The Ramsey Show - App - We Make a Ton of Money… Where Did It All Go? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

George Kamel & Rachel Cruze discuss: How to choose a mortgage lender, What to do with a 401(k) from a previous company, Figuring out where all your money goes when you're not paying attention, Using extra money for savings or paying off debt, How much money to save for an emergency fund, Investing vs. saving for a house. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm CT 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 Ramsey personality, George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz, and we are excited to take your calls this hour. 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Alex is kicking us off in St. Louis. Alex, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. I'm looking at being a first-time homebuyer here at the end of the year, and I'm trying to figure out how to choose the right lender. And in my search for the right lender, my local credit union gave me a different option I wasn't really expecting, where instead of PMI, they would add interest rate, a small amount of interest to the interest rate of the mortgage loan, and I'm not really sure if that's working. I don't like the sound of that. Are they talking about mortgage points?

The way they phrased it was instead of having PMI, if you're between 5% and 10% down payment, they would add a quarter point to the interest rate. And if it's 10% to 20% down payment, it would be 0.1% to the interest rate. Well, are you in a place financially to buy a house? I am debt-free as of March, following Dave Ramsey's financial theories. And since then, I've been saving up. I have about $20,000 saved up for closing and down payment costs. It's not quite 20%, but my housing situation is changing early next year, so I figured this would be a good time to accelerate things and just go ahead and bite the bullet.

Okay. Well, the issue with the PMI I'm seeing is PMI would go away once you have enough equity in the home, whereas this added to your interest rate would just be there forever. I could refinance it, they said, after that 20%. You could, but it would then incur more closing costs. Fair enough. So I just don't see that as a good option. I would still shop around. I mean, obviously, our friends at Churchill Mortgage are going to treat you well,

and so that's a good starting point. If you want to see what all – they'll give you the whole rundown on the sheet of here's every single fee involved. They'll walk you through it, and they have the heart of a teacher over there, and they'll make sure you understand what every single line means. Okay. So as far as picking a lender, I mean, at the end of the day,

it is about the numbers, but it's also about the customer service, how they treat you, how they educate you, how they walk with you along the journey. And I've had an amazing experience personally with Churchill and I learned a ton in the process too.

Yeah, they're there to definitely answer your question. So yeah, you want someone that's willing to teach you and understand exactly what's happening. So yeah, the added percentage of the interest rate, all that, I'm kind of with George where I'm like, man, are you able to put 10% down, Alex, did you say, or 5? It would be close to 10. I could probably make 10 work, depends on the final cost of the house. Sure, sure. And is this on a 30-year or a 15? 15-year fixed rate. Okay, awesome. That's great, Alex. Well, congratulations. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, you've done the hard work at this point. So yeah, I think it's just picking a lender that we always say whenever you're making a big decision, whether it's like with investing or

helping, you know, someone with your taxes or insurance or mortgages, like these big areas of our money, making sure that someone has the heart of a teacher that, yeah, you don't feel like slimy by or anything that you just actually like the person and the math works, right? So like both are the win. And that's what Churchill really does provide, like George was saying. But yeah, shop around, look at the math. But yeah, the credit union deal, I would run the numbers on what it would be for PMI. But then yeah, if you have to go refinance, like you're saying, you're going to have to pay closing costs and we don't know what even the mortgage rates are going to be at that point. I don't know. I would just do the 15-year fix with the PMI and be able to get to that 20%, and then that will go away.

Thanks for the call, Alex. Appreciate it, man. Thank you. Congratulations. First-time homeowner and everything. It's great. It's a big step in adulthood, for sure. All right. Shannon is up next in Idaho Falls. Shannon, welcome to the show. Thank you guys so much for taking my call. Yeah, happy to take it. What's going on?

I have a couple of questions. So I recently became a stay-at-home mom, and I am needing to roll over my 401K from my last employer. I know right now it's the market. Obviously, you don't want to take anything out because it's low. You want right now it's the market. You don't, obviously you don't want to take anything out because it's low. You want to ride it, but I don't know if that counts for waiting on a 401k rollover, if it's going to make any difference if I wait a little bit or do I just go with it and just get it rolled over, even though it's a lot less than it was six months ago. Yeah, I would go ahead and roll it over to a traditional IRA, Shannon, out of your company

and just have it in there and you ride it out. So yeah, definitely don't cash it out. And I would not leave it in your company. I would roll it over just to a traditional IRA. So the strings are cut. It's just you and that money and you're just going to ride the roller coaster for the next few decades. Yeah, and this was a traditional 401k that you had? It was a Roth. Oh, okay. A Roth 401k.

So you could do a direct rollover into a Roth IRA without any penalties. Which, yes, I would do that for sure. That's great. And you can contact a SmartVestor Pro on our website, and they can walk you through that process. I did that with an old 401k from a previous employer when I started here, and they made it super simple. And so now it's just sitting there, and it's in my control, and you have way more options.

So I like that plan. Do you have another question as well? Yes. My husband is self-employed, and technically I am as well because we own it 50-50. I do have a Roth IRA that we're doing for him. And so obviously I need to start doing that. Um, one thing I wasn't a hundred percent sure of is how do you decide what 15% of your monthly income is when you're self-employed and all of the expenses are

different and we were debt-free. We own our house outright. We've followed all of those steps, but I don't know how to decide what the exact amount is that we should be investing every month for the 15%. Well, I would be looking at the business and your personal as two different entities, if you will. And so out of the business, you guys have to decide, hey, what's the salary we're going to pay ourselves

or what's a commission, a percentage of the net profit that we have that we're going to pay. So you kind of need a formula for you guys of what you're going to consistently pay yourselves so that you know. And again, it can be commission-based percentage-wise or it can just be a flat salary that sounds good, that works with the business. But I would make it a very clean transfer, meaning like, hey, we've decided this amount, so we know that it's this percentage of the net revenues or this salary.

And it's that consistent so that you have the ability to say, okay, we know exactly what the take-home pay is. Because sometimes with a small business, those things are merged so often. And we want to separate those to make it very, very clear of what's in the business and what are we paying out of the business. But you guys own it, so you get to decide. So you don't want to overpay yourselves because that'll harm the business. But you also don't want to underpay yourself because you wouldn't do that if you're working somewhere else. Yeah. And with a regular income, we're just going to invest 15% of what that month's income was. Maybe this month is $3,000, next month is $4,000. But at the end of the year, you will still have invested 15% of your total income. So way to go. Congratulations on this new season that you're in, being a stay-at-home mom and the success of this business. We're

cheering you on. This is The Ramsey Show. welcome back to the ramsey show this is your show america give us a call triple eight eight two five five two two five friendly reminder now that fall break is hitting here in uh across the country you can come visit us at our headquarters right here south of Nashville, Tennessee. We've had a great time coming out about two times an hour, meeting folks from all around, hearing their stories. We've got free cookies, free coffee. We've got free mugs.

Pretty much everything's free except for the bookstore. You can purchase products as well. And there's a cool timeline wall, kind of the Ramsey Museum, I guess you could call it. And it's a really cool headquarters and Nashville is a great city. So come visit us. Our question of the day comes from blinds.com. Find out for yourself why they're the number one online retailer of custom window covering. You get free samples, free shipping, and with new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code Ramsey to get the best deal. Today's question comes from Mark

in New Jersey. Last year, my wife and I made over $310,000. And this year, we've made $250,000. But we have still little to no savings. Last night, I decided to finally dig into it. What I came up with after doing this is that there was about $120,000 blown on who knows what. This was a team effort that I think we equally contributed to. Every time I have a conversation with my wife about money, it seems to end up being a fight. She's a very rational person, so I'm sure it's the way I'm approaching it. How do I bring it up without causing a huge fight and allowing us to make a massive change? Wow.

It's a good question, Mark. I love that he was like, I'm going to investigate. All right, turns out we blew 120 grand on I Have No Clue What. I don't know what. Just stuff. Oh, man. That's what happens. Yeah, I mean, I think I would start the conversation with,

you know, I think in a humble way, Mark, I think there's always something, you know, with the humility side of like, man, I have contributed to this, which you've already admitted. And I've messed this up too. Like, I've not done a great job communicating with you. I haven't done a great job staying on top of our money and making this a priority. So I'm sorry. Like, there's just a level of humility there. And accountability. Yeah, that I think is a really there's just a level of humility there. And accountability. Yeah, that I think is a really beautiful way to approach.

It's very disarming when you do that and you kind of own your own stuff and you have this level of like, I didn't get it right. And then obviously not letting her, you know, just run off and be like, yeah, that's fine. Wow, sounds like you really messed up. Yeah, I mean like, you know, letting it start to be a conversation though of like, okay okay so what do we want this to look like now? What do we

as a team want to look and have a vision for our marriage and what are our goals? What are we what are we wanting to do? Because you make great income like you're saying and to be able to say man let's just take this further and do it and do it on purpose you know it's okay to still spend money that's the one thing that people think the Ramsey plan is like you can't spend any money no you can once you don't have debt and you have an emergency fund you've taken care of what you need to take care of you can spend money and enjoy so it's um i think it's having that conversation of like hey what does this look like for us and let's still enjoy our lives well let's do it on purpose with intentionality amen rachel i wish you could just have that conversation for us. That's right. Mark, you know, I can do it for you. But what this comes down to is not going,

we have to get our budget today and you're really screwing this up. It starts with that vision where you go, hey, what are our goals for the year? Because I feel like we've been floating and we have nothing to show for it. We make amazing money, more than we ever thought we would. And here we are with nothing in the bank and it's all just stuff and food and shopping. And I feel like I've done a terrible job leading us in that way. And so I want to set some goals in our life. And once you set those goals, well, now we have to make changes and change some habits in order to actually achieve those goals. And one of those is we got to get on a budget and not to, you know, constrict us, but to give us freedom so that when we do spend, we do it with confidence, with no regret, and we're not derailing our goals.

That's right. Now it's a different conversation. No ragrats. No ragrats, which we mentioned that in our Smart Money Happy Hour. I explained to Rachel. I said it was an internet meme. It's beyond that, of course. It's a scene from Where the Millers.

And Rachel was like, say what now? It's a great one. It's a great clip. Go check that out. So thank you for the question, Mark. This is not going to be easy, but, man, it's going to be worth it. And I think if you approach it with that humility and accountability, it will go a long, long way. All right, Bridget joins us up next on the phones in Philadelphia.

Bridget, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. What's going on? Well, so I'm in about $18,000 worth of debt. I only make about $2,200 a month and I can pay all my bills, including my minimum payments for my credit card, which is fantastic. However, per month, so I make about $2,200 and my bills in total are about $1,150 or so. Every single month, I I have about $450 remaining. So my question is, should I put all of that extra money into credit card payments or should I save some of that money to add to my savings? Because I only have a little over a thousand dollars in savings.

But my problem is I don't have any extra money for like car maintenance or even just like yearly things like car registration and things like that. So I'm not really sure what to do with that extra cash that I have. Great question. And you've been doing a great job paying attention to your money, knowing exactly what you have, doing the envelope system. So you're on a roll here. And it's a great question when it comes to those kind of yearly maintenance expenses. And we would label those as sinking funds in your budget to where you would add $10 a month. So at the end of the year, you have $120 to pay your car registration. Okay, absolutely. So at the end of the year, you have 120 to pay your car registration. Okay, absolutely. So that's something I actually have binders for that. I just haven't actually contributed the money towards that. So I have everything prepared. I just haven't actually

gotten to that point. So that's helpful because I do worry that I'm not going to have the money to be able to do those things. And it's great to have an emergency fund, but sometimes I look at the emergency fund as like a true, true emergency, not something that I should have been planning for. For sure. Bridget, what do you do for a living? Well, so I'm actually a supervisor for a call center for one of the state professional licensing departments. Okay. So for doctors, nurses, et cetera. Okay.

That's great. Because I'm just looking at your income and it's coming out to about $26,000 a year. Does that sound about right? Oh, yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm just saying that, you know, the way to look at money is it flows two ways. It flows in and it flows out.

And that flowing in part your income, it's a part of the equation just to look at and factor into. And there's obviously something to be said about a wonderful work environment and enjoying what you do, having joy in it, all of that. But also you want to make sure that it's paying you and that you can get ahead financially. Because, you know, living in Philadelphia, I know I'm sure that, you know, that's an expensive part of the country as well. Even on the outskirts. Yeah. So I don't know. Have you thought about maybe shifting jobs?

Because, I mean, you can make double that, I would think, somewhere else. Maybe not doing exactly the same thing, but any type of job. Have you looked at other leadership and supervisor roles that you could apply for? Well, so in terms of a job, no. However, I am looking into going to school for something in computer science. My mother is absolutely wonderful and offered to pay for my schooling. That's a gift. Yeah, that's great. So I am thinking about doing that so that I can get more money

because I know I'm making enough to pay my bills, but I'm not making enough to pay them off completely and to really just enjoy living and saving and things of that nature. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I mean, that would be something I would consider too because, again, it's just half of the equation to get you even just further to pay off this 18 000 but yeah so besides the sinking funds that extra 450 a month um i would for sure stay current on all of your payments

um and then anything extra you have be throwing it at that smallest debt whether it's a credit card or whatever it may be so um but again getting income up, I think it's going to really help you put gas on this. And in the meantime, it may look like side hustles and, you know, food delivery, grocery delivery, you name it. There's a lot of things out there you could do. I mean, even the call center world customer service, there's things you can do nights and weekends to increase income for now, but that's going to really make you feel some progress with this debt-free journey. Because right now you're just chipping away at it. And I want you to take a sledgehammer to that thing.

Yeah, you're doing a great job. If you have that same motivation, the exact same attitude you have, but having more money and dollar signs on top of it, you're going to get through it so much faster. Deep sacrifice for a short period of time. It is so worth it. Thanks for the call, Bridget. This is The Ramsey Show.

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 slash Ramsey. Well, it's no secret we love talking money around here, but we know not everyone feels that way. And that's why Rachel Cruz and myself started thinking about what it would be like to talk money for those who would just rather have some fun. And so we decided we can mix the two. We can

make money fun again, Rachel. So last week, we launched our new Ramsey podcast called Smart Money Happy Hour, where Rachel and I dig into the stuff you and your friends would talk about or you wish they would talk about at a weekly happy hour. Things like pop culture, what's going on in the world, and how to afford a life you love. It's fun, casual money advice that will make you feel less stressed and more in control of your money. Plus, there are some hilarious moments that you do not want to miss. We promise you'll also walk away learning something. This week's episode dropped today. It's all about Disney adults, Disney trauma, and why they priced out the middle class.

And I take the brunt of it on the trauma part, Rachel. I was very honest with my Disney trauma. You'll have to listen in to figure out what happened there. So if you love Disney, hate Disney, this episode is for you. It's wildly entertaining. Go ahead and follow or subscribe to Smart Money Happy Hour wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes come out every Thursday, and you won't miss one if you hit that follow button. Check it out. All right. Bill joins us up next in Dayton, Ohio.

Bill, welcome to the show. Thank you. What's going on? Thanks for taking my call. Hey, so, yeah, I got my dream job, remote job, a couple months ago, and so now I get to leave cold Florida and move to cold Ohio, I'm sorry, and move to Florida. Awesome.

Nice. Yeah, so I've been doing some house hunting. I've got a contract on my paid-for home here in Ohio, and everything that kind of seems to fit what I want down there is around the $700,000 mark. So I'm going to get about $289,000 from my current house, and I've got about $335,000 in the bank. Way to go. So that puts me at like $626,000. So I'm going to have to get a small mortgage cause, um, you know,

I don't want to put it all down. So the reason I'm calling is try to figure out how much should I keep in my emergency fund? Um, you know, and how much should I put down on the house? So, um, I make about 215 K a year and 65 of that's from military retirement. So it's passive income. Cool. And will that change once you're in Florida? No. Same income. Well, it'll drop a little bit. The income will drop about $4,000 a year just because of locality. So what is your monthly expenses to cover all of the normal bills,

maybe a few of the subscriptions, some of those luxuries? What would it take to cover one month? Yeah, so I figured that out yesterday driving back, and it comes out to about $2,400 a month. Okay. And do you have, are you married, Bill, kids? I've grown kids and single right now with a great girlfriend okay okay so yeah I mean

yeah it comes out to about yeah 6200 I would go for 6 months if I'm in your shoes yeah I would put I think I'd put probably 10 down because you are single you don't have kids

all of that like I think you have a great income so if an emergency came up you can cash flow. You can cash flow a lot. So I would probably just hold 10, Bill, for an emergency fund. And then...

10,000? Okay. Yeah, I would. And then put the rest, yeah, towards this mortgage, which is amazing. Well done, Bill. I mean, this is pretty incredible that you're able to do this. Yeah, I'm happy to be a Ramsey success story. Oh, that's awesome. Absolutely incredible.

Do you have anything in retirement? Oh, yeah. I've got probably another $800,000 in retirement funds. Oh, my gosh, yeah. So you're an everyday millionaire. Crushing it. Yes, ma'am. Baby steps millionaire. Well done. We love to hear it. Well done, yeah. So you're an everyday millionaire. Crushing it. Yes, ma'am. Baby steps millionaire.

Well done. We love to hear it. Well done, Bill. Well, Bill, the other truth is that if your expenses go up, you could easily save another $5,000 in there within a month or two with your income. Yeah, that's true. In Florida, if it is more. Once you get over there and if you feel a little bit insecure about the emergency fund,

just go up to that six months, which would be closer to 15, and call it a day. But you're in a great spot, man. Thanks for the call. All right, coming up, we've got Digger in Greenville, South Carolina. Digger, welcome to the show. Thanks. I am a public school teacher, and I make about $66,000 a year. I've had a couple of bumps in the road over the last couple of years. And my real question is, I've got the $1,000 in my savings, the emergency fund, and I don't have a whole lot extra per month to throw at my debt. And my employer won't let me stop contributing to my retirement. They're mandating that I can't opt out and I have to give 9% to it every month. That's the minimum is 9%?

So I'm wondering if I'm, I'm sorry? Is the minimum 9%? Yeah, that I have to give 9%. Okay. And this is slowing down your debt-free journey? I'm not. I mean, I really want to go at this and get my deck on, but it just seems like I don't have enough to really put a significant debt on anything. How much debt do you have?

Well, South Carolina has, I owe back taxes of $4,100. My car loan is $6,700. The federal government wants $12,100, and my credit card is $18,000. What do you mean by federal government? That taxes IRS? I sold a house and didn't save enough back for the taxes I would owe on the profit. And so I'm still paying off all that. So you owe about over $16,000 total to the IRS. Well, South Carolina wants $4,100 and the feds want $12,100.

So together it's like 16, too. Okay. Any other debt besides that and the car loan? Credit cards. Credit cards, yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, you have a great income. It stinks that they're mandating this 9%.

It does slow you down because that 9% could have been going towards your debt. But is there any way you could increase your income? No, $700. I'm sorry? So how can we make up for that $700 through working more? Could you tutor, substitute, teach, do side hustles in order to create $700 a month to speed up this process? Well, I can't. I mean, my job is 7 to 4 every day, and I can't, so I can't substitute. And tutoring is not really an option here. It's a very rural community that I live in, so I haven't done something like that. I was thinking of getting a second job or something like that. You could do weekends. Yeah, I heard you say something about CSRs or something like that where I could work from home, that sort of thing. Yeah, I heard you say something about CSRs or something like that, where I could work

from home, that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Now looking at this, Digger, I mean, you said that you've had some bumps in the road and stuff. And so it's probably been a long journey for you and you're probably exhausted feeling like I should be further along than I am. And so I'm sure there's just frustration and annoyanceance of even these taxes I mean all of it right it's not it's not fun to look at these numbers and you're not like oh man but there's a but there's five years ago I owned my own home and I had zero debt and then I lost my job for 14 months due to a hostile work environment and that's where the credit card went to 18,000. And then I got the,

I ain't got fun of it, but the taxes from the federal government and the state kind of all hit me all at once. And I bought a car, you know, believing I was going to work at my place. I mean, I love what I do,

but, um, just everything hit me at once. And, you know, that's what, you know i was i was ready to do the pay off the house or the you know the live debt free and all that stuff and i just got nailed with forty thousand dollars worth of debt oh i'm so sorry it's really hard to stay positive yeah because i'm single and i'm 50 and yeah yeah yeah Yeah, I understand. No, totally.

I hear you. And it feels like it's that season of life where it's like something goes wrong, everything goes wrong. We kind of laugh and say when Murphy hits, it's like his brother and his other brother move in with you, right? And it's just like, oh, my God, does life just keep kicking me when I'm down? And it's that feeling. But you know what? We've seen numbers just like this before on the debt-free stage, and they do it. And it's going to take some time. But I want you to map it out and say,

hey, if I took a weekend job, how much do I need to make and how long would it take me to pay this off? And when you have facts in front of you too, it takes the emotion out and it helps you stay motivated. So hang on the line. We're going to give you Total Money Makeover,

one of the best books to help you get re-motivated in all of this. And you can do this, Digger. You can do this. សូវាប់ពីបានប់ពីបានប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពី Our scripture of the day, Philippians 2.4. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Chris Pratt said, I'm a man of faith, and I believe that God works in mysterious ways and gives us signs and gifts in life. Chris Pratt said, Oh, that's nice. That's sweet. You're a gift to my life. Wow.

Look at that. How do you feel about that? I didn't know we were going there, but I really appreciate that. You're a gift. Yes. Thank you. Nice friendship we have here. James never says that to me.

James, are we a gift in your life? Totally are. Yes. Thank you. Nice friendship we have here. James never says that to me. James, are we a gift in your life? Totally are. Oh, I'm so glad. He's a great actor. Chris Pratt and James, both great actors. All right. I'm George Campbell. She's Rachel Cruz.

This is The Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. Alex joins us up next in Virginia Beach. Alex, welcome to the show. Hey, guys. Thank you very much. Yeah. How can we help today? Yes. I'm 24 years old. I recently graduated college, and I've always been forward-thinking, so I'm trying to save money as a down payment for a house. Awesome.

But I have this addiction of investing, and with the market going down month over month, I just can't stop transferring money to my brokerage account and buying index funds. And so for like a year now, my savings account slash emergency fund slash down payment for a house has really just stayed at like between $6,000 and $8,000. And my investing account has grown quite a bit. Cool. for a house has really just stayed at like between six and eight thousand and but my investing account has grown quite a bit cool and so what's your question for us today is there a like a behavior an emotional uh idea like a concept i can change about how I'm thinking about this to stop the investing or like a mathematical reason I should save cash instead of enabling and buying these

dips every two weeks or so and just get on the wagon and start increasing this security deposit. Well, I think part of the problem is math is what got us into this thing because you were looking at the investment going, well, I can make way more money in the market than it's sitting in a bank account, right? Yeah, well, yeah, over time. And you're excited to like buy low. Is that what's happening too?

It's like this exciting game to you. Yeah, especially right now. Yeah. Down 20% year to date, 25% since January. Well, when do you want to buy a house? Probably at least a year from now, but maybe closer to three because I'm just a single guy right now, so I don't feel like a two-bedroom house would be necessary and condos aren't really appealing. So I would prefer three or more years from now,

maybe. Yeah. Well, I think, Alex, there's something I'm just curious of your, I understand that like, man, it's kind of this game. It's kind of exciting in a weird way because the market is down and you're like, oh my gosh, I can put money in here. And then if it goes up here, I'm going to make this much more. And it's, there's like a kind of this adrenaline feeling that you're doing and you're not doing anything dangerous. I mean, you're buying index funds, you know, but a lot of our long-term strategy with investing is to be like, okay, we're going to just ride it out and have a steady plan of investing 15% of our income and kind of just staying with that instead of playing this, this game that you're, it's, it's like an emotional thing for you to do

um and again it's not terrible you're not like going and buying all these you know single stocks and all that i mean the index fund it's it's you're not going to vegas here you're not blowing the money you're you're doing too much of a good thing and it's turning into a bad thing yeah and so i would refocus it on those goals that you have, which is I want to buy a house. And in three years from now, I don't want to look up and I have the same number in my portfolio because the market kept dipping up and down, which is why we say, hey, if you've got a short time horizon, don't invest. If you're going to be purchasing a home in the next three years, put it in a high yield savings account. And the point is not for the money to

grow. The point is to protect what you're trying to grow in that savings account. Yeah. So I think Alex, if you had more of a timeframe with buying a house, cause I feel like you're a goal oriented person. And so shooting for something tangible is motivating. And I just don't feel like you have that right now. Right. Cause you're like, I could buy a house in a year. It could be three years. I'm seeing, I mean, so there's, you don't have this big why to keep money i mean i don't want you to drain an emergency fund by any means um but you almost need to figure out this new a new goal for you and i don't know if it's just a dollar amount um and maybe you you direct that dollar amount towards a down payment later down the road but like my husband is like

this alex he is a numbers guy he's like at the end of the year i want x amount in the in the money market account that I can see. And it's like, that's motivating for him. And for me, I'm like, I want to know the why. What are we going to do with that? Are we going to go on vacation with it? Is it going to just sit there? If it sits there, that's great. I just need to know what we're doing with it. So I don't know if it's a number for you that's kind of more of a fun game to say, hey, I want to put this much away by the end of 2023 and not touch it and have the discipline not to just throw it in the markets. But kind of create that own game, that own game you're playing in the index fund world. Play that somewhere else, but you can still have that motivation to still hit these numbers and this goal because that's a fun part of money too.

Oh, yeah. And Alex, you're completely debt-free with an emergency fund? I have a $4,000 car debt that I'm paying my dad because he sold it to me at 0% interest. But that's it. So four grand for a car. Oh, there's your new goal. Yeah, pay that off. Yeah. For sure.

For sure. Especially since your dad's holding the line. Just kidding. Yeah, yeah. That makes Thanksgiving awkward. So do you enjoy money? Do you spend it? I've had to learn to flex that muscle, the spending muscle. But yeah, I've given myself $100, sometimes $150 every week for whatever I want. Eating out, going to the

movies things like that just miscellaneous spending what's your income um $45 an hour I think that is 93,000 a year so that's another thing that's pushing me into the saving cash direction I'm a contracted software developer and they let me know my contract will likely not be extended in January. So I know I'm losing my job in January. And I'm doing some things to fix that, right? I'm speaking with a recruiter,

and my current boss would happily give me a referral. But that also is partially why I called too, because I really do need to save up cash if I hypothetically can't get a job the second I leave my current one. Yeah, for sure. And I would try to have something lined up. Thankfully, you're in a great career space, though. I mean, you're going to make great money and there's a need for what you do. So I don't think you'll have a big issue finding a job, but that's exactly right. Right. So like all this kind of stuff, this life situations that you're in from the debt to the job, I mean, let that, yeah, that needs to be

your motivator to be like, man, I got to hit this dollar amount in order for me to feel good about that transition out of my job. And Rachel, we talk about this all the time on the show. There's only three things you can do with money. Give, save, and spend. And sometimes we can, usually we're leaning into the saving like Alex, or we're leaning into the spending. And sometimes when you release it through giving, it just changes your outlook on money. And if you're saving too much, enjoy some of it and do something fun to remind you that money is a tool. And when we do just one thing, it kind of gives us a blurry picture of what this money was meant for. That's a great point, George. Yeah. So even Alex, I mean, that generosity piece too,

I think is a very, very important one. So be giving something, practice building that muscle as well. The saving one, yeah, like you got down, but be more focused intentionally on what you're saving for and have a purpose and a why behind the savings, which could help you not feel like you're just like, oh gosh, playing this market kind of game. Yeah. And joy can come from all three things, from saving and give you some great peace and joy from spending. We can have joy and incredible experiences and buying some fun things, but giving, man, there are some, wow, that joy surpasses both of those combined. And so just practice those three things in moderation. And I think that will help give you a more healthy relationship with your money, but you're doing great. I mean, this is a great spot to be in at 24, making 93K and he's

got that savings muscle down. And so we just need to flex some of the other muscles because i skipped leg day for what 33 years running now and this is what you get you fit into skinny jeans people when you skip leg day for 33 years george i'll get there rachel winston's gonna start working out with me right that's right he will he will that dude it looks like a ken doll he's crushing the game well that was very strapping that puts this hour of the ramsay show in the books My thanks to my co-host, Rachel Cruz, and all the folks in the booth for keeping the show afloat into you, America. We thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend, subscribe,

and let other people know about this. We love to impact more and more people. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Until next time, spend wisely, save intentionally, and give generously. Do you love a good day, Brandt? Want to see the latest Ramsey Show videos going viral? Check out your favorite moments from The Ramsey Show on YouTube. Go watch and subscribe to The Ramsey Show channel on YouTube. Hey, if you're a fan of this podcast, we've got more where that came from.

Ever wondered how to win in business and leadership? I'm George Camel, host of the Entree Leadership Podcast, where you'll hear exceptional advice, origin stories, and practical strategies for success. These weekly conversations with America's brightest business owners, thought leaders, and entrepreneurs will help you succeed in all areas of business and leadership. Listen to the Entree Leadership Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, it's James, producer of The Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but check the episode notes for links to products and services you heard about during this episode.

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