The Ramsey Show - App - Where Do You Want To Be a Decade From Now? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: April 20, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Christy Wright, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Matthew starts off this hour in Indianapolis. Hi, Matthew, how are you?

I'm doing well, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm 22 years old. I make about $80,000 a year before bonuses. I have $20,000 in cash and then about $50,000 I have in ETFs and mutuals. I'm getting ready to buy my first house. Right now I know the housing market is crazy. My main question is, is what my plan to do is take $25,000 out from my investment account, put that towards a down payment, do a 15-year mortgage on a $225,000 house.

Is that a smart thing to do? I could take out more, but I still want to keep that emergency fund. But the area I'm in has projected about 10% increase in home values in the next year. Dude, you're a stud. You're 22 and you're making 80 yes sir what do you do i'm a systems engineer good for you man you're killing it and you're single correct are you uh dating someone seriously no sir i'm not. Okay. All right. The other question I do have is I have a guaranteed at least $10,000 bonus next year and then more than likely another additional $10,000 to $15,000 on top of that.

So I should be slightly over $100,000 for next year and following years as well. Phenomenal. Okay. So I would just adjust your plan slightly because I know from the data that we have, having studied 10,167 millionaires, that the typical millionaire has two primary components to their first million to $5 million net worth. And you should be there by the time you're 30 with the track you're on. Okay? And if you want to get there the shortest way, here's what the data tells us.

A paid-for house and loading up the 401k. Correct. I do max out my 401k company. Good. Matches 5%. Good. I put 5% in and then invest the rest into ETFs and mutuals. Good.

So what that tells me is the paid-for house is the next thing on the equation. Agreed? Agreed. Which means I'm keeping only the emergency fund. I'm dumping the entire ETF onto this thing as my down payment to thereby have less debt to reduce. And then I'm going to throw bonuses and money I would have been throwing in the ETFs above the fully funded 401k at this mortgage. Dude, your house is paid for by the time you're 25, 26 years old.

Got it. And you're rolling into a house at that point that's probably worth $500. And, you know, and let's just go ahead and run the math out on your 401k for, what, eight years, and I think you're a millionaire. Got it. That's what I'm hearing. I'm doing this in my head pretty quick, but I think I'm pretty close. And here's the thing.

The other thing that's going to happen is you statistically are very likely during this eight-year period of time to meet and marry the love of your life, at which point you will discover you have bought the wrong house. Right. New plan, new house. And so that will adjust our little plan, upset the apple cart, but that's okay. It's worth the cost brother you'll still you're still gonna get there because you got a plan but here's the thing the two data points are full 401k paid for house and if you're always aiming back at those at the

earliest possible age you're going to build the greatest possible amount of wealth awesome that's for your first five million dollars worth of uh wealth and that's what a you know and you know we call them everyday millionaires or baby step millionaires because they followed the baby steps and i've met three out here in the lobby today that followed the baby steps over the last decade to 15 years and been listening to this show one guy said he listened to the show 20 years yeah you know, and he started doing this stuff. And he just, you know, got out of debt, which gave him the ability to invest and pay off his home. Yeah.

We were talking earlier about changing your family tree. It's a compounding effect, not just financially, mathematically. It's a compounding effect in the decision making. You make different decisions two and three and four steps later because of those first decisions. So I love to see how that can have a ripple effect for the rest of your life. And I'm starting to do some writing on this millionaire stuff because I'm starting to see some nuances with our baby step millionaire community. And that's what I'm calling it for right now. I may change the name of it, but I mean, that's that's I'm starting to. And one thing I've noticed is, is that the millionaire.

That sometimes what keeps people off the track from being a millionaire is they want to try to be a billionaire. And a billion is a thousand million. And in the Forbes 400, I've got to look it up fresh. It's been a year since I've looked it up. I need to look it up again. But in the Forbes 400, it was that almost all the Forbes 400 are billionaires now.

The 400 wealthiest people in America. It used to be three quarters of them were, but I think they just about all are now. And like 70% of them are first generation billionaires. But the way you become a billionaire is different. Okay, explain that.

Than the way you become a millionaire. Because the typical millionaire, the one to five million, first thing that happens to billionaires is obviously first they become a millionaire. Right. Before they become billionaires. Right. Right.

But the difference from jumping from five million to a thousand million is a big jump. Yeah. Okay. So you get that first five million the way we're talking about here. Walk in the baby steps. That's a baby step millionaire. But very few, but billionaires didn't use their 401k and their paid-for house to become a billionaire. Right. In almost every case, they started a business and took it public or didn't.

But somehow there was a business leverage angle okay you know uh you know uh to where you know oprah owns this massive media empire and that's what made her a billionaire it wasn't getting paid to do the oprah show right it's she she used her entrepreneurial skills behind the scenes to build and she's a billionaire uh or uh the kathy family you know chick-fil-a yep true kathy passed away but he was a billionaire, and the kids are. But that's the value of Chick-fil-A. It gives them that, the business value. The Hobby Lobby family, the Green family.

Again, it's the value of that. It wasn't working a job and loading money in the 401K that got them there. So they worked the job and loaded the 401K, and along the way they became millionaires, but then the way they make that huge leap. But the difference, but people have in their mind when they say wealthy, what billionaires do. You know, private jets, expensive cars, six houses. Millionaires don't have any of that. Millionaires don't have private jets and expensive cars and four houses.

They don't. Billionaires do. Right. But if you try to jump from where you are to billionaire, you make a lot of mistakes on Get Rich Quick. Yeah, yeah. Because you're skipping. You've got to do the tortoise first. Yeah, yeah.

And win the race to get in that one to five. And then that positions you to do some of these other things. Yeah. And you can go big from there. That's interesting. But, you know, if you think of wealthy as a billionaire, then it's unattainable, number one. Right. Number two, you start doing stupid stuff to try to get there before you do the basics.

Yeah. So do the baby step millionaire first, then start thinking about billionaire level stuff. Yeah. You know, I get lots of questions about ID theft since it's a huge problem. Most people just worry about financial fraud, which is a big mistake. Tax refund fraud, for example, is out of control. Last year, the IRS paid out over $10 billion in fraudulent refunds. Thieves are stealing your refunds. They're also hacking into accounting and tax preparer firms to steal your personal information

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It is a free call. Thanks for joining us. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is 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 RAMSY to get the best possible deal.

Rules and restrictions apply. Today's question comes from Amanda in Colorado. She writes, I make $100,000 a year and I'm on baby step two with $55,000 in debt. I want to switch careers and become a financial coach. My plan was to keep my current job until I'm debt free, but I've been offered a position working 15 hours a week and earning $40,000 a year. It would be an excellent financial base while building my coaching business. Should I wait until I'm out of baby step two or make this change now?

I'm curious your thoughts on this one. Because you're in maybe step two. You've got $55,000 of debt, making $100,000 a year, which is awesome. That's a good shovel to get to knock that out. But wants to start

a financial coaching business. Well, even if she didn't have the debt, let's just pretend she didn't have the debt. She makes $100,000 a year and she wants to drop to $40,000 with zero on the side hustle right now. What would you tell her on that? I would say no.

You'd tell her get the side hustle up. Yeah, get the side hustle. Get the boat closer to the dock. Yeah. Build it up on the side. The thing is that I think is interesting and it sounds like it's appealing to her is the limited amount of hours. But what we see people do more often than not that makes them successful is they work in the nights and the weekends. They work on the side and and even though it feels like for a season you're working a full-time job because

two full-time jobs because you are it's the safer route to get to where you want to be where you're doing that thing full-time and the the finances are there to support you it's not a wish and a prayer and a hope that the money's going to be there when you make the job it puts a different um let me tell you nothing smells as bad as a broke salesman yeah you're they feel that desperation except a financial counselor that's broke financial coach that's broke yeah that's that's probably not that's probably oxymoronic almost so yeah uh yeah what you want to do is start your financial coaching business as a side hustle get it growing and let's get some income coming in now if you told me you were making $30 or $40 on your side hustle financial coaching business

and you wanted to drop to $40, now we've got a total of $80, and we're dropping from $100 down to $80, hoping we can make up the other $20. That boat's close enough to the dock. You're not going to get wet. But you can't even see the boat now because it's zero. It's out there in the fog somewhere, and you're just going to jump in and start swimming, hope you find it. You're going to drown. Well, it's interesting because she said it would be an excellent financial base while building my coaching business.

A better financial base is $100,000 a year while building your coaching business. Here you go, even better, $140,000 a year, and you're a debt-free because you made $40,000 on on your coaching business and then it's a no-brainer to quit right debt free you're making 80 when you quit with the 40 and the 40 right i'm making that number up but it could be 45 but you need to have and it's not 10 yeah you don't want i mean if you're making 40 on your site on your little part-time thing and you do make 10 that's 50 you cut your income in half yeah the boat's not close enough the dock anytime you're going to jump uh unless you get fired from an income to a to a self-employed income go ahead and get the side hustle up because i'm telling you make different decisions when you're not broke yeah when you're running a business and you're broke and you have to make money by Friday to eat, it changes your decision

making paradigm and it damages it. It sucks the joy out of it, too. The fun for why you started it, it takes the fun out of it. And to your point, the customers feel it because you're desperate. They feel that. But you don't have to. You can still start your side financial coaching business. You don't have to have just this job. You just find the hours and different times to be able to do that. Build it up on the side. Absolutely. Absolutely. Open phones here at 888-825-5225.

Dalton is in Oklahoma City. Hi, Dalton. How are you? I'm good, Dalton. Talk to you, Mr. Ramsey. You too, sir. What's up? So I got a question.

I'm in Baby Step 2. I've got student loan debt and then uh truck debt um i actually just listed my truck last night i'm gonna end up selling it and i just want to know what kind of car i need to be looking for after i can sell it and what price range how much student loan debt on it uh 46 what do you owe on your truck uh 24 and i kelly blue booked it for 32 to between 32 000 35 000 wow so you put on the market for how much uh 34 nice truck and yeah yeah it's a bad purchase but um but it's a sweet truck yeah yeah okay but i want to get rid of it and how old are you student loan as quick as possible 27 and what do you make did you say uh 86 for you good for you all right and how much student loan debt again? $46,000.

Okay, you told me this, but I'm trying to wrap my brain around all these different numbers. Okay, so if you sell the truck for $30,000 and you got $6,000 in your pocket and you bought a $6,000 car, you'd have no car payments and you'd be only attacking your student loan debt, right? Yes, sir. So, yeah, your budget ought to be what cash you get in your hand from the truck sale net of your debt. So you pay cash for a little get-around car and, you know, $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 or whatever it is you end up with, right? Or a little bit less. But, I mean, really, if you buy a $1,000 car and put $4,000 towards the debt, that doesn't fix anything. You're 86 now without the truck payments.

What fixes it? You're shedding yourself of a $600 truck payment, right? Yes, sir, yeah. Yeah, that was kind of my question. If I could sell it for like $32,000 or $33,000 and if I could make $8,000 or $9,000 off of that. That's fine. Anywhere in there. Because here's the thing.

Okay, let's say you buy a $6,000 truck and you put $3,000 towards it, or you buy a $9,000 truck and you don't put anything towards it. You haven't changed your student loan equation that much. What changed the equation was getting rid of the truck. What changed the equation was you make $86,000 and you are now game on. You are a man with a plan. That's what's changing the equation. You're the secret sauce.

So the amount that you use from the truck to put towards the student loans is not what's going to fix this. It's getting rid of the truck that fixes it and the fact that you're freaking paying attention now and don't have any truck payments. Okay. You see what I'm saying? Mathematically, that's the case. Yep. Yep. That was kind of my thinking.

Yeah. So whatever you make on the truck, you can spend up to that on a car, but not a dime more. Gotcha. Or less. You could spend $2,000 less. It wouldn't be a bad exercise, you know, just as a matter of self-discipline. Because here's what's going to happen. You're going to be 100% debt-free in about a year, okay?

Yes. debt-free in less in about a year okay yeah and then you're going to be saving up for your emergency fund and then you're going to save up to move up and truck because you should you don't need to be driving a six thousand dollar truck making 80 grand 90 grand and no debt you probably can move up and truck then and pay cash so you're going to move back up later so this is a temporary move it's probably a two to a three year move is all so you're fine really good job dude good job Thank you. Christy Wright, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Mitchell is up next in Lincoln, Nebraska. Hi, Mitchell.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. How can we help? Well, I'm in a bit of a predicament. I brought it upon myself, of course, but let me tell you about myself. I'm 27 years old. In 2014, I got an associate's degree and in two weeks, I'll have a bachelor's of architecture. Good for you. Thank you. I have a private pilot's license that's 100 hours and $45,000 in student loans, about $15,000 cash on hand,

$25,000 in an IRA, and I pay about $600 per month in rent. So I'm considering switching careers to aviation because I'm finding I'm just not very happy in architecture. It's going to take a lot of money to switch and time, and I'm just not really sure if it's the smartest thing, but I think maybe I should choose happiness over money. What do you think? Well, I don't think they're exclusive from each other. That's the dangerous assumption.

That somehow happiness has to be associated with being broke. Happiness has to be associated with not making money. Okay? So I'm going to choose option C, none of the above. Let's find a way to live a great life and make a lot of money doing it. And that will make you happy money won't make you happy but um you know this i often hear people say things like well i'm going to go to work for this uh thing that has meaning in my life but they don't pay anything and i'm

like well i got a lot of meaning in my life and i make a lot of money so because i help a lot of people so they're not mutually exclusive you can do both as a matter of fact there should be a tie in a capitalistic economy to serving an income and so um i think you back up pan back a little bit more and say okay what are the steps to get you where you want to be when you're 34 years old or 37 years old a decade from today what have you got to do to get where you want to go and what's the shortest path to get where you want to go? And if you're going to be an architect and you're going to be miserable, well, that's

not, that's not, that option is off the table. I'm curious, why are you miserable? Like what's, what's, what did you, what got you into it that was true that you loved it or wanted to do it and what has changed that you no longer love it? What's going on? Well, I guess I thought it was a logical continuation for my studies, and I've always, I thought like it was a strong suit for me. You know, I was just playing with my strengths and decided that was a good field, but maybe perhaps my interactions with other people is the most important thing as to why I'm choosing another field.

I don't even really have work experience. I'm mostly going off of my educational experiences. Your interactions with other people turns you off on architecture. What does that mean? I don't know. It's just a very egotistical field, maybe. Not really. You could decide that it's not.

Not really. You don't have to's not. Not really. I mean, you don't have to be that. I work with architects every week, and I don't deal with any of them that have ego problems. I wouldn't put up with them having an ego problem. But, I mean, I'm building two buildings right now. We're working with an architectural firm, and there's five different architects involved in that. And they're all just really nice people. So let me ask you this. Mitchell, if you take the people out of it and your ideas about is your professor's a jerk is that what you meant i mean oh i got him okay

all right okay the actual act of architecture what you do okay what you have learned to do in school and what you would be doing hypothetically. Do you like doing that type of work? I don't think I do anymore. Okay. I think I'd rather fly a plane. Well, yeah, it's addicting. The problem with aviation is it's a drug. Ask any pilot.

I mean, I've been told a thousand thousand times don't get your pilot's license ramsey because you're gonna get sucked in it's like golf i mean you're gonna get sucked into the vortex and you can't get out um so yeah i mean it's the pilot my i mean pilots just live to land and take off i mean it's just like a thing and so um i don't doubt that I I I'm okay if you want to go be a pilot I'm not okay if you want to go in a hundred thousand dollars in debt to do that and I'm not okay if you say that means I'm going to be broke when I'm 37 and I call and call that happy that's just not true okay so you need a different track on your pilot career that calls you that causes that causes you to not be broke as a pilot the pilots can make good money and do make good money um

i mean private jet pilots as an example you know they make a hundred and a half on average and that you know a lot of architects don't make that. So you can get there, but, you know, it's just a matter of what, you know, the hours logging and the, you know, the lessons. And you're licensed now, but I assume you're licensed on turboprop, right? Oh, no, I just have a very basic PPL. Yeah, yeah, okay. And so you've got a lot of work to do to make any money because nobody pays anybody to fly what you're licensed to fly, right?'ll take at least two years probably 50 grand yeah okay here's here's what i

would tell you to do i think christy that we heard i i i'm gonna i i i don't agree with the conclusion you came to i i think you had a jerk professor or two, and it made your life miserable. And so every time you picked up work, you know, open up the CAD drawing to work on this thing, you hated architecture because the jerk you were dealing with or two or three jerks you were dealing with or the way some of the students acted or whatever and and and christy challenged you on actually doing the work i think because there's correlations between pilot work you know the the amount of technical detail that you have to do and the amount of technical detail you're a technical detail guy because both of these things have that yes okay and you said it's a strength of yours and it is and it is i think there's a way you can make a living doing architecture while you do your pilot work. I don't think you have to abandon architecture and go live on poverty while you do your pilot work.

I think you go and get your architecture license, get a job being an architect, and then work on your hours on the weekends, work on your hours at night. You're going to have to pay to do this. It's going to take a while. And you take that two years that you're talking about and you got to fund it right and the way to fund it is be an architect well and it just in a situation where you're not dealing with jerks yes it reframes architecture for you gives you an opportunity to have a good experience in architecture and actually see what that could be like maybe you do like it you rediscover

it also helps you resist the urge to just be scattered and change your mind every two years i just don't want you changing your mind every two years. Like, stick with this. Let's give it a chance. And then if you want to keep doing the pilot thing on the side, that's great. And you can switch gears when you can pay for it and you've got a little bit of money. But I just got this sense that it's like, well, I don't like this anymore. I want to do this. I don't like this anymore.

I want to do this. No, if we're going to make progress, we need to stick with something. So give this a chance. Let's wipe a clean slate from the bad professor. Give it a chance. Make some money. And then like you said, you can continue to explore the pilot thing on the side as well and move towards that if you want to. I had this friend that was married to a guy who was an absolute twerp, and he was a jerk.

I mean, he mistreated her in every possible way and slept around all over the place, had affairs, all this stuff, and finally she had wised up and dumped the jerk, right? Because he was a nightmare. And she went through this period of time where all men are evil. Right, yeah. That's that wound, that trauma speaking. Yeah, I'm going to protect myself. It's like, you know, but all men aren't evil. Right.

Just because he was a jerk. Right. And so it's the same exact thing. You know, you got traumatized by this process. Bad experience. And it's not that marriage is bad. It's not that men are bad. You just had a bad one.

Right. It's not that architecture is bad. You just had a bad one. Right. Right. And so, you know, I think you need to give this a chance. I'm not saying when you're 37 you won't be a pilot. I'm saying that's okay to be a pilot, to have that as the goal.

But let's use a different path to get there that involves architecture, giving it a second chance. Here's the thing. If then you walk away from the architecture after having done it four or five years, you'll never look back. You'll never regret it. If you do all this work and then you never go do it, you may have some regrets. Yeah. You may have. Good point.

Man, I may have missed that. That's a good point. So I want you to give her a little run here. Don't kill you. And, you know, you got to do something because you got to fund this pilot's thing. So that's a good way to do it. This is the Ramsey Show. Thank you. Our scripture of the day, Isaiah 6, 8, Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,

Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And I said, Here I am. Send me. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, Don't go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path, and leave a trail. Christy Wright, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Bob's in Sacramento.

Hey, Bob, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi there. Scenario is I've done everything wrong according to you, Dave. Thank you for your honesty, Bob. I'm sorry. My wife and I have a mortgage on our home of about $550,000. We also lost the home in August to the wildfires. Oh, no.

I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. We had just refinanced from a 3.5 to a 2.75 in May. I got another call from the mortgage company in November and said, would you like to lower that to 2.25? And I said, can you finance air? And they said, yes. So I took the 2.25 loan. I have enough capital that i could pay off the loan the only problem is the price of two before it has doubled and with the insurance settlement i don't know how much home i can build if i pay off the loan so i need your wise advice so what will they give you for the burned house? As much as $902,000.

Okay, and what is the lot worth? $400,000. Okay. And do you get the lot? Oh, I get the lot, yeah. You get $902,000 from the mortgage company. You pay off $550,000, and you have the lot. You get 902 from the mortgage company. You pay off 550, and you get the lot. 902 is the absolute max with everything. Yeah, furnishings and everything.

No, that's just the structure. That would be all the extra add-ons that the state of California has added, such as sprinklers, solar, and an electric vehicle charging station, and any cost overruns above the policy. Okay, so will they write you a check for, can you talk them up, or you and your attorney get them to give you a check for nine hundred thousand dollars and you pay off the mortgage out of that i'm afraid not i have the cash on hand that i could pay it no that's not what i'm asking i'm trying to figure out how much money you can get out of this freaking insurance company and walk away uh probably Probably, I'm not sure.

Let's make up another number, okay? I'm going to call it 800. Okay. Okay, for example purposes. You've got to pay off a $550,000 mortgage, and so that leaves you $250,000. And you have a $400,000 lot that you sell for $400,000. Scrape it and sell it. Okay.

Now you've got $650,000 in your pocket plus the money that you already told me you had to pay off the house with. You've got other capital, right? Correct, yes. And it amounts to how much? Approximately $400,000. Okay. So now you've got a million dollars to buy a house with.

And I would buy a used house. I wouldn't try to build right now. My wife and I are still debating about the politics of California. We'd like to find someplace a little more sane. Yeah. Well, a million dollars will buy a lot more other places than Sacramento. Sacramento is a wonderful town. I like Sacramento.

But it is an expensive real estate market. Yes. And if you move, it's not Orange County, Silicon Valley expensive, but it's expensive. And so it is California expensive. So, I mean, if you said we wanted to move to XY state, now a million dollars is going to buy a lot more, and this is your escape route. You don't rebuild here.

Have you got any wise words that I could use to convince my better half? About leaving California or about rebuilding? Both. Have you got any wise words that I could use to convince my better half? About leaving California or about rebuilding? Both. Number one, rebuilding is not going to make sense because it's the worst possible time to buy two befores and steel and copper and plywood. There's a shortage on all of it right now, and it's all doubled and in some cases tripled. And so you're going to have trouble, you're going to have a lot of trouble putting back a house even the size that you had before. You're going to come out hundreds of thousands of dollars ahead not building.

Okay. Because of the building cost right now. Yes. You know, if you want to build a house, it's okay right now, but if you can avoid building one right now, I would. I would wait a year or maybe two if you really, really, really want to build. And there's nothing tying you to this lot. Scrape it and sell it.

Okay, now you've got a million dollars piled up and then you can buy in sacramento or you can leave california that's a separate decision than whether to build on this lot yes two different decisions you can make both of them you can make a decision to leave california or stay in california but i'm scraping this lot and selling it for 400 grand or 500 grand somebody will probably buy it because there's a shortage. And, you know, you may get great price on a silly thing. And, you know, here's the thing. Other thing that's going through my head, and I need to say it out loud.

One of the top ten things that will put you in the hospital is losing a home to a fire. It is highly emotional. It's like a death yes i mean i've gone through the stages dave yeah you go through the grieving stages as if you you know you know and so it's you know bankruptcy divorce house fire loss of a child these are the top 10 things you know you get two or three of them in one year you're in the hospital i mean it'll take you out it's a It's highly traumatic. And what I'm trying to do also is give your emotions some margin.

Rebuilding a house. Building a house is freaking traumatic. Yes. Let's not add trauma on trauma, you know. Building a house is for people that are in a real healthy situation and really excited about doing it and want to do it. You're building out of necessity or some kind of a grasping thing going on here. And it's, you know, if your marriage isn't going well and you want a divorce, build a house.

You know, that's the truth. Because it's like, you know, some people are so dumb, they're like, our marriage isn't going good. Let's have kids. Maybe that'll fix it, you know? That's a dumb butt idea, you know? They do that, though. That'll break you real fast.

That'll do it. That'll end everything. So I'm just trying to love you and say, man, if I were you, I'd want to curl up somewhere in a Snuggie and just get warm. You know, you've been out in the cold. You're raw, you know? And I just, man, I want to, if I was you, that's what I'd want to do. May I throw something else into the mix?

Quickly. My wife and I are here in Maryland taking care of her father who's in stage four kidney failure, currently 3% kidney function. Oh, my gosh. So, you know, the line god keep there god only gives you as much as you can handle my line is he has us confused with someone else he took you right up to the line anyway yeah so you know it might be that you don't need to make this decision right now well trust me the insurance company and the mortgage company

are hounding us have have you done your repairs yet yeah and okay well go ahead and turn it back on them and go just write us a check and we'll call it a day so you know they have written the one check and the mortgage company has it. The mortgage company's paid off? Well, they are holding the money in trust. Okay. Well, tell the insurance company that you want to just settle. If you don't have an attorney, you may need one, because you may need a buffer between you and these characters right now.

They're settling a whole bunch of claims over there, and I don't want you to get stuck. Yeah. So you may need some representation, especially while you're dealing with your father-in-law's illness. You're in a point of weakness there to negotiate. So, yeah, you do have your self-fulfill, Bob. I'm sorry. Wow.

That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. 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. This is James Child, producer of The Ramsey Show. Did you know The Ramsey Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world? Subscribe or follow today wherever you listen to podcasts.