is going to be a lot more expensive. Yeah. And so be thinking about that and make sure if anyone relies on your income, get term life insurance, avoid whole life insurance like the plague. It's being peddled right now, Ken, on social media, on TikTok. Oh, yeah. Everything's recycling.

It's like an investment scheme. Oh, yeah. You can borrow from yourself and you can become your own bank. Don't fall for those traps, please. Yeah. So stupid. Get term life, get it in place, set it and forget it like the great Ron Papil. You remember those commercials?

Yeah, oh, yeah. The rotisserie chicken? Oh, yeah. I always think about it for some reason. I like that. I'm an old man at heart, Ken. You are. And by the way, it's also important to point out that term life rates are so incredibly low.

You ought to be checking in with Xander Insurance. Some of you guys that got it maybe 10 years ago, maybe you're out of shape. Your cholesterol level's a little high in your blood. Hey, it gives you a good excuse to lose about 10, 15 pounds and watch your rates drop. I'm not kidding you. RamseySolutions.com and you can click on Trusted Services

Xander Insurance. Saving money while taking care of the family. That's who me and Ken go through. We recommend it to everyone. They'll take care of you, give you the best rates, shopping across all of the top-rated companies. They're not beholden to one company, and they are incredible, incredible people. So great question. Love talking about term life for some reason, Ken.

I'm a giant nerd. Do you really? I'm a giant nerd. I don't know what to tell you. You need a more exciting life. I need help. This is The Ramsey show I'm George Camel Ramsey personality joined by my friend Ken Coleman this hour the number to call is 888-825-5225.

Ken is here to help you get that breakthrough with your work, your purpose, your career, help you make more money. If you're feeling stuck, you're facing a layoff, whatever it is, he is your man and I can help you with all those financial questions to get you on the path to wealth. We're going to take a call from Rebecca in Guilford, New Hampshire. Rebecca, how are you doing? Hi, I'm good. How are you? We're doing great. How can we help? Great. Okay. So I'm wanting, I'm ready to start the baby step number four,

but I'm, I'm iffy on if I contribute to my own Roth IRA, my employer's Roth IRA, or, here's the loop, start saving for my future husband's debt. Wow. And pay off. Is this man in the picture already? He is. Okay, good. I didn't know if it was a hypothetical.

I know. I was thinking the same thing. It's like, be a little bit more positive, you know? Okay. Yes. So was thinking the same thing. It's like, be a little bit more positive, you know? Okay. Yes. So are you engaged? Yes. Exciting.

Congratulations. When's the wedding? It'll be June 10th of 2024. Wonderful. Okay. So you're at baby step four. And until we're married, we're not going to combine finances. And so as long as you

are investing 15% and also able to cashflow the wedding, that would be the plan of attack. Okay. So let's talk about, is the wedding going to be paid for by you two? Yes. Okay. And you're going to cashflow it. You've got the budget set. You know, you're going to hit that number. A hundred percent. Yes. Yeah. We're going to lope and kind of just do it the easy way. That's the way to do it. Budget friendly. Yes. Okay. So let's talk about baby step four. We recommend investing 15% of your household income into retirement. So you're saying you have an employer 401k, correct?

Yes. Okay. And you're saying, hey, should I do my own Roth IRA? Now, you mentioned an employer Roth IRA. I think you're talking about the 401k because the IRA is outside of your employer. Okay, yes. Okay. Yes.

So here's a real simple investing strategy, and it's the one that Dave uses and our whole team uses, the one that we recommend to millions of people. And it's real simple. It goes match beats Roth beats traditional. So do you have an employer match? Yes, I do. Awesome. Okay. What's the match? I think, I'm not exactly sure. But it's a few percent. Is it just kind of a three or four percent five percent yeah yeah i was gonna say like three percent i wanted to say about that let's pretend it's three percent so the first three percent of the 15 we're gonna put towards that match now you said you have a roth 401k option through your employer yes and so roth would next. And if you have good investment options with that 401k, you could do all 15% into that 401k. Okay. And if you don't have good investment

options, or if someone didn't have a Roth option for the 401k, it was traditional, you would go to the Roth IRA outside of your employer and put as much in as there as you can there. I think it's 6,500 for this year. And if you still haven't hit 15% of your income, you go back to the 401k. Okay. So it sounds like you could do all 15%. What's your household income? So just mine, I make 55. Okay. So if I'm in your shoes, Rebecca, and you've got good investment options, I'm just going to do all 15% into that Roth 401k, and that will get you the match, and that will get you to your baby step four limit. Okay, perfect.

Yeah, way to go. Excited for the marriage. I love the idea of a loping can. I think we need to get back to that. I've said this many times before. on behalf of all men, men, if you're a wife-to-be is in favor of this, jump on this opportunity because it's a lot of stress on women because it's a big day. And I will tell you, as a guy, when the ceremony's over, you think to yourself, why do we go through six months or 10 months or 12 months of planning for what amounts to about a 20, 25-minute ceremony, and then the party, and then we leave on the honeymoon.

So I think most guys would just rather do without the ceremony. I had an idea. I'm going to run it by you. What do you think about we just treat weddings like a live event that you buy tickets to? So you want to attend the Ken and Stacey wedding. You pay a cover. You buy a ticket.

Oh, yeah. And that just covers the wedding price, and we're good. I think it's a horrible idea. I don't think anybody does it. No one does that. Well, it covers the cost of the wedding. Now we're not going, hey, Ken and Stacey have to front 50 grand. You presume it covers the cost of the wedding that people would pay to come see you get married.

Well, it takes the place of the gift. See, but I don't think it works that way. I think Americans have too much consumer guilt and they would bring a blender and then they got to buy a ticket. And what's the ticket price, by the way? I don't know. It depends on the wedding. I'd pay 50 bucks. It includes

a meal and a drink. You would pay 50 bucks to see me and Stacey get married? You know how much it costs for a seat at a wedding? For a ceremony and reception? I didn't ask you that. I asked you what you would pay to watch someone else get married. Depends if I like him. Like our producer, James. I'd throw in 50 bucks for James.

I promise you right now, James wouldn't pay to come to either one of our weddings. It depends on if there's a live camel there. I did have a live camel at my wedding, so there's a perk. The only way James Childs, our fearless producer, pays to come to one of our weddings is if it includes an all-you-can-eat buffet. Then he's in. Outside of that, he's not paying. And if he can bring his kids, too.

Or if you and Stacey wear matching plaid outfits. Not that that would ever happen. Too soon. That's an inside baseball there. Very good inside joke. By the way, it was not plaid. It was tartan. Let's get it straight.

You just made it worse somehow. No, no. It's Christmas tartan. All right. Look it up. Let's go to Sean. Sean, please save worse somehow. No, no. It's Christmas tartan. All right. Look it up. Let's go to Sean. Sean, please save us. He's in Phoenix.

How you doing? Hey, good, guys. How you doing? Good. What's your question? So, the question is, back in October, I purchased a vehicle, a Tesla, to save on gas because of my work truck. I was spending almost $1,400 a month in gas. Gas prices got pretty expensive here, so I was looking to save, so purchase that. I didn't have the money exactly then. I pulled money from my ELOC to make that purchase. November, December

are normally our better months. I'd almost do about a third of my income just in those two months. Well, those months didn't pan out. There's been like a downturn going on, so I've had a drastic kind of cut in income. And the question now is like, should I sell stocks to pay it off? Because I'm worried about interest rates

going up still here again because that he walks very kind of yes so like when i initially when i initially had it it was like when i did it i think it was at like five percent or so now it's like at nine and i'm anticipating that maybe raising rates again So what do you owe on the HELOC? $48. And how much do you have in stocks? I got, like, in one investment account, around $40, $47 there. In another, I got $30.

So, like, I have enough to liquidate them there. Those are just my kind of individual investment accounts, not like IRAs or... So we're not touching retirement. These are just taxable investment accounts and you have single stocks in there. Correct. Do you have any other debt? Those stocks are paying.

So I own three houses. One is my primary residence and then two are rentals. One of the rentals is paid off. The other one's not. That one I owe. So between, I guess, my personal residence, I owe $479 on. And then on the other rental, I owe $169.

Okay. No other consumer debt? Just the two mortgages? Okay. And what's your household income, barring your terrible months that you had? See, normally I'd be running around like 360 to 390. Awesome. And then last year, closed out at like 240.

So there's been like a drastic drop that I had. And like I said, I was just really banking on November, December. I'm like, oh, this is kind of make it or break it there. And I was really kind of making it and just didn't really pan out. So, but this was kind of my backup plan. And now we're- Well, that's the thing, you know, our plan works in good times and bad. And this is one of those ones where it gets scary when you have volatile stocks sitting out there. And so if I'm in your shoes, I'm cashing out on all of the stocks. I'm clearing the HELOC,

having a big pile of cash for my emergency fund and starting to tackle those mortgages. And I know you said the stocks are making money, but they make money until they don't make money. And then you're down 20% in a market. But when you don't have any debt, it just changes the numbers and changes your decisions. So I'd cash out of that.

Make sure you understand the tax implications on the gains, of course, and you pay those. But we're rooting for you to become debt free, my man. Thanks for the call. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. My thanks to my co-host, Ken Coleman, all the folks in the booth keeping the show afloat, and you, America. Thanks for listening. We'll be back real soon. Hey, George Campbell here. If you love the show and you want a deeper dive on your money journey, we've got a weekly newsletter that gives you helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for the newsletter. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.