The Ramsey Show - App - Start Your Marriage Off With Peace (Hour 2)

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

Live from Nashville, Tennessee, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by George Campbell. We're taking your money, your work, your relationships, your emotional and psychological health calls from all over planet Earth. 888-825-5225. It's 888-825-5225. We have a packed lobby out there. Everybody wave.

Good to see everybody. And they have driven down here to actually Franklin, Tennessee, just south of Nashville, a little bit suburb. And it's an awesome little community. And I'm glad to be here. George, how we doing, man? I'm doing great. When you opened the show, you said, we're taking your money.

And it was a long pause. And I thought, this might be a different show. Yeah. Because it's a free call and a free show so far. I'm actually happy to take your money. Okay. You can Venmo it. I stand corrected.

At George Campbell. I can't wait to see how many of those actually come through. And then I have to return them and go, I can't take your money. This feels weird now. Oh, I'm happy to. I'm happy to. Let's go right down the street to Michael right here in Nashville, Tennessee. What's up, Michael?

How we doing, man? Hey, how's it going, gentlemen, Tennessee. What's up, Michael? How we doing, man? Hey, how's it going, gentlemen? Good. What's up? So I got a doozy one for y'all. Ooh, I like this. Bring it. So a couple weeks ago, my mother called me,

or she actually flew out from California to Nashville to come see me in person. She said that the family friend who she's known for a long time passed away. And this individual left my mother and myself in his will. And according to the lawyer who's handling the estate, it's worth between 10 and 14 million dollars. Wow. I think I know where this is going. What's special about this neighbor? Well, now in the will, he's designated me as his son. Okay. That's a, that's a dead giveaway. Yeah. Um, and I've asked, you know, my mom, like, why would he like, I've never met this man. I've never met him before in my life. He used to

send me birthday cards every year for my birthday. And whenever I would ask who this guy was, she would always say, Oh, he's just, you know, he's just a friend of mine, known him for a long time. Just don't worry about it. Until now, now she's revealing that there's a good chance that he might be your real dad. Okay. So dealing with all that and then having to, um, deal with the funeral arrangements because since I was technically the next of kin, I had to be the one to start the process. And it's just been a wild week and a half, two weeks for me. Um, Hey, hold on, hold on a second. Sit with me for a second in that. I'm sorry. Exhale for a second. Are you married? No, I'm not married. Don't have kids. Okay. How old are you? 31. Okay. So I need you to metabolize what I'm about to say.

Every single part of your life is different now than it was this time last week. Okay. And any, any attempt you try to make to quote unquote, get back to the way it was before mom came to visit is I'm telling you, it's a choice to be miserable. Okay. Everything is different. You're a multimillionaire. You have a dad that you never met that actually lived down the street from you that sent birthday cards but never came and hugged his son. You have a mom that didn't tell you the truth for 30 plus years and on and on and on. Everything in your life is different now. Okay? Yeah.

And here's what I'm telling you that i want you to you're going to feel disoriented and you're going to feel messy you're going to feel angry you're going to feel super over the moon you're going to you're going to feel a lot and i want you to know that all of those feelings are right and okay because a bomb just went off in your life and it left what seven million dollars if you split that with your mom yes, how it's structured, if I could go into a little bit on how it's structured is we won't necessarily be able to collect the liquid cash that's in it because it's all tied to stocks and mutual funds and such. So me and my mom are splitting the dividends, the interest and whatever income that trust brings in, which is about on average, according to the lawyer, about half a million

a year. Why can't you sell the stocks inside that trust? If you're the sole heir? Well, the trustee is his lawyer. So he has complete authority and discretion over how the trust is given out. And he feels that this is the best way since I've never handled this kind of cash before. So Michael, before the day is over, I would hire an attorney. And if you don't have one, I'll send you the name of the guy that I use here in town because you live in my neighborhood. But I would have your

attorney look over these documents. Okay. Okay? If you have been named the sole heir, you need to have somebody that is representing you in this, not this trust of somebody who was dishonest enough to not come out and tell you that

they're your father for 30 years. Not your mom who did not tell you the truth for 30 years. Okay? Okay. I would have somebody else who is working for you that you are paying look over these documents, okay? Yeah. And so let's say it's all right, it's all good,

and you're getting a $500,000 disbursement every year, splitting it with your mom, so you get a quarter million dollars every year that you didn't know was coming. Correct. Okay. So, and, you know, further into the, how it's structured when she passes on, I will be inheriting that half of the, of the income. And when I turned 60 years old, the trust would close, and then I would be essentially handed the check of whatever the principal is in that trust. Okay. Well, here's the deal, Michael. It's hard to give you in a minute to tell you exactly what to do with all of this, but here's what the team you need to build around you. Like John said,

you need a good attorney. You need a good insurance broker. You need to make sure you have all the right coverage in place, liability. This adds risk to your life. You're going to need a good umbrella policy. You're going to want a good real estate pro. And all of these you can get at ramsaysolutions.com except for therapist and attorney. So I just want to caveat that. A good real estate pro. Do you own a home currently? No. Okay. That's probably going to be soon in your future. A good investment pro as well, because even the money that's coming in that you're peeling off of this thing, you're going to be investing a big chunk of this. And then lastly, a good tax pro, a CPA in your corner to help you minimize the amount

of taxes you're paying on all of this income and help you strategize. So go to ramseysolutions.com. You can find all of those pros to help you through this. So go to RamseySolutions.com. You can find all of those pros to help you through this. We want to walk with you in that way. And man, I mean, this is, you're going to have to just go slow. And so the first thing I would do is nothing and just grieve all of this, feel it all. Therapy is probably the number one thing followed by an attorney. I'd call a lawyer first. Yes. Yeah. Those are the two. Because Michael, I want to get the nuts and bolts of this thing. What'd your tell you did y'all have a good open conversation it was a good conversation

um she she told me the reason why you know he he didn't really uh stick around his his issue was you know he he couldn't commit he wasn't a bad guy per se michael, Michael, I'm the father of two kids. He was not a good man. Okay. He left you a lot of money and he made a lot of money and all that. But good men, they go to war for their kids.

Okay. Yeah. I want you to hear me say that. You are worth having a dad around and I'm sorry you didn't have that. You got a long road ahead of you, but man, there's a blessing there too. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas and I love the

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to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P,.com slash Ramsey Radio. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. Man, we just went out to take some photos in the lobby and sign some books, and it is pouring down rain out here, and we have needed the rain, and it just puts everybody in a good mood out here. I know I'm getting old, and I'm like, thank God for the rain. Yeah, I love rain.

Don't have to water the grass. It's been so parched out there. Today's question of the day comes from Molly in West Virginia. She says, I believe my father-in-law has been tricked into a marriage by a younger woman. His wife passed away a year ago and the new wife took advantage of his loneliness. My husband doesn't seem to see what I see. How can I let go and not be bothered by the fact that she's using him? I don't want to be fake and pretend everything's great when I see a lot of issues. Okay, let me understand this, John. My father-in-law has been tricked into a

marriage by a younger woman who's taking advantage of him and the actual son is not seeing this he's like nah this seems totally fine yeah so there's a lot of issues here number one is the husband and wife aren't on the same page on top of this father-in-law maybe getting scammed i don't know there's too much we don't know well and there's also is this like uh just his name just slipped my mind but like an an Anna Nicole Smith situation where he's 90 and she's 25, or is it he is 70 and she's 55, right? So I don't know what younger woman means here. So she needs to address this with her husband.

I don't know that she needs to be involved as much. Does the son need to talk to dad? No. I mean, I think what needs to happen here is Molly needs to call this new woman and take her to lunch and get to know her. Because right now, Molly's creating stories in her mind and then her body's responding to those stories. She's acting upon those stories. She's getting enraged by those stories and she doesn't even know if those are true. And so, I am going to sit down and have lunch and I'm going to make it a regular practice. You're in my family. I'm going to get to know you now. And then not when they're stories, but when I have data, when I've got confirmation of, oh, this person's kind of wonderful or,

oh, this person's gnarly, right? Then we can begin to make alternative decisions on what we're going to do. And by the way, I have had times over the last quarter century when I've been with my wife, when she has said, we need to go right now. And I'm like, no, we don't. We're fine. Every time I've ignored her. She's right. I've been wrong every time. So sometimes husband doesn't seem to see like, oh, way to go dad, right? Like mom was sick for a long time. She passed away. I want dad to be happy. He met this beautiful young woman and he may just be totally polite. Yeah, the operative word here has been tricked into a marriage. I don't know how you trick someone because they have to sign something and say, I agree to this marriage. Like I feel

like I tricked my wife into the marriage, but that's for different reasons. Correct. But this one feels like she's saying- I think her exact words were, George tricked me, right? I think she gave in. That was relentless, persnickety even. So yeah, there's too much we don't know. Molly, I hope you call the show because I want to learn more about this situation. Yeah, I don't feel like I have enough information here to pass on this. The one thing I will tell you is spend as little time possible making up stories about why other people are doing what they're doing, what they're thinking. And by the way, we all do this, listeners. You know that politician.

He's just, you know, that company. They're just trying to. You don't know. And so all you're choosing to do is to make up a story that makes you feel a little more powerful, a little more safe, and then you're going to war over that story. And it may or may not be true. So invite somebody to lunch. Talk to them.

You know all them Democrats, or you know all them Republicans. No, you don't know them. Let's go to lunch. Let's go figure it out. Let's go talk. Let's go talk. And that's what molly that's that's my with with the little amount of information we have here i would suggest you

call this this new wife and because now she's your what'd you call her a stepmother-in-law oh i didn't think about that this is turning into a country song real fast this is a very west virginia call right 100 100%. So I would reach out, Molly, and reach out. At the end of the day, she can't control father-in-law and his decisions, whatever it is, financially, relationally. So there's a part that she just has to also let go and go, well, I did my part. I'm going to sleep well at night knowing I tried to warn him.

So how can I let go? I want to lean into the relationship, and if it's confirmed, then I can walk away. I can set up boundaries. And me and my husband will talk about that. And then hopefully, and I say this with all due respect, Molly, hopefully you're wrong. Hopefully this woman isn't a trickster. She's not a jerk. Yeah, she's way younger. And yeah, it might look weird at the grocery store, but she's actually pretty great. And she's going to have her and your father-in-law are going to have a great end of life season, a great fourth quarter

together. It'd be awesome. Let's go out to New York, New York and talk to Jorge. Hey, George, what's up, man? Hey guys, what's happening? Man, we are making it rain out here, literally. It's the summer of George around here. What's up? All right. so a little bit of a backstory. I called in about three years ago, and Dave put me on the right track. We just paid off all of our debt, except we do owe $38,000 on our home. Woo, you're close. Congrats, brother. Great progress, man. All right, so here's where it gets interesting.

So where we currently live, it's a very congested area. We each drive about an hour to work every day. Sometimes that can be two hours, really depending on the traffic and what's going on. We really don't like the area that much anymore. We've been there 24 years. We found a house out in the woods. So basically a brand new construction home. And what we want to find out, is it a good, is it an okay financial move to buy this new home? Can you afford it? Oh, can you afford it? I feel like I can.

What's your current house worth? We're figuring out the 25% rule, and we feel like we're way under that. Oh, okay. So what would your commute become once you move? 30 minutes. I like that. So what are the downsides here? I guess the downsides would be, of course, like I said, our house is, of course, like I said, we're almost, you know, our house is almost paid

off and we'd probably be taking on about a hundred thousand dollar mortgage by the time, you know, we met after closing costs and all that sort of stuff. You'd be taking a mortgage of a hundred grand? Yeah, that's probably what we're looking at. I would do this tomorrow. And how quickly will that get paid off with your income? Well, we're going to do a 15 year, but I feel like we could probably pay that off in five or six. What's your income? Household? We're making $150,000 a year combined. Okay. Could you throw upwards of $50,000 a year toward the mortgage and live off the 100? I don't see why not.

Well, then it's gone in two years. You'd be debt-free in two years. That's basic math. You need to get a raise for three years. So there you go. Just set a goal. It doesn't need to be crazy, but set a goal and say, in two years, this new mortgage is going to be paid off. And instead of one year from now, we'll be debt-free. If we move, it'll be two. Whoop-dee-doo. And you get your life back. I would do this. And George, I'm becoming more and more,

I don't know if it's bullish or bearish. I'm becoming more careful about how I can buy back time. And you and your wife will be buying back an hour. Hundreds of hours a year. One way every day. Right. And over the course of a week, you're buying back five hours. So ask yourself, what would we charge? What would we pay for half a day together every week? That turns into you just bought a full day of time together,

not including sleeping time, but we bought 10 hours every two weeks just in commute time. Gotcha. I mean, I would do this tomorrow. Here's the strawberry on the top. So the house that we're selling probably can use about $90,000 of work, but we can currently sell it at 300 as is, no problem tomorrow. This will be a new construction home, brand new house. Sell it tomorrow. Call the realtor today. Go to ramsaysolutions.com. Slash agent. Slash agent. Get yourself a smart investor pro i'm sorry a real estate pro and get that thing on the market in the morning awesome congratulations man you're gonna you're gonna have to get a chicken coop you're gonna have to get overalls a straw hat the whole thing

that'd be a bunker could be cool yes you have to get a bunch of deep freezers and ask people if they've heard about meat prices you're gonna be the whole out like you're gonna be one of my neighbors now i can't wait dude congratulations hey you've done it right. And you worked really, really hard for this moment, for this moment when you and your wife say, hey, let's buy back some time. Let's buy back a different kind of life. We're on it. We'll be right back. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy.

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budgets at chministries.org slash budgets. 888-825-5225. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney joined by George Campbell, taking your calls on money, life, relationships, your mental and emotional health, your work, all of it. Let's go out to Chi-Town, Chicago, Illinois, and talk to Ryan. What's up, Ryan? How you doing, gentlemen? I'm good, man. What's up? I've got a couple questions.

I'm getting married in a month. All right. I'm looking to buy a house hopefully this week. I'm just wondering if we're making the right moves here. That's a lot, man. You're making two of the biggest life decisions and throwing the biggest party of your life

with all of the headache and chaos and joy all at once. Why is the house so urgent? We are currently staying with a friend, per se, of kind of living. I sold my house about a year ago, so we've been living with them ever since. Why can't you rent a place? I can, but I moved in with them and redid their bathrooms

I do construction for a living for remodeling so tell me about y'all have a house already picked out yes we have one picked out it's at $450 is what I'm hoping I can get it for okay how much money you got

I have about $400. She has about $120. Whoa, so are we paying cash for this thing? I don't know that we want to pay all cash. You do. But we definitely would want to put 50% to 70% down. Why wouldn't you pay cash for this? I don't know.

Yeah, I would. Why did you save up $400,000? What was the goal of that money? Well, I sold my house. I bought low and I sold high. So I did very well when I sold. And you guys have no debt currently? No debt. Cars are paid off. And you guys have no debt currently? No debt.

Cars are paid off. What do you do for a living? I do bathroom and kitchen. Oh, okay, okay. Okay, can I, what does she do for a living? She works in a salon. Okay.

Actually just opened her own salon. Okay, can I, can I paint a picture of a world for you? Mm-hmm. You're a bathroom reno guy. You're pretty good at it, right? Yeah. She does hair.

She's pretty good at it, right? Yeah. You guys are both in fields that are very important, and they can also be very feast and famine. Feast and famine. Feast or famine. Right? If there's an economic downturn, people put off redoing their bathrooms. If the economy's doing great, everybody wants their bathroom redone.

And when the economy's great, everybody wants their hair done and colored and all that, and then when it takes a turn. Imagine navigating this new marriage. And it sounds like y'all have been together for a long time. Imagine navigating this new marriage where both of y'all are in trades and you're both really good, but y'all will never have any sort of payments, any sort of debt. No one will ever own you guys. So if there's a downturn, it just

is annoying. Right. You have $400,000 saved up. She's got $100,000 and something saved up. Y'all could pay cash for this house and still have $75,000 to $100,000 in cash in the high-yield savings account.

Bro, I wouldn't think twice about this. Think about it this way, Ryan. If you were sitting in a paid-for... We're ready to pull the trigger. That's for sure. I just don't know that we want... Well, I think it hurts to let go of that money. There's no smarter move to do with the money.

Okay, let me put it this way. If you hate having a paid-for house, come Christmas, you hate not having a house payment. Like you and your wife are like man our new marriage is great our jobs are going great but you know what would make this house even better a house payment then you can go take out a HELOC on your house

and you can say John and George are idiots they're wrong we love getting together and getting together every month to make a house payment. So Ryan, think about that. It helps to flip the situation. I pay for cash for everything. So why go into debt now when you can avoid it entirely and still have money left over?

I'm jealous of you right now. That's what I'm saying. Well. Like you've won. You're going to enter into a new marriage as a tradesman man and you know what else is going to allow you to do you know those customers that you have to take those reno jobs because they're big jobs but you know right when you meet them and they walk you through what they want done you're like oh this is going to be awful you get to pass. Absolutely. So, Ryan, think about this. You're sitting in a paid-for $450,000 home.

Would you have a discussion with your wife when you go, hey, you think we should take out a loan at 7% interest to do some fun investing with that money? You would go, no, that's way too risky. It's not worth the spread. Well, there's a lot of rehab that needs to be done at the house. But you're a rehab guy. Absolutely. And you're going to have $75,000 to play with

between emergency fund and whatever renovation money, plus your future income where you don't have a mortgage payment. So you're going to be able to cash flow literally anything in life. And if one day she wants to shut the salon down to stay home with the kids, she gets to do that without a fight. And we just go, cool, we're going to be fine. And nothing helps a marriage like a bathroom and kitchen renovations. That was a lie. I just made that up. That'll be hard. Yeah, that weight pattern was pretty hard.

Yeah. So help me and George out. We're jawing at you. Help us out. I don't understand your reluctance or your hesitancy. Just the security of having a good chunk of change. That's it. So I'm going to suggest you consider exchanging that chunk of change, the security you feel there, with having a home that no one can take from you. You are feeling the security with the zeros and ones on a bank statement that you log into.

I want you to imagine the security of walking into a home and saying, this is mine, and no one can take it from us. And you're going to have the nicest bathrooms in Chicago because that's what you do. It's true. At the end of the day, brother, all I can do is tell you what I would do in my house. George, you?

Yeah. I mean, I've done it, Ryan, and I don't regret it. John and I both paid off houses and we go, all right, we're happy here. Not going to go take out a loan to invest. Don't miss the chunk of change. If we want to build back up some savings, you're going to do that so quickly. How much will you and your wife be making when you're married?

Combined, probably $130, $140. $140, no payments in Chicago. You could start throwing away a whole lot into investments and savings per year, right? With no payments in the world? Mm- world. We can build back up some security, but this time it's different because it's not, we're not paying a lender. We're not paying interest. We're paying ourselves. We're building for our future instead of building someone else, a big building in downtown Chicago. So it's just, it's a different mindset. And I know it's a big paradigm shift compared to what culture will tell you.

And I promise you if you scroll Instagram, there's going to be some dude being like, Ryan, I could 10X your money, bro. Just give it to me. We'll leverage it all. It's going to be great. And guess what? You're not going to sleep well at night. And nothing is worth that. Well, yeah, I don't like that, bro.

You've had a taste of peace. So we're saying why dip your toes in these waters when you're already doing so well and there's no need to? Because I wouldn't yell at you if you took out a mortgage. But if you had a bunch of cash and you still avoided paying cash, I'd go, all right, that's pretty dumb. Or if nothing else, brother, you're going to put that, let's say you decided to take out a $200,000 mortgage, you put half down. You're going to put that money in a high yield savings account at five percent but you're gonna be paying seven percent on the mortgage i i mean i'm just telling you right now there's millions of people listening to this and they've

got their face in their hands wishing they could trade places with you wishing they had a half million dollars in cash to buy a four. To buy a $400,000 house, especially in the trades. Start your marriage off with peace. If you hate having less money fights, you can start some for fun. How's that? That's my promise to you. Congratulations, man.

When do you get married? Next month. I love it. We're going to send you Financial Peace University as a wedding gift from John and I, and you don't even have to send us cake in the mail or anything. We're also going to send you one year of EveryDollar, the best budgeting app on the planet, so you and your wife can budget your debt-free life, and y'all can decide how fun it is to spend money. And like

George said, if y'all just want to start some fights, y'all can do that too. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. 888-825-5225 We've been talking about it throughout this show. Selling a house the Ramsey way makes home ownership awesome. It makes it a gift, a blessing. It makes it a chaotic interaction, a chaotic time in your life.

It makes it peaceful. Instead of, ah! Right? The Ramsey Trusted Program is the only way to find an agent you can trust to keep you on track with what we teach here at Ramsey and help you get the best offer on your house or find the right home for you. We send you some of the top agents in your area. These are folks that we trust.

You review their stats, you interview them, and you decide which one you want to work with. Ramsey Trusted Agents have years of experience and will help you make wise decisions when it comes to pricing, marketing, and making or choosing the right offer. George and I both used Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agents for our families, for our homes. This isn't just us trying to sell you something. This is what we use in our day-to-day lives. Find a Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agent for free. Doesn't cost you anything. At RamseySolutions.com slash agent. Alright, let's go out to Jacksonville, Florida and talk to Christian. Hey Christian, what up? How are we doing?

Hey, doing good. How are you? Excellent, excellent. What's up? Yeah, so right now I'm 19 years old and me and my wife, we just bought our first house earlier this year in February. Wait, you're 19? Yes, sir. What's the secret? Every 19 year old wants to know. Work hard, I guess. I started when I was 14. But you're married too? I was still trying to find someone to go to a Chinese buffet with me when I was 19. That may have been your problem,

John. That's probably not the most romantic. As I said it, I thought that was the issue. Okay. So you're married at 19. You're a homeowner now. All right. You're way ahead of me and George, but how can we help? Well, uh, in two years from now, I have the opportunity. Uh, the company I work for is wanting to open a new branch and they're going to get me a branch ownership role. Um, and so I'll be a branch owner in Orlando. So I'll be moving, uh, about two and a half, three hours away from, from where I currently live. And so I'll be a branch owner in Orlando. So I'll be moving about two and a half, three hours away from where I currently live. And I'm wondering if we should sell that house that we just bought in February, or if it's smart for us to rent it out and purchase another home in Orlando. Love it. Okay. Here's my answer. And I'll give you the backstory behind it. I would

sell the home and take all the equity you have and roll it into that next home. And the reason is if you lived in Jacksonville and you and your wife sat down and said, hey, what do we want to do with our financial future? You wouldn't go, hey, what if we bought some rental property in Orlando? That could be fun. You wouldn't do that. And so the only reason you're hanging on to it is to try to kind of become like a real estate mogul. But now you've got a headache three hours away to deal with when there's an issue. And so we don't like the long distance landlord. Three hours is too much. All of Dave Ramsey's real estate, hundreds of properties, he can drive around in about an hour and hit them all. And so that way he has his eyes on them. You have your

eyes on them. And so for that reason, and because real estate really, when you talk about investments, should be done with cash to reduce your risk. And so here's your plan, pay off your current home. And if you roll that equity in the next one, pay off that home. Then when you have enough cash, you can decide with wisdom where you want to buy an investment property. And can I pass on one more thing to you, Christian? Yeah. All right. So what kind of work do you do? I do sales for a roofing company.

Okay. Excellent. So I'm going to give you some old man wisdom. Is that cool? That's all right. All right. It hasn't happened to you yet, but you will have an employer that sits you down and says something like, I see something in you and I'm planning on doing this. So in three years or two years or in six years, I'm going to do this and then we're going to do this. And then this is how this is going to impact you. Right. And over my quarter century of work, I have gotten excited about other people's plans for me. I have spent imaginary money and had it not work out. And so what I want you to work on for the next two years is not already thinking like, are we going to sell this? We're going to move this. I want you to work on being an amazing

new husband. I want you to be the best salesman in Jacksonville, most integrous, hardest working, a guy that can leave work at work and show up and be present with his wife. But also when it's time to go to work, man, nobody outworks Christian. And then in two years, who knows? We'll have a new president. We'll have a new planet in two years. So let's deal in two years with what happens in two years. And let's work on, you've been running since you were 14 you've got dreams you're a very special kind of young man i want you to practice living in the present where your feet are as well is that cool yeah congratulations my brother you are way ahead of the pack that's

impressive all right let's go out to seattle washington home of Jam, and talk to Gillian. Way, way over here. All right, what's up, Gillian? Hey, guys. It's great to be with you. Thanks. It is great to be with you. What up? So I wanted to start off with some awesome news.

My husband and I just spent the last few years putting me through school completely debt-free. So I just graduated last month. I worked full-time the entire first year of the program. It was brutal, like 13 hour days. Um, but we paid off about $20,000 of payments to the school, just straight in cash. Um, so I start my, I start my new job next week. Hey, hold on. Hey, Gillian, Gillian. Yeah. Yeah. The things you're saying can't be true because we hear them all the time. You can't go to school debt-free.

Which trust fund did you pay for this out of, Gillian? Yeah, you can't pay things with cash, and you can't work and go to college at the same time. Well, so I will say I was very fortunate, very blessed. I had a great job with the university before starting school. Way to go! And I found out I could get partial tuition exemption. I was being a goofball. I was just being a moron i'm proud of

you those are all decisions you made congratulations yeah it's awesome yeah thank you okay so how do we help out my new job i start my new job next week um during that time in school we also saved up about thirty thousand dollars um so that we could pay for the last eight months when i got to kind of the work studystudy part of my program where I had to be working full-time within the context of being a student. We've got about $10,000 of that left because we have penny-pinched to the max for the last eight months. And we've got about $7,000 in car debt. I think I know that the plan would be to pay off the car debt with that leftover money. But I'll admit that $10,000 makes me feel very safe.

And it's exactly the amount of our fully funded emergency fund. Should we pay off that car? It's a 0% loan. Or should we keep our expanded emergency fund? You're telling me the school is paid for, so you have no upcoming expenses? That's right. This is our only debt left. It's $7,000 on a 0% car loan. What's the car payment? It's about $428 a month. Okay. So let's say that you did pay off the car today that leaves you with $3,000, and it frees up $428,000, and you have your income. So how quickly could we get back to

$10,000 knowing all of that? How many months? I think aggressively, maybe eight or nine months. Okay. So eight months from now, we're back to where we are, and we're going to be fine with $3,000. How many emergencies have you had in the last year that were over $3,000? Thankfully, zero. And you got a paid-off car that's reliable and working, and if there was a car repair to be made, you could cover that. You guys have health insurance? We will when I start my new job. I'm going to be honest, we haven't had much for the last year

we've been kind of living bare bones oh boy so once we have all this insurance in place so he has the ba okay good so when you really think about it a lot of this is like but what if and i'm going but what if you had no payments and how quickly could we build this back up and what would that freedom feel like today yeah you knew we were gonna say this gillian i know i know i was hoping you'd agree with me you're just too impressive you're too impressive to give us the zero percent loan argument gillian you're too smart you're too successful you guys are too i mean you have too much money i did think that we'd be able to start paying the car more aggressively than $428 a month. Then save that aggressively. Probably evens out.

Save that aggressively. Yeah. Hey, look, by this afternoon, you can be totally free. Yeah. Totally unchained from anyone, anything, any bank, any lender, you and your husband, totally free. And you got $3,000. Actually, you don't.

You have $2,800 because I want you all to go to a fancy restaurant tonight and celebrate. Congratulations. We're so proud of you. We're so proud of you. That's enough to get apps and zerts. I regret that immediately. I feel like you just spoke millennial, and I don't know what that means.

Appetizers? I'm going to go away for a little bit, John. That's probably good for everybody. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be back soon. Take care.