The Ramsey Show - App - YOU are the Secret Sauce to Paying Off Your Loans (Hour 3)

Episode Date: February 27, 2020

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Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave 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 am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Mike is with us in Providence, Rhode Island. Hey, Mike, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks for taking my call, Dave. How are you doing today? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm just calling with a question regarding my truck. My wife and I are debt-free besides our mortgage, and I don't know

if I'm being gun-shy here or if I should go ahead and buy a newer truck or if I should fix the truck I have. It's a 2008 F-150, and I've got about 165,000 miles on it, but I've got some body rot, and I'm having a small issue with the transmission. So I think the repairs are going to be somewhere between $2,000 to $4,000, and the last I checked online with the value, the truck is worth maybe $7,000 or so. Do you think that I should go ahead and do the repairs on the truck and try and get the most I can out of it, or should I go ahead and start looking for a new one? Well, the way you decide on whether it's worth fixing a car that needs repairs is you say,

okay, if I sold the car as is, what would it bring? And in this case, let's just use a number, okay? I'll show you how the example works, okay? You think the truck's worth seven if it was fixed up? I believe so, yeah. That probably sounds about right to me. Okay. So let's pretend there's $2,000 worth of work to be done.

Now, if you can sell the truck for six now, you'd be $1,000 ahead. Right. Of not doing the $2,000 worth of work, right? But if you can only sell it for four now, well, then it would be worth fixing it because you'd make an extra $1,000 by fixing it. Because four plus the two means you'd have six in it. You're selling it for seven. You see what I'm talking about?

So, yeah, my guess is, depending on how much of it's body work and how much of the 2,000 is body work and how much of it is transmission, you said minor transmission, so if the transmission is 500 the body works 1500 my guess is this truck will probably bring six if it's worth seven fixed and that would mean i would sell it okay and i'd take that six and my two thousand that i was getting ready to spend and buy an eight thousand dollar car or more if you had some more cash to put with it but somewhere in that range you you know, something like that. But, you know, sometimes people are calling me like with a hoopty and they're driving a car that's worth $1,500 and there's $2,000 worth of repairs to be done with that.

Well, that's not going to make that car worth $2,000 more. So you don't spend $2,000 on a $2,000 car because it doesn't cause it to go up in value that much. So instead, you sell it for whatever it's worth, salvage or whatever it's worth when it's broken. And you put your $2,000 with that and you move up a little bit in car. And so that's, you know, that's when a car has pretty well come to the end of its life that that equation applies.

And, you know, F-150s will go longer than 165,000 miles without a doubt, depending on how they've been taken care of. But in your case, you know, you've got some body issues and you've got some transmission issues that kind of change the economics on that. James is with us in Tampa, Florida. Hi, James. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave.

Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking the call. Sure. What's up? I wanted to get some advice on, so I have $43,000 in student loans, or my wife does, but it's for us. And she's about two years away from potential student loan forgiveness, or put our funds towards, we're about $34,000 away from our mortgage to get rid of the PMI. We're still in the hole quite a bit in debt.

I just want to know which one would work for me better. I would pay off the student loans as soon as possible. Okay, even though the student loan forgiveness is potentially there you need to do some research on student loan forgiveness it's not happening yeah that makes sense there's like 17 000 people have made application and 250 have had their student loans forgiven that sounds right it's not occurring and so um yeah it's it's i'm afraid it might be the biggest head fake that the government has ever given the American public. So, but, you know, I hope that changes because a whole bunch of people had that as their strategy to get out of debt. But in your case, I'm going to just get my student loans paid off.

Paying off your home or paying down your home is baby step six. Paying off your student loans is baby step two. And so when you're working, your debt's snowball. You pay off your student loans, and that's where you are. You're just down to your last one, and it's your big one, and it's kind of Mount Everest is staring you in the face, and it's making you think maybe I need to try to do something different. Hit it.

Hit it hard, hit it often, and hit it with intensity. Spencer's in Denver. Hi, Spencer. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. It's a true honor to talk to you. You too. I have a question for you. I need to find out how I should protect my assets. With that being said, let me give you a little, um, short summary of what I'm talking about. Um, I'm a nurse, my wife's a teacher.

We both pull in about 180 to 200,000 a year, depending on my overtime. Um, I am thinking I'm set to pay off my house or our house, I should say, um, next month. And I've got two teenagers, uh, both are, and I need to find out once our house is paid off, what should we do to protect it from, you know, forbid, you know, they get in an accident and we get sued or something tragic happens and, you know, someone comes after us or something like that. With your income and the stage you are in wealth building, it's time for you to add

an umbrella policy, which is a liability policy. You can buy a million dollars extra liability coverage for around $250 in Colorado a year. And what that does is it attaches to the liability policy that's already part of your homeowners and already part of your car insurance, and it adds to the top of that. With some teenage drivers, it might run you a little bit more than $250, but it probably won't, and I would get that liability. What that does is just adds another million dollars to the mix

in case somebody decided they were going to come after you because of a bad situation. Now, as a nurse, you've obviously got professional insurance, right? in case somebody decided they were going to come after you because of a bad situation. Now, as a nurse, you've obviously got professional insurance, right? Right. Yeah, that's covering that issue. That's a separate issue. Right. But as far as liability goes, that's the first thing I would do there.

As you start building other wealth later, for instance, if you start buying properties as rental properties, real estate investments, put those in an LLC. And I put about $5 million worth of real estate in an LLC, and then I form another one. And so then, you know, so you're not there yet, but when you start buying your first rental property and that kind of thing, that's what you'll do. Just to keep the size of the target on your butt down, that's what you're trying to do. So I carry a big liability umbrella policy, and I separate the ownership of things out into other entities. That's a risk management strategy. As a matter of fact, I actually don't personally own anything anymore. I don't even own my cars. I don't have anything.

I'm completely broke. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Let me tell you a story about two families that are very much alike in a lot of ways. Both families have two working parents and a couple of young kids. Each has debt and has struggled to make ends meet. But they're starting to make headway with their budgets and smarter decisions with money. They have dreams and plans, and the only real difference is that one family has the right amount of term life insurance, and the other doesn't.

Big difference. If one of the parents die, and that does happen, their well-being would be destroyed. Paying for the mortgage, utilities, food, and that does happen, their well-being would be destroyed. Paying for the mortgage, utilities, food, and other bills would be impossible, let alone saving for education or retirement. That's why every day I talk relentlessly about getting term life insurance. Just go to zanderinsurance.com or call 800-356-4282 and see how inexpensive it really is. Be the family that takes those deliberate steps to be different and responsible. It really does make you the hero of your story, and it puts you on course for better things ahead. Thank you for joining us, America.

We're glad you're here. Nicole is in Seattle. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Nicole. Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? So my husband has $110,000 in student loans between five different loans. The first three are all under about $10,000 each, so we could pay those off in the first year. However, the larger two loans are about $40,000

to $45,000 each, and they all have really high interest rates. So should we consolidate the two bigger loans while we pay off the smaller ones, or how would you do that? If you can get a lower interest rate. Okay, so then right now, so would you do a shorter term with the low interest rate, even though the payment would still be high? Sure, because you're going to pay them off anyway, right? Yeah, but the first three are all under $10,000. The other two, it's going to take a lot longer to pay them off.

So what's your household income? So he makes about $50,000. I just had a medical emergency kind of thing, so I haven't made any money in two years, but I'm getting out to get another job i think i can get about 30 grand a year okay so you have an 80 000 give or take household income going forward and uh 90 whatever it is and um and you've got some 10 000 loans so it sounds like it's about 110 000 worth of loans, right? $110,000, yeah. Yeah, okay. Making $80,000, how fast do you pay off $110,000? Probably three years. I'm thinking that'll take us about two or four years. Yeah, I'm thinking three.

Okay, because I'm just thinking if we can throw everything we have at the first three. Then they're gone. That's $30,000 in one year. Right. And then two more years of $30,000 in one year. Right. And then two more years of $30,000 is going to get you really close. I'm just worried we won't be able to pay all the first three off with the minimums of the other two. Oh, yeah, you will. You're still making the exact same progress.

It's just a matter of which one goes away first. But, yeah, I mean, you don't have to put it on a three-year note put it on a five i don't care put it on a 10 it doesn't matter but because you're going to get to it anyway here's the thing make sure that the interest rate is a fixed rate if you're going to consolidate do not consolidate on a variable rate and make sure that it's a lesser interest rate there's no benefit to doing it otherwise and here's the thing what is your current rate on those two big ones um one is nine something and the other is ten okay so if you saved two percent across the board on those two um that's sixteen hundred dollars a year

now sixteen hundred dollars if you send it to me, I'll take it. Okay? But it doesn't change your life on $110,000. Right. What changes your life on $110,000 is you living on beans and rice and attacking these things. Uh-huh. So you're the secret sauce to getting these paid off, not the interest rate. Okay. So just taking my whole income, because we've been living without it

for two years. Well, your whole income plus some, yeah. I think you get on a really tight budget on every dollar, but the point is big, hairy principal payments are much more important than the interest rate, because we're only dealing with a three-year period of time here. So if you want to refinance, that's fine. Must be fixed rate, must be a lesser rate than you are paying now on the two big ones, and then put it on whatever length of time you want to put it on. But keep in mind, that is not the answer. It's not what's going to solve your equation. What's going to solve your equation is what you're talking about, living on nothing and throwing $30,000 or $40,000 a year at these loans,

and then they'll be gone in around three years, and you're going to get there. Good question. Davina is in Jackson, Mississippi. Hi, Davina. How are you? Hello, Dave. Doing just fine. Good.

How can I help? Well, I have done a lot of extensive research in your CDs, in your books, and I just wanted to get some professional words of wisdom here and see if our situation may be a little bit different. Because my husband is going to be 50 this year. I'll be 49. He is self-employed in construction, and I really don't think he's going to be out there down in those manholes

and pouring concrete when he is 70 and 80 years old. So I'm wanting to find out if we should be sticking with the cut-and-dry snowball approach or if maybe we need to be aiming more toward our retirement funding and, of course, you know, keeping our bills current and getting things paid off as we can. But I've got written down right here after looking at the formula for the retirement monthly planning that if we're wanting $50,000 a year, then by looking at the amount of nest egg that we need and multiplying that times the factor for his age of 50, then we would need to be putting aside $1,806.25 per month toward retirement

if we're going to achieve that goal. So that right there is the first thing I'm trying to figure out. Well, the deal is this. What's your household income? Well, like I said, he's self-employed, but if we're talking about... What do you guys make a year that's taxable income on average? Okay, you got me on that one. I'm trying to recall.

If I had to guess, I would say that it's going to be about 80 before tax. Okay, that sounds probably right with the other numbers you gave me. How much debt do you have not counting your house? Not counting the house. Let's see. We have got approximately eight on a trailer. We have got a truck that's financed for $44,600. We have still got $7,600 on a credit card,

and we have got approximately $2,000 in doctor bills. Okay. You need to sell the truck. Yes, I agree. We've been talking about doing that very quickly. Okay. Truck's out of control. It's over half your annual income and tied up in a truck and that's what's blocking you. And then you do need to stick with the debt snowball and clean this up because your

most powerful wealth building tool is your income. And right now it's going out the door to other people in the form of debt payments. So yeah, you need to do your debt snowball, stop all investing and you need to do it with great, great, great focused intensity. Lots of overtime, beans and rice, rice and beans, no life. I'm scared about retirement so much that I'm going to live like no one else and get out of debt so later I can live and give like no one else. And you'll be okay. You're going to get there because I think you've woke up.

I think you woke up just in talking to you and listening to you. And you're dialing in on this. You're really doing the research. You're thinking about it. You've been on Chris Hogan's website. And we're in the R.I.Q. is what you're telling me there. And I'm proud of you. I think you're going to be fine.

But you're going to have to clean up the mess because when you don't have any payments but a house payment, then investing aggressively is very possible. But it's tough to do with a car payment on a $44,000 pickup. That's kind of prohibitive to doing all this. And so, yeah, just work your baby steps straight through. You're going to be there faster than you feel emotionally like you're there because once you woke up, you became suddenly impatient, which is wonderful. That's going to be the motivation that's going to drive you through this process. Hey, thanks for the call.

Christian is with us in Lincoln, Nebraska. Hi, Christian. How are you? Hey, Dave. Doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Well, my wife and I got on your plan about, I want to say, two months ago. She had a pretty big medical scare, and it all kind of started because she realized that we were in financial trouble. And I didn't think we were, but taking a bigger look at it, we were. So I got gazelle intense paid off everything the only thing left is our two cars i owe about 15 000 on mine and she owes about or we owe about 10 000 on hers um plan is to get that paid off by the end of the year hopefully a lot sooner. Good. My question is, I'm having troubles. I'm a worker. I always have been.

And when I saw this, the only way I do things is do it all in. So I got an extra job. Good. I've been working nights. I've been bartending, waiting tables. It's really good money. The only downside is I don't get off work until 11 midnight. Before I run out of time, what's your

question? My question is, is that ethically right for me to be missing time away from my family? Yes. Okay. On a temporary basis, it is. I did. It's not forever. It's for a short

period of time. your wife is having medical issues because of debt you are going out there and cleaning up the debt you are being a you're a superhero man okay and that'd be unethical for you to not do this i don't care who argues with all. I love talking about companies that know how to do business right. You've heard of Grip6 belts, right? Well, if you haven't, it's the only belt you can get online with no holes, no flap, and no bulk. I'm talking weightless, and the buckles come in really cool designs and are interchangeable. I personally own a number of these belts and they're so comfortable you forget you're wearing it. Plus these guys have a great story. BJ Minson started Grip6 on Kickstarter from his garage in 2014 and now sells hundreds of thousands of these American made belts to customers all over the world. As a mechanical engineer and a minimalist, BJ took his dislike for heavy, bulky leather

belts that never fit right and created the Perfect Belt, a high-quality, minimalist belt that gives the strength and support of a belt without even knowing you're wearing one. I'm really proud of these guys. Check out this month's special offers for my listeners at Grip6.com. Thanks for being with us, America. Courtney's with us in New Orleans. Hi, Courtney. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi. Thank you so much for talking with me today. My husband and I have had a wonderful few years and he and I have both been really fortunate in our careers and also blessed with our first little one. Yay! Yay! And we, in fact, have been so fortunate in our careers that we've hit a point that we're pretty certain we could live fairly comfortably off one income, and I'm really contemplating leaving my job to stay at home with our one-and-a-half-year-old. But I am having a really hard time making that decision and pulling the trigger,

the idea of leaving half of our... I work remotely for an advertising firm. And what do you make? I make about $120. And what does he make? He makes about $140. How much debt do you guys have? We have zero debt.

We're in baby steps four, five, and six. Woo-hoo! Yay! So it's a great problem to have, but really we've been so fortunate to be able to save a tremendous amount. What do you do for the advertising firm? I'm sorry?

What do you do for the advertising firm? I work in our corporate consulting team, and I've been with our firm for about 15 years. Now, what do you tactically do? What is your job description? I am a director in our firm and I work with some of our corporate clients on reputation and positioning. Okay, good. Brand positioning. All right, good. Well, there's a couple things pop into my head. One is if you're going to quit and you want to quit, you should. Okay? You want to be home with this baby. Your husband makes $120,000 a year.

Your own baby, step four, touchdown, quit. Okay? If you want to be sure that that's what you want to do financially, you could say for 90 days we're going to bank 100% of my check and run the budget as if it was his because that's what you're about to take on right and that could be like your little acid test and then you would feel emotionally a lot more comfortable i mean when you just say out loud i've got to live on 120 000 a year well when most people can figure that out right so yeah do it the second thing so that

that's the basics. Yes, you should follow your heart on this. There's nothing wrong with what you're doing. You could be raising the next president of the United States. I don't know. It could be a really great job you have right there. Okay, so the, not the next one, but a president of the United States. Probably not the next one.

But the, unless this one becomes emperor, but anyway, no, God help us. Uh, but anyway, the, uh, aside from that, the second thing that pops into my head is you are doing branding. Obviously we have a lot of marketing folks on our team here that do similar things. And, you know, positioning with individual clients. You could do a lot of that during nap time and go part-time remote and, you know, keep a couple of key clients that you have, you know, really good relationships with. That would be advantageous to you and your firm. And, you know, go to halftime or something and make 60 while the kid's asleep.

I mean, you really could. That's very possible from a, you know, a time management type of a thing. And for that matter, you could afford a nanny to come in and just to be there in the house with you for a few hours a week, not full-time, but just a few hours a week to enable you to, I mean, you could pay somebody 10 grand a year and enable you to make 60. Right. And still be there and be mom, you know, full, you'd be a full-time mom still. But just if they started screaming while you're in the middle of a Skype call or something, because they woke up from their nap, then you wouldn't have that. You'd have somebody to step in there, right?

That kind of thing. You don't have to do that. But what is running through my head is you are a very well-accomplished lady executive. And so my guess is you're not miserable at work. You just want to be with a baby. Absolutely. at work you just want to be with a baby absolutely um and you know we've been really fortunate both of us in our careers and you know just grappling with leaving behind what i've what i've built i kind of think you might want to scratch that itch just from a self-identity professional thing

you don't have to you don't financially have to but if just wanted to, that's a way you could do it is just keep a few key clients, if the agency wants you to. If not, you could just do some side branding as a hustle, as a side hustle. Is it morally wrong to leave that kind of, you know, income and opportunity on the table? No. Who knows what, you know, we don't know what life brings. No. Listen, you didn't leave your brains on the table.

You didn't leave your experience or your education on the table. They're still in your pocket. And if you need to do something, you can go back and do it. But basically, you know, I'll reverse engineer that on you. That's a phrase I'm using today for some reason. But let's just say, is it morally wrong to take 120 000 a year to be away from your kids you know that's that's a guilt trip the other way right absolutely so there's lots of guilt trips to go around in motherhood but no you're not morally wrong to raise your kids. I mean, you know, I always think about somebody like Billy Graham's mother or Franklin Graham's mother, for that matter, Billy's wife.

Right. And you think, OK, wouldn't you like to have had that job? You know, wouldn't you like to have had Abe Lincoln's mother's job? You know, would have been morally wrong for her to go be a professional lady and miss out on the training and the income or whatever that no, it's not. The whole thing is God gave you a set of skills and he gave you sets of instincts. And, you know, you're going to use those at different parts of different seasons of your life. And right now you got a baby at home and you want to be there with that baby. And you only got one shot at that. And that's what you want to do.

I'm with you. I'm with you. I want you to do it. I wouldn't tell you to do it if I thought you're going to lose your house or something like that. That's not what we're discussing. We're just talking about how fast you all build wealth versus not fast. Whoopty doopty. Yeah.

All you got to do is look in that kid's eyes while you're changing their diaper and you'll have to answer that question. You'll know you're not morally wrong. You're not morally wrong at all. And you're not morally wrong if you wanted to do is look in that kid's eyes while you're changing their diaper, and you'll have to answer that question. You'll know you're not morally wrong. You're not morally wrong at all. And you're not morally wrong if you wanted to keep doing it either. That's not a bad thing to be a lady executive if that's what you want to be. But you got a pretty clear situation here. I think you're going to do something part-time on the side while kiddo's sleeping because I think you're going to want to scratch that itch.

But that's not a moral statement or a spiritual statement or even a financial statement. I think that's more of a career coaching thing. I just think you're going to want that part of your brain activated, because I think that's who you are after talking to you. But you're just too articulate and so forth. But if you want to apply all of those skills to full-time motherhood and not make another dime for the next 32 years,'m fine with that that's what my wife did and she's very very bright and very well read and very accomplished and now she's full-time mimi the keeper of rufus the shih tzu and somebody's got to do it, right? Hey, thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money.

888-825-5225. Jim is on Twitter. What do you think of rent-to-buy schemes instead of mortgages? I think it's a really good deal for the landlord, not for the buyer. The property is still in their name. You're overpaying for the landlord, not for the buyer. The property is still in their name. You're overpaying for the rent. And the number of people who actually close on and end up owning the property in one of those is about four to five percent, four or five times out of a hundred. Those things actually close. And so what's it end up being? High rent. You paid more for the rent because

you thought you were going to buy, and you got sucked into, and I think the word you used, Jim, was right, a scheme. I don't think there was a Nigerian prince involved, but I still think it was a bad deal. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. show. Thank you. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 27, 17, As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. George Washington says, Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation. For it is better to be alone than in bad company.

George Washington just read a book the other day that had a series of biographies in it trying to think of the name of it um eric metas i can't ever pronounce eric's last name i like his writing too um m-e-t-a metaxas i think it said yeah i think that's right it's seven biographies and one of them was on george washington always forget, I love reading stuff on Washington because of his character. By the way, Eric's a good writer, but, and I love biographies of great men and women because they, you know, they inspire each of us to be great men and women then. And Washington's history, personal history, is absolutely amazing. I'd study him a little bit the first time I visited Mount Vernon many years ago.

The men and women of that character, we don't see them in the political spotlight anymore. They're just not out there much on either side of the aisle. Stephanie is in Oklahoma City. Hi, Stephanie. How are you?

I'm good. I saw you live at Life Church in Oklahoma City almost 11 years ago and at FPU, so I'm a big fan. Well, I'm honored. Thank you. Craig's a good friend of ours. It's a wonderful church. Yeah. So I'm a 43-year-old divorced mother of three boys. I've stayed home with my boys for almost 13 1⁄2 years. Their ages right now are 13, 11, and almost 9. I have completed baby steps 1, 2, and 3, and I'm almost done with baby step 6. I should have the house paid off by next September. That's my goal. Look at you.

Way to go. Yeah. You've got a hard road, kiddo. I got the house for the divorce and then sold it and used the equity to downsize and just been throwing money into the principal. But with my divorce, I also received half of my ex-husband's 401k in pension plan. And I also for myself have $39,000 in my own, I guess, Roth or IRA account that was rolled over when I left my corporate job. And it's got about $39,000 in it. What are you making?

I also have $30,000 in a money market account. What are you making? That's interesting. I am still a stay-at-home mom, so I am just with child support and alimony, I get about $80,000 a year. Oh. Yeah. Okay.

Divorce decree does not say anything about kids' college? He did not want to put that in there, nor did he want to put anything about cars for the kids either. Yeah, so it doesn't say anything about him paying for college at all. No. Obviously, he has an outrageously good income. Yes, he does. What is his income?

I don't think he has a problem with me staying home with the kids either, although that doesn't do much for my morale to get me back out in the real world. But it's nice that I'm able to be able to stay home with my kids still. Yeah, okay. Let's revisit that in a few minutes, but for right now, you're calling about kids' college. So your husband's income, your ex-husband's income is what? I honestly don't know anymore.

I would say upper 200s. Okay. All right. Good. Yeah. But as for myself, how do I pay for it? I understand. You have no indication from him.

I know legally he's not bound from the divorce decree to do anything but has he said hey i'll you know have y'all had conversations where he's you know where he said something like hey i think i'll help with some of this or not not necessarily with college or with cars or anything but i don't think he'll let them go without either yeah that's kind of what i'm thinking unless the unless there was just a really the relationship is just really sour. I mean, he sees the kids. He has visitation with them. Very little. Really?

I think monetarily that's what he can do, you know. Okay. All right. Well, obviously, you can begin budgeting aggressively towards kids' college, and you can start talking to the kids about well there's two or three things going on here we don't know that your dad's going to participate or that he isn't one way or the other we're certainly not throwing him under the bus but we're going to start preparing as if he isn't and that's going to involve you guys you know as you as you move

into high school you're going to start taking the ACT and taking a class on how to take the ACT. Because ACT scores are now super scored when it comes to getting into schools. And so you want to take them repeatedly. We're going to start talking about you going to a school we can afford, which is probably a state school in Oklahoma. A couple of good ones there, I've heard. And you can get into that. It's not going to be that expensive, and you can plan on working while you're in school, and I'm saving aggressively to try to help you, but I don't think I'm going to be in

a position to do 100%, so you're going to have to chip in if your dad doesn't. Okay? In terms of my own retirement, how is it looking with what I have already? How old are you? I'm 43. Okay. And there's an unknown amount in this pension that's still stuck in a quadro. So roughly I have $149,000 in retirement right now.

Yeah. I'm kind of thinking that somewhere in the next five years, your career needs to unfold for your encore. Right, right. What are you going to do? I don't know. I haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up yet. It's time.

It's time. Yes, I know. Because that's going to be good for your dignity, not to mention your income, not to mention your retirement. You're going to be fulfilled because you don't want to be sitting at home with no kids at home living on alimony right that would be just weird you know that'd be an empty shell of a life you don't want to do that and so the 30,000 that's sitting in that money market account is that fine just sitting there well i mean what you need to do is calculate three to

six months of expenses call that an emergency fund and anything above that car carve it up into two pieces and let's say that's i'll make up a number let's say that's 20 000 then that frees up 10 000 of that 30 to throw at some 529s and get them started for these three kids and you can start loading some money in these 529s and any other monies you can scrape out of your budget you can do that but you're debt-free did you say the house is paid for too it it will my goal is to have it paid off next september i've kept my mortgage payment the same at my old house and just threw it all at principal phenomenal okay and so then you're a hundred percent debt free and all you've got to

worry about is two things kids college and your retirement right and or whatever you spend on you to get tooled up for your next career right i'm doing real estate school right now oh good okay you might make an excellent real estate agent. That might be a lot of fun. And a really good one makes a lot of money. A really bad one makes nothing. Right. Yeah. So, but I mean, I know real estate agents make $200 or $300 a year.

So you could end up making more than him if you got after it and got out there and said, this is fun, and I'm having a blast showing houses and helping people get into homes and that kind of stuff. I think you could be really good at that. That's great. Yeah, let's go ahead and start pursuing some of that. And that's actually a really good choice because with teens, you've got a lot of flexibility, meaning that, you know,

when they're in school, you can work your butt off. And a few times in evenings or whatever, the oldest one can watch the other two and you can work your butt off and you can do a few things and start adding to your income here um and but it's a great way to work into a career gradually uh step by step incrementally over the next five years but i'm telling you by the time that nine-year-old is um 14 you need to be in gear you need to be in gear because you're gear because you're only four years then from launch for your sake. And I'm not panicked about your retirement. You're going to be okay on retirement.

You're not going to starve. But you've got the whole rest of your life to do something with your career, and you should. You owe it to yourself to do that. So, hey, good question. Thank you for calling in. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show and the books. Thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener.

I am Dave Ramsey, your host. 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. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show,

make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.