The Ramsey Show - App - There is an Adulthood Shortage in Our Culture (Hour 3)

Episode Date: December 11, 2018

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you are here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Scott is with us in Sacramento. Hey, Scott, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's up?
Starting point is 00:01:00 Hey, so being the end of the year, my wife and I are starting to look at 401K and IRA contributions and working on trying to maximize everything we can with retirement. I wanted to ask you for a few, some advice on a few things here. So beyond the standard 18-5 that you can put into a 401K, what would you recommend on next steps um and i'll say that we both of our works offer a roth 401k so we're doing that first good um and maximizing that out and um so i assume you're out of debt and your home is paid off yes sir okay so you're baby step seven yes way to go yeah we started your program uh about eight years ago way to go man okay so you're Baby Step 7. Yes. Way to go. Yeah, we started your program about eight years ago. Way to go, man.
Starting point is 00:01:47 Okay, so you can both do $18,500, $19,000 in 2019 on your 401k. How old are you guys? 36 and 37. Okay, yeah, $19,000 next year, $18,500 this year on each 401k. Those two are maxed. And a couple of Roth IRAs at $5,500 each. Max those. Do you have any self-employment income?
Starting point is 00:02:11 No. Okay. You said a couple of Roth IRAs. Is that the backdoor Roth that I've heard you talk about? Are you over $200,000 income? Yes. Yeah, they'll be backdoor Roths, yeah. If you can do them.
Starting point is 00:02:23 If you can do them. Your SmartVestor Pro can tell you if you qualify or not. It depends on the amount of passive income you've got. But anyway, yeah, that's about it. I mean, you max out the Roths and max out the 401ks, and after that you're starting to just do other investing. At that point, what I have done and what I'd recommend you look at is I just invest in a, you know, since it's out in the cold now because there's no coat to protect it, no retirement plan to hide the taxes in, right? Once I've maxed out everything.
Starting point is 00:02:58 At that point, I do low turnover mutual funds. Now, what that means is inside the mutual fund, they don't sell the stocks hardly ever. And the lower turnover ratio, the fewer stocks. So if you had a 5% turnover ratio, that means they hold 95% of the stocks in that mutual fund through the whole year if the mutual fund inside of it does not sell the stocks then your gain in value in the mutual fund grows without paying taxes on it until you cash it out it's a capital gains growth much like if you bought if you bought a single stock for fifty dollars and it went up to seventy dollars you don't pay taxes on that $20 gain until you sell it. And the same happens inside a mutual fund because they're not selling the stock. It's like a buy-hold
Starting point is 00:03:52 scenario. It's a capital gains growth. Or like owning a rental house, it goes from $200,000 to $300,000. You don't pay taxes on that increase in value until you sell it. And when you do sell it, it's only taxed at capital gains rate. that's a beautiful benefit of it as long as you hold it a year long-term capital gains of 15 so that's what i do an easy way to do that is just pick up a uh an s&p 500 index fund and i just pick up a no load i wouldn't pay i wouldn't pay a load on that um okay depending on how much you've got invested with your smart investor pro they may be able to do that for a little of nothing but i wouldn't pay a load on that. Okay. Depending on how much you've got invested with your SmartVestor Pro, they may be able to do that for little or nothing. But I wouldn't be paying any fees on that because it's a no-brainer
Starting point is 00:04:30 because almost all the S&P index funds, like a Vanguard or whatever, have a south of 5% turnover ratio. And that beats a lot of other investments because it's growing without taxes until you cash it in. And when you do cash it in, it's not ordinary income. See, like your 401K that's not Roth or that kind of stuff or traditional, when you cash that stuff out, you don't pay taxes on it as it grows. But when you cash it out, it's ordinary income. This grows when you cash it out.
Starting point is 00:05:01 It's capital gains at 15%. So it's a good, good deal all the way around. I did that personally, and I still do that. And I just throw money in an S&P like that until I get enough in there to buy a piece of real estate for cash. And then I clean it out and buy me a piece of real estate, and then I'll do it again. And then I'll do it again. And I use that as a savings vehicle, an investing vehicle, because sometimes it'll take longer than a year to build up enough to buy a house or something. And then I'll do it again. And I use that as a savings vehicle, an investing vehicle,
Starting point is 00:05:29 because sometimes it will take longer than a year to build up enough to buy a house or something, if you want to buy real estate, that is. Yeah, we're still working on the next phase would be upgrading our current house. Okay, okay. Then you could use that money for that easily. What about or would you recommend at any point working on converting traditional IRAs that we still have into Roth? Yeah, definitely. Definitely I would do that in this program too because basically you're going to pay the tax on it as you do that. But that tax, because if you pay the taxes without using any of the lump sum money to do that,
Starting point is 00:06:05 if you pay the taxes out of your cash flow, then what happens is as if you've invested that much more into the Roth mathematically. Right, yeah. We're in a phase right now where we're making good income and we're just trying to maximize and take as much advantage as we can. So I'm thinking if we can maximize what you said and then work on converting the traditional to Roth. Yeah, I would max out.
Starting point is 00:06:29 I'd do the back doors. I'd convert those and pay the taxes. And beyond that, I'd do the low turnover mutual funds. So, hey, good question, man. Thanks for joining us. Vassie is with us in Canada. Is it Vassie or Vossie? Vossie.
Starting point is 00:06:43 Vossie. How can I help? Thanks for taking my call, Dave. Sure. My wife and I were in baby step two. We're almost out. We've got about a year left, and we're going to save up our emergency fund. Looking to buy a house after that, so going to step three,
Starting point is 00:06:58 being planning ahead, and I wanted to run this by you. Our government has this program for first-time homebuyers. Basically, what you do is you can contribute to your RRSP, which is Canadian 401k. So it'd be all pre-tax dollars. They allow you to take up to $25,000 out to buy towards a down payment, and that without penalties, without taxes, but you'd have to pay it back in 15 years. So what you'd do is take the total amount you took out, divide it by 15, and that would be your yearly contribution, putting it back in, but up to $25 per person.
Starting point is 00:07:34 So do you recommend that would be a good savings vehicle for that? No. No. No, you're locking yourself into a mess here. You should use your retirement for retirement, and you ought to just save up and put your down payment on your house. In the States, you can use your Roth for a house down payment too, but I would never do that.
Starting point is 00:07:54 No, I don't want you to. I don't want to get into the game plan of messing with retirement in order to buy a house. I don't borrow on a 401K. I wouldn't. In a sense, that's what you're doing here, except there's no interest and you're just turning around and paying it back over time. Required payments, though. Now, you just keep your life clean and simple.
Starting point is 00:08:17 Use your retirement for retirement. Save up for a down payment on the house. That way, nothing's messing with each other then. Hope that helps. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. One question I get asked all the time is, do I need life insurance? Listen, the whole point of life insurance is to replace your income for someone who counts on you. So if you have a spouse or you have kids, yes, you need term life insurance. It's the only way to protect them until you're out of debt and have built up your wealth.
Starting point is 00:09:11 You're only digging a deeper hole if you waste money on cash value plans since it robs you of the ability to make real progress. And that's why I send you to Zander Insurance, and I have for 20 years. That's where I get all my insurance, and they only offer the plans I recommend. It is not expensive. It's not complicated. And Zander will be there as your guide every step of the way. Visit Zander.com or call 800-356-4282.
Starting point is 00:09:38 You need to get this taken care of. I can give you the advice, and I can tell you where to go, but it's really up to you to take that important step to get your family protected. That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Well, the new tax law for 2018 is going to affect you when you file your taxes coming up here soon. You know, one of the most common deductions for businesses, meals, entertainment, gone. Can't use that deduction anymore.
Starting point is 00:10:37 Oh, there's some other really good deductions that have been increased and changed, though, if you have an LLC or a sub-S, or even if you're running a business as a sole proprietorship. Yeah. Oh, and your standard deduction changed for everyone. Huge change. So tax law has changed a lot for 2018. You're getting ready to file taxes under that. You want to make sure you take full advantage of all of this,
Starting point is 00:11:03 and the only way to do that is get with somebody that really knows their stuff. So get with one of our tax ELPs, and they'll make sure you get your filing done properly on time early and save you all the money you can possibly save. DaveRamsey.com slash ELP, or just go to DaveRamsey.com, look for the ELPs on the right front side of the page. ELP stands for Endorsed Local Provider, someone we endorse. They're local in your area, and they provide you with help, in this case, for taxes.
Starting point is 00:11:36 Chris is in Virginia Beach. Hey, Chris, how are you? Hey there, Dave. Great. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, thank you so much for taking the call.
Starting point is 00:11:46 I have a two-part question here. First of all, I got married about a month and a half ago. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Things are going really well. And I can be honest and say that I haven't always gravitated towards financial conversations. I came actually, my fatheritated towards financial conversations. I came actually, my father was a financial planner. And so I came up in that industry, at least knowing some,
Starting point is 00:12:18 but some business things happened and I ended up not wanting to deal with things, you know, as they kind of came up. At the same time, my wife, she's a physical therapist, got her doctorate and has a bunch of student loan debt over the last six, I guess, seven years now, you know, paid around $1,200 a month in student loans, and it essentially all has gone towards the principal. I guess I'm trying to figure out, you know out partly how can I be the most supportive, as I haven't always been leading up to now, but also is there a way to kind of tackle it more head-on than we are now? Okay. Well, it sounds like you're not tackling it at all.
Starting point is 00:12:56 You're just kind of wandering along. So tackling it would be a new thing. So you just got married. Both of you, you know, it's time to get serious and get these things cleaned up uh whatever debt you've got and whatever debt she's got is now our debt um for richer for poorer and sickness and in health uh and so that's where you are and so what we do we you and your wife that's the we, sit down and we look at our income for this month. And we say, what are we going to do with that income?
Starting point is 00:13:29 And we're going to decide that on paper, and that's called a budget. You're going to tell your money what to do. I don't really care what you tell it to do. I got some suggestions. But if you'll just tell it what to do, you'll start being a whole lot smarter. That's attacking it head on. And then once you're telling it what to do, then we teach that you work what we call the baby steps. Baby step one is save $1,000.
Starting point is 00:13:55 And then baby step two is you list all of these debts, the student loans, your debts, whatever they were, smallest debt to largest debt. While you pay minimum payments on them, you attack with a vengeance. Every dollar you can squeeze out of your life, out of your budget, work extra, whatever you can do, you knock out that smallest debt. And when it's gone, you take the payments you used to pay, and you attack the next one down. When that one's gone, you take the next one down, and so on.
Starting point is 00:14:20 Every time you pay off one, you don't have that payment anymore, and you've got more money to attack the next one. Right. I've been a big fan of your work and plan on getting her for Christmas Financial Peace University, so I think that'll be helpful, not just for the financial side, but also for doing it together and walking through it together. Yeah, that'll be perfect, man. That's a good idea to be able to work through the whole process together. Excellent job.
Starting point is 00:14:48 Open phones at 888-825-5225. You guys jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Leo is with us in Washington, D.C. Hey, Leo, how are you? Hey, Dave, how are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help?
Starting point is 00:15:02 All right. I'm super nervous, so hopefully I can get this out correctly. My question is, I make $116,000 a year. I owe $177,000 on my house. I'm currently maxing out my TSP contributions at $19,000 for this upcoming year. My question is, should I – oh, I'm sorry. I'm also making two mortgage payments of $1,400 each. So every two weeks I put $1,400 towards my mortgage. Cool.
Starting point is 00:15:28 I was wondering, should I stop my TSP and just put the bare minimum of 5% for employer matching and make a third mortgage payment and pay my house off in four years, or should I just keep doing the two payments and pay it off in seven years? Seven years. Do the seven? Yeah, you're doing 15 of your income going into retirement which we call baby step four and you're going to keep doing that and baby step five is kids college you have kids you need to be doing something for college
Starting point is 00:15:54 right now but do you have do you have kids college uh no sir i have no kids okay cool so you're skip that and we go on to baby step everything above 15 percent going into retirement goes towards your mortgage which is what you're doing and you've got that scheduled for seven years and that's with no raises so it's probably a five or six year plan yeah okay that's exactly what i would that's what we teach people to do we don't teach you to stop doing baby step four in order to pay off the house a couple years faster um And you're making really good money, man. You're killing it. Way to go.
Starting point is 00:16:28 Congratulations. Very well done. Very well done. Keith is with us in Phoenix. Hi, Keith. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.
Starting point is 00:16:37 Sure. And thank you for giving people solutions, not just the blame game. So I'm hoping you can give me a solution here. I'll try. Every son has a fear. One is mom calls and says she's sick or something horrible's happened. Second is mom calls and says she's out of money. So I'm blessed that we're not in that situation. Mom did a wonderful job, but I'm at 275 now. I sat down with her as the executor of her estate, went through the numbers,
Starting point is 00:17:12 and she's sitting on an $80,000 mortgage, but she's got 400 and some odd thousand in retirement accounts with an Edward Jones broker. And of that $400,000, all but like $20,000 is in the stock market. And, you know, I'm just sitting here going, you know, Mom, I hope you're alive to see it all bounce back. But, you know, when she takes a distribution, it's all coming out of the $20,000 that's in her money market fund. And she's only taking $16,000 out a year. So she's living well within her means, you know, doing great. But am I wrong to feel like maybe she should be paying off the mortgage
Starting point is 00:17:55 at the guaranteed 4% return? Yeah, I would pay off the mortgage and leave her $300,000. Sure. Absolutely would do that. As far as her being in the stock market at her age, that sounds like that's a great shock to you. I don't think that's a bad thing. It's not what the
Starting point is 00:18:12 typical financial planner tells you to do. They typically tell you to get super conservative the older you get. But, you know, she's not going to use this money. She's going to use the income off of this money. Right. And so the money is going to be left alone. It's going to use this money. She's going to use the income off of this money. Right.
Starting point is 00:18:27 And so the money's going to be left alone. It's going to ride whatever wave it needs to ride in the stock market. And so, you know, if she doesn't live but two years, that's not the end of the world. If she lives 20 years, it's not the end of the world. It'll ride the wave, and it'll be fine.
Starting point is 00:18:43 It doesn't bother me a bit that she's in, as long as it's good mutual funds. I wouldn't ever in single stocks. No, no, it's all mutual funds. Yeah, okay. Well, the first thing I'd do is I'd agree with you. I'd pay off the mortgage, and that leaves us about $300,000. And then I'd start taking my income off of that, which you don't need to take as much now because we don't have a house payment anymore.
Starting point is 00:19:04 Sure. And so set the draw up to be a little bit less. But I'm comfortable with that. A lot of financial people aren't. But I'm 58. I'm 100% in stocks through mutual funds. I don't have anything else. And I really don't plan to change that ever.
Starting point is 00:19:20 I'm just going to ride it. And I'm good with that. Hey, good question. Thank you for joining us. Open phones. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution to your health care costs?
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Starting point is 00:20:28 And our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. That means even if you mismeasure or pick the wrong color, they will remake your window blinds for free.
Starting point is 00:21:12 Site-wide savings is happening right now, plus take an additional 5% off at Blinds.com. Alina in New York says, I love my husband and I want to overcome our issue around money. However, my husband lacks the ability or desire to change spending habits that affect me too. He says he wants to change, says he's going to change, but it's always next week or next month. I can't handle the constant roller coaster. Help, please. Is there any hope for us? It's killing our marriage.
Starting point is 00:21:51 If we changed the subject from money to alcoholism or drug use, it would sound exactly the same. I love my husband, and I want to overcome our issues around his use of illegal drugs. However, my husband lacks the ability or desire to change his habits, and they affect me too. Says he wants to change, going to change, but it's always next week or next month. I can't handle it. Please help. Is there any hope for us? It's killing our marriage.
Starting point is 00:22:30 So it's a misbehavior is what it amounts to. In this case, thank God it's not drug use or alcoholism, which is much more difficult to overcome than simple immaturity, which is what this is. The inability to control impulses is attributed to children. Children do what feels good. I can't control my impulses. People like me just buy stuff.
Starting point is 00:22:58 People like you are children. It's a childish behavior. The inability to engage in basic self-control is childish it is what children do there are a lot of emotional children walking around in adult-sized bodies i get that sometimes i'm that guy sometimes i you know i want a chocolate chip cookie. Shut up, you know. And, you know, the inability to control that impulse. But self-control is an attribute. Being able to delay pleasure for a greater good is an attribute of adulthood. So any of us, when we cave to our childish impulses rather than do what's good for the long term for ourselves and those that we love, you know, all of us do that.
Starting point is 00:23:53 The problem is when you do it more than you do the adult stuff. Adults devise a plan and follow it. Children do what feels good. And so what's important for all of us is to do more adult stuff than childish stuff so we get to be an adult. But when you are more childish than you are adult, then your spouse writes me an email and says, it's killing our marriage because I'm married to a little boy.
Starting point is 00:24:21 A little boy who cannot control his spending. I mean, that's what she's saying. And it's like, yeah, man, dude, come on, you wuss. Man up. Your little woman is calling you a boy child. Seriously. So how do you fix that? That's not a financial problem.
Starting point is 00:24:45 That's a maturity problem. One definition of maturity is the ability to delay pleasure, learning to delay pleasure. Live like no one else so that later we can live and give like no one else. You don't accidentally win. And so this is about maturity. It's about growing up, and it's about him putting the good of his family, the good of his relationship with his wife, ahead of his own selfish little childish impulses. He's selfish.
Starting point is 00:25:21 That's the problem. We all are sometimes. I'm the same way sometimes i do sharon exactly the same way sometimes she does me the same way you know i mean we all do this stuff the question is at what percentage and the lower my percentage of stupid childish impulses the higher percentage or the higher quality of life I have I mean how many people they impulse a Porsche you know you can impulse an f-150 that'll kill you man I'll kill you you cannot impulse that stuff this is a major decision when you're spending money like this so the answer to your
Starting point is 00:26:07 question helena is that you should go and see a marriage counselor you ought to ask him to come with you because i'm afraid your marriage is going to end if he doesn't grow up because you're tired of living with a little boy. This the wording in your email submission is dripping with anger due to frustration. I don't really blame you. But the problem with that is you're going to reach a point that the switch is going to flip. And you're done. And there's not going to be any getting you back into the deal. When people switch flips, particularly ladies, I've watched it happen for 30 years, where the marriage is struggling, and I'm doing financial coaching,
Starting point is 00:26:57 and she's just hanging on and hanging on and hanging on and hanging on and hanging on. Can't believe she's hung on this long. And then I'm thinking, man, maybe this old boy's going to turn around and hang on and hang on. Boom, she's done all of a sudden the switch just like a light switch it just goes to off and no marriage counselor no pastor no friend no parent can talk her into coming back she's done Done. Baked turkey, man. I mean, it's over. And so you don't want you to be that, Helena. You want to catch this before you get closer to the switch than you realize you are. And that means you guys need some marital help, big time. You need a marriage counselor. And go see your pastor.
Starting point is 00:27:43 Find out if they do marriage counseling at your church get a good christian marriage counselor to walk you through this and talk you talk to you about relationships and spiritual things and him and if he won't go at least you can go to learn how to talk to him to get him to go because you guys are going to have to get on the same page. This guy, something's got to shake him, and he's got to grow up, because you are married to a boy child. We have a manhood crisis in this culture. There's a shortage. There's some males in the culture, but there's a manhood shortage,
Starting point is 00:28:23 and there's an adulthood shortage in general. A lot of people walking around that somehow their emotional growth was stunted, and they never really came all the way into adulthood for whatever reason. And we can see that by their childish, impulsive, selfish misbehavior. Again, I've done it too. I'm not saying I'm any better. I'm not being condescending. So those of you that think I'm condescending,
Starting point is 00:28:53 that's just because you are being convicted by this very little rant right here. I'm not condescending at all. I've done every bit of this. I've been more immature and more impulsive and more stupid than all of you. But when I quit doing it to the extent i quit doing it the quality of my life goes up the quality of my relationships go up the results i get in the marketplace go up when i manage my emotions instead of them managing me, and it keeps me from being impulsive because I'm angry or impulsive because I'm scared
Starting point is 00:29:30 or impulsive because I'm just four years old down inside, when I manage that, and it's called self-control, it is the attribute of an adult, I get a better life. And that's how I I get a better life. And that's how I've gotten a better life. And that's why I'm a better grandpa than I was a daddy. And by the way, that's a rule. You have to be a better grandpa than you were a daddy because you should have learned something through all those years.
Starting point is 00:30:01 My gosh, you didn't learn anything. What are you, just stupid? Papa Dave ought to be better at this than he was when he was 30. Right? Same thing with your money. Same thing with your career. Same thing with the whole deal. All your relationships, right? It's called growing up. That's what it's about. What do the millennials call it? Adulting. That's what the millennials call it, right? Adulting. That's what we're talking about here.
Starting point is 00:30:26 This is the Dave, Jeremiah 29.11 I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. Zig Ziglar said, Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have 24-hour days.
Starting point is 00:31:16 Andrea is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Andrea. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Thanks for all your help. Thank you. How can I help today? Yes, I'm going to try and get to the point. We make about $100,000. You need to speak directly into your phone. I can't understand you.
Starting point is 00:31:32 Okay, is that better? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Yes, my husband and I make about $310,000 a year. $110,000 or $310,000? I'm sorry, $110,000 a year. $110,000 or $310,000? I'm sorry, $110,000 a year. Okay. And we have in debt, including the home, about $330,000 a year.
Starting point is 00:31:54 How much of that is home? The home is $300,000. $300,000? So you have $30,000 in regular debt? Yes. Okay. And this year we're considering whether we should sell or relocate because the taxes are going to increase quite a large amount. I do want to finish my school for registered learners.
Starting point is 00:32:19 Of course, our goal is to have children. So we are considering, you know, should were considering you know should we stand up should we relocate we wanted some advice okay so you would relocate in order to get in an area that is cheaper and lower on taxes what would that do to your careers we would have careers either way it doesn't matter where we live. So you can make $110,000 if you live in an area other than Los Angeles? Yes. What do you do for a living?
Starting point is 00:32:53 Currently, I'm an LPN, and he's a foreman at a shop, a mechanic shop. Okay, so where would you move? Well, we just visited his family in Washingtonhington state and we were you know we really fell in love with it so we might be considering moving there yeah what would be wrong with that well the only thing is the house that we have now it's i think it's a little bit of an emotional because his family had purchased it many years ago, and it was like $820,000. The house you live in now? Mm-hmm, $820,000.
Starting point is 00:33:32 Okay. So his family purchased it. How did he end up with it? Basically, they purchased it. They used it as a rental for so many years, and then once we were married, we were due to get married. Basically, he has one house for him and his sister-in-law for her. Okay, so you own the house, though?
Starting point is 00:33:55 It's in your name and your husband's name? That's the other thing, is it's in his name and his sister's name. So now that we're married, to change it to his name, it's going to really increase the taxes. I'm so confused. Why is his sister's name still on the house? Okay. Yeah, that should have been done. Because now you've got a capital gains problem. Well, you need to see a tax professional about how to retitle the house and how long you have to stay in the house.
Starting point is 00:34:41 You may have to stay another year after retitling the house in order for it to qualify as your personal residence. If it qualifies as his personal residence, he shouldn't have have any taxes on it and i'm not sure if you can make the case that this has been his personal residence from the start or not uh you need to see a tax person on that but i don't see any reason to stay there just because they bought it for him you can take the 800,000 do something else with it like you know buy a dadgum huge place in washington i mean wow and be out of debt and whatever so yeah yeah you know you got a half million dollars not 800,000 you got half a million dollars equity you got 300 owed on it but um I didn't hear any reason to stay in Los Angeles except some kind of weirdness around the fact that he was given this house a long time ago and you all haven't done the proper work to retitle it and take care of business the way you should have.
Starting point is 00:35:28 But you're going to have to get all that done anyway, and then you decide where do you want to live. That's what it comes down to. Hunter is with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Hunter. How are you? I'm great, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Well, my husband and I have a slightly different pay schedule than most.
Starting point is 00:35:48 He is the majority income earner in our household, and he has paid 26% of his total income in a year in the form of a bonus every December. Okay. So I kind of wanted your insight on how to budget for this. Do you guys live on the rest of the money during the year? If you include the property taxes and homeowners insurance, auto insurance, the bigger bills that come annually, biannually, then no. There is not enough throughout the rest of the year.
Starting point is 00:36:19 So you typically pay those out of the bonus and everything else you live on the base? Yes. Okay. I got you. And while also paying off our debt, you know, what's left over throughout the rest of the year, it can be a little tight to make those payments on the credit cards that we owe. Well, they shouldn't have you. We're going to use the bonus to pay them off, so they're going to go away.
Starting point is 00:36:44 Yeah. I would set aside the money to take care of those annual expenses that you've always done out of the bonus, and then I would use it to work your debt snowball, which it sounds like you're on baby step two, cleaning up debt. Did I get that right? Yes, yes. We have a savings in the emergency savings already, and we're just... How much is in your emergency savings? $5,000. And how much is this bonus nineteen thousand okay and how much debt do you have not counting your home um we have about fifteen thousand in credit cards um a student loan of about nine thousand and000, and then $28,000 in an auto payment.
Starting point is 00:37:26 Okay. And your household income is what? $89,000. $89,000? Yeah. Yeah, you've got a really expensive car. We do. That was not a good purchase.
Starting point is 00:37:39 No. No, a truck he had to have. Yeah. Hmm. Okay. Hmm. Okay. If I woke up in your shoes, what would I do? I would chop up all the credit cards tonight. I would put the truck up for sale, and I would pay off the credit cards and the student loans with the bonus and with some of the money that's in savings.
Starting point is 00:38:02 Okay. You could pay off everything but the truck with your savings and be down to a thousand dollars and you got no payments now right that's what i would do otherwise the second thing you could do would be to pay off your credit cards and your student loan and then roll up your sleeves and really really live on beans and rice rice and beans and pay off this truck but it's going to take you probably over a year to pay it off yeah and it was a dumb purchase to start with it's too much truck yeah it was and you know you take that hit when you drive it off
Starting point is 00:38:37 the lot so yeah well you couldn't get out quite what we paid yeah so there's some more money you got to come up with too on top of this yeah so i'm wrong you're not going to be completely debt free you're going to probably actually use some of this bonus money to get out of this truck and get you a little paid for car that's probably what's going to happen and that's going to slow down what i was just talking about but we can pay off a bunch of the credit cards and the student loans and move move down your debt snowball which i think you're in a position to do that but i think the truck needs to go and i think you need to you know take your savings down to $1,000, put the $19,000 back with the other money,
Starting point is 00:39:09 and let's clean up as much of this mess as we can doing that, whether it's paying off how far you are upside down in the truck and then getting you a little $2,000, $3,000 car to get around while you clean up this debt. Because your problem is you've got so much in debt payments you can't breathe. You could make it easy on his base if you didn't have all these payments and it's just stolen your life is what it amounts to and then what we do we added to the trouble by buying the truck so it was impulse it was an impulse i had to have a truck you know that's what she said as she rolls her eyes without talking about her husband.
Starting point is 00:39:45 I mean, oh, my gosh, you guys. That's exactly what we were just talking about. And we all do this stuff. I've done it. And you've done it, too. But the more of it we do, the more trouble we have. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Thanks to James Childs, our producer.
Starting point is 00:40:02 Kelly Daniels, our associate producer and phone screener. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. and we'll be back before you know it. In the meantime, remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey guys, this is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. I'm excited to announce that we're now carried on 600 radio stations across the country. To find one near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.

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