The Ramsey Show - App - Untangle the Emotions Tied to a Bad Insurance Product (Hour 3)

Episode Date: September 20, 2019

Debt, Savings, Insurance   Tools to get you started:  Take TDRS listener survey to win a $100 Amazon gift card, click here: http://bit.ly/2krRePv Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR 

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 being with us. This is Common Sense for your dollars and cents. Tanner starts off this hour in Minneapolis. Hey, Tanner, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, thanks for taking my call. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, Dave, so I was just calling. I have about around $30,000

in debt. I make about $38,000 to 45 thousand dollars a year um and just kind of wanted to break down the debt and see if you have any advice like if i should keep my car um get rid of it but i got three thousand dollars in credit card debt um ninety four hundred dollars um in a car loan and about $17,800 in personal loans. Are you 27? I'm 24, just turning 25 in January. Okay, pretty close. Okay, that's what I figured. That's about where you should be with the mess you got.

I'm sorry you're facing this. I'm glad you're waking up and you are facing it. That's good news. The car is not out of line based on your income. I mean, if you make $45,000 a year driving a $9,000 car is not a bad thing.

The trick is, what we want to do is how fast can we find $30,000 making $40,000? If you did $15,000 a year for two years, you'd be done and you know you gotta be able to do that uh so you gotta be done you gotta be done in two years 15 out of 40 i think you can live on there you're single uh single yeah and i do own a home i bought it when i was 20 and back when I was pretty good financially. What is your, what's your house payment?

It's about $585,000. Okay, that's very reasonable. $76,000, yeah. Yeah, that's very reasonable housing then. So you're in pretty good shape overall in terms of you've got a good income. The trick is you've just got to control the hardest part in this entire equation which is you you got to look in the mirror and go you're the problem oh and by the way you're the solution you can do this right so uh 15 000 a year is 1250 bucks a month

okay so you know 1200 1300 bucks a month and here's the other thing. You could get out of debt even faster if you took an extra job. Right. $1,000 a month changes your life. Absolutely. Yeah, if you made $1,000 a month, you're probably out of debt in a year. Pretty close. In a year. Yeah, well, $1,000 a month is another, you know, that's another $12,000 a year, right?

That is 100% new money in this discussion. All of that goes on the debt. And on top of that, you take $15,000 out of your other stuff. I mean, you're pretty close to being done in a year if you made $1,000 a month. Awesome. So that's what I'm doing. You see how I'm doing that math? Yep.

Okay, so the trick now is jump on every dollar, get your budget going on your phone, and then go, okay, this year is the year. It's the year. Game on, baby. Game on. Absolutely. And when you do that, then you can move the needle here. But, you know, it's easy to talk about.

It's hard to do because you're talking about you're not going to have a life. Your party days are over. You are going to be at work. You have no life. You are not going out to eat. You are cooking at home, rice and beans, beans and rice. And you cook an extra batch to take to work with you at your extra job. Just keep on rolling, baby.

But in one year, you could be done. And i'm a band-aid off fast guy so i find people get out of debt faster if they get out of debt faster they are more likely to get out of debt if it drags out for 10 years you're probably gonna quit you probably ain't got the emotional stamina to stick it out for 10 years oh god most people just can't do it right and i i mean very few people can do something for You probably ain't got the emotional stamina to stick it out for 10 years. Oh, God. Most people just can't do it, right? And, I mean, very few people can do something for 10 years. So get her done, man. That's the thing.

All right, Josh is with us. Josh is in New Hampshire. Hey, Josh, how are you? I am doing fantabulous, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir. How can I help? Hi, I'm looking at moving out of my parents by the end of October.

And one of my job benefits is they have a construction team that goes to other states, and they would cover all my living expenses. And I would get roughly about $ thousand dollars a week doing that my alternative is should I follow up with that or can I stay at home find my own apartment up here and have a heavier burden on my regular day-to-day while I'm trying to pay off the last of my student loans by the end of the year. So if you got $1,000, you said a month for living expenses? No, my income would be about $1,000 per week.

It'd be about $300 a week for actual living expenses. Can you live on that? Yes. You currently make what? I currently make about $3,000 a month. And so we go to about $4,000 a month. So you go from $36,000 to about $50,000. Correct. So you go from $36,000 to about $50,000. Correct. Temporarily.

And you have no living expenses because that's all covered. Right. And how much student loan debt do you have? How much student loan debt do you have? On a reimbursement basis. Yeah. Without actually making any difference. You don't have to spend it, but you can spend it. Okay.

And how much is your student loan debt? I have $17,000 left. Okay. So if you go on the road, how long do you have to be gone? Is there a commitment? The bare minimum is two weeks. Oh, okay. But I would much rather go down there.

I am 30. Okay. Well, what if you did six months like that and finished up your debt and then come back and settle in with no debt well my well that was actually my goal is to actually come back home as soon as the debt was okay yeah but my point is it's not a permanent decision it's like taking kind of an adventure it's an adventure you're single guy. You take off, go to another place, get to enjoy another town, work there, make more money, get your debt cleaned up, have your living expenses paid for, and come back.

I kind of like that. It kind of sounds fun to me. Does it sound fun to you? It does. I'm just still doing what I'm going to do after I come back, and I drop back down to roughly $3,000 a month. Yeah, well, then that's the other question is, what do you want to do with your career long-term? And, you know, what training do you need?

Do you need to change jobs in order to make more money? Do you need to change career directions in order to make more money? But on a temporary basis, it sounds like you've got a really cool adventure in front of you, and it pays really well, and you can go make some money, pay off your student loan, then come home, settle in in and then let's start having our long-term career goal adjustments at that point yeah i like this plan but it's whatever you want to do man i mean it's not nothing stupid nothing under the stupid column on either selection but um if i were in your shoes

i were 30 and had you know no wife or kids or anything i mean that kind sounds fun. If you're leaving a bunch of people at home, that's different. But this is a single guy going off and having an adventure and paying off a student loan debt. Sounds like a flat plan. Hey, thanks for calling. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Let me tell you a story about two families that are very much alike in a lot of ways. Both families have two working parents and a couple of young kids. Each has debt and has struggled to make ends meet. But they're starting to make headway with their budgets and smarter decisions with money.

They have dreams and plans, and the only real difference is that one family has the right amount of term life insurance, and the other doesn't. Big difference. If one of the parents die, and that does happen, their well-being would be destroyed. Paying for the mortgage, utilities, food, and that does happen, their well-being would be destroyed. Paying for the mortgage, utilities, food, and other bills would be impossible, let alone saving for education or retirement. That's why every day I talk relentlessly about getting term life insurance. Just go to ZanderInsurance.com or call 800-356-4282 and see how inexpensive it really is.

Be the family that takes those deliberate steps to be different and responsible. It really does make you the hero of your story. And it puts you on course for better things ahead. Thanks for joining us, America. Hunter is with us in Orlando. Hey, Hunter, how are you? I'm good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my question was, how much do you think young people, say 18 to 23,

should prioritize investing and starting early relative to kind of piling cash for a first home? I think you can do both. There's no rush to buy the first home. Generally speaking, from 18 to 25, there's a lot of transition in your life. There's a lot of moving around, things that happen, new jobs, finishing or going to college, possibly getting married. A lot of stuff happens in that 18 to 25 range. And every one of those things may precipitate living in a different place.

And so, like, if you bought a house at 18 and let's just you know i don't know your situation but let's just pretend you then uh or at 19 and then you finished college and got married there's a real high percentage chance that house ain't cutting it you're moving somewhere else so you probably should have just rented during that time uh and piled up cash so it's not a rushed until things kind of settle out in your life and you know what the groove is. Now, you can settle in the groove at 18. That's fine. You say, I graduated.

I know what I'm doing. This is what I'm doing. And there's not going to be any big changes going forward. Then that's fine. But, you know, if you are in college, 100%, I want you to focus on college, not on saving for a house and not on investing, because the best rate of return is education. Assuming you're studying something that's usable in the marketplace and not getting a degree in left handed puppetry or something like that. So. But, yeah, that's the best return because you make more money on that than you do on a

mutual fund or on purchasing a house and so but it all depends on your situation the more stable and predictable the less transition that is in your future the more you would lean towards maybe buying a house but i'm just not in a hurry there i love real estate i want you to own real estate real estate's a good place to have money. It's a good thing to own to have a part of your life going forward. But it's not necessary that you get in a hurry on it just to say, I own a house. Anthony is with us in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Anthony.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hello, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I'm 22, and I'm starting an air conditioning company, and I wanted to know if I should lease, vehicle lease, or buy a van for, say, $3,500 or whatever I could afford and buy cash?

Or what should I do? If you want to win in business, you don't borrow money. Got you. And that would include leasing. Okay. Leasing is just another way of financing something. If you lease a copier, you financed your copier. If you lease a van, you financed your van.

That's what you did. You bought a van you couldn't afford. That's what it amounts to. And so have you got $3,500? Yes, sir, I do. Good. Then pay cash for your van and go make a bunch of money. Even if it doesn't look as good as the other, say,

I had to spend $12,000 to get a nice one. I'm sorry, you're doing heating and air? Yes, sir. How many people do heating and air with someone based on the quality of their van? Good point. Zero. Right. They do it based on the quality of whether you do the work well or not and have a good price.

How old are you again? 22. Good for you. Good for you. You're a sharp young entrepreneur man so you're kicking this thing off on your own you in the van and getting it done huh yes sir way to go man have you been working in the heating and air business for a while yes sir my dad owns his own business so i've been working with him for quite a while okay and so

it's just going to be you in the van and start off, huh? Yes, sir. Where are you going to get your customers? I'm hoping in the next couple of months. I've been going to school and took my contractor's license, so I'm just at the beginning stages. Okay, but I mean, what kind of marketing are you going to do? Where are your customers going to come from? Well, the past few years I've been um kind of i guess advertising passing out cards and get numbers and so i was gonna call them um just call different people and my dad has other business people um so i was gonna get some customers from him okay so he doesn't need he doesn't he's

got some overflow he can throw your way yes sir and he's kind of trying to retire so oh okay all right so we'll transition out of that good now i don't mind you moving up to a ten thousand dollar van but go make 20 or 30 grand and then we'll talk about it and pay cash for it. Got you. Okay. But always be thinking this is a business transaction. This is not a prestige purchase. And so, you know, I've never walked into a guy's office, and because he had a $12,000 desk in his office, I did a deal with him. Got you. Ever.

Not once. As a matter of fact, I might not do a deal with him because of that right but i've never walked in there and so people all the time buy things in business that they just personally want to own and they rationalize it and go well it helps me with my credibility horse crap it does not your credibility comes from your ability to get the job done and the way you present yourself and the way you present yourself here on the air was excellent you're a sharp young dude hold on i'm going to send you a copy of the book entree leadership how we grew this business from a card table in my living room about where you're starting

now and to where it is now hopefully we can help open phones at 888-825-5225. Brandon is in Savannah, Georgia. Hi, Brandon. How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm doing well. Good. How can I help? So I'm 22 years old, and I'm about $30,000 in debt.

After my monthly expenses, I've got about anywhere between $100 to $200 left over. That's for groceries and gas to get to work. And I've been trying to cut back, and here lately, it's just been rough. I'm just trying to figure out what's the easiest way for me. I paint. How many hours a week uh 50 all right you're an artist or a house painter i uh paint apartment buildings okay you work how many hours 50 50 hours a week okay all right um you work for someone, or you said you've got your own business? No, I work for a company.

Okay. What if you picked up some side jobs on residential doing some painting on the weekends? I have done that in the past. Lately, it's been rough. Most people going into this season, personal houses i at least in the savannah area i don't know about other surrounding areas but around here in the past i've always found that coming into this season a lot of people don't really want you inside of their house work well i don't know there's a guy painting the outside of my house right now

so i don't live in savannah but um i'm calling bs on that people don't paint their houses in september in savannah give me a break of course they do so you have an income issue dude and you're not organized with your spending so i want you to jump on every dollar and get that budget app downloaded for your phone and on your computer it's free and get you a budget laid out because you don't know where your money's going you're disorganized and you're just working and playing on the weekends and you have no idea where the money's coming. It's coming in and going out and it just disappears and things are tight. So we've got to get organized and make the money that you have behave

and we need to add some money to it. And that's why I'm trying to create some extra income. The good news is painting, you can actually make some pretty good money. Matter of fact, you might grow yourself a business that'll make you a whole lot more than you're being paid right now once you learn how to do paint which you do know how to do apparently so that's what i'd look at doing this is the dave ramsey show Hey, guys. At the Dave Ramsey Show, we really value your input. It helps us to know what's important to you so we can deliver relevant content to help you crush your money goals.

We just launched a brand new survey, and we'd love your feedback. It only takes a few minutes, and you'll be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card. No purchase necessary. Take the survey at DaveRamsey.com they have a 100 satisfaction guarantee that means even if you mismeasure the blinds or you pick the wrong color they will remake your window blinds for free. They have site-wide savings happening right now. Plus, you can take an additional 5% off at Blinds.com slash Ramsey.

Always use the slash Ramsey because that slashes the prices. Oh, did you see the way I did that? Yeah, that's cool. Blinds.com slash Ramsey. Today's question is from Jessina in New Jersey. Dave, we're having a very hard time trying to get on track with everything, including starting our emergency fund. What can we do when we are so behind that we cannot even catch up? We're about two months behind on all bills.

It's causing a lot of stress on our marriage, our kids. We're tired of living this way, but we feel like we're in so much debt, in so deep, that we can't get out. Yeah, just seeing that, it gets really, really scary when you're in a situation like that. And part of what's scary is the sense that you're stuck. Part of what's scary is you're overwhelmed. And let's stop and pull one segment out of this thing and talk about that for a second. We're too much behind on our bills, and it's causing us so much stress on our marriage and kids.

Being behind on your bills should not affect your kids they shouldn't know about it you don't need to tell your five-year-old you're behind on the lights that's not their problem that's your problem and uh you can tell the kids no but you don't have to give them a big long reason why no is a complete sentence no but don't pass to give them a big, long reason why. No is a complete sentence. No. But don't pass off the, you know, don't pass off the stress to the kids. Now, let's look at the rest of this. What do you do when you're completely overwhelmed and terrified and feel stuck?

I've been there. Some of y'all know what I'm talking about. I've been there. Some of y'all know what I'm talking about. You've been there too, haven't you? It is no fun. Okay, here's how you fix it. You have to begin to take control of what you can take control of. You have an income. Let's make sure that that first is being controlled.

And that's called the budget. Now, you do not have to be able to pay everything to do a budget. All a budget is is you're telling the money that you do have where it is going to go. And so when you can't pay everything, which catching everything up in one month would be paying everything, right? When you can't pay everything, then you've got to say, well, the money that we have, we're going to do the most we can do with that. And for this month, that's all we can do. So you prioritize it.

You make enough to buy food. You do not make enough to eat out. So we're not going to restaurants, but we are going to the grocery store, and we're going to feed our family. And we're going to cook from scratch because it's healthier and it costs less. So there we go. Food. You make enough to do that.

Check. Put that one down. Put a food budget down. Write that number You make enough to do that. Check. Put that one down. Put a food budget down. Write that number down. You can do that. You make enough to pay your lights and water, and if you're behind on them, you catch them all up this month. Before you do anything else after you eat, get current on your lights, get current on your water. Now, if you have a $600 a month cable bill because you have NFL super duper pooper scooper or whatever, then cancel all that crap. But I'm talking about water and lights and gas to heat. Okay.

Now, I don't really give a rip whether you can see Downton Abbey or not, but I am more concerned about you having lights and water on and gas to heat if it's gas heat. Okay, so you pay your basic necessities, food and utilities. You make enough to do that and get current on them right now. Number three is shelter. Now you pay your rent. It doesn't matter if you pay your rent and you can't sleep there because there's no heat. So you got to put heat in the place. Okay, so you pay your rent. It doesn't matter if you pay your rent and you can't sleep there because there's no heat. So you got to put heat in the place.

Okay. So you pay your rent. If you're behind on your rent before you move on to number four, you catch up on your rent. Number four, transportation. You get current on the car and you keep gas in the car. Now, if that takes all your money, and you can pay nothing else this month, oh, well. Now, I mean, but think about this. If you've got a place to live that's current, you're not going to get evicted. Your utilities are all current, and they're not going to get cut off.

And you have food, and the car is not going to get repoed, and it's got gas in it so you can go to work, you live to fight another month. That's very essential that you get through those. And you do make enough to get through those. But you've been feeding the other monsters, and the other monsters are the people that call and scream at you, and in order for them to not scream at you, you pay them. Don't pay them.

MasterCard is not in front of your children eating. MasterCard can jump in the creek. Discover Bondage can sit over there and suck its thumb. We're not giving them any money. American Express can definitely bite my ankle. Seriously. Right? They can sit over on the sidelines right now until you get your food, shelter, clothing, and utilities and transportation taken care of.

Call the student loan people. Tell Sally Mae she is on hardship deferral. She's not getting a dime. Then you begin to continue to work down the list, and you get to who you can get to in order of importance. And you just work the list and work the list and work the list. Now, if you've got a big pile of debt and you don't see any hope past those things, then it's time to start talking about what we can sell and what we can do to create an income. I mean, you may have to amputate the Tahoe.

You may have this big stinking car payment that's killing you. You may have to take like six extra jobs and drive for Uber or deliver pizzas or clean somebody's toilets on the weekends. I don't know what you're going to do. But my grandmother used to say there's a great place to go when you're broke, to work. Increase the income. Make the money behave.

Take care of your necessities first. We call that the four walls of your house. When you have the four walls of your house protected, the people inside are safe and they're dry. Then you live to fight another day. The powder's dry. Go to battle, as they say. You've got to have the gunpowder dry or it won't work, right? So we've got to have a plan.

We get all those things laid out. It's step by step by step by step. See, I'm feeling better about your situation already because I don't even know your numbers, but I've done this for 30 years, and I almost, I'd say 99.9% of the time i sit down with someone that has a job they can take care of food shelter clothing transportation and utilities and by the way you don't need clothing you got clothing just wear what you got and uh if you got to buy the kids a pair of shoes because their toes are coming through or something that's fine but you you only be buying a bunch of clothing your clothes of you got enough clothing to last.

We're not trying to make a fashion statement right now, people. We're trying to survive. So I don't care. You'll get to that stuff later. I'm talking about this month where you don't feel hopeless anymore, where you have a sense of traction, where you see a light at the end of the tunnel that's not an oncoming train. And when you've got food, your lights and water are current, and they're not about to be cut off. You've got your rent current.

You're not about to get evicted or foreclosed on on your home. Your car's not about to get repoed. You've got those basic things done, and you can get most of that done in one or two months if you quit paying everything else. I mean, you get behind on your credit cards further, well, so what? We'll get back to them later. We get behind on Sally Mae further, so what? What's she going to do? Just get uglier?

Well, get ugly. I hang up the phone. I can stop you from talking. Just, you know, hit that little end button. They quit talking. It's an amazing thing. And don't take a bunch of crap off these people. You do the best you can do but work extra sell stuff get this budget balanced get your every dollar app it's free to download onto your phone you can do this but it's how you eat an elephant

a bite at a time you see i gave you a step-by-step clear path the next thing you do is you get current and then and only then once you're current, that you start your baby steps. But you've got a little while before you do that. It might be three months before you get there. Sell stuff, extra jobs, take care of the necessities first. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Romans 12, 11 and 12. Do not be slothful in zeal.

Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Henry Ward Beecher said, The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other comes from a strong won't.

That'll do. I like that. I never read that one comes from a strong will and the other comes from a strong won't. That'll do. I like that. I never read that one before. Dalton is with us in Colorado Springs. Hey, Dalton, how are you? Hey, Dave, I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve.

How can I help? Hey, so it's a pleasure to be on the show, by the way. I am 22 years old, and I just graduated from the University of Alabama in May. Congratulations. And now I'm out here. Thank you. I appreciate it. What's your degree in?

Colorado. Cool. Operations Management. Good. Yes, sir. So I'm in the Army right now, and I will be paying off my debt here come january 15th about yep so that'll be all my student loan debt so i'll be debt free ding ding good um yeah so my question is after that i know the next step would be to build my emergency fund about around six thousand

so after that i was looking into mutual funds and, and I'm looking at your total money makeover right now, and I wanted to know, like, with the four different types of mutual funds you suggest, and you say you invest 25% in each. Yes, sir. Right. So Roth IRA, how does that come into play after you invest in those four other mutual funds? Gotcha. Exactly. A Roth IRA is not an investment. A 401K is not an investment. It's how the investment inside of it is treated.

So here's the thing. You can buy those four mutual funds just out in the open market, and as they make money, they're going to be taxed. Okay? Okay. Or you can buy those four mutual funds and wrap a coat around them to keep them warm from taxes, and the name of the coat is Roth IRA. See, the coat is not actually the investment.

It's just keeping the investment warm. It's just the blanket over the top of it to keep it from being taxed. And so the same mutual funds outside of a Roth, of course, are going to be taxed. All the gains are going to be taxed, either as a capital gain or ordinary income. If you take those mutual funds and put them inside of a Roth IRA, you have zero tax on the growth. If you put them in a Roth 401K, the same thing. It's the same mutual funds. It's just where they're sitting and how the government's going to attack them in terms of treating them for taxation.

Okay. Got you. Got it. So your baby step four should be Roth IRA unless at work you have a match and you're in the military, you don't have a match. No, I do. It's 5%. Okay.

Your TSP is matching 5? Yeah, it's a new program within the last couple years. Okay, cool. Well, take the 5% match on the TSP, and there is a Roth TSP. Right. So take the 5% match on the Roth TSP and put 80% in the C plan, 10% in the S, and 10% in the I. Got it. And then above your 5% that's going into the TSP where you get your match,

then go do a personal Roth and pick you out for mutual funds in those four categories with a SmartVestor Pro, and they'll help you get that going. If those two numbers don't get you to 15% of your income, 5,500 plus 5% of your income, doesn't get you to 15% of your income, then what you'll do is go back and put a little more in the TSP to get you all the way up to 15% of your income. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay.

Hey, thanks for serving your country, man. We appreciate you. And thanks for calling in. You're a sharp young dude. You've got a bright future ahead of you. Rebecca's with us in Illinois. Hi, Rebecca. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. My question is about a universal life policy. I know that you say absolutely not, but here's my call. Sure. My question is about a universal life policy. I know that you say absolutely not, but here's my situation. It is a policy that my parents have owned for almost 30 years. Oh, that's sad. Yeah.

It covers my mom, my dad, and the four of us kids. My mom passed away two years ago, and when she died, I became the owner of the policy. So my husband and I pay about $50 a month for this policy. It covers my dad and us four kids. The kids' amount is about $10,000, and the only reason I hesitate not to keep it with the exception that my mom always wanted me to keep it, is I have a brother that is a drug addict, doesn't make the right choices, and he has two small children. And the coverage would cover a funeral for him.

My father does not need the coverage. My parents were divorced. You know, if anything happens to him, I am with him. Let's stop for a second then. So you're going to buy a $10,000 policy on your drug addict brother for $600 a year? Yeah, that's the question. That's really what it comes down to. I don't know if you can cover him another way.

I doubt it. He's probably not insurable. Right. He's probably, you know, if he's that bad, his health's probably. I mean, he relapses. You know, it comes and goes. Yeah. So, I mean, it's up to you.

What's your income, household income? My husband and I make over $200,000. Okay. Yeah, I'd keep it just for that. It's just a charitable act on your part. It's not a good decision, but you're stuck if you want to buy insurance on your brother. Right. And it's a gift.

I mean, I kind of view it as either of my other... No, if your mother gave you a box of poison that she thought in her good heart was not poison, that is not a gift it's a mistake i mean if something happened to one of my other brothers i could pay for their funeral with it as well as a gift to their family yeah but it wouldn't be the way you would do it wait a minute wait a minute how much wealth do you all have um my husband and I? Yeah. We got a lot in retirement. Yeah.

Like $350,000. Okay. How much money do you have in non-retirement savings? Not a lot. About $10,000. Okay. I'd keep it until you get that built up. But let's pretend you had $100,000

in non-retirement savings. Mm-hmm. And you just self-insure through your brothers. Absolutely. It's not a gift for the healthy brothers. It's only a gift for the drug addict brother. And I would self-insure through his funeral and let the other people take care of their own families.

And if you want to give them some money, just give them some money. But don't buy a bad policy to give them money. Because this is not a deal. If you didn't already own this, you would not go buy it. No, and I would sell it if the circumstances weren't what they are. Yeah, I'd just cancel it immediately. And so once you've got enough to self-assure through, meaning you be willing. I've got $100,000, so I'm saying in order to cancel this policy, in my mind,

I've got to be willing and in good conscience to pay for my drug addict brother's funeral if something happens. Okay. I'm going to earmark $10,000 of my $100,000 for that, and I'm going to cancel this crap. Right. But what happens, though, is you've got all the emotions tangled into the product. Absolutely. And that's what you're trying to untangle, and that's why i'm trying to think through this with you to say how else could we cover the need without getting ripped off because it's a bad product i mean it's just a i mean ten thousand six hundred bucks for ten thousand dollars worth

of insurance effectively just horrendous so and a group policy like that on health weird weird deal i mean on life weird so anyway yeah once you've got a little bit more money and you make enough money you're going to have a little to the side pretty soon um once you've got a few more thousand dollars you know 50 to 100 grand sitting in non retirement cash which you'll have before you know it making this kind of money i'd cancel it at that point uh you don't need to keep it for your dad you don't need to keep it for your other brothers the only reason you're keeping it for this and we're certainly not keeping it for your mother's memory, she meant well, but she made a bad purchase.

Sweet lady didn't know much about insurance. Got ripped off by her friend over at the church or whatever it was, right? That's what you get into. That's how everybody buys this crap. Somebody they know that they have a relationship with who three minutes later is no longer in the business. That's how this stuff sold. So anyway, you got a good heart. Let's just keep the, let's try to untangle it. And is there other ways we can do good things for our family without having to do this? For right now, I'd keep it though. Good question. Thanks for calling in.

That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey show in the books. We will be back with you 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. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to The Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify? For all the ways to watch and listen, check out our show page at DaveRamsey.com slash show.