The Ramsey Show - App - Timeshares Steal From Your Legacy! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

George Kamel & Kristina Ellis discuss: Which retirement options are most beneficial, How to recover financially after a divorce, Why a lease is the most expensive way to operate a vehicle, How to figure out when to close a failing business, How to turn down the gift of a timeshare, How to start budgeting when getting your first high paying job. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving and storage studios. This is the Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm George Campbell. Join this hour by bestselling author Christina Ellis. And we are taking your calls at 888-825-5225. If you need a little confirmation, motivation, affirmation, sometimes you just need that little nudge, Christina, to go, okay, I thought I was going to do the thing, and now I'm going to do the thing. I just needed a little boost of confidence because there's a lot of voices and noise in today's culture, and we're like the, you know, unbiased but biased third party.

Who's going to tell you what to do? And hopefully it ends up working out for you. So 888-825-5225 is the number. Eldie joins us up first in Atlanta, Georgia. Eldie, welcome to the show. Hi, good afternoon. How are you doing? Good, good.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. So I'm starting a new job next month. And on the encouragement from my friend Brian, he recommended to call you guys. Because I'm trying to understand which retirement benefit I should pick. Okay. That's best for me. How old are you?

It's a new job. I'm 32. Okay. Sweet. And what's the job? It's an engineer researcher. Very cool. Are you getting a raise from what you were doing previously?

Yeah, I did. Like 10% or so. Very nice. Okay, so what you were doing previously? Yeah, I did, like 10% or so. Very nice. Okay, so what are your retirement options? So the first option is a 401A defined benefit. It is 2% times years of service based on the 24 highest consecutive months. It comes with a 10-year vesting requirement and employment contribution is 6% on that. Is that a match or is that just they're going to put in 6%

even if you do nothing? No, they're going to put in, I think, I think it's around 15% or so, or 18%. So what's the six? The six is my contribution as the employee. Okay. So if you do this defined benefit, you have to put in 6%? Yes.

Okay. That's mandatory. All right. And the other option is a standard 401k defined contribution. I put in six. They'll match nine. But it's immediate. There's no vesting required on that.

And do they have Roth options? I don't think so. It's just these two options. Okay. I would ask just to make sure because my favorite is the Roth 401k. And based on what you're telling me here, I personally, we answer questions, you know, what would we do if we were in your shoes today? I would choose the 401k.

Gotcha. You have way more control over that. And it doesn't, the defined benefit's going to die when you do. The 401k, you can pass on. Right, yeah, that's, I've been teetering between that as well. I was thinking exactly what you were saying. I can control that. I can leave it to someone if I wanted to. And that 9% match, that's a really good match.

They're offering you a pretty strong benefit there. And it gives you that freedom, too. Is this a job that you plan on being at for 10 years? Definitely for 10 years. More than that, I'm not shunning anything that's possible. As long as I'm happy, my philosophy, as long as I'm happy, I'll stay kind of mentality. All right. And are you out of debt completely?

I'm on baby step three. Okay. Good job. How far are you away from getting that three to six months of expenses? I would say in about a year. A year to save up three to six months? That can't be. How much are you making at this new job? Maybe less than that. What's your new salary? It's going to be around $130,000. $130,000, and what's one month of expenses, just to cover all of your normal bills? Sure. It will be about $4,500.

Okay. So it's not going to take a year. Let's say you even had a six-month emergency fund. That's $20,000. Making $130,000, how quickly could you save up $20,000 of that if you have no debt? Yeah, I think if I really wanted to, I think I could probably do it under, I think I'd probably do it six months, maybe a little less. There we go. And what if I said, hey, LD, you shouldn't invest until you have that fully funded emergency fund.

Would that light a fire under you to go, man, I'm missing out on this match. I really want to get this emergency fund so I can get to investing. Oh, yeah, no. Then you'd be like, I can do this in three months, actually. Four months, tops. Right? And so that's the power of pausing investing and doing these steps one at a time. And so I would encourage you to do just that, to pause investing, even when you get the new job, pause until you have that fully funded emergency fund. And now that may be closer to three months for you. I don't know your situation. I think 10 is your bare minimum, but I would aim somewhere in between that 10 and 20 range to protect you against Murphy,

because Murphy's going to come running for you when you get that new job and you're going to have car repair and the HVAC and all kinds of things can happen. How do you feel about that, LD? Are you going to do it? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I absolutely, I think that's a good step. That's a good plan. That's a great place to be. Congrats on the new gig. Again, I'm going with the 401k. I think the defined benefit can look great on paper for a lot of people, Christina, but similar to a pension, you don't have much control over it, and so the investment gains aren't as great as if you had control where you get to choose all the funds and it dies with you. Yeah.

And I mean, just the 10 year vesting requirement. This is a new job. I hope that it's a great job, but there is always that risk that you're not going to stay. Much higher commitment level. Yeah. But I love the motivation. I love that you're excited about investing.

I love the match. That's very exciting. That's huge. I also love the fire. The fire under you. I'm waiting until you're excited about investing. I love the match. That's very exciting. That's huge. I also love the fire, the fire under you. I'm waiting until you have that emergency fund. It's like a good coach who's going like, hey, you don't get to eat that cake until you finish the workout. Because once you eat the cake, you're like, I don't know if I feel like working out today. And so you kind of, when you get comfortable, you're not as willing to do the hard things.

So that's my encouragement. And you heard us talking about those baby steps, folks. That is our proven plan for the last 30 years. 10 million people have used this to get out of debt. And when you get out of debt, you can get to do your debt-free scream on the show. And all of those people at some point had to say, I've had it. I'm not living like this anymore. And when you get mad like that, you do what they did, your life will change too. And right now, inflation and your stupid credit cards, they're killing you. And you've been led to believe that you're not in control of your money, that life just has to happen to you.

But that's wrong. You do have control. You have to decide to control what you can control. And that's you, your behavior. You have the power to change your future. And Financial Peace University will show you how. This is the course that will teach you our proven step-by-step plan that's helped nearly 10 million people beat debt, master budgeting, and build wealth.

And you can do it too. America, stop letting debt and money stress control your life. You just have to start with these magic words. I've had it. And then take back control. You can start Financial Peace University right now at ramsaysolutions.com slash FPU. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash FPU. That's ramseysolutions.com slash FPU. We'll be right back on The Ramsey Show. ស្រូវានប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប� welcome back to the ramsey show i'm george camel joined by christina ellis

this is your show america give us a call 888-825-5225 tampa florida is where we go next. Dane joins us there. Dane, welcome to the show. Hey, guys. First time caller. Thanks for taking my call. Well, thank you for being brave and calling in.

Thank you. So I'm a 60-year-old male with three children. Just recently went through a real contentious divorce. Got really hammered there. Judge really sided on one side. I feel like I'm starting all over again. I mean, I'm 60 years old. I lost hundreds of thousands of dollars with a divorce. I'm back down to square one, almost like I'm just graduated from college and I'm starting again, but I've been with this job for 30 years. I'm living paycheck to paycheck. Everything that comes in goes right back out with child

support and insurance. And we did overspend. My ex was 15 years, my junior. We did live beyond our means. We had a bankruptcy in the divorce. I ended up having to pay that down myself. That was around $80,000. I did pay that off. But now I'm not putting anything

in the bank I'm saving nothing every month I'm so sorry Dane where are you at financially today where do you stand do you have any debt do you have money in the bank I have two cars mine and my son's I bought my son a car

and I do have about let's say 8,000 in credit cards and that's it. How much on the cars? Home. The car, one car I owe 15,000 and the other car I owe 25. Okay. What's your income? I was making $105,000. I just got a raise.

I'm up to $150,000. Wonderful. And that's the other thing. I just went up, but the ex found out about it, went to her attorney, and now I'm paying more child support now because... Increased percentage? Yep.

So she just found out. So I can't have any more raises i told my boss i can't you can't give me any more money how old are your kids um one's 19 he just went in the navy i have a 16 year old a 17 year old who will graduate from high school next year and the 13 year old is the-old the one with the car loan? Yes. Okay. What's that car worth?

He's killing me every... What's that car worth? Yeah. I owe 15. What is it worth, though? If you sold it today, private party, Kelly Blue book value, what's your best guess? I'm really not sure. I bought it at 19.

I owe 15. I could probably get $12. You think you're underwater on it? Yeah, I think I am. Do your homework on that one to make sure. My first gut move is sell the car. The 16-year-old doesn't need to be driving that nice of a car. Up until about this year, I was driving cars that were a third of that cost. And so I think we can get by and say, hey, son, listen, life's been tough and I want you to have a nice car. And if you want to save up and get something, I'll go in with you on that. But we can't do this with debt going forward. Okay. So that's one option on that one. And yeah, aside from monthly payments, you've got, the way I see it on paper, you make 150k

and you have 48 in debt. So the math checks out that you could pay this debt off within the year. But the problem is right now you don't have margin. What are your monthly expenses right now? What's the total of your outgo right now? Well, when I sold the house, we had not much into it because, like I said, we lived beyond our means. We put more into the house than was worth, so got very little bit out of that. But I rent now, and my rent is $3,200 a month. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I know. I can't stay in this place very much. In

fact, as soon as my son graduates from high school next year, I'm leaving this place. I can't afford that. Is it a house? It's a house. Okay. How much room do you need? This was a 4-2 because I had my three children then with me. Sure. And so now when he graduates, I'll go down to a 2-2 because I had my three children then with me. Sure. And so now when he graduates, I'll go down to a 2-2. It would be just me and my daughter. Okay. So you've got two kids at the house right now? Yes.

Okay. And graduation is happening when? June of next year. Okay, so we've got some time there. And how much are you paying a month in child support? $1,200. So aside from that, where's the $150 now going? Where else does my salary go?

Yes. You said insurance, child support. What else? Child support, insurance for the kids. That's $1,200 a month. Are they working? My son does work. He just got a job. And you're talking about auto insurance? Oh yeah, my auto insurance is $600 a month. Okay. I'm wondering, can the kids start to chip in if they're working for their own

insurance and say, hey, you're driving the car. Here's what I'm requiring of you. You pay for your insurance. You pay for your gas. You pay for your maintenance. I told him he just has to start paying for his gas. Okay. I just started doing that now. So other than that, are you doing a monthly budget? I know life's been nuts for you. No. No, I haven't. Okay. I'm going to help you with that and gift you one year of every dollar premium.

And what I want you to do, you have a great income, and right now it feels like it's just disappearing into the abyss, right? Right. But when you can make a plan on paper and you list out, you know, I'm assuming your take-home pay is somewhere, is $150 gross, and so the take-home pay is close to $9,000 or so grand a month? That's correct. Okay.

Yep. Are you investing right now? I do. I think I'm putting in about, let's see, $500 a month into my 401k. Okay. We're going to pause that for a short period of time so that we have some margin to clean up this debt. And you're going to be back to investing in no time. I know you're 60.

You're going, well, I got to retire too, man. But it's hard when you can't even get out of the cycle. So if you're willing to do that, pause investing, go through, make a budget, list your income at the top. Then you're going to list all of your expenses. And as you look at it, you're going to go, man, I need a creative way to lower this bill. Is this one of the kids' bills?

Can I see if they can chip in there? Am I overpaying for insurance? I'm going to go shop with Zander across all of my insurance premiums. You know what? I can cut the subscription for now. I'm not going to eat out because right now we have $48,000 to tackle. And I'm going to do whatever it takes to put myself on a financial foundation as I start this new chapter of my life that I did not ask for, but it's where we find ourselves. Well, you may also have to have some real conversations with the kids. Be really honest about where you are financially and just, you know, let them know, like George said earlier, that they probably need to contribute a bit more. And also with the rent, I would encourage you,

I know that you're waiting until one of the kids is out of the house, but just shop around and see if you can find something cheaper. I mean, I know it's tough because yeah, having kids, you want a little bit of space, but that's a pretty big outgo monthly. And if you could find even- Yeah, I definitely want to get out of that house, but I wanted to stay there until my son graduates in June. So I really need to do that because it's right close to the high school. So I need to really stay there. So I'll- When is the lease up? I go month to month right now. So anytime I can bail, but- I'd still look around. You said you're in a four or two. Could you go down to a three? And now we

get the rent down to 2,500. And so I still want you to do your homework on that. And if it's- But then I got to move again when my daughter, when my son graduates, then I got to move again. I understand moving is not fun. But if it means we're going to get out of debt six months faster, it's worth the headache. How is your landlord? Do you have a pretty good relationship with the landlord? Because I'm wondering, is there any chance that you could do a six month lease through the end of June and see if he can give you a little bit better of a rate?

Say, you know, I'm guaranteeing I'll be here for this amount of time. And in exchange for that, could you give me a little bit lower monthly payment? That's a good move. So Dane, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to gift you one year of every dollar premium. I want you to create your monthly budget, track it, stick to it, try to shave down all the expenses, try to add in as much as you can on the income side. And we're going to gift you one year of Financial Peace University as well. Watch all nine lessons to motivate you and realize that it's not too late for you. I know you're 60 and you're starting this weird new chapter of your life, but you can do this, man. It may not be what you hoped for pictured, but this is where we find ourselves and we can move forward. We can still have a great

retirement. We can still raise some great kids. And also go to RamseySolutions.com and search for divorce checklist. We've got some great info from there from Dr. John Deloney that covers a lot of the financial pieces for you to think about. Make sure all of your I's are dotted, T's are crossed. One of the most common pieces of advice I give folks trying to get out of debt is to sell the car. But it's important to sell the smart way by using CarWiser. CarWiser is a completely free service that gets you offers from all the top online dealerships instantly. Just enter your vehicle information and boom, you're ready to pick up an offer and get paid. CarWiser saves you hours of time and

hassle so go to carwiser.com slash ramsey that's carwiser.com the ramsey show i'm george camel joined by christina ellis it's a free call at 888-825-5225 matthew is up next in virginia beach virginia matthew welcome to the show hey thanks so much um Appreciate everyone's help. And my quick synopsis of where I am. My wife and I have two leased vehicles right now. One is not going to be done for a couple of years. It's still like 30 months out from being expired. And the lease payment is very low, so we're happy with it.

The second one is coming off in April, and the buyout is around $25,000, which we put aside and we have. But we're now thinking, like, do we really need to use a $25,000 car, even though it has very low miles on it? So we're trying to figure out, like, you know, what's the best thing to do here? Should we wait until, you know, the dealership says, okay, do you want to buy it? Do you know, what's the best thing to do here? Should we wait until, you know, the dealership says, okay, do you want to buy it? Do you want to lease it? Do you want to extend the lease or whatever you want to do with it? Um, do we just hand it back, look for a car that's, you know, let's say $10,000 cheaper and take the money and put it to other needs that we have in our life or because the car has so few miles on it, relatively speaking, and the cost of cars

keeps going, we just keep it and say, look, you know, it's a long term. We're going to, this is something we're going to hold on to. And we've taken the payment away. What's your financial situation? Yeah. What's your financial situation right now? Do you have any debt? So we don't have any other debt other than that. We have our five to six months of emergency fund. We are into a pretty large mortgage that wasn't originally a 30 and we're putting an extra principal payment every month in to try and get it down to 15 years. We've got most of the monies that we've kind of said to our children that we were going to put aside for college. Um, and we have steady jobs. So really it's just

kind of the last little hurdle is getting rid of the car payments. Um, and then we can really, you know, have that freed up money to throw more at the mortgage or our retirement. So are you, are you done with leasing cars? I'm done with leasing cars. I mean, listen, we, you know, I've always been a Ramsey listener. And then, uh, during COVID we kind of reshuffled our life and moved. And when we did all of this, we really realized like we were just completely mismanaging so much of the gifts that we have and, and the, you know, the economic gifts of being employed and healthy. Okay. And we realized that we've got to get out of this gig.

Okay, good. What's your household income? About $160,000. All right. And how much do you have in cash between all the bank accounts, liquid cash? Say that again? I'm sorry. How much do you have in cash in the bank between all the bank accounts liquid cash say that again i'm sorry how much do you have in cash across your bank accounts oh um our so our emergency fund has about 50 000 in it and then we have this other 25 that we put aside to kind of buy one of the leases figuring which one you know we would kind of buy what's the other early buyout on the other lease? You said

still has a few more years left. It's going to be more than this one. This one is about $25,000. The other one is, because it's further out, it's closer to $27,000. Okay. So why don't we just go ahead and do early buyout on both, and

we pay the $52,000. Then we can sell both cars. If you don't like one of them, sell them. But you guys have the money to do it. You have the income to do it. It makes you completely debt-free today. Why not just do that instead of continuing this thing? Right, right. And so with an early buyout, I mean, they don't give you any type of a break. I mean, you're basically whatever's left on the lease, they add to whatever was decided upon when you leased it, correct? There's no leverage that you have at all. I'm not sure the terms you signed, but it's worth looking into to see if you can get out of this thing, even if you pay the stupid tax on it, because you're going to pay more continuing the lease for years.

So I'm not going to choose to stay in debt for years because I got a bad deal. This is part of what we call stupid tax. And you learn from it and you go, never again am I going to lease a car. We call it a fleece around here because it's the most expensive way to operate a vehicle and it makes the dealerships really rich and you really broke. All the while they convince you that this is the wisest thing to do and it's so great because you don't have to worry about maintenance. It's a nightmare. And you know that now.

On the car that's coming up with the lease ending, do you like that car? You know, it's a solid car. It's an Arcadia. You know, it's a GMC Arcadia. It's a nice car. Got less than 30,000 miles on it. But we're not in love with it, no. And we don't necessarily need, you know, to have that big of a car or that, you know, to spend $25,000 on it. So, looking at it and saying, you know, how do we do this differently?

That's kind of what I'm wondering is, I mean, if you don't like the car, $25,000 can buy you another nice car. So, I would probably shop around to see, you know, what can I get for $25,000 can buy you another nice car. So I would probably shop around to see, you know, what can I get for 25K or less? Like you said, you may not need that much car and you could have some money in the bank. So here's what I'm, Matthew, if I'm in your shoes, I'm going to do the early buyout on both, pay the stupid tax, be done with this debt. It's going to cost you 52 grand, which you have in the bank. You said you had 75. And once you do that, you can sell both of them and buy reasonable cars with cash, no more loans, no had 75. And once you do that, you can sell both of them and buy reasonable cars with cash, no more loans, no more debt. And then we're free and clear. And if

you need to restock your emergency fund from there, that's great. But right now we're in debt payoff mode, get cars. Now we can start doing the steps because you're doing 17 things at once. You're trying to throw extra on the mortgage. We've got the emergency fund. We're trying to pay off the debt. And when that happens, you can't make the progress you're looking for and you get frustrated. So that's what I would do. Get out of debt as quickly as possible. Good news is you guys have the money in the bank and you have a fantastic income. And what we say around cars is everything with a motor in it should not add up to more than 50% of your income. And you guys are in that parameter. So you can buy $25,000 cars that you love instead of being in this lease and

do it with cash. So that's our advice. We're sticking to it. Tanya's up next in Idaho. All right, Tanya, what do you got for us? How's it going? Hi, thanks for taking my call. Sure. So my husband and I, a couple of years ago, started a business. And this is in addition to having two full-time jobs. And immediately it was something that I did not want to do. I wanted to back out while we still had the legal right to do so in the inspection and feasibility study process. But I went along with the vision and we have been in the red ever since we opened. My husband has now

lost his job and just cashed out part of his 401k to keep the business floating on it. And that's in addition to another $20,000 line of credit, $20,000 in a credit card to keep the business open. And of course this has caused division within our marriage. And we are now looking at one of three possibilities. One, accepting a lowball offer on the business where we would still have to come up with another $30,000 to $50,000 cash bill to walk away from it. Two, shut the doors, try and make the payment on the loan and the building out of our income. Or three, try and work with someone else that might be able to take the business to the next level, maybe more product and services offered through the restaurant and keep it going and maybe get some income that way.

So this is a restaurant, right? and keep it going and maybe get some income that way. So this is a restaurant, right? It's a bakery coffeehouse currently. The third option, we would bring in someone we know who's been a cook their whole life and has run restaurants and maybe add more to it, which would also mean putting in additional commercial kitchen equipment. Which sounds like more debt. Which sounds like more debt. So we're not doing that. Anything that involves continuing

the bleeding, we are just taking off the table. And that means we're getting creative, we're going to be scrappy, we're going to move slow. I'm not going to tell you you should or shouldn't file bankruptcy. I don't know enough about your business. That's something you should contact a bankruptcy attorney for. But what I can tell you is that there's other ways. There is hope. But it starts with saying we're not going to do it with debt because clearly that's going to only hurt our chances of getting out of this thing of surviving. So your husband lost his job. What was he doing?

He worked as a corporate investigations officer. So everything from espionage at a corporate level to threats of violence at work, that sort of thing. Wow. Okay. Well, step one, we need to get him back to work and see if you can start to cashflow some of this from your other full-time jobs. This may mean 70 hour weeks, bringing the other person in, giving them equity because we can't pay a lot right now, doing whatever it takes before I'm throwing in the towel and filing bankruptcy, which will follow you forever. And it's going to be a nightmare to go through that. I don't want that for you guys. There could be a way out. And so investigate this, do your homework, and please no more debt. This is The Ramsey Show.

I'm George Campbell, joined by Christina Ellis this hour. 888-825-5225 is the number to call. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. Josh is up next in San Antonio. Josh, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, George and Christina. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. How's it going? Pretty good. My dad is into Wyndham timeshare rewards, and he's looking to add me and my four siblings on as, like, co-owners or being able to use it all. And so we would all split the time and split the points and share it all, and it all sounds great.

And split the costs. I don't know how to tell him. Exactly. And my two oldest sisters don't get along either. So I'm not looking forward to getting into something with all of them where we would all have to share it and communicate and pay the fees. But it will pay for itself. So I just don't know how to go about um telling him that

money in my life are not interested when all my other siblings are gosh it's so hard because I my mom used to love to go to the timeshare presentations and get the like free tickets to Disney World and I remember sitting through them and they really sell this idea of legacy they make it sound like oh this is something that you can pass down to generations and you'll be so excited to give it to your kids and your kids are going to be excited. And that's just not the reality. No. Exactly.

So he's been doing this for like 25 years and trying to really be looking forward to it. And that's kind of the buildup. And we had a little bit of hinting that we don't want in on it. But I basically need to tell him that we're totally out. And I don't know really how to break it to him. Yeah. Does he love the program? Is he like a mega fan, or do you think that there's any inkling that he wants out? No, he's a mega fan. Well, you don't have to be,

and I know this is easier said than done, but there's these two letters that make up one word, and that is no. If you want to be really nice, you can say no thank you. And that's it. I mean, at the end of the day, he can't force you into this. And if this is what's going to cause a rift in the relationship, then so be it. If this is what his line is of saying, Josh, if you're not going to join the timeshare, then I'm not going to talk to you anymore. Do you think it's going to be that level of animosity? No, no, I do you think it's going to be that level of animosity no no i don't think it's going to be that level of animosity um we've also just

kind of talked about like hey do we just kind of like pacify it and basically do it but then not use it and just kind of let my people do this no there's no if you jump into it you're stuck with the costs forever right right well and a lot of times if you do the math it's not it doesn't work out well for you like never works out i've sat down with my mom and talked through the math and i used to love sitting in the timeshare presentations with her because one she's tough as nails and has no problem telling people no and two it kind of prepped me for this job because i would just go through the numbers and write them down and they'd be like look at these numbers you're going to save so much and it's like like, when you really break out the math, you don't.

And so, I mean, I even wonder if you kind of approach it a little bit from a numbers perspective, and even like a comparison perspective of our generation. I think we kind of see vacation a bit different. There's so many different alternative options. By the time you add up all the fees for these timeshares, you could get an Airbnb that's got three bedrooms for like a lot cheaper. It makes you want to throw up when you do the math, Josh, and you go, all right, what is this costing us here? Okay, it's costing us $6,000. What would we do with six grand?

Well, we can book some pretty sweet hotels for a week for six grand. We can get some Airbnbs. We can do a lot of things. We can take multiple trips and go where we want instead of hope that it's on the Wyndham point system know, point system and we can move it around and not, there's no blackout dates. And so, I mean, the conversation is the hardest part here. I think, you know, in your heart, we're not doing this. And so, you know, your dad better than we do of how you're going to approach this in a

respectful way. And I, sometimes I talk to my dad and I'm like, listen, I don't agree with this financial decision and I have to just end it and say, I love you too much to continue in this argument. We're going to stop it here. And so you can hit him with all the stats. I mean, you can say, hey, this is expensive. This has no investment value. It's not an asset. I don't own anything.

The maintenance costs are going to rise 4% annually. Say we don't have the money. We have priorities in life and owning a timeshare isn't one of them. I'd rather own actual real estate instead of this, essentially, this metaverse level, a sense of ownership. Like, I don't do NFTs and I don't do timeshares for the same reason. I want actual ownership, not a sense of ownership.

Well, and the fact that he's a mega fan, like, maybe you can even just, like, you're not trying to convince him to sell it at this point. It doesn't sound like he's willing to do that, but maybe even the assurance that, Hey, we'll still go on vacation with you.

Like if you, if you want us to come along for your timeshare, like we'll still go with you. We just don't want to be owners. We don't want this for us. Right. That makes, that makes a lot of sense.

And I think approaching it from, we have different goals and we definitely want to own real estate and own vacation properties and things like that. But yeah, you want nail it. That's the key word. I want to actually own it. I don't want to force a vacation. The maintenance fees are about $7,500 a month or $7,500 a year. So I think you nailed it right on the head. Gross. No thanks, Josh. Good luck with the conversation, man. And here's the other thing that could convince them. Go to eBay and search timeshare and go to completed and sold listings and then rate it from lowest to highest price. You will see timeshares that sold for a dollar.

Legit. That's how badly people want to get rid of these things. They are just selling them for a dollar because, you know, it doesn't actually cost a dollar. It costs $8,000 a year and that goes up 4% every year with headaches. So good luck with that, man. Gosh, I hate timeshares. Yeah. The worst. It's such a slimy industry.

I hope once like Gen Z takes over, we're just done with timeshares. I'm sure they'll come up with other stupid decisions, but I'm hope timeshares will be like dinosaurs. They'll just be gone. No one will do them anymore. It's like cigarettes. We know it's not cool. I think there's already plenty of stupid decisions out in the market. That is true. Maybe this one will be gone. One less one out there. All right. Joseph's up next in Orange County, California. Joseph, welcome to the market. That is true. Maybe this one will be gone. One less one out there. All right. Joseph's up next in Orange County, California. Joseph, welcome to the show.

Hello. Thank you guys for having me. I appreciate you guys taking time out of your day to go ahead and help me out. Yeah. What's going on? So I'm 22 years old. I just recently got a new career. I'm kind of jumping in terms of how much money I'm making now. So for a little context, the last four years, I have kind of just been working part-time jobs, really trying to get into the career that I just got into. So I went from making $10,000 a year to now having a starting salary of around $80,000. Wow, way to go. Yeah. And other people in my field at the position I'm at

are making $150,000 with overtime. So I'm just honestly a little bit overwhelmed because I haven't really been the best at budgeting money due to the fact that I haven't had a lot coming in, and now I have a decent, I know in California, a hundred K doesn't really go too far, but, um, it's a huge jump for me. So I'm trying to figure out now, um, how I should be trying to, um, you know, build my portfolios or how to start putting money aside so that, um, you know, I can be successful and have a lot of money

in the future for myself. Um, the career that The career that I have does provide a full pension, full health benefits. So I've just been asking around and I'm just really stuck on if I should be trying to get, save money for real estate, putting money into a Roth IRA. I just honestly have no idea how to start. We're up against the clock here. So this is going to be like lightning round. So you're making 80K. How much debt do you have? I have no debt right now.

Fantastic. How much money do you have in the bank? I have $5,000 in the bank, but I also have $25,000 that was left to me as an inheritance that I haven't touched. So I have that as well. Awesome. So on that side, get with a smart investor pro, figure out if there's any tax implications, but that could kind of catapult you to where you have a fully funded emergency fund. Now we can start investing. And is the pension the only option you have? Is there a 401k as well or just pension? Yeah, I do have the option for a 401k. My company does match up to $20,000 a year. Awesome. That's amazing. So I might look into that option so that you actually own this, you have more control over it.

It doesn't die with you like the pension. I don't know if it's an either or situation, but look into that. And as far as the budgeting side, I love that you have the self-awareness to go like, I know I haven't been great budgeting and I want to be great. And so we can help you with that by gifting you one year of every dollar premium, which is our app. It's a website. You can go in and track all of that. And with the premium version, it'll connect to your bank and you can just drag transactions in. And that way you'll have a plan for every dollar. But right now it sounds like we want to get started investing once we have three to six months of expenses. And beyond that, it's, hey, can we save up a down payment on a house? Can we upgrade the car? All of those things. So do you have those goals in mind?

Yes, definitely. I definitely want to be a property owner. That's always been a goal of mine. Awesome. Well, that's going to be a lot closer, man, making this kind of money. Good for you. 22, make an 80K. Golly, I love it. We love to see it. Well, wishing you the best, Joseph. Hang on the line. Jenna's going to pick up. We're going to gift you every dollar premium. Let's go ahead and throw in Financial Peace University. That will give you the full plan, since we ran out of time here, of how you're going to do that, how to buy real estate wisely.

That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. My thanks to Christina Ellis and all the folks in the booth, Jenna and Ben and Austin and Andrew and Josh. And you, America, we appreciate you listening. We'll be back with you before you know it. Have you been inspired to make a change with your money? Want to know where to start? Take our three-minute money quiz to get a plan you can follow.

Go to RamseySolutions.com and search for Get Started to get a plan for your money.