The Ramsey Show - App - When Personal Finance Gets Personal

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman discuss: Investing in a Roth vs. Traditional 401(k), Struggling with a spouse who has a gambling addiction, Stockpiling money during a serious illness, What to do when you're supposed to close on a house that isn't finished being built, Is now a good time to buy a house? 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

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show. When debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality. Number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, is my co-host today. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thanks for hanging out. Open phones again, 888-825-5225. Starting this hour off is Jay in Los Angeles. Hi, Jay. How are you?

Hi, Dave. I'm well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm kind of new to your teachings, but I'm actually not far off. Like when I look through like your steps, I'm very close, like baby step adjacent. I'm right there. Okay. I was working on baby step six before I kind of got locked into what everything you were

saying, but just to kind of walk it back a couple, I've had 15% going into my retirement already, but I'm not sure that like the percentages I have going in, I'm not sure if it makes sense. So my company does a regular 401k and they also do a Roth 401k. I randomly just had like 12% going into the regular when they'd also do the 5% match and I had 3% going into the Roth. And I have no idea if that makes sense or if I should change that. I just kind of want to get your feedback on that. Okay.

Well, let's just use some round numbers, okay? If you were going to, as an example, compare putting 15% of your income into traditional versus 15% of your income into Roth, okay? It takes more of your income to put 15% into Roth because it's after tax, but you're still putting the same amount of dollars in. Does that make sense? Yes. But it's technically after tax. So you're going to have, uh, you know, more of a tax bill in other words, uh, by doing the Roth. But if you said, okay, I'm going to put $15,000 because I make $100,000 into a traditional,

or I'm going to put $15,000 into a Roth. Roth is always better because it's going to grow 100% tax-free. And when you get to retirement, 95%, 97% of what is in your account will be growth. It will not be what you put in. And so that growth being taxable or being tax free is a big deal, meaning if you got like two million dollars in your 401k at retirement, you're going to have a five hundred thousand dollar tax bill on that traditional and a zero tax bill on that Roth. So the way we figured out the math is this. In actual fact, not in theory, the match is the best thing you can do, but very few people have a 100% match.

Most people that have a 401K have some kind of match. So you take the match first because that's a 100% rate of return on your money instantaneously. Then beyond that, I'm going to do Roth because it grows tax-free. If I run out of Roth and I've still not gotten my 15% in, match and Roth, then I'm going to do traditional because you want that tax-free growth is better than tax-deferred growth to the tune of $250,000 per million, which is a big deal. It's a lot of money.

So that word Roth is worth, you know, $100,000 a letter, something like that. Oh, I never even thought about it that way. I mean, I wish, if I was going to have something named after me, Senator William Roth. Yes. They got that legislation passed. What a wonderful thing to have named after me senator william roth yes they got that legislation passed what a wonderful thing to have named after you that people actually got to keep their freaking money and it's got your name on it that's a pretty cool thing it's very one of the few deals out of the federal government um and and it's in an irony that the irony of it is we get to keep our

money that we earned and that's a deal. Yeah, we're grateful for it. And we're supposed to go, whoa, that's a deal. It is a deal. And, of course, Senator Roth has passed away. But what a wonderful legacy to have something that positive named after you. Debbie is with us. Debbie is in Eugene, Oregon.

Hi, Debbie. How are you? Hi, Mr. Ramseysey hope you're doing better than you deserve always if you don't believe me ask people how can i help you for taking my call i have a husband who has a gambling problem and um just can't overlook it anymore and i don't know what to do i i don't know what to do i I, I don't know what to do. I'm new to your program. I actually found you through him. Um, and, uh, haven't started the baby steps yet, but I have been watching as much as I possibly can, uh, on shows, especially pertaining to

gambling, um, on YouTube and, uh, I'm sorry. how long y'all been married on 36 years okay well there are a lot of problems here and um i'm not going to give you a lot of good news, but I'm going to give you a lot of truth, okay? Okay. I've worked with addicts my entire career because 100% of addicts have financial problems. That's truth number one. And truth number two is you cannot fix enough, hide enough,

twist enough to beat this. The gambling addiction is going to win. You can't beat it. I'm seeing that. Yeah. You can't. How do I budget when he's a gambling addict? You can't.

How do I have retirement? How do I build wealth? You can't. How do I have retirement? How do I build wealth? You can't. Because the addiction feeds and sucks the blood out of everything in the house. And whatever the addiction is, in this case gambling. So what I'm telling you is that you really only have one option for a prosperous future and that is to address the addiction with him and demand that he gets some help and if he doesn't if he doesn't then he is making the choice to separate himself from you okay because i you know you're there's nothing you can do that is big enough powerful enough

to offset the amount of stupid an addict can do and he's scared he's broken he's stuck and you say i love you i'll walk with you but we're going to walk out of this we're not going to walk along acting like these sitting here. Because 100% of the time, 5 to 10 years from now, you're going to have lost everything. Your house, all your retirement, your kid's college fund, you're going to get lied to, you're going to be manipulated. It's going to get worse or it's going to get better.

And that depends on you and on the choices he makes from today forward. And so are you guys by chance plugged into a good church? I am. He's not. He refuses. Yeah. And we have talked about help. You're right.

He is broken. He is scared. Yeah. But he refuses to get help of any kind. And years ago, we tried gambling anonymous, and he only learned how to. Gamblers anonymous works. It works. And treatment with a counselor works. Doing nothing doesn't work.

And if it's my spouse, I'm going to say, I'm going to walk with you. But I'm walking out the door if you don't fix this, if we don't go to work on it. Because, honey, it ain't going to be anything else. There's no middle ground with these guys. Here at Ramsey, we love to have fun, and nothing says fun like giving away cash. So, you guessed it. This month, we're giving away $500 cash each week and a grand prize of $3,000 cash in our Ramsey Cash Giveaway.

You can enter daily for extra chances to win, and you don't have to purchase anything. But you must be 18 or older to win. To enter our giveaway, go to Ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. Plus, to help you crush your financial, personal, and professional goals, we're putting our number one best-selling books and tools in the Ramsey $10 sale. If you need a proven plan for getting out of debt and building wealth, check out the Total Money Makeover.

It's just $10. We also have a new addition to the Ramsey $10 sale. If you want to have deeper and better conversations with your spouse friends and kids our questions for humans conversation cards are now only 10 bucks shop the ramsey 10 sale today at ramseysolutions.com Well, it's officially event week. We are so excited. We'll be doing our Building Wealth Live event this Thursday in Orlando. If you haven't gotten your tickets yet, what are you waiting for? We want you to come see us.

There's going to be over 3,000 folks there, completely jam-packed, almost sold out, right at the edge. We just came back a couple weeks ago from doing one of these in Las Vegas. It was a lot of fun, about 3,000 folks at that. And it's going to be Ken Coleman, Dr. John Deloney, George Camel, Rachel Cruz, and me. Ken and John will be doing a bonus session about work and about relationships to kick it off. And then we'll do the main event that will feature all of us.

And we want you to be there. We're going to be talking to you about really building wealth in this crazy world. All the stuff that's going on, everybody's got an opinion out there, but we're going to walk you through exactly what millionaires do. Not theory. Proven points of data of exactly what to do to build wealth. The quickest, easiest way to become a Baby steps millionaire the one that actually works in other words see if you have to do it over and over again it takes longer i know because i lost

everything once and got the opportunity to start again i'm so stupid i've done it twice so uh there you go this millionaire stuff so orlando this thursday and then in the fall we'll be in Phoenix, Sacramento, Minneapolis, and San Antonio. Those are all for 75% sold out already. Now, you can get your tickets for $25 each. You can get a four-pack of tickets starting as low as $60. Bring your friends. It's going to be amazing. So you and your spouse bring another couple with you. It's only 15 bucks a head. I mean, come on. Seriously. It'll be a lot of fun.

We'll be signing books and taking pictures and everything afterward. Building wealth this Thursday in Orlando. The crowd in Orlando, Ken, is going to have to get with it to keep up with the folks in Vegas. They were on fire. It really was an electric room. All of our events are a lot of fun. You don't just get equipped. It's an entertaining night.

And you know what? It was so fun. It's the after the event to get out in the lobby and see people shake hands, high-five, sign books, take pictures. It was wonderful just to see people again, meet them where they are, because it's fun to speak to them. But it's really fun to meet them as well and that's a special uh feature as well you know it turns out that we do shake hands now yeah we always did but for the record we never stopped i know but people oh yeah people yeah everybody's people you know and and you know uh we're like normal human beings and everything. And so, you know, I remember a thought a couple of years ago.

People said, well, we'll never shake hands again. Well, I don't know about that. I might go further and shake your hand. I might just hug you. Yes. Completely make sure that you get grossed out. That's right. So, I mean, human beings need other human beings and uh and we need

connectivity we need presence uh and there's something about being at a concert that's different than listening to the album there's something about being at one of these events that's different than reading the book or listening to the radio show and so come on out it inspires you it moves you along the process helps you move in the right direction and that's what we want to do open phones here at 888-825-5225 will is in richmond virginia hi will how are you hi dave and ken how y'all doing today better than we deserve sir what's up awesome well thanks to program, we are in baby step seven, but I am going through an extended medical treatment. My wife's job is a 1099 job with

no retirement benefits, and I can't do my regular job now, so I can't contribute to my 401k. We do have some income, but we're trying to figure out if we should continue to contribute to our Roth IRAs or just keep the money in cash in case this treatment doesn't work out. I'm trying to minimize any difficulty that my wife and kids would end up having or possibly having accessing the money in my retirement in case the worst happens. What's your thoughts? What's wrong, Will? What are you getting treatment for? Multiple myeloma. Cancer. What's wrong, Will? What are you getting treatment for? Multiple myeloma,

cancer, plasma cancer. Ouch. Yeah. And I've been out of work. I've been out of work. I'm recovering from surgery. At this point right here, the prognosis is good, but I'll be getting a transplant, and it's going to keep me out of work for probably another three or four months. A bone marrow? Not bone marrow, actually stem cells. They're going to harvest some of my stem cells, pack them in the freezer for a while, and then we're going uh you know the you probably heard the process where they go in and do the stem cell transplant yeah wow how old are you uh 54 well you sound pretty upbeat and chipper so um i've you've kept your attitude you kept

your attitude yes which is uh as i hear i hear the rumor that that's a lot of fighting it is the attitude so yes uh it's the only shot you got anyway so you might as well try it um man that's awesome well i'm glad you're working your way through this uh the answer is either one's okay i want you to spend all your energy on beating cancer uh i don't really care where the money is. You can pile it up in a big old pile in the corner of the bedroom if you want. I don't care. But I probably wouldn't.

But, I mean, if you put it into a money market, it's still going to be there. But if you put it into a Roth IRA and your wife is the beneficiary on the Roth IRA, she has no trouble accessing it. It goes straight to her if you passed. Okay. Instantaneously. It's outside of the estate. it has nothing to do with probating the will or anything oh okay well that's even better yeah you name a beneficiary on your retirement accounts and it goes straight to the person it's not it's not up for grabs it's not a it's not up for somebody wanted to sue and say it's not in the will doesn't matter it's beneficiary beneficiary

holds trump card that's it they get it it's like life insurance the beneficiary gets oh okay beneficiary gets it straight away like minimum distributions isn't going to be a problem doesn't have anything to do with it no it's it's an inherited ira it's different rules oh okay all right well that's awesome that's exactly what i was looking for then so either way is a good way yeah so i i think i'm probably going roth if i'm you because it works if you make it and it works if you doesn't make it yep you know and i mean this this works out then you know we don't we just keep working the plan, and okay. All right.

It doesn't leave her in a lurch if something happens to you. Do you have life insurance? Yes. Good. How much? Yeah. I think mine is $250,000 because I had some medical issues before I got the policy. How long have you been married?

15 years. How's she doing? She's doing great. Okay. She's doing great. I haven't been able to do anything. I can't drive. She has to take care of me. She has to drive me everywhere.

So she's just been a trooper through the whole thing and still doing her job, and I've got me everywhere. So she's just been a trooper through the whole thing and still doing her job. And we've got two, you know, I've got two teenagers. All right. I want you to call me in five years and tell me you beat it, okay? Absolutely. All right, man. Absolutely.

Look forward to hearing from you. God bless. Open phones at 888-825-5225. See, personal finance involves cancer and gambling addictions. Yeah. Life happens right in the middle of your money. Yeah. These things that we teach do not happen in a vacuum.

No. Where you live in some little unicorn perfect world with Skittles. And, you know, what's interesting, we heard the wife of the gambler. He's scared, confused and then we hear the voice of this man who has cancer is fighting for his life and he's got peace it's pretty interesting stuff a lot of that has to do with his financial situation plus just his personal faith and the way he's lived his life it really is spiritual well yeah i mean he's facing a real battle there and he has tremendous confidence and just blessed is what he said what a what a difference that contrast is

fastest growing addiction right now in america online porn second fastest growing addiction online gambling and you guys that are using up your family's money playing sports book and you think you're cute, you're not a freaking teenager. Be a man and don't screw up your life. Get some help. This is the Ramsey Show. Thank you. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Andrew and Shannon are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? We're doing great.

We're so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having us. We're honored. We're excited to have you. Where do you guys live? We live just outside of Houston near John Deloney's area in Santa Fe, Texas. Well, you're welcome anyway. John Deloney's area. He's now renamed Houston to the John Deloney area. That's power right there. Hey guys, how much debt did you pay off? About $57,000. Awesomeness. And how long did that take?

Well, it mostly took about 14 months. Okay. And your range of income during that time? Started at about $64,000 and ended at about $120,000. Whoa. Nice doubling. What do you all do for a living? Andrew is active duty Coast Guard, and I am a financial administrator at Arcadia First

Baptist Church. Cool. Thanks for your service, Andrew. Appreciate it. Thank you. Good stuff. What kind of debt was this $57,000? Well, about $34,000 was my student loans.

I had a little bit of a bachelor's degree and my MBA in accounting, and then we had about $17,000 in a truck and a little over $4,000 in credit cards. Okay. You were kind of normal. A little bit um we've always tried to keep our budget on his but let me tell you it's been a roller coaster it's a thing and how long y'all been married we've been married for almost 17 years very cool okay so something changed dramatically about a year and a half ago what What happened? Well, a little bit farther back than that, we had our had it moment.

We were just done with putting our money everywhere else, and we were just tired of it. And so finally, we actually watched the reset for 2021, and that's when we put all our chips in, and we're like, we got to finish this because I'm done just dragging this out. So we had a little bit in savings. And so we put that on the truck. And that just helped that snowball just roll and go faster and faster and faster. And I started at this job back in August. So it totally made a huge difference in our income.

Yeah, like doubled it. Yeah, it made a big, big difference. So that helped us just really go towards the finish line very cool way to go you guys so you're kind of messing around the edges of it but then reset said okay reset exactly we're after covid we're going exactly all right i like it very good and 14 months later you're done absolutely it took you 17 years to do that 14 months yeah we we had some stupid and hey i've done a lot of it so i know what it looks like good for y'all proud of you very well done

well i gotta ask a question because i get this a lot on the ken coleman show people go hey i want to change jobs but i'm in the baby steps can i do it and you are the model oh you change jobs leveled up big time during the baby steps i want you to speak directly to those people who are scared of that. What would you say to those people if you were having lunch with them? Absolutely. Listening to you, Ken, was a big, big, big change for me. I was working, just trying to get the best next job. And I'm like, I need to know my worth.

I need to take time for myself and really get to know myself. And then God really just, the Holy Spirit brought me to this church and it really, it changed our lives forever. And I'm so grateful for it. He was so funny. He took me in, you know, three different directions, eight minutes north of my house, eight minutes south, and then finally eight minutes west. And that's where I work every day, and I love it. I have the best team, and having the best work culture, it has ruined me forever, but I love it. I love where I work, and having that sweet spot is absolutely the best way to describe it. I'm right exactly where I need to be, doing exactly what I want to do.

That's awesome. So it is possible. You can change jobs while paying off debt. Absolutely. In fact, you know. Especially when you get a raise. Hello. That's the whole point, right?

Right. It made a huge, huge difference. Good. Good for you. So praise God for that. Yeah. Well done. All right, Andrew.

So your accounting wife. Yes, sir. Comes walking in and goes, okay, game on. Or did you say, we're game on? Or how did this work out? She had been talking about it and hinting at it, and we were on a road trip, and we're talking about finances, and I was just watching all of our money go in, all of our money go out, and I was tired of it. I was just done.

So you were ready. I'm out of here. I'm done. Yes, sir. This is it. We're changing this thing. Yes. Yeah. Very cool. And now we're teaching our kids, you know, we I'm out of here. I'm done. Yes, sir. This is it. We're changing this thing. Yes. Yeah.

Very cool. And now we're teaching our kids, you know, this is, we don't go into debt. This is how we do our life. You know, if you don't have money in your little savings account, you're not spending it. Amen. There we go. Gosh, I hope those kids are congressmen someday. They're too smart for that.

Amen to that. Well done, you guys. Well done. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I think my biggest thing has been self-control. When Rachel talks about putting it in the cart and just, like, leaving it there, that's been the biggest thing is just not to press, you know, the cart button. But that self-control has really been the biggest key.

And communicating every little teeny tiny thing even if you're just getting a pack of gum right you know it's like it's just being on the same page on everything is so so big that's a big deal well very well done you guys we're proud of you excellent excellent job good stuff who are your biggest cheerleaders um we kept it kind of quiet um we had some people like oh you can't do that i mean how many times you hear that yeah that just spurs you on right oh exactly let me prove you wrong right um we his mom was a really big cheerleader she's been listening to you for years and um just i have really great co-workers that have just been like yes you, you can do this.

And, yeah, it's just trying to surround yourself with positive people has just been a game changer. Yeah. Well, good job, you guys. Very, very cool. Got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you. That's the next chapter in your story for sure. Thank you so much. You're going to be millionaires now.

Yes, sir. I'm ready. That's pretty cool. I'm ready. It's on the way. I can see it. It's in the math and uh also a copy of total money makeover for you to give away and stir up a ruckus with somebody when they hear your story they're going to wonder how you did that and you can say read

this yeah we've already passed it on and we thank you so much well thank you and we've got a copy of uh we're also going to give you a gift card for every dollar in Financial Peace University as a part of the Ramsey Plus subscription for one year. Thank you. And you can give that away, or you guys can go back through it, or you can lead it, or do whatever you need to do. Life is good. Proud of you guys. Thank you so much.

All right, what are the kids' names and ages? We have the oldest. He's 15. This is James. And the middle is Wyatt, and he's 12 almost. And this is Thomas. He's 7. and let me tell you about the grocery bill Ken oh yeah you're just getting started wait till these two guys here

get into teen years and they're all playing football oh my goodness that's good yeah that means they need that means they're gonna put on weight more steak and more milk okay trust me on that you just you just upped their grocery bill can oh they can afford it they're dead free i like it all right andrew and shannon james wyatt and thomas from houston texas john deloney country 57 000 paid off in 14 months making 64 to 120 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream. One, two, three. We're debt-free! Yeah!

Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! It's so interesting. I've had a front-row seat. You've had a front-row seat for decades a front row seat for decades now watching people change their lives and it's just you know you go along 15 years of marriage and then a year and a half ago they said yeah no more yeah no more we're not gonna live like this anymore and they just made a decision and uh you know shannon's got all the accounting background andrew's got the military discipline and you know we're just gonna we're not doing this anymore and we just decided and

so if you've been married 25 years you can decide starting right now ready set go you've been married 25 minutes you can decide ready set go right now. The point is, if you're hearing this at this moment, this means it's your moment. Now. Yeah, I'm talking to you. Right now. You can decide to change your life. But I can't decide for you, or I would have already done it. You have to do it.

You get to decide you're free you get to decide to stay stupid or change we all make these choices this is the ramsey show Thank you. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Justin is in Waco. Hi, Justin. How are you? Pretty good, Dave. How are you and Ken doing today? Better than we deserve, sir.

How can we help? Well, I appreciate you guys taking my call and appreciate your service for what you guys do out there. And just to take a little bit of time to talk to me today. I'm going to try to articulate as best as I can the question I have, but basically we found a home last September in the area and it was just a lot and it was, um, they're going to be built up with a, um, a custom home, a local builder here, not too big. And, uh, here we are today, nearly seven months later. And, um, we're, we're right at the end where we're supposed to close and, um, sign closing documents tomorrow,

but the house is not yet a hundred percent, nor has a certificate of occupancy been issued to the house. And so the realtor and the lender I'm dealing with, everyone's just kind of, I feel like there's a lot of miscommunication with the builder. They just got the appraisal last Friday. So I'm just wondering for the sake of myself, my wife, and my two kids, we were supposed to close last month, but we've been pushing it, pushing it, pushing it. Now we are completely out of our prior lease and staying in a hotel in the hopes of closing this week. Should I go and sign the closing documents, even though the house, I mean, there's still some work to be done from what I can see.

It's not got the CO yet, so I don't know if that made sense. What's it take to get a CO where you can move in? Basically, like the, you know, the mechanicals, the HVAC, those issues. From what I can see, I mean, everything's done. That didn't make sense. You're telling me it doesn't have HVAC? No, it does. It does have HVAC.

In terms of what it takes to get a CO, that's my understanding. Just the inspection? Basically, yeah. And they need to seal the floors. There's concrete floors in the house. To get a CO? So, basically, yeah. I guess that's a finished floor.

That counts as a finished floor. Yeah, but I'm not sure they have to. I mean, it depends on code, I guess. But what I want to know is exactly what it takes to get a CO and when that's going to be completed. They say that it's supposed to be completed Wednesday, but, I mean. Well, if you've got a CO, then you close. Okay.

Now, how much other work, non-CO required work, is outstanding? There's a sunroom that's attached to the house, a glass-paneled sunroom, that he said would be done last weekend, but it's getting pushed to next weekend, he says. There's just little minor work. What's the total price of the house? $352,000. What's the sunroom worth? $12,000.

So if you can get a CO, you're ready to close. Now, as far as the other repairs go, standard procedure would be to escrow money until he gets the work done. That you hold out of the proceeds, $50,000 until he gets this $50,000 worth of miscellaneous stuff done, and then it would be released to him. That's what the lender said exactly, yeah. That's standard. I got no problem with that.

I would not close until you got a co though okay because the problem is the problem is that if you close and it's six months before you get a co the crap are you gonna do yeah that's that's what i i just have never been in this situation before we've dealt with a prior builder that was you know a larger builder you know throughout north america where this this house has builder that was, you know, a larger builder, you know, throughout North America, whereas this house has just been totally different. You know, we haven't done a walkthrough yet, so I just, I don't know. I just want to kind of protect myself. Yeah, it sounds like they need to put the closing off another week.

Okay. Get the CO, get a walkthrough, and establish the amount that you're going to hold in escrow for the non-CO repair items. Okay. Punch list stuff. If it's minor punch stuff and you trust the guy, you don't worry about it. But it sounds like you've got some major punch going on here.

Yeah. I don't know. It sounds like he's – I really don't know. But, yeah, I think maybe you're right, maybe holding off another week, you know, to let them knock out some more stuff. I mean, if you can get it all done by Wednesday, a CO, a walkthrough, the escrow amount established, you can still do it. I don't care if you do it, but I've got a feeling that CO is not going to be done

Wednesday based on the way you're hesitating and moving, and you don't think it's going to be done Wednesday. I mean, that's what the builder said, but like I said, this has been ongoing. I know that these things can be delayed, but we were supposed to close April 16th, and we're in May. But if I can maybe finagle him to do it all on Wednesday, that would be great because, I mean, like I said, we're in a hotel. We're kind of in limbo, and I just don't want to prolong this.

I don't mind you moving in with a punch list in an undone sunroom. I want to escrow some money for all of it, because I want his feet held to the fire to get the work done. Yes, sir. But the CO, man, I mean, you can't move in it, and you're paying

payments on it after you close it. Exactly. That's what my understanding was of closing. Yeah, as soon as you close it, the clock starts ticking on old payments, brother. So, yeah, we're not going to be paying payments on something that's not got a CO. That can't live in. Okay. All right.

Well, that gives me some more confidence. No CO, no close. Once there's a CO, you can work out the walkthrough, you can work out the escrow, and then you can close. And that might be Wednesday, it might be Thursday, it might be Friday, it might be next Wednesday. I don't know. Depends on that. But you just tell the builder, no CO, no close. Yes, sir.

Thank you very much. God bless you guys. you man sorry for you sorry you're facing this it's a lot of stress and you moved out of his house oh god well and the problem is stuff like glass is still in you know they're still having trouble getting it it might be four months before he gets it yeah and so yeah i mean i don't mind that if your sunroom isn't operational that's first world problems right can't live in the house that's another thing yeah right i mean that's a different thing but sheesh it's uh this is all about supply chain and labor yeah uh unless the builder's just a bad guy but i think it's probably supply chain

and labor all right bo's with us in san antonio hey bo what's up hey how are you dave better than we deserve how can we help all right so my is in with my family are looking to buy a house right um so we have a pretty good emergency fund at 20 000 we have about 20000 saved dogs um we don't have it yet and oh you're not your phone's breaking up you're gonna stand still and speak direct into it we can't hear you okay can you hear me now yes sir okay good deal um so, like I said, we own a camper, so we've seen that, and we've got three little ones. But there's four beds in the – it's comfortable living, you know. So my question is, is it the right time to buy a house with, like, inflation and the economy going the way it is? And also, I work in the oil field, so my pay fluctuates a little bit.

I pay around $200, and then on the low end, it's about $4,200. Yeah. Well, if you're in the oil field, they're going to go off your W-2 if you're paid on a payroll. The mortgage company is. If you're not and you're on a 1099, they're going to go off your tax returns and two years average of your tax returns. They don't care about the monthly fluctuation.

They're looking at what did you make in the year, what did you make in the last two years by the year, and that will qualify you for the mortgage or not. As far as whether it's a good time to buy a house, it's a wicked weird time to buy a house, that's for sure, and a lot of weird things going on. But as long as you don't get caught up in the fever and pay too much for something and go crazy getting some bidding war or something out of control, that's fine.

But I bought a house last October in the middle of this. And so, yeah, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that at all. But the big trick in this market is don't be dealing with an amateur. Don't be dealing with some kind of beginning real estate agent. Get a high-quality real estate agent because this is not amateur hour. I mean, you want to have a pro in your corner. And just go to RamseySolutions.com and click on ELP for a Ramsey-trusted endorsed local provider for real estate. They'll help you walk you through this.

And I probably would if I was living in a camper, man. I think I understood that's what you said. And you may think that's comfortable. I got a feeling your wife isn't as enthused as you are. Could be wrong. This is the Ramsey Show. 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

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