The Ramsey Show - App - What’s the Smartest Way To Use My HSA? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw discuss: Saving for college, Focusing on baby step 2 and 3, The best way to use an HSA, Facing foreclosure, Investing in REITs & DRIPs. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving and storage studios, it's the 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. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.

Merry Christmas, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. We're so glad you're with us. Julie's in Akron, Ohio. Hi, Julie. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Merry Christmas to you all. I'm so excited to be on the show. We're honored to have you. How can we help? Thank you. Okay, so I'm in the middle of my husband and I, baby steps four, five, and six. We just paid off all of our debt, college, his college loans and things like that. And what we have now is a $350 or $50,000 left on our home. And then we also have two kids going to college and one is going in the next year and a half and the other one is going in three years.

So with the money that we have at the end of the month, should I just put everything into the college funds? Right now, they each have $50,000. So I have a total of 100, yes. Yeah, I'm going to load up college. It's bearing down on you. It's right in front of you. So I'm just going to load that up. It doesn't down on you. It's right in front of you. So I'm just going to load that up. It doesn't necessarily have to be in a 529 at this stage. You're not going to gain much interest or much growth that's tax-free because you're right there. Okay.

And, yeah, I want to start really researching the cost of the schools that we're talking about and what it's going to take to get them through that and then lean into that and try to get that number going. Okay. How much have you already got saved for college? So I have $50,000 each for each, so $100,000 for both right now. That's a good start. I also have, okay,

and then I have $150,000 in our emergency fund, and I know that is high. Yeah. Why do you have it like that? Why did you do that? I don't know. We can change that. It's just been sitting there,

and I don't know if I should take $50,000 and put it. Yes. Let's change that. You need three to six months. You should take $50,000 and put it. Yes. Let's change that. You need three to six months. You should take $100,000 and put it in mutual funds. Get it earning some money. It's just sitting there. So now you've got $100,000 per kid for college.

Right. Now you really need to start sitting down and going, where are they going to go to school? Okay. I'm pretty sure my son is going local so i think 50 000 will cover him but as far as my daughter i'm not i'm not sure she's the the one that's three years away but but you never know well i'm um it's it doesn't happen to you you happened it so what we're doing now is we're going to start telling

her where she's going to school yeah getting real numbers and not not like waiting for her to discover it um okay so we're going to start talking about this is the money that we have and this is where these are the types of things places you can go with the money we're going to have now if your son goes local uh are you saying community college or there's a four-year school in the area and he would live at home or what yes there's a four-year university close there's there's a couple and he he wants to live at home i think um we want him to go away to get the college experience but i think he's more comfortable this is what he's telling us now that's fine um so you know go to that college and let's talk about what the actual tuition is.

It's probably $8,000 or $10,000. And so four years of that, you probably do have that covered. And so we may be, once we kind of, now let's start doing the same thing with daughter, even though she's a little bit away. Okay, what are you thinking about studying? Where can you study that? Would you go to, you know, Ohio State University? Where are you going to go? You're going to go over to Columbus? You know study that would you go to uh you know ohio state university where you're gonna go um you're gonna go over to columbus you know what are you gonna do

let's start looking at what that actually costs you may have enough to do both of them if he's gonna stay home okay well she probably does i mean she's got 50k per kid already she got a hundred she's got that well that i was gonna say then she's got a hundred thousand okay you're right 50 000 is the emergency fund okay if 50 covers your son now your daughter has 150 well she did and you're done and you need to start paying down your house julie did you say that you already had 50 for both kids plus the 100 that we're pulling from yeah yeah okay so and if 50 covers her son then she's got 150 for the daughter you probably got your daughter covered oh yeah you're doing you're doing good that's why i want you to dial it in because i think you can stop baby step five now that we've reallocated this

if you do a little bit of research and become comfortable with the facts, and your daughter doesn't think she's going to Harvard because she's not. No. No. So, Dave, I have a question. Would you set the budget and say the budget is $80,000? Or would you look for schools and say you have this range? I mean, I'm fine with this. It's in-state tuition, in-state university.

So she's in Akron, Ohio. Ohio State University is an example, which, by the way, is not a cheap in-state school. But a little bit pricey. But it's a good school. And so academically. And they're playing football, apparently, too. They do. So anyway, you can do all that.

And you can look at college experience. College experience is way down on my list of things to do. Yeah, I agree. I don't, you know, you're probably looking at, I have to look it up, but I'm going to guess and say 12,000 to 15,000 for Ohio State, plus dorm, plus books, plus food. And so you're probably over 100 pretty easily. Yeah. For a four-year by the time she gets there, if she's going to do a traditional four-year plan.

And that, you know, so we got to start mapping that out. But once, the thing about goals is if you'll get detailed on your goals, get detailed on your sons, and it's not, I think this is what he's going to do, we're going to talk it through. Okay. Now, this is the money I'm setting aside based on this discussion. So this is what he's going to do we're going to talk it through okay now this is the money i'm setting aside based on this discussion so this is what you're going to do yeah and then the same thing with the daughter you know we're going to you within this we're going to use ohio state as a template and if you don't want to go there you're going to go to

somewhere that is priced at that or less because we're going to lock that down and then every other dollar above that i'm going to start dumping on that mortgage and getting rid of it. I know that's right. And so you're going to be in a good shape there. Yeah. So the good news is you cheated on the emergency fund, but it allows you to probably finish up baby step five with a little bit of research and detail, detail, detail, detail. Here's the weird thing. The ambivalent, the unknown, creates 10x the stress that the known does, even if the known is tough.

Of course. I know I've got an uphill climb to get there, but I know the details of that climb, it is less stressful than, oh, it might be hard and it might be just a climb. I don't know what it is less stressful than oh it might be hard and it might be it's just a climb i don't know what it is you know so you when you detail out this tuition yeah books dorm yeah this is the plan yeah and even if it's more money than you got at least you know the size of the dragon right and your mind can rest a little bit the in the unknown that's where the fear is and that's when you start spinning your wheels constantly yeah the unknown just that's where the fear is and that's when you start spinning your wheels constantly.

Yeah, the unknown just burns many, many more calories. Mental calories. This is The Ramsey Show. សូវាប់ពីបានប់ពីបានប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពី jade warshall ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us america we're so glad you are with us our question of the day comes from blinds.com they're the number one online retailer of custom window coverings you get free samples free shipping and with the new promos they run every month you'll save even more use the promo code ramsey to get the best possible deal today's question comes from brook in texas we are newly married and just completed baby step one. I just graduated

from college and do not have a job, but start my new job next month, making $16 an hour full time. My husband is currently in the military and is getting released, but we don't know when he is getting honorably discharged. My question to you is this, should we start working on baby step two or should we work on saving our three to six month emergency fund all right brooke here's what i'm thinking so we know that we have a possible i'm not going to call it a job loss but a job shift coming up and what i don't want you guys to do is wait until you you know i don't want you to wait until he's discharged and then have him looking For a job. I want you guys to start putting out feelers now so that we can start to kind of close that gap And the way I would approach this is

I would start stacking up money as though you were going to put it onto your debt snowball But I would kind of set it aside and and once this once this This smoke clears of these job transitions, then I want you putting that money onto Baby Step 2. I don't want you to keep it there. I don't want you to do the Baby Steps out of order. It's not going to be your three to six months emergency fund. It's just going to be money stacked up in case you do have that job loss,

and then I want you to put it to Baby Step 2 when the smoke clears. What do you think, Dave? That's fine. Traditionally, Brooke, we see too often folks transitioning out of the military wait until they're out of the military to start their job look. That's a mistake. You need to go ahead and very carefully target, he needs to go ahead and very carefully target what his next season of life looks like, what his next career is going to be, get in the Ken Coleman materials, get clear assessment on Ken's stuff, get the proximity principle book,

paycheck to purpose book, start looking at the resume templates and all that, and then go ahead and start looking for and landing the new job. It's not unusual at all all he has a pretty good idea when he's going to be cut loose i mean within a month or two yeah and so and as you get closer and closer it's going to get dialed in more and more and more and you can dial in the job um it may be you're just practicing a little bit early but go ahead and practice go ahead and go out there and do the interviews get the job talk about you know i'm not exactly sure when i'm going to be released but when i am released this is where i want to be and if they need you to start this week well you can't start

this week i'm not eligible for that position but he needs to go get the next job lined up and i'm a little confused how you graduate from college and you make 16 dollars i'm wondering the same you can You can make $18 stocking shelves at Target. Yeah. What in the world? She needs to get her income up. Yeah. You're a step away from Wendy's right there,

and I think that with your- No, I think you're a step behind Wendy's. Yeah. You're a step away, but it's behind. Yeah. That's true. Oh, man. I don't know what, yeah.

I'm not sure what your degree's in or what your career field is, but you've got some work to do on your income as well. But Jade is right. Temporarily, we're in the middle of a bunch of transition, a bunch of storms. Let's just pile up cash, a big old pile, like you were paying aggressively on debt. That's right. Aggressively pile the cash. And then the day that he lands the new position or the day that the uncertainty around all of this goes away

uh then you take that money you throw it at your debt snowball down to one thousand dollars and you start working your baby steps straight up you're exactly right that's right exactly how i would approach this all right sam is in day in Dayton, Ohio. Hi, Sam. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks for having me. Sure, what's up? I have a question. I have a question about using an HSA for investment versus medical costs. So I recently had a hand injury, and I met my deductible and whatnot,

and I was wondering if I should pay myself back for those expenses from the HSA that I've been building or just continue to rebuild my emergency fund with the income that I have. How much money is involved? $5,000. What's your income? About $90,000. Do you have any debt? No no other than my house good way to go is this over or is this going to be ongoing medical it's over okay um and you've already cash flowed it yeah to this point it would be replenishing my emergency fund with you'd be reimbursing yourself from the hsa to replenish your your three to six months you know

i'm going to go ahead and just put the money into the uh just leave it i'm going to recoup in cash flow i'm going to leave it in the hsa uh you don't have to have it the beauty of the hsa is two things one a large lump sum you cannot cash flow, and it allows you to cover it, obviously, the health savings account. And the second thing is it's tax-free. So if you've got a chronic situation, like I've got a friend that's got Crohn's, and so he's got chronic. He's got bills and bills and bills.

He's always got bills going. And so basically he gets all of his health care tax-free because he pays all the bills out of the hsa which is a tax free account tax deductible account and so where you've got a chronic situation that's why i ask if this is ongoing then it makes a lot of sense or if it's super large now i transpose you know that uh the opposite way of looking at that is uh what I have done with my HSA is I have never touched it. Yeah. And I think I've got, I may have 400 grand in there now.

I've loaded it every year. Yeah. It's like another retirement account. That's right. And I just put it in mutual funds. But we've been inordinately healthy at the Ramsey house knock on wood yeah and so we haven't had any big events um and the events that we did have small to medium or whatever they were we just wrote a check for them and so we've just treated

it as an investment account for that reason so we know that for the people listening you wouldn't invest your money that the money that's sitting in your HSA you wouldn't actually invest it obviously until you're in baby step four but Dave what at what amount let's say you're in baby step four at what amount in your HSA would you then start investing it into the the funds they have there in the mutual fund yeah uh when you know you're going to be leaving it alone when you're in a strong enough financial condition you're going to be leaving it alone and so for most in a strong enough financial condition, you're going to be leaving it alone. And so for most people, that's probably they've got an extra 20 grand in there or something like that.

And like we've got a company called Health Equity that we've endorsed and that we use here inside of our company. And they allow us to take the HSA and put it into mutual funds of our choice. And so 100% of mine, because I just don't need it. And so I'm using it as yet another way to keep the taxes off of that small amount of money every year and once you hit a certain age you can

access that as though it were a normal retirement it no longer has to be used for actual health health purchases so that's a great thing about it it's a wonderful vehicle love that exactly james is in huntsville hi j, James. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? Hey, so I'm 23, and I have actually purchased a house at the beginning of this year. My issue now is I am at risk of a foreclosure on my house.

Just kind of needed some guidance. I'm kind of new to your plan and seeing what maybe I can do to help myself out. How many payments behind are you? I am four payments behind. Okay. What kind of loan? FHA, VA, or conventional? It's a FHA. Okay. Why are you behind? So I work in healthcare and I've actually had COVID three times within the last six months, as well as some family things that kind of got me behind on work. I work 24-hour shifts, so if I miss one shift, I miss almost half of my check. Okay.

COVID three times is 12 or 14 days 15 days correct that does not put you four house payments behind there's another problem at work here yeah the family stuff is much bigger than the covid stuff okay is that right uh that there were several days that I missed due to lost family members and things such as that, yes. Yeah. All right, I'll tell you what. We're going into a commercial break. I don't want to give you a short answer on your home being foreclosed on, sir. It's too important.

We'll help you when we come back. You hang on with us, okay? This is The Ramsey Show. are you sick of planned obsolescence? You know, when companies make products crappy so you have to buy more of their crappy products? Well, me too. And it's why I love companies like Grip6. Grip6 is all about quality products meant to last forever. That's why their comfortable, bulk-free belts, slimline wallets, and lightweight wool socks all come with a lifetime warranty and simple returns and exchanges. So check them out at Grip6.com today and get up to 20% off with the promo code Ramsey. jade warshaw ramsey personality is my co-host today we're talking with james and huntsville

he's 23 he's four payments behind on an fha loan trying to figure out what to do with foreclosure bearing down on him uh that's due to uh he's in health care having had covid a couple three times and having had some family issues some losses in the family that have cost him some work hours as well, and so forth. That's about how far we got into the call. Is that a fair summary of what you told me so far, sir? Yes, sir. Okay. How much is your house payment? My house payment is $1,052 a month.

Okay. How many bedrooms? It is a three-bedroom, a month. Okay. How many bedrooms? Uh, it is a three bedroom, two bath. How many roommates? I have no roommates. Um, I did have one. Um, so getting into that, um, if I'm, if that's okay. Um, I had some issues with the house that were not found in the inspection and um they were the roommates were not comfortable with with those issues until i got those fixed what is that um so the insulation in the attic causes several air leaks um around so the the heating and cooling is an issue um there were some electrical issues with power surging um as well as... How old is this house? The house was built in 1985.

Okay. All right, cool. Do you have any idea what the house is worth today? Have you talked to a real estate agent? The house is worth around $195. Who said? I wrote down. I did try to sell the house early earlier in the year because i wrote out that i got into a situation um and that's what it was appraised

that through their their appraisers okay and what do you owe on it uh i owe 180 okay cool all right good um so what i would do number one is I'd contact a real estate agent at RamseySolutions.com under ELP, our Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agent. Talk to a couple of different ones. Tell them to get over there and get it listed this week so that it's on the market as soon as the first of the year hits, okay? We want to get that part moving. And what do you make? I make $48,500 a year and what do you make yeah i make uh 48 five a year what do you do uh i work in the emergency medical services you're an emt that's correct james how long have you had this house i've had this house since the beginning of the year okay okay okay

yeah all right uh so you're working what kind of shifts it is in EMT? So right now our set shifts are 24 on, 72 off. That's what I thought. Trying to get in ahead of this and get it fixed. I'm working 24 on, 24 off, and then 24 back on. Okay, so you're able to pick up extra hours, in other words. Yes. And that raises your 48 considerable. Correct. Okay, so you're able to pick up extra hours, in other words. Yes. And that raises your 48 considerable.

Correct. Okay, all right. So 24 on, 24 off? Correct. Okay, all right. But the 24 on is you're at the firehouse, and you may or may not be awake. You may or may not. I mean, you have to be ready to make a call if the call comes in, but you can sleep, correct?

That's correct. Yeah, you're not up 24 hours, just for those of you listening. All right. So you're working like a fireman type, with the fireman type of a shift. Okay. Is there any scenario where he can get ahead of these payments? Yeah, when you're off work, you can work. So when you're off work, go ahead and pick up some side stuff immediately hustle and

grind um and you you've you've got the right antidote which the antidote is work and create as much money as you can create um as fast as you can create it and start throwing it at this here's the thing uh there's a couple things that give you some peace. Number one, with an FHA loan, there is zero chance they are going to foreclose before you are six to seven payments behind. So if you don't do squat, which you're not going to do, but if you do nothing, you've got two months. That's great. Okay, number one.

Number two, if they do foreclose hud department of housing urban development does not chase a deficit on this so if they take the house back and lose money they do not come after you your credit will be messed up but you don't have a deficit they're not going to come after you okay so these are like our worst case scenarios that are not going to happen understood what's going to happen is you're going to go make a bunch of money and you're going to get current yes definitely um so another question i have with this is um if is a quick sale something that i should look into a short sale a short sale you don't need a short sale because you've got a little bit of equity someone will pick this up for what's owed on it

in this current market okay because you got a cheap house cheap houses are hard to come by understood there's not a lot of 185 000 houses in huntsville alabama it's just that's a good that's a that's a sweet price point it should. It should sell with a good realtor. You may have to do some extra cleanup. You may have to do some odds and ends things, but you need to get this thing on the market and get it gone. It is not a blessing to you. Right.

And that's what I realized after I got into the house and started looking at everything and started figuring out what needed to be done with the house. Okay. The last thing is this. There's a process called a forbearance, and get with a Ramsey coach on our website, and they can help you work a forbearance. A forbearance is where they negotiate with the mortgage company, giving them good reason to believe that you can get caught up, and the good reason is your new budget based on all the work you are doing and the work Okay. Now, what a forbearance is, is you're going to pay like a payment and a half for eight months. Okay. And that'll bring you current, and that also stops a foreclosure as long as you get in the forbearance and you stick to it.

So you can get with Ramsey Coach, set up a forbearance of a payment and a half, and nothing precludes you from prepaying that and stopping the forbearance early because you made enough money just to quote get current understood but a payment and a half on four payments behind i'll get you there in eight months you see how i'm doing that correct so you're not going to get foreclosed on we're going to put the house up for sale we're going to put it on a forbearance and you're going to work like a freaking maniac and create money like you've never created before in your life no excuses nothing else to do you don't get to spend money on anything but food lights water and house payments that's it you don't get to do nothing

gas to get to work that's all you're just bare freaking bones so hold on james i've been where you are i've been scared like you are i know how how it feels. We're going to help you. I'll have Austin pick up, and we'll hook you up with one of our Ramsey coaches and help you with that forbearance part. You are going to get in touch with an ELP on the website, and you are going to pick up yet another side job in addition to your overtime. That's good. That's a tough situation, but those things that you explained, those are good things to know about the six to seven payments behind before they'll come after you again it's making sure that you understand all the facts it's not just a bunch of unknowns floating around in your head creating chaos you know i feel like you gave him some real it's probably fair to let folks know i mean i used to

buy foreclosures for a living and i've done this foreclosure forbearances with people for 30 years now and after that so here's the thing hud the fha is the government federal government federal housing administration guarantees this loan for we'll say countrywide okay so they have regulations on countrywide to keep countrywide from just instantly foreclosing because if they instantly when they foreclose FHA gets the house back and countrywide gets all their money so they don't want countrywide just pulling the rug on everybody I see so they've got in order for countrywide for their guarantee to get all their money the federal guarantee the FHA guarantee to get all their money they have to abide by

HUD's regulations on a foreclosure scenario, and they have to take certain steps. There's like, I don't know, there used to be 25 steps, 26 steps or whatever, and it takes six months for them to do that. I see, I see. The mortgage company would lose their FHA guarantee against loss on the loan if they don't follow those steps, and those steps take six months. So it's not unusual to find an FHA that's 12 months behind before it's foreclosed on,

but you never see one under six months, ever. The more you know. And I've been doing this a long, long time. I've never seen one. The more you know. That's where that came from. So that is not to abuse the system, but that's to give you peace while you make the turnaround. Right.

That's how this works. This is The Ramsey Show. our scripture of the day, Luke 2, 8-11. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them do not be afraid I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people today in the town of David a Savior has

been born to you he is the the Messiah, the Lord. Billy Graham said the very purpose of Christ coming into the world was that he might offer up his life as a sacrifice for the sins of men. He came to die. This is the heart of Christmas. God gave his only

begotten son. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Merry Christmas to you. Thank you for being with us, America. Nathan is next. Nathan is in Minnesota. Hi, Nathan. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Hey, Jade. Welcome to the show. Merry Christmas to you guys. Merry Christmas to you. What's up? Yes, thank you. I had a couple questions regarding investing.

I'm about to start Baby Step 4, and I'm wondering, first question, what your thoughts on REITs are? And then the second question is, I know you say not to invest in single stocks. However, have you ever done any research on investing in several stocks for a dividend portfolio with at least 10% rates of return over 10 years? Sure, just looking at drips. Yeah. The thing is, all of those things are fine. Reits and drips are fine for your portfolio once you hit baby step seven and you're

maxing out your retirement. But for your retirement accounts themselves, the most efficient growth and the best growth is going to be just straight up the four types of mutual funds we talk about. The math will show you that if you look at the track records. Growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. The REITs have really come on in the last i don't know decade maybe even 15 years uh and they are a legitimate way to get some money in real estate now you can find reits with good track records that'll be as good as a growth stock mutual fund up in the 10 12 maybe even 13 percent range on a good long track record, well-run long track record. So, you know, you can find something you're comfortable with there for sure.

And drips, drips a little more difficult to pull off that portfolio management. Few people do it well. It's academically, theoretically possible. It's a pain in the butt to actually pull it off. And a lot of people talk about it more than they actually do it, uh, among the millionaires that I talked to. Okay. Um, uh, so, uh, but, but REITs I'm fine with, but I wouldn't use a REIT in your, in your 401k. I'll just fill up that with regular mutual funds, like we're talking about. But after you get to baby

step seven and you've got some extra money to invest and you don't want to be a landlord a read is okay and if you want to do some drips that's fine if you want to do some single stocks it's okay i just tell people don't that people get all jacked up about the sexiness of buying and selling stocks and the track record is is that people don't make much money doing it uh the average investor buying and selling on his own account makes about a seven percent rate of return on single stocks where the mutual where the market is averaged 11 to 12 so you know that's the reason i don't do it but i tell folks if you want to fool around with it sometimes people enjoy it almost as a hobby yeah a maximum of 10 of your net worth and that's really at baby step seven and beyond is what i would do there so thanks for calling in brother appreciate you all right mark is in santa barbara hey mark

welcome to the ramsey show hey dave uh so my merry christmas by the way my brother told me about uh your show and it kind of lit a fire to my butt to become bet free. Good. Um, uh, and so I think I might be on baby step two, but I might've accidentally started baby step three. Did you pay off all your debt? No, I got 60,000 in student loans right now.

Okay. Um, and, but I've also got some investments about a little over a hundred thousand investments. And I'm wondering if I should. In retirement account or open investments? Uh, retirement account, um, company stock that, uh, the company's offered me. How much company stock have you got in dollars? 41,000.

Good. How much non-retirement money do you have other than that? Non-retirement, other than that, there's $7,000 in an HSA and about $5,000 in just other things, e-coins. So you've got $60,000 in debt, and we've got $46,000 to throw at it. Good. That reduces it a lot. What's your income?

It'll be $152,000 come next year. It's certainly more than I deserve. I just want to check, Mark, did you hear what Dave's telling you to do right there? He's telling you to liquidate that company stock and put it onto your debt. I didn't quite catch that. Okay. Yeah, that's what we're telling you to do. We don't want to touch the retirement accounts, but the company stock where you said you had about 41 K there, and then you said you had some other money. We want you to liquidate that. We want you to sell it off because that company stock it's, it's, it's in one company. If anything happened to that company, you're going to lose that money. So that's not typically the way that we would tell you.

That's never the way we would tell you to invest. So you can go ahead and liquidate that. You can throw it towards your debt. And if you're still currently investing, we would tell you to actually pause your investing for the time being and take that money and add it to your baby step to part of your debt snowball. Does that make sense? Yeah, it kind of blows my mind because i was

ready to to start hustling i know you were and go ahead and start hustling too yeah do that too yeah go ahead and make some here's the thing here's the thing what we've discovered is that the reason people don't win with money is they try to do seven things at once and they get none of them done which is what you've been doing. You're buying single stocks. You're putting money in your mutual funds. You're working on your debt, and you're thinking about taking an extra job, and nothing's moving. Instead, I just punched this thing in the face a minute ago.

I mean, the boxer is laid out on the mat. I just knocked him down. And you're going to go over the next time he gets up, and you're going to finish him off. Total freaking focus on one goal at a time. First goal, no debt, but your house, we're getting rid of that 60,000 second goal, an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. Now we're ready to invest because you don't have any payments in the world.

You make $150,000. You're a stud, man. You're ready to go now. Heck heck yeah that makes a lot of sense okay the good news is is you're on fire about your situation you're on fire about doing the best that you possibly can with your money we're just trying to make sure that you do it in the in the smartest most effective way hey man i'm gonna send you a copy of this little quick read we just did called the Momentum Theorem. Focused intensity over time multiplied by God creates unstoppable momentum. And that's exactly what we're talking about here. I'll also send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, to show you how to work this plan.

Merry Christmas to you. Thanks for calling in. So the difference in the Ramsey way is that we have figured out the math doesn't work when you only do math. Well, yeah, we know that money is not just about math. And in a lot of ways, it's more about your mind. It's behavior. It's your behavior, your character, your relationships, your focus or your lack of it. And it's amazing that when people start, the number of times, for instance, that someone does a debt-free scream and their income has gone up dramatically during the two or three or four years they've been getting out of debt, it's because they now had a reason for

it too. That's true. They've got all of these things in their life that were just kind of out running out there on mediocrity all of a sudden they're striving for excellence to cause that one thing to happen and it's all pointed at that one thing but that rising tide raises every part of their life their relationships get better yep their their career accelerates their income accelerates and as they're trying to hit this one singular focused goal of clearing the debt. And then later on, we take that same exact power and point it at wealth building. And that's why we end up with all these baby steps, millionaires.

Focused intensity over time. That's it. Multiplied by God equals unstoppable momentum. The momentum theorem. That's that little book I was just talking about. Puts us our end of books. Way to go. Austin, Ben, James, Zach, and Andrew. Merry Christmas, booth dudes.

You guys do a great job. Zach, great job in there, man. Be careful on the road. Absolutely. Hey, we'll 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. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the

only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.