The Ramsey Show - App - Stop Losing Battles And With The War With Your Budget (Hour 2)

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Jenna Starr, oh, George Camel, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. He's also the co-host of Smart Money Happy Hour and the host of The George Camel Show on YouTube, which is exploding, by the way, one of our more popular Ramsey Network launches in the last year. Jenna is with us.

Jenna is in Seattle, Washington. Hi, Jenna. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Oh, my gosh. I'm so excited to talk to you guys. You too. What's up?

So I have a situation that feels complicated to me, but likely not to you guys, which is why I'm calling. I am the sole provider for my family and I'm self-employed as a therapist, a mental health therapist in private practice. And I make good money, over $200,000 a year. And yeah, over 10 years, it's been amazing. But I'm paid pretty irregularly, mostly by insurance companies. And I usually know by like Sunday evenings kind of what my deposits are going to look like. But they tend to be slightly different each week. And then I also get kind of random payments, like, you know, copayments from patients or just kind of paper checks.

It's just, I'm not, I don't have like, it's sort of predictable, but like also not predictable. How long have you been doing this? How long have I been doing this? Over 10 years, actually. So over the course of a year, it's very predictable. Over the course of six months, it's fairly predictable. Over the course of one week, it's fairly predictable. Over the course of one week, it's not. Correct.

Okay. So give us some rough estimate here. What's your question? So we're struggling to budget as far as the kind of grocery shopping weekly versus monthly, like just kind of really trying to understand our money better. We've kind of banked on like we just make good money, and so money just sort of disappears. And I'm trying to do better.

My husband and I are trying to do better. My one caveat question I want to throw him under the bus is he also refuses to drop the coffee stand and wants to keep it in the budget. And I want to nix it from the budget. So I want you guys to give me some. You mean buying a cup of coffee at a coffee stand? Correct. This is not your problem.

No, it's not my problem. You need to lose that battle and win the war. He needs a budget line item for his coffee. He gets his coffee and we get a budget together that we both work on that accomplishes our overall goals. Coffee is not keeping you from doing that. I agree. All right, that one's under the bus. you from doing that. I agree. All right. That one's under the bus.

You lose. He wins. Next. All right, George, how do we do an irregular income? So the simplest way to look at this is look at what a low month would be for you guys. We know it's not going to be zero, right? Correct. So what would be a low month?

A low month would be $12,000. Okay. So we start there. We'll input that in the budget. And when more money comes in, we'll just add that income into the budget on the income side. Got me? Okay. Yes. Then on the expense side, we're going to do it a little differently because it's a regular. We're going to make a prioritized spending plan. So let's have our four walls. We got to cover the bills, the rent, the mortgage, all of that stuff stuff. Food. Food on the table. You should have a set food budget that is fixed, that easily fits within $12,000,

and it should not have to change based on the irregularity of the income. Okay. Other things will change based on the irregularity, but not food. Okay. Because it's first. Now, are you at risk of running out of money even on that bad month of $12,000, or are you just trying to go, hey, we should be saving more with all of our expenses? Well, no, we're not at risk of running out of money.

I just don't feel like we're throwing enough at our snowballs. We have. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, we're not at risk of running out of money as far as our needs go. I just feel like after that that it sort of just disappears gotcha but it's not disappearing into the coffee stand there's other places other money leaks well it's what she's saying i think and i don't put words in your mouth this is disappearing into the disorganization and the chaos and i want to get a handle on this so i can feel like i'm doing

a good job correct like it's like one week i'll i'll pay the comcast bill and then the next week i'll pay you know a different bill and i just don't feel like i'm organized enough um and so i feel like you know i want to have a better understanding and i was thinking similarly what you were saying if i just created an idea of budget and then whatever kind of comes extra i could even just throw out our snowball if you can live on the 12 000 without touching it and you get to everything you need to do you could run a budget on 12 000 and every extra dollar above that goes to your debt snowball that's an easy fix okay if you need 13 000 to,000 is your low, then you've got to add $1,000 to those last few things before you start the debt snowball.

That's what George is saying. Yeah, so including our business expenses, we need about $9,000 to live, $9,000 to $10,000 to live. Okay. Your business needs to be running separately. Yeah, the business is running separately. Okay. So our household. No, no, no. Stop, stop, stop. You don business is running separately. Okay. So our household. No, no, no.

Stop, stop, stop. You don't have it included. Okay. It's not running separately if it's included. Hello. So here's the thing. We run a business budget, and then when we bring money home from our net profits after paying the business expenses, then we work with that. So your business expenses run what?

My business expenses monthly is only $2,300 a month. Okay. So you actually have a low of $9,700. Yes. Because you're not bringing home that $2,300. Correct. Yes. Because you're not bringing home that 2,300. Correct. Okay. So, you know, so, so that based on what we're doing, I need to have, you need to have that separated out and keep it set completely separate, run a separate set of books, separate checking accounts, separate everything for the business. We actually give ourselves a weekly paycheck. We give ourselves.

Yeah, but that doesn't matter. You got to, you matter. And then you need to cash out the rest of the profits beyond your weekly paycheck and beyond your expenses out of the business account over into the personal account. But the same principle will still work because the same math applies. I just split it apart. So you're still okay. $9,700 will still do it if $2,300 stayed at the office. You can still do it on $9,700, and everything else will go to the debt snowball and then some so in the 9700 some of it's going to the debt snowball but that's just how much more we put on the debt snowball and every every dollar premium will cause you to be able

to do that we've got a thing in there called paycheck planning uh that works really well for the irregular income and you and your husband can sit down together and lay the whole thing out on the app uh or on the desktop, whichever you choose to do with EveryDollar, and it'll lay all out. And we'll give you three months free and get you started on the EveryDollar Premium, okay? Awesome. Cool. Thank you, guys. All right. Hang on. We'll have the team pick up and give you three months for EveryDollar Premium

because that'll do it perfectly. Oh, yeah. And it'll help him see where's all this money going, what did we decide we were going to do this month? Yeah. And then the only choice you're making is $8 or whatever the flipping coffee is. It's ridiculous. But, I mean, $8 is not going to get you out of debt. But you are going to start looking at everything, including the coffee.

You'll see how much money you're wasting. How much more can we throw? How far are we going to cut our lifestyle versus the debt we have versus the $200,000, well, not really, $175,000 income that we have? This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today open phones a triple eight eight two five five two two five I was just telling George a story in Austin you need to hear this too in 2012 I took a call here on the air from a guy who had

a side hustle and he said I love my side hustle more than I like my job when can I quit my job and do the side hustle? I want to double down. My parents say I'm crazy for doubling down. My wife says I'm half crazy for quitting my job. He was a pharmacist. So he'd spent a lot of money and a lot of time getting to be a pharmacist. And he said, I want to quit pharmacy.

I want to go into this whole other side of things in the gun industry. And I'm like, okay, so I'm a gun guy. So I'm talking to him and listening to him. I'm like, yeah, that's pretty cool. So I said, how much do you make? And he said, I made 65,000 on my side hustle. How much you make as a pharmacist this year? This is 2012. He said, 60,000. I said, well, double down. I'm on your team. Uh, I, if I would advise your wife that you should go after this, it's what you love. It's your passion. Uh, I would advise your mom and dad that they're very sweet, but they're wrong. And that you should go after this. It's what you love. It's your passion. I would advise your mom and dad that they're very sweet, but they're wrong, and that you should go after this.

So a couple weeks ago, I was out west, and I visited the guy's business. He did $70 million last year. That hurts my brain. Wow. last year that hurts my brain wow and he acts like i did it and i'm like i didn't do anything i talked to you for five minutes you've worked for uh you know what 11 12 years on your business you built your business i didn't build your business i'm so proud of you though uh i'll take credit for lighting a fire but dude you dude, you burned the forest down, man. That is wild. Way to go.

Way to go, man. That's pretty cool. We don't always get to hear the follow-up 11 years later to taking some of you guys' calls out here. So some of you ought to tell us if we screwed it up 12 years later or if we got it right or whatever. Yeah. Goodness. Good for him. Pretty cool.

I'm impressed with him. Sharp young guy, too, obviously. Todd is in Fort Wayne. Hey, Todd, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

I've got a quick question for you. Back in 2009, 2010, when there was a big recession that we all heard about, my business went in pretty deep. And since then, I've paid back everybody I can and taken care of all that. But I've got one credit card that went after me in 2002 collections and took me to small, I guess you call it small claims court, because I got a letter for a judgment against me. But at that time, I was still trying to get my head above water.

How long ago was the judgment uh it was 2015 august of 2015 eight years ago okay was the first one yes uh the first one yeah the amount was about um i don't know two three thousand dollars but of course with all their fees that judgment was was for $8,000 round numbers. And anyway, I just got another certified letter today. I didn't know how to for sure how to contact these guys. I just knew it was out there, but they've added $2,000 to it. Anyway, it says they have 14 days to congest. I'm assuming a court hearing.

I didn't know the first time I could do that, but do I just pay that? I don't think they'll get to have a court hearing on this one okay because it's gone too long yeah all right so let's do a little uh let's learn a couple things here number one you owe these people some money and you're not disputing that agreed yes okay and the original balance was what uh i don't know for sure it was like three thousand or something with their fees original Yes. Okay. And the original balance was what? I don't know for sure. It was like $3,000 or something with their fees, original. No, I'm talking about fees.

I'm talking about what you actually owe them. Oh, the first one was $79.97, so $8,000. No, no, no, no, no, no. That was with the fees. Okay. When you had a credit card, before it went to collections, the balance on the credit card was $3,000, wasn't it? Yeah, somewhere around there. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

Okay. So here's the thing. They said they've added another $2,000, so it's now $10,000, right? Yes. Okay. There's a whole industry out there that most people don't even know is out there called debt buyers. And they buy old, bad, probably uncollectible debt. Probably uncollectible because the person has already filed bankruptcy and they don't get anything,

but they still will buy the debt, sometimes not knowing that. Or the debt has gone too long and it's past the statute of limitations in that county or that city or that town or that state and so it's not collectible which i think is probably the case with yours anyway they probably get zero uh technically legally but they buy old bad debt now let me tell you what they pay for it. A nickel on the dollar. Maybe less. So this guy calling you or certified lettering you with a $10,000 bill likely has $250 to $500 invested in your account.

Okay. That's good information if you're going to call him and offer him $3,000. Yeah. I want to do right by this debt i'm willing to pay three thousand dollars that's all i'm willing to pay if you want one dollar more i'm going to give that to a lawyer and i'm going to fight you to the death because i don't think you can collect this at all because it's gone too long so this is a case this letter from the our county courthouse or uh court does that make a difference nope it's not the court didn't buy the debt some duper bought the debt okay so the dubers brought you to the county courthouse you gotta is the duper's name on there uh yeah the collection agency and there's a lawyer name on it the The lawyer's who you call. Call the lawyer. Okay.

Because here's the deal. They are not in the business. This is not like if I owed you money and you were pissed and got a lawyer and sued me. Okay. This is a conveyor belt at a factory, and it's the junkyard. It's not even a factory. It's a conveyor belt at the junkyard, and they're running like 9,000 parts a minute down the conveyor belt, and you're one tiny little part. Okay.

All right. Let me give you another example just for fun, okay? A couple of Christmases ago, I decided to take advantage of this knowledge to do a fun charitable thing for our team we bought 8 000 accounts from a debt buyer totaling 10 million dollars worth of debt our purpose in buying it was we were going to call all 8 000 people we have a thousand employees so each of them got to call eight people and tell them their debt is forgiven in jesus name for christmas so we bought 10 million dollars worth of debt to do that for 259 000 two and a half cents on the dollar yeah that's amazing yeah so i'm telling you this is how this works so that that's who you're dealing with you're one of 8 000 in a package only you didn't the package wasn't bought

by me so you got to go deal with the people but it's still i had 8 000 people that were in this one package for two and a half cents on 2.59 cents on the dollar all right and that that's how this that's how this industry works man man. So what do they want? They want more than they've got in it because this is a business for them, not a charitable event. So they got $250 or $500 in your deal. You offer them $3,000, and you stand firm and argue with them about 30 times. They're going to take it, get it in writing.

Do not give them electronic access to your checking account. Those two things are very important. Okay. So I think you should pay them what you owe them. Those two things are very important. Okay. So I think you should pay them what you owe them, which is $3,000. Okay. You got the $3,000? Yep, I do. Very cool.

Does that tell you what you need to know? Yes, perfect. Thank you. Cool. Thank you. So they're hoping a few people in this giant pile will pay that $8,000 or $10,000 to make this whole operation work. No, they never get it. 99% of the accounts aren't collectible.

That's why they're worth nothing. Because, I mean, what are the chances of collecting on something from 2010? 13 years ago. 13 years ago. If you can even find the guy. I mean, they're just saying glory hallelujah that they even found it. We had trouble making the calls. We couldn't even.

Old cell phone numbers. Bad numbers. We had a, found it right we had trouble making the calls we couldn't even old cell phone numbers bad numbers we had a you know we had what i bet you uh one out of uh one out of eight was probably bad or two out of eight yeah the information we had with the accounts we bought were bad which tells you they had bad information when they bought it well yeah because it's old i mean how many people got the same cell phone number 13 years later you know and or whatever the same address and you know, and or whatever, the same address. And, you know, you don't send a change of address to people you owe money to if you're on the run, you know, so it doesn't happen that way. So it's an interesting world, but it's a very high number, low performance world. And if you keep that in mind when you're dealing with them, it's not personal. It's just a transaction for them.

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outdoor space ready for the cooler months download the the Neighborly app today and get started. Today's question comes from Steve in Minnesota. I'm 43 years old. I still have student loan debt, about $4,900. It was originally $24,000 back in 2010. This year in May, I went and got 2,130 hair graft transplants for about $13,000. Some I paid up front, and the rest I used a care credit card for $10,500. I owe about $5,000 on it now. I have $32,000 in savings. I've got about $10,000 in a 401k, and I make about $20 an hour. I didn't get enough hair grafts to cover the back top crown

area. Should I go back for more hair transplant grafts to cover that area? Dave, this is a personal question that I think only you could answer. This is very personal. That was mean. It's personal. You're just mean. Hair jokes, George. Well, you've bullied me for far too long, Dave. It's my time to get back.

Oh, Steve, Steve, Steve. Okay. Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve. Well. Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve. Well, the good news is Steve has some money, and he can clean up this debt today. I don't know why he's waited 13 years. He has $32,000 in savings. Let's knock out the $10,000 in debt, and he'll still have $22,000 left. That covers an emergency fund, and that should cover some hair grafts.

So $32,000, $10,500 on the credit card. He says he owes $5,000 on it now. Oh, okay. So $10,000 clears up the student loan and the card, right? Yep. And that leaves him $22,000, right? Mm-hmm. That's what I'm saying.

Okay. And then we need to ascertain what your emergency fund should be, three to six months of expenses. And if that is under $22,000, like, say, 15, then you would have seven you could use towards other things. And if that's what you choose to do with your money, okay. Right? Yeah.

But if your emergency fund should be $25,000, you need to finish your emergency fund before you do other things. Because until you're out of debt and have an emergency fund in place, we do not do elective surgeries. That's a luxury. It's a luxury. Well, I need bigger lips. Now, the food's going in.

You don't need bigger lips. The, no, the food's going in. You don't need bigger lips. The coffee's not spilling. You don't need bigger lips. Bigger lips are a luxury. Hair in the back is a luxury. Apparently, hair in the front is a luxury for me. So he must have got just the front done, and he's got this crown here that's still missing. I mean, if you're the hair transplant people that was genius

hey you'll have to come back it leaves you it leaves you with a guaranteed client for the back as soon as they get home and get a mirror the other question is they do a good job with the rest of it so far because maybe let's not go back my stomach is in my throat this is killing me but yeah but i imagine it's a few more grand to finish it up if he's got the crown left. I don't know how haircuts work. I'm going to get in a lot of trouble if I'm not real careful here. But anyway, if this is what you want to do with your money, it should only be done. It's a choice. It's a luxury item. It's like buying a new couch or upgrading a car.

It's done after your emergency fund is in place and you are debt-free. So you should write a check today, Steve, and pay off your student loan debt and your credit card um is this even is this real this is real some guy i thought austin was trolling us somebody's punking us and austin let it through it's too specific to be punking at this point well it's a good way to say he makes 19 somebody you give great detail like i just don't have enough hair grafts in the back. He told us how many hair grafts. 2,130. I know, but that's how you punk somebody.

Very specific. That's what causes us to bite on it. Well, we bit on it, and so we're pretending like it's real. I think someone wanted to know your take on hair transplant grafts. Oh, that's just, no. No, they didn't. Obviously, they know my take on hair transplant. All they got to do is just pull up a picture.

Dave says not worth the money. Well, it's just, it's a, yeah. You've been cutting your own hair for a few decades now. It's easier that way. The amount of money you've saved, though, compared to me, is mind-blowing. I just grew up in a different place and a different time where we enjoyed getting old, and we is what we is so we didn't constantly be poking and prodding at ourselves but it's a different time back then it was just like a

toupee there weren't many options yeah that's true it's a bad toupee or nothing yeah like something out of a movie from the 70s yeah but i mean i don't i figured that the person with the lowest hair maintenance and the highest hair maintenance in the studio would have a great opinion on this. Jade's not here. Touche. Boom. Roasted, Jade. Hey, Jade spends more time on her hair than you do.

I promise you. I've got this down to a science. She's got more stuff going on from the predator look to the twisted up on top look to the whole thing. She's got more looks than you do, George. I'll tell you this. I haven't spent $13,000 on my hair, so there's a bonus. All of us together have not spent $13,000 on our hair. That's a lot.

I would just start wearing hats or just let it ride, man. I mean, you've got a great head for it, Dave. Not everyone has that. See, George, you're trying to dig out now. I'll never dig out. Get you a shovel, buddy. This is my last it, Dave. Not everyone has that. See, George, you're trying to dig out now. You're trying to dig out. I'll never dig out. Get you a shovel, buddy. This is my last show, America.

It's been good. Get you a shovel, buddy. It's been fun. You and Austin. Austin brings in the hair joke email. It's an alley-oop. And you just, you do the stuff with it, right? You just stuff the thing, right?

All right. Let's move on while I still have my job. All right. Sarah is in nashville hi sarah welcome to the ramsey show hi thanks for having me sure what's up okay so i work two jobs i work a full-time job and then i also work a part-time job um my question is should i or like is it okay for me to quit my part-time job even though I'm in baby step two the reason I'm wanting to quit it is basically because I'm working all the time you know I'm

trying to be gazelle intense and all but I am not having a good time and I want to pursue like other things to eventually go into that so what are you saying basically i want to in the long run get into music and i am in nashville so it's like the perfect place to do that you want to get into music did you say yes okay all right but and what's your part-time gig now i'm in retail okay all right well that's like most of nashville yeah i mean like how do you get the next country music star's attention in nashville uh waiter right i mean that that's i've got i've got three people that were on the voice working for me and they ain't doing voice i'm telling you so um but anyway the uh uh yeah it's it's everywhere and i'm not

saying you can't do it you should do it but how much debt do you have left i have about 50 000 and it's student loans okay and when will at your current rate with gazelle intensity when will that be done um about two ish years how old are you 28 okay how many hours a week are you working now um about 15 hours extra so and plus a 40 hour job yes okay so where do you work on saturday night um at retail retail's not open. Yes, correct. So I'm not working. Yeah, where do you work on Friday night?

Not at retail. It's not open. Well, I work the retail job Monday through Friday after work, and they close about 9 o'clock. Okay, all right. So you don't have a Saturday gig. Okay. Yeah. So sing on Saturday.

Yeah, so I guess it's a little bit complicated because i'm not into like the country music scene i'm more into christian you're in nashville and you want to get into music you want to be in the christian music is that what you said yes okay so how are you planning on breaking into it that's a good question i'm'm not exactly sure. I'm also thinking like the social media route. Okay, then I would do that on Saturdays. Okay. And I get plugged into a church where that music's happening as well. Yeah, make sure you're in a good church that's musical and they're doing a lot of good praise and worship stuff.

And, you know, Nashville's also the home of contemporary Christian music for sure. Most of the artists live here that do that for a living. A lot of them are friends the older ones are friends your buddy darren tyler did a songwriting night at his church with a bunch of songwriters so there's stuff like this happening in the community all the time you can do all of that and still keep your retail job you just got to give up partying on saturday oh wait a minute you're doing this from a christian perspective maybe partying isn't the problem um you gotta shut down the prayer group on Saturday night and go do something else. My kind of party. Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, I think you can find the time, Sarah, and I think it's a short-term play to get out of debt. Let's get out of debt. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Walt is in Buffalo, New York. Hey, Walt, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, guys.

Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it. Sure. What's up? Actually, I had two questions, but the young lady on the screener told me I could only ask one. So I figured I'd mention it, and maybe you guys let me squeak in, too. My wife and I have been on the baby steps since November of 2022. We made it all the way to step three.

And almost immediately after that, we had to use a couple thousand dollars of our emergency fund. We have $4,000 in a high-yield savings account that's earmarked for kids college. He's 10 right now, and we're wondering if we should take the $2,000 from that floor to fill the emergency fund back up. I would, because it's not in a college fund. It's just earmarked. You have two accounts. One of them you've got named college, but you've got a 10 you got a 10 year old you got plenty of time to build their college savings

and doing it in a 529 and so forth that's exactly what i would do yeah simple enough i mean it's liquid you're not going to pay any penalties so if you told me it was in a 529 i'd say don't touch it yeah but you'll you'll be fine there and you'll have time to fill it back or if it had been there for 20 years or something and and the kid was seven. I mean, you know, there's a lot of different factors, but you've got a lot of time, and it's just a right pocket, left pocket thing. And then just, you know, if you take it out of the right pocket and put it in the left pocket, then you've got to go back to the right pocket

and fill it up, which is maybe step five anyway. Reminder, Walt, four, five, and six are done simultaneously. Yeah, so we're investing 15%. While we have that plate spinning, we begin to fund the kids' college. Then any money left over, we can throw onto the mortgage to pay that off early. Yeah, so four, five, and six, which is retirement savings, kids' college savings, and paying the house off early, we run simultaneously, but still in that order. 15% going into retirement, funding kids' college, which you're going to do immediately.

You'll begin with that $2,000 that's left over and get an account open and get it moving. And then if you find more money in your budget, or as you find more money in your budget as you go along, let's pay off the house early. Elijah is with us in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Elijah. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Thanks to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for having us. Sure. What's up? So me and my wife have a question, and it is we are debt-free. We have an emergency fund. We've tried to do everything by the book, and both of us have zero credit, and we are renting currently.

Is there any way that we could one day buy a house without any credit? What is your advice? Well, George did it. Yeah, it's a fairly simple process. It's called manual underwriting. And what that is, is basically a no score loan. And our friends at Churchill Mortgage have been doing this forever. But if you tell anyone about it, they'll say, no, you can't do that. And even if they say you can, they'll say, it's so much more expensive. It's such a headache. It'll take you forever. They're lying. They've never done it. So let me tell you from someone who's done it, that it's simple, but you have to do it by the book, like you mentioned. So you're going to want to have all the documentation, your verification of income, rental payment history,

you know, 12 month history of your bank statements, a tax return, things like that. And along with that, you need to have a good down payment. Have you guys started saving that up yet? Yes. As soon as we finish building up our emergency fund, that's what we were going to start on. Awesome. So I would aim to have a minimum of 10% if you're doing the no-score loan. 20% is even better to avoid that private mortgage insurance.

What kind of budget are you looking for for a house? Right now, we're in North Carolina, and the housing market's anywhere from $100,000 or $200,000 to $300,000. Great. So let's set that goal, and let's set a down payment savings goal. And as long as you can get that payment to be 25% of your take-home pay, if you're after-tax income per month on a 15-year fixed, then you're ready to buy a home. Sounds great. Thank you so much. Again, Elijah, if you go to a traditional mortgage company or you ask your friends, they're all going to tell you that because they don't know how to do it, that that can't be done.

George did it. Jade did it. Dr. John Deloney did it. All of our Ramsey personalities have had zero credit scores and gone and got mortgages. Okay, so it definitely can be done. We'll put a link to the Ramsey Solutions blog about this in the show notes. And so if you want to go back and pull that up out of the show notes, you'll be able to do that with a great detail on it. But really, George just gave it all to you. And again, selecting a mortgage company that knows what the flip they're doing. That's important.

And most of them don't. Churchill Mortgage does know how to do this. Chaz is with us in Orlando. Hi, Chaz. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for having me. Sure. What's up? So my question is, I'm 24 years old. Me and my fiance are getting married next February. I have zero debt right now, and I have a nice little nest egg in the bank that I've been saving up. My question is, my fiance has some debt. Once we get married, do you recommend that I kind of use up most of my nest egg to pay off her debt, or should we keep that nest egg in the bank

and just keep pursuing paying off her debt now that we both have both incomes to pay it off? What are we talking in the bank and just keep pursuing paying off her debt now that we both have both incomes to pay it off what are we talking in the bank so right now i have about thirty four thousand dollars in the bank um and then her debt is a little bit over seventeen thousand dollars okay um so it wouldn't totally wipe it out but it's just you know now through february it's just you know no i don't know what do you mean you know before i i mean yeah but like we just like to have it in the bank no you do just for like yes you worked hard to save this money up and it hurts emotionally to let it go for someone else's mistake yeah that's okay to say out loud but just know when you get married you're signing up for that whole person's life, and it's our money.

So now you have debt as well. It's our debt, and it's our income. All of the mistakes you have made come with you. All of the mistakes she has made come with her. And the preacher will say, and now you are one mistake. So this is how this works, brother. Are you that in love with her that you're willing to do this oh 100 not even a second when you get home from the honeymoon write a check and pay off her student loan okay yeah period period no question about it and she should be paying it down you know we've

got to save up for the wedding are you guys paying for it no luckily her parents have blessed us with paying for the wedding great that's been a huge blessing for sure that's wonderful and she's totally she's paying paying it down we've actually been taking your class through our church and good so she's already working it down like every single day um but it's just it looks like there might be a little bit left over once we get married and so you know i was calling to see see what your opinion was on it. Yeah, so, Chaz, here's the thing. If you called us up, you've listened to us or you've been through Financial Peace University.

If you called us up and said, we're a married couple, we have $34,000 in savings, and we have $17,000 in a student loan, we instantaneously would tell you to pay that off, wouldn't we? Yes, you would. The only nuance here is that it's new because the marriage will be at that time new. So that's the only nuance. And what you're facing here is you're really having to face this idea that we are going to combine our incomes, our dreams, our fears, our mistakes, our assets. We're going to combine everything,

and we're going to become a whole new entity called a married couple. And this is forcing you to process the emotions of that, which to George's point, we poke fun, but they're very real. It's a very real emotion. Yeah. But you've listened to us enough to know that if you were answering the question as you're driving along in the car while listening on talk radio uh and someone else called in you would be going they're going to tell him pay the loan off yes okay so the only difference here is it wasn't an existing marriage

couple we're moving into it and that's the only nuanced change. And it happens to be your money this time rather than listening to someone else call in. That changes it too. That's tough. But, you know, the beautiful thing is you also get to build wealth together, and it is like exponentially greater when you have two people who are on the same page. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's what's called in sociological studies and economic studies that called the marriage advantage.

There's several marital advantages. If you haven't ever read the research that's out there, health, males who are married live longer. Wow. Yeah. And couples who are married have a wealth and an income career, a career and income advantage. Statistically, they make more money and they have more money, statistically.

So it's called the Marriage Advantage Research Projects that are out there floating around. Very interesting to look at. So, yeah, you're right. This is going to go zoom, zoom. You're going to be fine. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. Hey, it's George Camel. If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey Baby Steps,

go to ramseysolutions.com and click on the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. That's ramseysolutions.com and click Get Started.