The Ramsey Show - App - What Fed Interest Rate Hikes Mean for You (Hour 1)

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

Ken Coleman & Rachel Cruze answer your questions and discuss:  "Should I sell stocks to pay off my car?" from the blog: Should I Use My Investments to Pay Off Debt? How the Fed raising interest rates affects you and your money, Saving for a house while paying off debt, "I feel stuck in my career", Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Here's an EveryDollar deal just for our listeners: get a 14-day free trial PLUS $15 off your first year of premium. Click the link below and start budgeting today! www.everydollar.com/TRS Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help you win in your life, specifically your money life, your work life, and your relationship life. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague colleague Rachel Cruz and we're here for you this hour. It is your show America so what are your questions? What do you got? We always love having that conversation with you. It's a free phone call 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Rachel you ready to go? Absolutely Ken. You look fantastic on this summer day. There it is. We've never done this before.

There it is. You'll see a lot of that on the Smart Money Happy Hour podcast with George Campbell, our colleague. A lot of cheers going on over there. A lot of cheers there. For sure. A lot of fun times over there. We should bring some more here. We should.

I wonder, what do I got to say to James Childs, our fearless producer, to have a little bit of that come on over here? I don't know. We'll have to talk about that on many commercial breaks. But let's get going. Monifa is up first in Washington, D.C. Monifa, how can we help? Hi.

Thanks for taking my call, Kent and Rachel. You bet. My question is, I recently purchased a new car because my car died on me. I wasn't expecting to buy one for at least another two to three years. And so now I have a bit of debt. And my question is, do I have the option of paying that debt off using stocks? But right now the market isn't doing that well. And so I would be taking not a loss, but I would kind of break even. And I was just

wondering if I should sell the stocks to pay that. Oh, the other thing is I earn dividends on that stock monthly. So I get about $200 a month off of that. And I'm not sure if I should sell the stocks or if I should just pay it off by adding extra payments to the principal. Yeah, for sure. So how much do you owe on the car? $24. Okay. And if you sold it today, how much could you sell it for?

I'm not sure. Okay. I mean, it's new. I don't think that, I kind of, I looked that up and what I saw across the board was to like hold off for a year because I bought it brand new. So I think it would depreciate too much within that first year to make any money on selling it. Well, you may, yeah, you probably are, yeah, you're probably not, it's probably worth less than 24. I'm just figuring out what big of a difference it is. How much do you make a year? What's your income?

It's 103. Okay. What other debt do you have? That's it. It's just a car. Okay. I mean, honestly, when you've got, with your,

you have a great income. I mean, if I were you, I would just buckle down and pay it off. You could, I mean, we always little bit would be there's $31,000 in that one. The others are down. How much are in those, though? Oh, the second one has about $7,000 in it. Okay. So that's $38,000. So $38,000 total is what you have in stock. And are those two single stocks?

Yeah. Okay. I'd sell them. So if I were you, and again, you haven't quote unquote lost anything. Yes, you may, the return you're going to break even because yeah, like you're saying about the market, but you technically have not lost anything. So if I were you, I would cash both of these out. I would pay off the car and then I would put the remaining money.

And again, there may be some tax implications to this, but I would take the rest and either use that cash to fund if you have, do you have an emergency fund? Do you just have cash on hand? I have an emergency fund, but it only has 2000 in it. Okay, so I would cash out this and I'd pay it off and put the rest in an emergency fund, but it only has $2,000 in it. Okay, so I would cash out this, and I'd pay it off and put the rest in an emergency fund,

and I would put the rest in that $2,000. And then from there, Monifa, I would never buy single stocks again. If you have a Roth IRA, 401k, that's going to be your next step, is to fund 15% of your income into those things. But regardless of debt or not, I wouldn't have single stocks anyway. So I would tell you to cash them out regardless of where you were, but now you're going to have that lump sum

and you can use that to your benefit to just pay off this car and then turn around and fund an emergency fund. And then you'll be, I mean, really in a great spot in baby steps four through six at the point of what we teach. So that's what I would do, Monifa, if I woke up in your shoes. Okay.

Do it. Okay. Monifa, it's going to feel so much better. It is. The single stock game, honestly, it's exhausting, and majority of people don't come out ahead. Now, we tell people, if you have everything paid off, if you're on baby step seven and less than 10% of your net worth,

you want to dabble in other stuff, that's great. But where you are, Monifit, this is really great money to be used to get you out of debt, to have cash in the bank in case something happens. It just puts you in a really great, solid financial spot to build that strong foundation financially. I totally agree. That's what I would do would do i totally agree and you're not worried about the roller coaster anymore with the single stocks you get into a good investment strategy and i would recommend monifa that you go to our website ramsaysolutions.com and we've got a section there uh called smart investor pro now these are men and women that are trained financial advisors they will teach you the process for investing that we endorse and that we teach. And you're going to have a much better feeling about your investment

going forward. But this is an opportunity for you to cut your losses as they are. But the real benefit, as Rachel said, is you come away with this with a paid for car. And now you're on your way to baby step three to get that emergency fund in a place where you're really sleeping well and driving well so that's right this is a no-brainer and you do walk away with a different picture when you go from having this massive car payment rachel to no car payment at all and now this depreciating asset doesn't cause you any stress. That's right. Absolutely. And because of your income and where you're at financially, I think you can keep the car. For some people, we'd sell, you know, if you were making 50 grand, I would be telling you to sell it and to take out a loan for the loss of

what you have. But you're at a position, yeah, I think you can still keep this car and pay it off. And man, I would do that in a heartbeat yeah the uh does it shock you when you see things on tiktok and instagram and social media about people bragging about the car payments like it's just a part of it they're like yes have you seen these videos oh my gosh they got a big smile on their face like we owe 2100 every month together as a couple yes like i'm like i'm choking watching the video is shocking. And you do talk to people. What's funny is other people in this space, in personal finance that's out there,

even if you take 10 of us that teach this stuff, we all may disagree on probably four or five topics, right? Some people are okay with single stocks. Some people are okay with not having your accounts combined when you're married. Some people are great with credit cards. We all have our differences. But one consistent thing I do find, Ken,

almost everyone hates a car loan in the financial advisor space because they see that there's no return on it. It's a depreciating asset, and you're putting money in that where if you had invested that. So anyone under the sun, even if we disagree on the little things here or there, majority of people out there, you guys, that are teaching about money, they all are like, oh, the car payment. So it's consistent.

Nobody cares what you're driving. Unless you're walking around going, I just got the brand new, whatever that is. Nobody cares. And by the way, that makes you come across as a jerk. That's right. We don't want to be that. Come on, people.

Nobody cares. Just pull around the corner. Park behind the building. Nobody cares. Set your ego aside. All right. Hey, we got to step away for just a few moments. Don't move.

More of the Ramsey Show coming up. Welcome back, America. You have joined the conversation about your life, specifically your money, your work, and your relationships. All three of those topics are just completely woven together. And we want to help you win in all three of those areas. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by my colleague, Rachel Cruz. And I'm sure that no matter where you consume your news, how much you consume your news,

you're constantly hearing about inflation and interest rates. That I can assure you. It doesn't matter who you are, where you lean, one way or the other. And it's been the conversation for a while. What, close to two years now? That's right. 18 months? That's right.

So I just want to give a snapshot to our audience. We have a lot of new people joining us all the time. We're so excited that you're with us. So how do the interest rates, as the Fed raises or lowers, in this case, we've been on a pretty steady path of raising interest rates. How does that affect you day in and day out with your money? So for the past 14 months, here's where we stand. Interest rates have been raising at the fastest clip, Rachel, in 40 years. Okay. So this is a big deal because we had a prolonged period

prior to COVID where interest rates were at historic lows. Okay, and so now all of a sudden, pretty big jump. Now, the Fed just announced last week that they're going to hold the current rate steady. Now, this is the first time, Rachel, since January of 2022 when the Fed has met and didn't raise it. All right. So they said, well, we're going to hold and we're going to assess how are the current rates affecting the overheated economy. And that's the way they describe it. And that is all about inflation.

Anytime the Fed addresses inflation, they're going to look at a tactic of raising rates. I'll get into that, why and how it affects it. So when they raise the Fed fund rate, the rate that banks charge each other for their overnight loans, that begins to ripple across the economy where we see mortgages go up, credit card interest rates, home equity lines of credit, and auto loans, and then any other type of loan that maybe you're dealing with or that you can imagine. That's where you start to see higher costs because of the interest rate. Now, what that does is that affects you, the consumer, because all of a sudden

that bill is more. And then that changes what you have to spend that given month, that it changes your budget if you're budgeting, and we want you budgeting. And so you start to feel what you see economists refer to as a pinch, right? And so what happens? Well, that means consumer behavior as it relates to purchasing starts to slow down, or at least the Fed hopes so. They hope that consumers start spending less because when consumers spend more, that's the whole supply demand that you learn sometime around the sixth or seventh grade, hopefully. That's right. Yep. Prices go up, more demand, people raise prices. Well,

here's where we stand. Right now, over the last 14 months, consumer behavior didn't slow right away. We are seeing it start to dip a little bit. But when the Fed first started raising rates, Rachel, there wasn't much change at all. Then Jerome Powell, who's our Fed chair, came out and said, we need to see some pain in this economy to get control of inflation. What does he mean? He meant specifically unemployment going up. He was, and I went after him on my show. I've gone after him on my show. I've gone after him on this show. It's the one time I've ever agreed with the Democrats in the Senate, and they're saying, look, this is going to take us

into an unnecessary recession. That was my concern as well. So all of a sudden, we've got Democrats going, we don't want to drive up unemployment. Why? Because unemployment's low. All right, back to how this affects groceries and everything else. When unemployment is really, really low, you get into wage wars. It's a war for talent. And we saw this where you go into restaurants, you're still going to restaurants, Rachel, where they don't have enough help. So what do they do? They have to raise hourly wages. They salaries companies do to attract people to have them yes work for them so that created the great resignation and so that cost gets wage pressures get passed on to us the consumer the food when you open the menu and

it's more expensive and it's more expensive it's because they're having to pay their people more groceries are more yeah because they have to pay people that are stocking the groceries more. And so all of this then begins to affect our wallet. Now, here's where we stand. Inflation is dipping a little bit, but still prices are very, very elevated. The job economy is strong. In other words, the latest job report in May, we saw a slight tick up in unemployment, but we're talking to 3.7%. Not what they were expecting. Not what the Fed was going for.

He wants to see it in the fives. That's painful. Because it creates... Well, his theory is, it doesn't always work. Raising interest rates doesn't always work to cool the economy. And you could say right now, it hasn't cooled the economy. No, because people are still spending money like crazy. I'm'm like you travel you go into an airport and it's packed you go you go to these places you're like oh my gosh people they're out they're they're doing stuff and

yeah it's the classic effect that dc does not control our behavior so us putting any level of hope in them like they're trying to put hope in us that they're like, okay, we'll try to control the consumer's behavior. It's not as married as what it appears to be or what people think it is or what they think it is. Yeah. So where do we stand? Well, inflation hasn't dipped enough and the Fed has said they're going to continue to push up rates. And will it respond as in we'll see unemployment spike and then costs come down i don't know and make that connection again right that no make that for the listeners like that unemployment goes up oh we'll see when unemployment goes up so what

happens when and how that's tied to inflation so when unemployment goes up people don't spend as much because they're out of work yeah and so so it's a way of cooling consumer spending. But the businesses are letting go people. They are because they're cutting costs. Because of inflation. Like I'm trying to make the whole circle. Well, no, it's just more expensive to do business. That's right. So two things happen. Businesses, the cost of doing business is more. And if you get interest rates into a, if interest rates drive you into a recession, that means the balance sheets are worse. Companies aren't making as much money.

So what do they do? Cut costs. Their number one cost are employees. So what happens is they're not producing as much. Consumers are getting laid off. They aren't spending as much. And so what happens is demand drops. And when demand drops,

prices drop. That's right. Like for instance, you know what would be fun? It would be fun if we could create a national movement for 90 days where millions upon millions of American people reduce spending dramatically. Not because they had to. But to lower inflation. Like we all do it together. Like let's band together and attack inflation together now now there's going to be some critics to this video they're going to go ken you're heartless because that's going to put people out of work and presumably it would but it is supply demand it is capitalism and then here come the people that think oh capitalism capitalism is awful well whether you think it's awful or not we're not taking that position today.

We're just simply explaining how this affects your pocketbook. Yes. And when the Fed continues to raise rates, it is going to hit you in your pocketbook one way or another. You're going to feel it. In the grocery store,

goods and services that you pay for, and then you could lose your job if unemployment goes up because of a recession. Right. Because businesses will start laying off. And what's fascinating is, I feel this, Ken, I wonder if you do too, but even when we were doing our building wealth events around the country 12 months ago, like you said, all

this started 14 months ago. Man, that was the hottest topic because we were talking about groceries, the price of stuff, you know, all of it. And we're all still feeling it. But isn't it weird the just like human behavior you get used to something after a year our budget has now it's gone it went up and it hurts you're like no no no and now our every dollar budget is now consistent month to month but i look back of what we spent on groceries two years ago and i'm like i can't

believe how we did that and how you get it's weird how you get used to it. Well, I mean, not used to it. Like it still sucks, but like you find this new way of functioning. And then I would say this too, Ken, with inflation, the opposite is true. When we tell people to get out of debt and all of this, right? These interest rates don't affect you if you don't have debt. And on the flip side, if you have a money market account or a high yield savings account, you're getting the best return you've gotten. I'm loving it. And forever. So I'm like actually having savings and not that that's going to be like your long-term strategy as a high yield savings account, but it's high.

Okay, Rachel, you just said something that I think I want to share with people. Right now, what the interest rates are, they're still historically really low for a home mortgage, but a lot of people are sitting going, it's so high compared to 3.75 or 3.2 or 2.7. But here's the deal. I just want to throw this out there. I think the housing market will rebound when the consumer mentality goes, you know what, historically, 5.75, 6.75, that's not bad. It's going to take a while, but to your point, people will adjust, and that's when I think we'll see the housing market boom. I think it's going to be okay, folks.

All right, don't move. More of your calls coming up on The Ramsey Show. Welcome back, America. You are joining the conversation about your life, your money, your work, your relationships here on The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague, Rachel Cruz. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. What do you want to talk about today?

Rachel and I, we have a lot of fun together. We're here for you. We'll even get a little extra, like we'll go a little deeper, maybe a little aside on any of those topics because, you know, we've got an opinion. So if you've never called in before and you're going, I think I might be nervous, trust me, today's the day. No need to be nervous. We're going to take good care of you. One of the topics we talk about so much on this show is paying off debt because so many people are in debt. And that's a smart thing to do. So is saving and investing. But there's one key to winning with money that a lot of people overlook, Rachel,

and that's protecting your finances from emergencies. And that's where insurance is so important. Now, there are 10 kinds of insurance coverage you might need, depending on where your life is today. And we've built a tool called Coverage Checkup to show you what you need or what you need to drop. We'll even rank your coverage list by importance, email it to you, and then connect you with a Ramsey-trusted insurance provider so that you can get the right plan in place. Donald H., one of our audience members, said, for anyone who has not completed this checkup, do it now.

You never know when something will happen, and you never want your family to be in a bad situation. He's right. RamseySolutions.com slash checkup. RamseySolutions.com slash checkup. Let's go to Columbus, Ohio next. Josh is there. Josh, how can we help? Hello.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. I appreciate it. What's up? First, I want to thank you. And then also, so to get started with it, um, I've been listening to you guys for a couple of months now, and I've been trying to reason in my mind not to pay off debt, but I think now it's just like, I should go ahead and do it now. So, um, I have about 74,000 and my bank, um, and I have about 45,,000 in my bank, and I have about $45,000 in debt and loans.

So $18,500 is my car loan, and then that $26,500 is in student loans. And then I'm trying to also save for a house that I'm about to buy from my grandpa within the next year. That's great, Josh. So how can we help? So I want to make sure that my reasoning to pay off just to write a check for both these loans is the best move before I start going straight into a down payment for that house. Yes, sir. It's a great move. Yeah.

Question, Josh, how much is the house? How much will you be buying it for? I'm planning on doing somewhere around $150,000 because there's a bunch of work I want to do to it. Okay. That's great. So the why behind paying off this debt and you have the money for it, writing a check today, I would say is twofold, Josh. One, we have found the fastest way to build wealth and to win with money from point A to point B, the fastest, most effective way, the way that honestly will sustain you over a long period of time is getting out of debt.

When your income comes in and it's all yours, it's not going back out into a car loan, it's not going back out into a student loan, you're going to be able to have all of that to work for you. Whether you're working for you in purchasing a home and having that where it's going to build equity over time. It's going to work for you having it to be able to invest and compound interest. And it works for you over time, like you're letting your money work for you versus working for the bank. So from a mathematical financial standpoint, it does you so much service, so much service to have no debts. And that's, again, on the more tactical side. And then what we found, Josh, too, over the years,

this show's been around for, what, 30 years, Ken? And continually in this message, Josh, we hear people talk about the freedom that they feel on an emotional, a spiritual level. I mean, it's amazing even what your body physically, like what it does to protect yourself. And when you owe someone money, we don't give this enough credit of the amount of brain power that it goes to saying, okay, someone else has a level of power over my life and I'm not in complete autonomy.

Someone else has say over my life, whether I'm not in complete autonomy. Someone else has say over my life, whether it's Toyota Motor Company, Sally Mae, someone else's is latched on to you. And when you are free from that, and you're free from a system, and it does something to you, again, on a more emotional, spiritual level than most people ever talk about. So that's why we have people call in and scream out, I'm debt free. Because when you are free, there is a freedom there that you just can't experience when you financially are in this bondage.

So that's always the thing I tell people, Josh, is it's smart financially, and it's smart for just Josh as a whole person to not owe anyone anything. So I would take that route in a heartbeat. I would take the rest of that money, that $29,000, create some level of an emergency fund for you. Are you single, married, kids? Where are you at with life?

I have one kid, and I'm single. Okay. So I would have a nice emergency fund there, maybe four months. What's your take-home? I am 50. Your take-home after-tax is $50,000? No, it's annually. Right, so what's your monthly take-home after-tax?

About $2,600. All right, so to her point, to Rachel's point. Ooh, you're going to feel freedom from those payments. This is amazing. Okay, so can I just have some fun with the numbers, Josh? Sure. Okay, so if I heard you right, with the numbers, Josh? Sure. Okay. So if I heard you right, you have $74,000 cash in the bank right now,

and your total debt is $45,000, correct? Correct. All right, that leads to $29,000, which is amazing. At $2,600, if I heard you right, take home. All right, so $2,600 at six months, which is we say anywhere from three to six months. I'd love to see you have a six-month emergency fund. I think it'd be fantastic, okay? So you're looking at about $15,000, roughly, right, for your six-month emergency fund, correct?

Yep. All right. My friend, that leaves you with $14,000 still that you now begin to go into Baby Step 3B, which is saving towards that house. In one check, in one fell swoop of just a mighty payment, right? Chopping down the tree of debt. My friend, that's a big deal. Now, one other fun number. What are your combined monthly payments between the student loan and the car, roughly? Well, I haven't been making any payments to student loans. Well, that's true.

I wanted to start doing that. You got me on that. What's the car payment? It's about $450 a month. Bro, you got $14,000 left over, and now you've got a raise of $450 a month. These are just, Rachel nailed it. And to save that down payment,

you're going to have a great down payment for $150,000 house. So that $450,000, we say anywhere from 5% to 10% on a starter home to put down and you'll have that. So run the math on that, Josh. So $450,000 a month now that you could put towards the down payment. Okay. How quickly do you get there? And you were asking, i need a good reason to do it we've given you a good reason emotionally and spiritually as rachel said beautifully but just look at the numbers my man you have a fat emergency fund you're on your way to that really healthy down payment for your first home and josh and i would even say i i would even go a little bit more liberal than kinder even if you wanted a three-month emergency fund. That's true too. Right

I mean you could you could cut that in half. That's right. That 15 and and say you know maybe it's more you know like six seven and then add more to that down payment and then later you can bump it up if you want but I mean you just have you have the ability to do everything right now is what it feels like in a great way. So use it to your advantage to get you ahead financially. So I, in a heartbeat would do that. That's exciting. So I think it's great. Do you have any other cash, Josh, just around like in any type of savings? Yeah, I have about 2000 just finding cash. Okay. That's awesome. So how would it feel, Josh, waking up tomorrow knowing that you have, let's just pretend $7,000 saved in the bank, no debt,

and you're looking towards the house? How does that just feel? Well, it would be awesome. Yeah, I think it would. Do it, Josh. We're cheering you on. Like today. It's Friday.

Into the weekend. Going to the weekend debt-free. Do it, Do it. Man. I got to tell you, if I'm you, I'm trying to get it all paid off and then really having the greatest happy hour of all time. Smart money happy hour. Go celebrate.

Go celebrate. That's awesome. Oh my goodness. How fun is that? A single dad, a young single dad, starting off his life in the right way. Honestly, Ken, most people have this and they're starting from ground zero. He's got 74,000 he's saved up. So he's a good guy.

I'm like, you're doing great. You're doing awesome. Stud. Big time stud. Be free going into the weekend, my friend. Boy, Monday morning is going to feel great. Awesome stuff. This is the Ramsey Show.

Don't move. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Rachel Cruz is alongside this hour as we are here for you. 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Let's go to Seattle, Washington. Karen joins us there. Karen, how can we help?

Hi, Ken and Rachel. Thank you for taking my call. I am an experienced registered nurse and desire to move up in my industry. I also have a master's degree. I have taken your Get Clear assessment and I have a chronic health condition that at times has episodic exacerbations and then I'm out for work for like a day. I feel like if I want to move up into management or any leadership, that I couldn't really perform or not really make them happy.

I can't really resolve this, but it does seem to kind of cause some anxiety and create that mental barrier in my head. I'm a smart, experienced nurse. I know I can do it, but I have two job interviews lined up with VP executives. Should I tell them about this concern? Well, let me address that in a second. You're smart. You're experienced. That tells me that this is, even though this is a nuisance, this health issue, and it kind of comes and goes,

it doesn't seem to me that it's hurting your job performance overall. Is this true? No, not at all. So your current leaders, if I were talking to their current supervisors, and I said, hey, tell me about Karen. What are they going to say? Actually, I just heard from them last week. It goes, Karen, we can't say enough how your job does not go unnoticed.

You are excellent. And every manager really praises my work. Okay, so Karen. I think it's mentally a block for me. It is. Listen, listen, this is huge. You have got to focus on what you just heard from your managers, what you've always heard from your managers,

and the season that this started popping up, you have been able to manage it. So now while I'm not a medical doctor, if your medical doctor is saying, hey, look, when this episodic thing happens, you got to take some time off. But if it doesn't affect you other than that, and you're not missing too much time, then your fear, while understandable, is not reasonable. Your fear is not reasonable.

There is nothing keeping you from doing the job of managing other nurses just because we know this to be true because it hasn't kept you from taking care of your patients. True or false? True. It has not impacted my ability to do any of my job performance at all. So now back to your question. Because it will not impact your ability to do your job, I don't think you've got to lead with it. I don't think you're being dishonest by not talking about it. It's just you can just share as you get closer to the process. If they make an offer, now this is where I would bring it up.

If they go, hey, we really want to do this, just go, listen, I just want to let you know that I have this issue from time to time, and it has not affected my ability to do my job. You're going to come to this job with rave reviews I'm going to tell you you'll have references and reviews and they're going to be able to speak for you and it doesn't you don't use up all your sick time is that true yeah no that's true I mean if it happens I might have to take a full day off or half a day off but after that I'm right into my work well then I don't think this is anybody's. How often does that happen, Karen? I'm just curious.

Sometimes there's nothing in a month, sometimes once or twice. Like this month, it happened four times, a half a day here, full day there. But I have what they call FLMA people work with my current job for intermittent leave. So, you know, I'm covered. I'm not just calling out for no reason. Sure. No, totally. Karen, listen, I don't want you to believe this lie anymore. And the lie is that I'm not going to be able to do the job of leading and caring for other people because of this.

And they won't give me a shot. I just don't think that's true. I think you walk forward head high, shoulders back, and you've got some real facts here to kind of, you know, conflict with this fear. You've got, look, look, I understand why you feel this way, but you agree it's not reasonable, yes? I agree this is not reasonable. Good. And I know it's been stuck in my head. Well, it's natural.

And Karen, you sound too, can I say this, just even from talking to you for two minutes, you're such a kind person, and there's maybe even a moral dilemma there in you too that's like, I want to, not that I'm scared I'm not going to get the job, but I'm like, I feel this responsibility as this kind person to let them in on something, you know? So what Ken is saying, I think is great advice.

I don't think you lead with it because it doesn't affect your work. But at the end, I think you would sleep better at night knowing, hey, I communicated a concern that I have and here it is, but here's also the evidence and the patterns of what occurs at work when it happens and your reviews and your references and all that is going to

speak for you to show you, to show them, no, Karen is a, she's a hard worker, she's good at what she does, and she can take this role because that's what they're going to say about you, Karen, because that's who you are. You got it, Karen. It is, yeah. But tell them

if it makes you sleep good at night too, Karen. That's important. Okay. Well, I've got an interview in a couple more hours with the VP and another VP call on Monday. And I know I've got that confidence. I know I can do it.

Then lead with that. Yeah, I need to lead with that. Yeah, listen, just mention it down the line if it gets more serious but right now this is about you the candidate and you the person who wants the job and why that's what you focus on in these initial interviews there's no need to create fear and phobias tell them to call ken coleman or rachel cruz and we will vouch for i love that actually we will be a reference i love that uh let's go to John now in Valdosta, Georgia. That's down deep south in Georgia. John, how can we help? Hey there, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

John, we got about two and a half minutes, so hit us with your questions so we can spend the most time possible helping you out. All right. So I'm currently active duty military. And with that, I will be locked at my next base for a year. So do I use the VA home loan to set myself up for a house down there while I know I'm locked there in a home less than five years there's no there's there's no purpose honestly in buying because you're not going to get the equity out that you want and even how the how the market is now it doesn't give you enough time to write out anything that could be that could happen here in the next you know couple months we're just talking about the fed raising rates again like so for sure john i would rent uh until you are somewhere long-term. But thank you, John, for your service. Where are you deployed at right now?

The Middle East. The Middle East, okay. That's all I can say. No, that's fair. That's fair. Thanks for your service, John. Yeah, thank you, sir. And what's your long-term plan?

What's your long-term plan in the military? How many more years do you see yourself serving? Just to kind of see the back end of this deal. See, so that's the scary part is I'm coming up on my contract. So I have guaranteed a year. And then if I have to reenlist, so that's another four years, and that would put me at 11. And if I'm at 11, I might as well do 20, right?

Right. Yeah. Well, okay, so we don't have time to get into that, but make the best, let me say this, make the best long-term decision for you. Look long-term where you want to be 20 years from now and let that guide whether or not you sign back up. But to Rachel's point, the reason I asked that question, she's right. Rental gives you freedom. I don't want you having too much pressure that's already there to decide, am I going to sign up and be in the military for this? That's a lot on your shoulders. You don't

need a house and a mortgage leaning on you one way or the other. So I love her advice there. And that's why I wanted to ask that question. So John, stay renting. You're not throwing your money away. You're actually giving yourself more freedom and options to live the life that you want to live long term. So again, thank you, sir. That's a great point. Ken, because when you attach something like a mortgage, which we always say around here, which is true, most people with their primary home, it's the largest purchase they're going to make. So you're going to have that responsibility, not just being a homeowner, but long term having that. And we don't want that to sway a decision that you make long-term with your job

and your career and what you choose to do. To be able to have no strings attached, make a very clear decision for you, John, and what you want is the best. And then if you settle somewhere long-term, buy the house. She is Rachel Cruz. Thank you, my friend. Great hour. I'm Ken Coleman, James Childs, our fearless producer and the crew behind the glass. Thank you guys for keeping us afloat this hour. You, America, is why we do the show. It's your show. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Ken. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way.

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