The Ramsey Show - App - The History of How Thanksgiving Was Born (Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. We are so glad you are here. Well, long before there was Black Friday on Thanksgiving, by the way, Happy Thanksgiving, we were taught when I was a little kid that pilgrims and Indians had come together.

And we didn't even know what a pilgrim was, except people with a funny hat. And we learned later on the real story of that time period, and that those folks probably would have starved to death if the Native American Indians had not come alongside them and helped them. There's a lot to be thankful for in hard times. This year has been a dumpster fire. 2020, the year of the dumpster fire. Everything that can go wrong just about has in a lot of people's lives.

A lot of you have faced some unbelievable things. A lot of you have gotten more dirty looks from friends and relatives. Due to social distancing and masks than you ever have in your entire lives. Some of you are experiencing that right now as you head to Thanksgiving with a dysfunctional family. Some of these families put the fun in dysfunctional. Long before we gathered around turkeys and watched football, long before there was dressing, there was a mother of Thanksgiving. Did you know Thanksgiving has a mother? In the United States, Thanksgiving has a mother.

Her name is Sarah Hale. See, Thanksgiving didn't start with the actual proclamation by Abraham Lincoln. It started with George Washington 70 years before he put out a proclamation to have a day of giving thanks. Many other states and many other presidents had done one-offs for Thanksgiving. And Sarah Hale, who was a magazine editor, began writing to the presidents when she was 59 years old every year. Whoever was the president of the United States, she would write a long and eloquent letter explaining that the United States needed a day set aside to give thanks.

Finally, at 74 years old, after doing this for 15 years and been denied, Abraham Lincoln picked up her letter and agreed to declare a day of giving thanks. And Thanksgiving Day, ever since that proclamation, has been here on the last Thursday of November. The actual proclamation was written by William Seward, the Secretary of State at the time, and if you don't know much about Lincoln, Lincoln surrounded himself with people who didn't necessarily like him or agree with him. William was one of those. William Seward's a brilliant man. The original proclamation was in his handwriting.

And here's how Thanksgiving was born after Sarah Hale finally talked a president into doing it, October 3rd of 1863. Lincoln said, the year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come. Others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. Keep in mind, this is written and read by the President of the United States. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity,

which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations. Order has been maintained. The laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship.

The axes enlarge the borders of our settlements, and the mines as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield. And the country rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out

these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof I have here to set my hand and cause the seal of the United States to be affixed, done at the city of Washington this third day of October, in the year of our Lord, 1863, of the independence of the United States, the 88th, by President Abraham Lincoln. So in case you had never known this fact, Sarah Hale, the mother of Thanksgiving,

convinced the president after 15 years of badgering different presidents to proclaim a day of Thanksgiving. October 3rd, 1863, the proclamation went out. And if you read that proclamation, it is unavoidable that the President of the United States said that this, of that day, not this day, but of that day, said that this day of Thanksgiving is when we're to stop and say thank you to God. Now, what does the ACLU do with that? The president said to stop and say, thank you, God,

because the blessings that we've had are unbelievable. They're mind-blowing. The world in which we get to live, even in a dumpster fire of a year like this, you have to look around you and say, thank you, God. The world in which we get to live, even in a dumpster fire of a year like this, you have to look around you and say, thank you, God. That is what Thanksgiving really is. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. With more frequency than you know, I get calls and emails from people dealing with the recent loss of a spouse or a parent. You can hear the struggle and the heartache that they've been experiencing. And at a time they should be grieving,

what breaks my heart the most is the strain and tension that they're going through because of money, especially when it's a situation that could have been avoided. If you have a family, it is your responsibility to have term life insurance. It's one of the things you do to say I love you. And yes, this is an ad for Zander Insurance. But since this is one of the most effective ways I have to get my point across, so be it. For over 20 years, I've been telling you about the importance of term life insurance and protecting your family.

Listen, you need to check out Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. I can't say it enough. Protect your family. It's what you're supposed to do. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. open phones on this thanksgiving eve we have we celebrate christmas eve let's celebrate thanksgiving phone numbers triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five tyler is in Chicago. Tyler, what are you thankful for? I'd say I'm thankful for my health, especially this year.

Amen. Yeah, we don't take that for granted right now, do we? Yeah. No, definitely not. Cool. How can I help today? Yeah, big fan of the show. I've been following you for years.

So my wife and I are 29. We have a baby on the way in February. My question is if we should get life insurance. In some additional details, our net worth is right around $900,000 split between a paid-off house, retirement, and then stocks and taxable accounts. Current spending is $40,000 a year. Income is just north of $200,000. And I also get $200,000 in life insurance through work on myself. Are you healthy?

Yeah, my question. Do you smoke? No. Are you obese? No. Okay. Then life insurance doesn't cost you nothing i'd drop yeah i would drop a million on you it costs a pizza man yeah yeah you got a baby you got a baby i drop an extra million i mean she she's never gonna get to heaven, you know, you left me too much money. That's a good point.

Yeah, I know that they say like 10 times your income, but I was just wondering. Yeah, you may not need that much. I usually say 10 to 12 because the idea of that is if you had $2 million invested at 10%, that'd be $200,000 and we just replaced you. That's the idea of that. It's a fairly simple analog formula. I mean, it's not very dynamic. it's a fairly simple analog formula i mean it's not very dynamic it's just a basic roi formula but that's the concept because most people don't buy enough insurance because they buy the wrong kinds they buy that crappy cash value stuff instead of buying term so a 20-year level term on you for a million bucks when it costs nothing that would throw a

hundred thousand at her plus you've got a million-dollar net worth already going. She doesn't need all $200,000 of your income to raise this kid. Right? Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, and you're young, and really, when you price it, you're going to be going, it's a couple hundred bucks. I mean, it's just nothing. I'm 60, and it doesn't cost that much on me.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, so I jump on it. Go to ZanderInsurance.com and just pull up a quick, easy quote. They'll shop up a zillion companies, and you're just going to go, oh, wow, I make $200,000 a year. This is something I'd buy. I've still got some life insurance on me from time to time doing different things. Like we're halfway through a building over here,

and my wife didn't want that building to not be finished and i die um she's like i want that building finished and so i'd rather have this policy than another diamond ring and honestly it costs less so that's a deal for me it's swi sharon wants it you know so hadn't really got anything to do with financial planning at that point but uh jump in jump in i would it, Tyler. And congratulations on the baby. That's something to be thankful for. Jessica is in Dayton, Ohio. Hi, Jessica. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I am debt-free as of last week. I paid off all my student loans. And I am in the aviation industry. So right now, I am thankful that I still have a job.

Hey, man. What do you do? I'm an aircraft dispatcher. Okay, cool. All right. What? Okay. I'm sorry? I said for a corporate fleet or what?

No, for a regional airline. Okay, neat. Okay, good. And they're still flying a little bit. All right. They are. Our numbers have come up a little bit, so we're looking okay. But I was hoping to make it to a mainline this year, but, you know, that won't happen for a little while, but that's okay.

So I was just wondering, since my career's kind of on hold right now, I thought I'd like to learn even more about my industry and maybe some uh shadowing of my bosses um but i'm just wondering if it's okay in this kind of time to stress them out with somebody uh shadowing their job yeah well i mean just ask them all right does this does this would this stress you out you know and and you know if they're most people will just go yeah i can't do it right now i can't breathe or that's cool it's not a big deal to have we love to have you around it's all good love to have the company you know uh so no it's not a different people react to uh you know this this mess as it's come at people this year has not created character in people. It has exposed it.

And so if someone was on the edge of fear and anxiety and trepidation, then they're completely freaked out and sucking their thumb and sitting in the corner of their house right now. And if someone was belligerent and over the top and doesn't like rules like me then they haven't stayed in their house at all and so uh it's but it's just exposed who we already were it's not that there's not that that other person's wrong and i'm right or whatever it's not that's not the point and so that'll be true of your boss if you ask about this they're like oh god no i can't take another plane and that's just that that's not a that wasn't you being wrong for asking it's they're like oh god no i can't take another plane and that's just that that's not a that wasn't you being wrong for asking it's they're just freaked out you know we've all got friends and relatives who are freaked out we've all got friends or relatives that are not freaked out

enough and so you know that's just it's just the exposing of this uh crappy, chaotic world that we live in this year. And so, yeah, just be nice about it, whatever you do. I mean, just be kind and, you know, you don't have to lose respect for someone because they can't deal with it right now. You know, I've got good friends who are in freak-out mode, and I'm just asking God. I don't want to lose respect for them. I always had respect for them before, And I'm going to be kind. I'm going to be kind.

And the problem is some of you have not been kind to each other. You're nasty in the publics because you went down the wrong aisle the wrong way. As if, by God, that was going to kill another human. You know, be nice. Be nice. Keep your vicious eyes to yourself. And for God's sake, your vicious mouth to yourself. And particularly this, I mean, you're going home for Thanksgiving. You've got relatives that are all over the map. They're everywhere in this thing. Be nice. It's really not hard. It is hard,

because some people are just dumber than a rock. But be nice. Be nice. Yeah, Jessica, that's all you do here. And I'm not preaching at you. I just got off on a sidebar there. But your bosses will react according to who they are, not according to whether it's right to ask them or not. And so I would ask, and I would go ahead. I think you ought to get on with living your life. That's what I think.

All right. Michael is in Olympia, Washington. Hi, Michael. I think you ought to get on with living your life. That's what I think. All right. Michael is in Olympia, Washington. Hi, Michael. How are you? I'm doing great, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right. So I'm at a bit of a crossroads. I'm asking, do I buy a home or start a business or do both? Basically, my situation is I'm 24. I live at home. I'm getting ready to move out, paid off all my student loans, and I'm currently working in a field with high job security and sitting on a pile of cash. I've been saving for a down payment. Yeah. However, over the past several months, I caught the bug, Dave, caught the bug.

I've got some entrepreneurial ideas that I can't really seem to put down. Start them small. You don't have to start them large. Yeah. There's three rules of business, Michael. It's going to take twice as long as you think. It's going to cost twice as much as you think. And you're not the

exception those are the three rules so start small start chipping away and you can use your cash to buy a house if you want because you don't need a bunch of cash to get started in your world you don't need to you don't need to invest forty thousand dollars in an idea that's unproven untested and that you've got no social proof on. So I do want you to go be in business, but I want you to do it a little bit at a time. You're talking to a guy who started this whole $200 million organization on a card table in my living room with absolutely no money. And I went and made a little money, and I put it right back into the business. I went and made a little more money and put it right back into the business.

And the first year we started doing this business full-time, my income went in half. And Sharon said, where's the financial piece? This is the day from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Always use the magic word, the promo code RAMSY. It's magic. Jack is in North Dakota. I have an extremely high-risk job in the military and am getting out early, no pension or medical for life.

Many guys get hurt or develop problems later in life. Is it possible to develop a condition that makes you basically uninsurable? If so, would you recommend getting whole life insurance in this case? Yeah, you can get conditions, medical conditions that make you uninsurable or very difficult to insure. Obviously, extreme heart problems, different kinds of disabilities, ongoing depression that is being medicated, diabetes. These make it very difficult and in some cases almost impossible to get life insurance. Some versions of PTSD, if that's what you're talking about coming out of the military,

can be converted into considered in the mental illness phase of category of things. And if you get diagnosed in that, it's going to be very hard to get insurance if that's what you're talking about. So I don't know how you were hurt or develop problems. Obviously, you've been in a very high contact situation. Thank you for your service, by the way. So buying whole life insurance is no different than buying term. Both of them require, the majority of them require a medical inspection, some of them a physical in addition to that, but there's a, you have a medical credit bureau, just like your credit bureau report on credit, there's a thing that keeps track, a bureau that keeps track of all of the medical entries by the medical community on you. And so an insurance company will pull that, and if they see, you know,

repeated cancer treatments or something like that, even if you don't say that on the application, they will look at that and go, uh-uh. You know, so, but get term insurance. You know, someday when the term runs out, you know, you may have built enough, you should have built enough wealth to let this go. So let me give you an example. Regardless of if you think you might develop problems later,

if you don't have them now, you're 30 years old, you've got two little kids, and the kids are four and two, and you buy a 20-year level term insurance policy on you, 20 years later, your 15-year mortgage will be paid off because we never tell you to take out more than a 15 in any case. 20 years later of investing 15% of your income in Baby Step 4 into retirement and having been debt free because we're going to teach you how to get out of debt on everything else is going to cause

you to have a huge pile of money in your mutual funds in your retirement account. 20 years later, you have a 24 year old and a 22 year old. So if something happens to you, they can probably figure out a way to make life happen. That's what they're supposed to do. We're supposed to support them when they're four, but not when they're 24. And so if you die and you've got a million dollars in your retirement account, no debt on the house, no debt at all, the kids are grown and gone, I think your wife will make it. Or if you couldn't get insurance and you died later with no insurance is my point, because after 20 years you had developed one of these conditions that you're afraid of and you couldn't renew the policy or couldn't get a new policy at the end of that time.

You became uninsurable during that 20 years. Oh, I should have had a whole life. No, because you don't really need life insurance your whole life unless you're going to screw around and not do financial planning. If you do financial planning and get out of debt and build wealth, you get out of the business of life insurance. You don't need it. Because, again, if you've got a million dollars or two million dollars

and no debt and the kids are grown and gone, you have financial planned your way into self-insurance. And a guy called earlier in the hour that was halfway there, he had a million dollars worth of assets, but not all of them income producing. And he was 29. His first baby was on the way. Same exact question in a sense. Do I even need life insurance? Yeah, you do because you weren't quite there. That was my answer to him. In your case, you get it now. Take out a 20-year policy. Yeah, go to zanderinsurance.com and I think you'll be great. I think you'll be gold, man. Ryan's with us.

Ryan is in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Hi, Ryan. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. I appreciate it. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to you.

What are you thankful for? This year I'm definitely thankful for the health of my kids, and then, of course, my rock star wife who is just killing it at the homeschooling thing, taking care of our two kids at home, which is very difficult. So I'm definitely thankful for all that. Amen. How can I help today? Well, my question has to do with college savings.

So I'm 41, and my wife somehow keeps telling me she's 27. So we are considering having a third kid next year. So looking forward, by the time that kid would go to college, we would have access to retirement funds. Would it make sense to use our retirement accounts as college savings or do a 529 or maybe even a combination of both? I would do a 529. You just have no need to overfund it because you are going to have plenty of wealth that you have access to if you run short but the 529 is yet another account that will grow tax-free and anything we can do to create tax-free growth is never a bad thing right if the but if we're looking at a roth ira, the Roth IRA I would rather you have for your wealth.

Right. I mean, the point is you could do one, you could do the other, or you could do both. And I'm saying do both. Okay. As much tax-free growth as we can possibly come up with. 529, Roth, anything we want to call it, ESA, whatever it is, let's get as much of that going in your favor as you can. But you don't have to, because you're going to be in really good shape not counting the 529,

if the 529 comes up 40 or 50 grand short, not 200 grand short, but 40 or 50 grand short, you can reach over and handle it without any trouble, without damaging your plan. Makes sense. Yeah, so I'm going to use the 529. Now, when you're buying a 529, there are several types. You only want to buy the type that you are in control of the mutual funds. They don't automatically move based on the age of the kid. They're not frozen.

It's not categorized based on how you feel about risk. It's very simple. You pick the mutual fund, and I recommend the four types in a 529 for a baby that i use in my retirement account growth growth and income aggressive growth and international my grandchildren's 529s are set up that way so that that's what you know but just go to a smart vestor pro and they can help you click smart vestor at davramc.com and help you get all that started lynn is in middleton ohio hi lynn how are you hi dave i'm great how are you today better than i deserve how can i help awesome i love it i'm in idaho actually oh um okay yes i think somebody was watching hillbilly elegy and

got the wrong name okay because middleton ohio is where it's set. Okay. Anyway. My question is regarding doing a HELOC as a first place pulling me to Michael Lush's Replace Your Mortgage program. And I am trying to figure out if that's the best way to go. Currently, my interest rate is four and a quarter. My refi was going to go down to 2.875. I chose a little bit higher rate to get fewer closing costs. But when all is said and done, it'll add about 10,000 to the loan. So right now, without that, I owe 270 and the value of the home is in the 340s. Why would you do a HELOC? Well, you would essentially put all your money, like your

paychecks, into the HELOC and then use the HELOC as the account that you would pay your bills from. You know what? That doesn't work. Why? You know, well, it's pretty simple. You know how your principal is reduced on your mortgage? When you reduce the principal on the mortgage. It doesn't matter if you run around the barn twice and do the hokey pokey before you do it, which is what you're talking about. You're just trading dollars back and forth and spinning them around. But at the end of the day, the only way your principal is reduced, there's no magic to this.

When you pay down the mortgage is when the mortgage is paid down, regardless of how you get at it. So that's a complete con. I would stay completely away from that crap. No, get a traditional first mortgage on a mortgage this size and get a fixed rate and lock it in while these rates are low. Don't run around the barn twice. Just pay the mortgage down. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Isn't it interesting that when you have something hard to do, and you avoid doing it because it makes you anxious, it makes fret because i know it's going to be hard and so i'm worried about it and then the very fact that you avoid doing the hard thing because you're anxious makes you even more anxious and worried putting it off doesn't work the splinter festers doesn't it when people

avoid hard stuff like making a will, it actually causes more anxiety. Deal with the important stuff and you have more peace. Take it head on. Get the will done. You're not going to make it out of this alive. You need a will. I've done research. 100% of you are going to die. You need a will need a will i told my team the other day we furnished them a will and it's free as a as a benefit and i told them from stage the other day with our thousand person staff meeting i said if you don't get a will and you die i'm going to kill you you need a will you need a will you need will. Making a will also lets you be generous beyond your family. More and more of our listeners are creating their wills and giving like no one else.

From $10 to $20 million a month in estate gifts to churches and charities, and their wills are being registered right now. Man, that's amazing. We've made planning and giving super simple. We'll start with the free will preparation checklist. It covers the seven most important things you need to think about, plus all the stuff most of us forget. To get the checklist, text WILL to 33789.

The odd thing is that by doing a will, you have more peace in your life and you will live longer. Try that one out. I don't want to do a will. I might die. You're going to die. Never has one time someone doing a will caused someone's death. Now, what was in the will might have got you killed, but yeah.

Shaquib is in Washington, D.C. Hi, Shaquib. How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm doing well. Thanks for taking my call. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to you. How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm doing well. Thanks for taking my call. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to you.

What are you thankful for? I would say in these times definitely my family and my friends. Yeah, amen. Amen. How can I help? Yeah, so I have a quick question. So I'm 25 years old. I'm still living at home, and I know your guidance is to move out by this age or well before this age.

So in order to do that, then weigh my options in terms of if I should rent first or buy a place. I have a little bit of money saved up, so buying is definitely on the table. But obviously with real estate prices and the DCA being relatively high, just weighing my options in terms of if it makes more sense to buy a place or to rent. You're 25, and you make how much? I make about $110,000. Good for you. What do you do for a living?

I'm a consultant. You're doing great, man. And how much money have you got saved? I have about $90,000 sitting in a bank and about 30 in investments. Way to go. You're killing it. Very well done. Well, mathematically, you're in a place to where you could buy without any trouble.

What you're describing is very, very doable mathematically. I have a 29-year-old son. If he came to me at 25 and it was exactly your situation, I would tell him to move out and rent for a year okay because there's something about getting acclimated to buying your own freaking groceries and paying your own light bill that changes the way you walk talk and think and at the end of that time you'll make a different buying decision than you might make coming straight out of the nest and on top of that you are at a highly transitional period in your life uh relationally it's not unusual in our culture today for a young man of your age to find the young woman of his dreams in the next four to five years and i and having bought a house prior to finding her

you will discover after you find her that you bought the wrong house and you'll get to do it again there's nothing wrong with that as long as you've been in there a little while and you make a little money on it right it's okay but uh uh you know you probably yeah she's not gonna move into the bachelor pad usually. So I would rent for a year and just see how your life's going. Okay? Now, here's a couple of examples. Let's say that what I predicted right there just absolutely doesn't happen after one year. There's nobody anywhere in the range of the radar, right?

Then you may want to just buy something. Get you a condo or something and something that you don't have to screw with a lot. You're a single guy and just enjoying your life and you don't want the house to be a burden to you if you do nine nine hours of yard work on the weekend or something that'd be nuts when you're 25 years old and single and so uh it might be nuts anyway but um but anyway the uh you know do something like that but let's say maybe that the young lady is on the radar and maybe it got real serious real fast and you may want to wait until after that marriage uh in order to buy um wouldn't be anything wrong with that so you've got a little time

before now i don't want you to wake up at 35 and still be renting but i'm okay if you're 27 and you're still renting okay because you're just kind of riding out life and seeing how it's gonna you're riding the wave man you're just trying to see how the wave's gonna break that's what you're just kind of riding out life and seeing how it's going to – you're riding the wave, man. You're just seeing how the wave's going to break. That's what you're doing. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Mina is in San Diego. Hi, Mina.

How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? It's exciting to be talking to you. You too. How can we help? I had a quick question. So my mom, she's in her late 60s, never had a retirement plan,

doesn't have anything for retirement. She's kind of living off Social Security. And at this time, she's having a hard time keeping up with her mortgage payments. So I was just wondering if it's a good idea for her to take a reverse mortgage out just because it's really important for her to stay in that house. Why is it really important for her to stay in that house, and she does have equity in that house. Why is it really important for her to stay in that house? She has planted trees. That's emotionally important.

Yes. But she can't afford it. Well, I mean, she has four kids. We're not looking to inherit anything. She can't afford the house is what you told me. Correct. But, I mean, she could stay in that house with a reverse mortgage and that way she would be comfortable. Not really. The foreclosure rate on the reverse mortgage properties is 10x the normal foreclosure rate on regular mortgages.

Under what conditions would they foreclose on a reverse mortgage? I'm not very familiar on how that works. Well, number one, you can't. How much does she owe on this house? So she owes about $300,000, and it's worth like $700,000. Yeah, so she's going to get almost nothing out of it because you can only get 50% to 65% loan-to-value. And so she's going to get a few payments here or there and honey she can't afford this house okay reverse mortgages have higher interest rates and the highest fees the industry is prone and full of crooks the little

company that tom selleck endorses 700 million dollars in fines on that company for mistreating old people remember him on the you know you remember him on the tv okay and uh i remember him as magnum pi but i also remember him selling reverse mortgages him and the funds both right and so uh high fees and then what happens is if when the when the thing runs up to 65, the payments stop, and the first mortgage payments don't stop. And if you don't keep the first mortgage payments current, the second mortgage, which is the reverse mortgage, forecloses. If you don't have a first mortgage and you run up to there and you don't keep the maintenance up,

the insurance up, and the taxes up, which many people can't't do then you also get foreclosed on and again that's what that's why we're seeing the fees the interest rates the structure of the things it's a freaking pipe dream and so i i wouldn't tell your mom to do that i'm sorry that she's gotten into a situation that she can't afford a seven hundred thousand dollar house where she planted the trees but it sounds like she has. Why does she have no money and she has this house? Well, it's a long story, but okay. All right, thank you, Dave.

Thank you. You're going to go do it anyway. All right, why call? Why call? Open phones at 888-825-5225. Dave is in Hartford, Connecticut. Hi, Dave, how are you? Hello, Mr. Ramsey. How are you today?

Better than I deserve. How can I help? I got a question for you in reference to 15% of your retirement funds going to like a Roth IRA. Let's say I need to max that out more. So let's say I can only max it out at $7,000 a year, and I'm looking to invest it in a different option than that. After I've maxed it out, is there any other investment opportunities that you would recommend? Well, the investment opportunities are not, the IRA is how the investment opportunities treat it. I'm looking for mutual funds inside of any of these things, but obviously 401k is at work. If you've got any self-employed income, you can do a SEP IRA in addition to the traditional Roths,

and after that, there's not. You're looking at that point for low turnover mutual funds, which will help you get a lower tax problem. Have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life? Let them know about the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast. It's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes. Check out the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.