The Ramsey Show - App - You Breathe Easier Without Payments Choking You

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

📈⁠⁠ ⁠Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a free personalized plan.⁠⁠⁠ George Kamel and Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "I inherited $750,000, should I use it all to buy a house in cash?" "Is selling my house the only option for me to get out of debt?" "How do I navigate going through a divorce and expecting twins?" "Should I quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom?" "How do I begin to trust my husband after his financial infidelity?" "How do I convince my wife that keeping cash at home to hide it from the government isn't a good idea?" "I'm $300,000 in debt, how do I begin to pay this off?" "Can I afford to buy a Viper?" "We're millionaires but we still have anxiety about buying a vacation home" Next Steps: ✔️⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Help us make the show better. Please take this short survey.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET or⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠send us an email⁠⁠⁠⁠. 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Get episodes early in the free Ramsey Network app! ⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💵 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🛡️ ⁠Get trusted insurance coverage that fits your budget.⁠ 🎟️ ⁠⁠Two Weekends. One Life-Changing Experience. Get away with your spouse in Nashville. ⁠⁠ 📚 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Set and actually reach your goals with the NEW 2026 Ramsey Goal Planner! Hurry—they sell out every year!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect With Our Sponsors: Stop paying more and start shopping smarter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠ALDI⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 10% off your first month of⁠⁠⁠⁠ BetterHelp⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠Boost Mobile⁠⁠⁠⁠ to switch today! Learn more about⁠⁠⁠⁠ Christian Healthcare Ministries⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started today with⁠⁠⁠⁠ Churchill Mortgage⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 20% off when you join ⁠⁠⁠⁠DeleteMe⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠ FAIRWINDS Credit Union⁠⁠⁠⁠ for an exclusive account bundle! Find top health insurance plans at ⁠⁠⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠⁠⁠. Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at ⁠⁠⁠⁠Mama Bear Legal Forms⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠ NetSuite⁠⁠⁠⁠ today to learn more. For more information, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠SimpliSafe⁠⁠⁠⁠. Use promo code RAMSEY for 18% off at ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Nokbox⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started with ⁠⁠⁠⁠YRefy⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 844-2-RAMSEY. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠ Zander Insurance⁠⁠⁠⁠ for your free instant quote today!  Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💡 ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rachel Cruze Show⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🪑 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠⁠

Normal is broke, and common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. Where we help you with your life and your money, we're taking calls, If you want to call in, the numbers, triple-8-8-25-5-2-2-5. We'll get you on the line. I'm Jade Warshaw next to me. George Camel, in the place to be. I can't wait.

This is going to be fun. Do the people know? They know. Yeah, my wife and I, we just had our second baby, a beautiful little boy named Henry. So I'm coming into the show because I just needed to get out of the house, Jade. Listen, I wondered about that. Okay. We got a lot of help at home, though.

So she's doing great. Mom's doing great. Baby's doing great. We got applause in the lobby here. thank you guys so much so great i'm glad you're here with me in the co-pilot seat george let's take off to pittsburgh pennsylvania where we've got james on the line what's up james well congratulations on the new baby oh thank you uh you're very welcome so i just inherited $750,000 in a rough IRA wow from who i'm going i'm going to buy a new home um mainly because of

neighborhood. I'm currently in. It's time to find a new one and this spouse would like to be farther out in rural, central Pennsylvania. What I'm trying to figure out is what is a good amount to pay for a home. We've got a little disagreement of about 50 to 75,000 on what we should spend. Wow. So you know that, you know, bar none, hey, I want to spend this money on a house and you're just like, how much should we spend? Have you kind of looked at, you know, real estate in your area to find out, okay, we're looking for a three-bedroom, we're looking for this and this is what it costs? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've been on the MLS probably three hours a night for the last two weeks. And what are you finding? I'm finding a lot of prices coming down on homes that I didn't think

I could afford a month ago or that I wanted to pay for a month ago. And a lot of areas, and I've pretty much tossed away homes that definitely need. a lot of work or we don't have good pictures or I was a realtor 20 years ago and I'm astonished some of the the pictures they put on the MLS. I'm like, my God, buy a camera. Come on. So you're finding. What's your current house worth? Yeah.

160. It's worth 160 and is it paid for outright or do you owe on it or? No, I owe I owe 80,000 on it. I've got a 2.5% mortgage. I had the stupid thought of renting it after I buy another one, but the more I listen to show and more. I'm thinking, nope, I'm just going to sell the thing when I'm done and be done with it. So what's the plan? Is the plan that we're taking the proceeds of the current home sale and we're adding it to the $750 and we're spending that and buying the house in cash? Or tell me what you're... We're going to buy the house and cash and we'll put the current home

up for sale six months from now or whenever. That's not that big of a rush. So tell us the problem. Well, I'm trying to figure out out of that $750. because the rest of the money I'm going to work for five more years before I hit 67 and retire. My spouse is 30 years younger than I am. I want to make sure the house is paid for. They've got no

debt when I die and pass on to the great heavens. The only thing they're going to have is the spousal security to live off of and whatever they're making their stay-at-home artist. Okay, so that's where I want to camp out. That's where I want to camp out. So your spouse is 30 years younger. You've got the 750. Is this the only money to your name?

or do you have other 401k retirement money elsewhere? No, I have not had any type of work benefit in 15 years. I make $120,000 a year consistently. I work, you know, 65, 70 hours a week. So this is the part, this is the part where I'm not so sure I agree that you should spend the majority of this on buying a house because, A, we're not thinking, we're not thinking that either. The issue is, my spouse wants to spend maybe $2.25. I'm thinking, no, let's go $3.25.

And that's where we're at. I mean, because it makes a huge difference in central PA on what type of house we're going to get. Sure. So what would you do with the rest of the money? Let's say you did $3.25. It's sitting in a vanguard EFTs and it's going to sit there. Okay, and that becomes your retirement account essentially, your nest egg? Correct, yes.

So are you plug in those numbers in? So George has got... Yeah, how old are you now? I'm sorry? How old are you now? Current age? 62. Okay.

So let's say you let this ride to 80? Okay. And you have zero in it now. How much will be in there once you... Let's say how much are you going to dump into that account? Well, I'll probably... 10,000 a year, 15,000 year. I can put anything whatever because I have no debt now.

I thought you were going to do like hundreds of thousands. Why not dump like $400,000 in there and let compound growth do its thing for the next 18 years? Right. Because that would give you, let's say you did $400,000 in there. That's $2.4 million when you're 80. Nice. That's not a bad legacy to pass on to your loved ones.

Yeah, because you're still going to have the money from the home sale, too. So you're going to have plenty. You sell the house, you're going to pay off the mortgage as part of the sale and have some equity left over. Do you have anything in savings? Do you have a fully funded? emergency fund right now? My emergency fund will come out of this $750 because I've never had one and I know I need one.

But you said you've been making six figures for a while now? Right, and I was paying down. I was $142,000 in debt up until a month ago. Oh, wow. So you spent the last decade just cleaning up a mess? Exactly. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that we don't have a spending problem here to where you just spend this money within the next decade.

right right understood and what about your spouse do they work you said they're an artist yes but they don't spend any money at all it's almost impossible to get them to spend even 20 bucks yeah but do they make money um not a lot 20 25000 a year listen I want to find out how you can live on 20 dollars and be that frugal that's wild that takes starving artists to a whole new level yeah that does take it to a whole new level um I let me just tell you you this. With the situation that you're telling me, I'm going to just tell you what I think and you can take it or leave it. I think the spouse needs to find some way to bring in some money. I don't think you can just not do anything. And I don't think it's a fair argument to say,

well, they don't spend any money. Therefore, they don't need to make any money because they do spend money. And even if you don't view it that way, you're the one who called in and said, hey, I want to make sure they have something more, not just social security, right? So that person can help contribute to that. They've got 30 years on. you to start putting towards that. So I think that's a conversation that you need to have because the truth is this money was a windfall, right? It wasn't something that you worked to get and you guys got lucky to get this money. So I don't want you to have to rely on luck anymore. I want you to rely on, okay, we can have the wherewithal to do what we need to do to make sure we're set up

very, very well. So that's my two cents. And I do think there's some, there's some frugality, scarcity mentality with your spouse here that I think needs to be dealt with. And I don't know if that's therapy. I don't know what happened in her past. But it sounds like there's something here where she goes, I'm scared of having too much. I don't know if I can handle it. So get to the root of that and figure out what's actually going on there. Because I think what you're saying is reasonable. A $300,000 home in 2025. Everyone's going, well, sure. That's nothing. Yeah, you can do that. And matter of fact, I want you to check out our Ramsey trusted site. You can look at the housing market in your area. It's going to keep you up to date on the U.S. housing trends, up to the date

information, and also you can go on there to help you find a real estate agent in your area when you are ready to buy. So check that out. Yeah, be smart with this money. $750,000. It's a lot of money, but if you're not smart with it, especially when you're talking about something like house real estate purchases, it can be gone in two seconds. Gone with the wind. Gone with the wind, and you need that. To the phone lines we go, where we have Jesse in Maui, Hawaii. What's up, Jesse? Hi.

Congratulations on the new baby. Oh, thank you, Jesse. So kind. This is a fun day for me. It is a great day. Everyone's so nice. I know. How can we help, Jesse?

So I have started following you guys, like literally eating, breathing. sleeping, Ramsey. Oh, you. Frank the Kool-Aid. Yeah, I'm deep. But I want to just confirm if I indeed have to downsize my home in order

to survive this situation. Yeah, tell us more. Tell us what do you make every month. Yeah. Well, currently I'm making $6,000 with my part-time. I'm a nurse, but about three years ago, I got a divorce plus an injury.

and so I went I was at 135 and I was able to do everything but I assumed the debt for the divorce and I was unemployed with the injury with no income for several months oh shoot so now I'm working so yeah so I'm at the low end of a nurse's spectrum but I am applying and you know trying to find something that I can do are you able to work full time now yeah I'm full time but I'm not able to work like a floor. You know, like hospital kind walking. Yeah, so that limits your income. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. How long? Yeah. So I am, yeah. How long till you feel like you would be at kind of an optimal nurse's salary? And what would that be amount wise? Um, if I got the position that I'm trying to apply for, I'd make probably 10 to 11 starting, maybe 10,000 a month starting. Um,

And what's your mortgage payment every month? I could still supplement 39. I'm sorry, 29. No, I'm sorry, 29 in change. Even still. But. So right now it's about half of your income every month. Yeah, but I have a 1100 HOA, which is starting in January, going up.

And I have the debt. You must have a nice view. I have car. Plus loans. I do. I, you know, I like my house. And I was like yesterday, I was. like yesterday I was okay. I'm like, no, I can downside. I can sell and go get a condo, one

bedroom condo. But then this morning, I'm like, I like my house. What's the total payment with the 1,100 HOA? So it comes out. Oh, I'm sorry, you said 2,900. You said 2,900. That includes the HOA. No, the HOA is separate and they're raising it to 1100. So it's going to be $4,000 a month year shortly. Yeah. Okay. Which is like... That's the part that scares me.

I think 69% of my income according to the dollar. Yeah, I mean, you can't live like that. So the question... I know. The question is, in reality, the grandest scheme of reality, how quickly can you get to this $10,000 payday? And when I say get to it, I mean you're taking the check home. Well, it's with the state.

I applied for a job with... the state. So I don't have control, even if I, I put out some feelers with somebody who works in the department to try to feel out, you know, to keep my application. And they said they try to contact somebody. And that's, but yeah, that's the only line you have in the water? Yeah, because. Okay. And how long has it been there? How long, how long since you applied? I just applied last week. Okay. So. So we've got to, what I'm, why I'm asking these questions and why I'm being so direct is we've got to kind of have a breaking case of emergency button here to where you can't go on with this being 69% of your income for much longer. So if you said to me, Jade, I applied for this thing a week ago and I'm giving myself three weeks. If I don't, if I'm not pretty much 100 that this job is happening, I'm moving. And I feel like that because hey, this is your only line in the water. It's not like you're telling me,

hey, I've got a lot to choose from. One of these is going to pan out. You've got one line in the water, and it's been a week you haven't heard anything, and you're not really sure what lever you can pull and make it happen is what I'm gathering. To go back to my original salary, I have to go back to basically middle management or higher, and that's kind of what killed me in the first place, and why I was, I was going to take a break from it and go. Yeah, I don't want you to take a job that kills you just to keep a house you like. that's not worth it. Your quality of life will go down. And not to mention, let's just be honest,

even with the $10,000 a month, a $4,000 payment is still higher than what it should be. And it's not going down. With insurance and property taxes and HOA, that payment's only going to increase until you pay off the mortgage. So I think as my friend, Dr. John Deloney would say, we need to grieve the picture you had of your life where you are 100% healthy, married, here's what our life's going to look like. We have this beautiful home that we can afford, and now there's a different picture. And so I think we have to kind of choose reality and go, okay, what can I afford right now? Maybe one day we'll get back to this beautiful home or something like it, but right now you've got to do its best for you, especially with a pile

of debt to clean up. How much is the debt? Yeah. With the parent pluses that aren't in my name, but legally I think I'm responsible for them. No. Well, did you co-sign for that parent plus loan? Someone did. Yeah, it's in my ex-husband's name. Oh, you said you assumed all of the debt? I agreed that I would pay it so that he wouldn't touch the house. Okay, so it's part of the divorce agreement. Yeah, that's when I was still working. Like, I left him debt-free.

And if you sold the house, could you pay off all of your debt? What's the total debt, excluding the mortgage? $9,000. Okay, so you owe $99,000. And what's the house worth and what do you owe? Um, I owe 323, and, um, I couldn't, I'm crossing my fingers to put it on the market for 1.2. Okay, okay, good. So you would clear the debt and probably have enough money to purchase something in cash.

Yeah, I was hoping to downsize, um, to go to like a one-bedroom condo. Um, condo prices are dropping in Maui because of the fires and, um, just, there's new legislation about Airbnb's and such. So I was thinking if I sold, I could get a one-bedroom condo maybe for like 500 or something like that. You'd be in a very different place. Because here's the thing, even if you were able to pay the debt off, you still have the same problem in front of you. The mortgage is just simply too high for your income. And unless you see it going up to 15, 16,000 in the near future, it's still going to be a lot of your take-home pay,

taking away from your goals to pay off debt, get the emergency fund, and that's for the future. Yeah, not as a single person. Exactly. And if you're married again, we'll reassess the picture. Sure. So the 99,000, that's it for you. Yeah, that's including the parent pluses that I agreed to assume. Yeah. Listen, I think that's the move. I mean, you're not in my name, but, you know, I think. I think that's the move. You've got an opportunity here. You clear this mortgage. It's a headache for you anyway. you take some of the money that you're going to gain here. You pay off the $99,000. You find something that you can afford in cash.

And if it takes a while, if you say, hey, I'm going to rent for a bit until I maybe save up a little bit more if you need to, then so be it. I think right now, to George's point, you're starting a brand new life. And the good news is you've got some equity to build that life off of, but you also have time. Like there's nothing that says, I have to, now you do need to get out of this current. house. But there's nothing that says that you need to hurry up and buy the next one. You can take some time and really decide what a new property looks like in this phase of life. And I like that

for you. I'm breathing the freedom of having $800,000 to, yeah, take 500, throw it at a home, 300,000 left over, take 50 of that for an emergency fund. And you still have a quarter million down payment for your future home. And so I love that. I can, I breathe easier just thinking about that for her versus I make six and I owe four every single month. Yeah. Am I going to be able to eat and pay down my debt? You know what you're saying, George, some of the, some of the hardest advice that I feel like we have to give is to tell somebody to sell their home. But it's kind of like, what are you trading?

Because when you call in, you know, you're full of anxiety, you're full of stress. The payment is about to, you know, knock your block off. And so it's like you're so focused on wanting to keep your kung fu grip on that house. But if you would just let it go, like you said, you can finally breathe. The stress is gone. You don't have that crazy payment again. and you've given yourself the opportunity to get something that actually is sized right for your lifestyle, for your budget.

Listen, that's a win-win. Make that view a screensaver for now and put it on your vision board. We'll get back to it no time. But right now we've got to clean this mess up. We're wishing you the best. So for the year 2026, which is upcoming, don't just set your goals. You need to actually learn how to reach them. And the 2026 goal planner is here.

and packed with monthly content from myself, Rachel, and Dr. John Deloney that is going to help you stay on track with your money, your faith, and your relationships, and it's actually going to help you follow through on your goals for some of us for the first time ever. Now, remember, we sell out on this product every single year, so do not wait, make your purchase today. Get yours today for $49.97 at ramsysolutions.com slash store, or if you happen to be watching this on YouTube or the podcast, you can just click the link. in the description. All right, let's go to Nicole, who is in Ohio. Hey, Nicole. What's up? Hi, how are you guys? Doing good. How can we help? Good. So I have a kind of not really quick question.

So I am currently in school. I'm set to graduate at the end of this year. I left my job a year ago. My husband was making $60,000 a year. Um, very recently found out, um, I'm pregnant with twins. I've already got three kids. Wow. Um, yeah. However, here's where it starts getting a little wild. Um, we had a recent, um, chain of domestic events. So I now have a protection order against my soon to be ex husband. I'm filing for divorce. Oh my goodness. Um, so sorry. And I mean, with me, so I'm not working. I'm not set to graduate until later this year, and I have no savings. I have my only income is child support from my first two kids.

So I guess I'm kind of just like I don't really know what my next steps are. My parents, luckily I rent from a family member, a home from a family member. So like that asset was protected. Me and the kids were safe now, and that's where we are. but there's been talk of, like, should I just go on state benefits until these two babies are born? Should I go ahead and try to find a job now, even though I'm in school full time? Like, I just don't really know what to do. Well, I'm sorry that you're going through this.

This is really tough. I want to clarify a couple of things you said just to make sure I understand everything. So pregnant with twins, and that's from the soon-to-be-ex, but there's a number. another, there's another person from the other two babies that's paying you child support. Did I understand that correct? Okay. Yes. And you've not filed for divorce with your current ex, right? It's just you're separated? I'm actually filing this week. Okay. So you're filing this week because what I'm trying to account for is the no savings and the this and then that because the sooner that we can kind of get this wrapped up. Do you think this is going to be a thing where,

it's like lawyers and all this, or do you think it's something you can do in mediation and just get it done? I think he is going to fight it. So I have already contacted a lawyer. And actually, I took out a loan from a family member to pay for my retainer. Like I said, that's actually all going through this week. But I have a feeling he's going to try to drag it out. So, okay. Can you give us a picture of what you guys is financial picture is like what how much debt is there is there any money between the two of you is there any assets can you tell us that right quick so kind of luckily there won't be many assets um to split um me personally i do have student loans i will have about 60 grand when i'm done um but as far like the cars paid off the houses you know in a family

member's name. There was no big bank accounts, nothing like that. I guess it kind of paid off to be a little broke. So you'll likely walk away from this with 60 grand and your student loans and no money in the bank? Is that what you're assuming? Okay. Yes. What are you going to school for? Nursing. Okay. And that's done in December? Yes. And you can immediately get a nursing job or is there you need to take the exam? I will have to take the National Board, State Board, but other than that, yeah, and we've actually been encouraged to go ahead, start applying now, which I have, not as a nursing job, but I've applied for a position within a hospital. I'm just waiting to hear back.

Okay, and then what does child care look like for five kids? So my parents are both retired, so they watch the three now, and they'll watch these two when they're born also. Wow, that's a blessing in this nightmare, at least. Yeah. Okay, and they've committed to say, hey, we're going to watch all five? Yes. At no charge, or do you pay them? Nope.

I jokingly, when my mom quit her job, I was like, well, now you get paid in love, and she was like, yes, I do. Wow. Listen, that right there is enough to answer the question that you asked before because before you said, hey, do I need to go on basically government assisting? And so for me, I'm thinking, okay, your housing is covered because this is a family member's house that you're living in. You've got childcare, which for a lot of us is the next biggie. So out of your four, what I'm going to call five walls in this case and said the child care, out of those five walls, now we only have to cover food, transportation, right, keeping the utilities going. Are you working? Is there any way that you can work at all? Because you've got to have something coming in and do school on the side. Is there any way to make that happen?

Yeah. And like I did apply for a hospital job. It's not a nursing job yet. But they did say that like a role transition would be an option. Oh, great. Do you know what that role would pay? Is it more administrative? It's probably like 18 to 22 an hour would be my guess. Okay. And how many hours a week do you think? About 24, because I'm in school full-time. I'll actually, next, we're getting ready to start our next quarter, so I'll be in school three, sometimes four days a week. Okay. But you could still bring in, you know, 1,500 to 2 grand a month doing that part-time, which lets you survive through this period while finishing school. I would encourage you because you're this close and you have that child care provided, I would finish because this income is going to be your path to freedom. Yep. To getting rid of these loans. Yes, not finishing school isn't an option. It's just a matter of can I balance the school because nursing school is really hard on top of being pregnant with twins. it one of the twins do uh they are due in march okay oh if you can make it to the finish line and i listen twins is a whole other set of circumstances you know if you can get these first you know four or five

four months and keep working keep going to school i don't i'll be honest with you i don't know how long that's going to last carrying twins hopefully you're able to go till term how old are you uh 33 okay hopefully you're able to go till term, finish out at least your school year and get that going. But listen, that's my prayer. Because if you can do that, yeah, you can avoid government assistance. You've got so many people in your corner that seem to be willing to help you out. If you can avoid that because it's a trap. So if you can avoid that at all costs, I would. But if you hit a point where it's like, hey, the doctor's telling me I can't be on my feet. Doctors telling me I have bed rest, something like that. Listen, no one's going to judge you.

Or if you need insurance, like don't go a day without insurance. You have good insurance right now. and will you lose that? No, I'm actually, I am on, like, marketplace insurance right now. Okay. And who's paying for that? I am. Okay. And with the child support income, is that all you have right now?

Yes. What is that? That's less than, it's, like, $2.40 a week. Okay, $2.40 a week. It's enough to pay the house payment, and that's about it. Okay. So, you know, you take that $1,000 a month. add to it, you know, you're 20 hours a week, making $20 an hour at the other job,

you can make, you can make this happen. The question is just how long, you know, and how will you feel throughout this pregnancy as it continues on? So just my advice is make the most of it as early on as possible, right? Don't wait another second to get this part-time job going. Don't wait another second. Keep applying for those nursing positions. So the moment that you can take it, you're there, if that makes sense. Yeah. Oh, Nicole, if you can survive this, nothing's going to stop you in the future. This is the hardest season of your life, hopefully, and it's only going to be better from here on out, but you've got great support.

We're cheering you on to make it through this, hopefully, quickly, and as unscathed as you can be while taking care of all these kiddos. Yeah. Oh, we're thinking about you. You're in our thoughts and prayers. I want to know is, are you staying on track with the baby steps? Yes. Oh, it wasn't for me, was it?

Well, George, I sure hope you are for crying out loud. You couldn't stop me if you tried. I know I couldn't. But I want to know the folks out there, yeah, you listening, are you staying on track with the baby steps? Do you even know? Because if you don't, you need to take a quick quiz to check your progress. And when you take that quiz, you will receive a personalized plan.

That's just for you. In order to do that, simply head to the show notes and click on the link that's titled, Are You on Track with the Baby Steps? And you can complete the quiz, which I hope you do. All right, let's go straight to the phone lines where Carly is in Annapolis, Maryland. Hey, Carly. How can we help today? Hey, guys.

Thanks so much for taking my call. I was hoping to get an unbiased opinion on what my husband and I should do in this next chapter of our life. For contacts, we had our first son about four months ago. and I'm getting ready to head back to work, and I'm thinking I would like to step back and be a stay-at-home mom. Cool. And what's the debate here? So I feel like I am insane for giving up a six-figure salary, and that's what we're struggling with. What kind of six figures, like the ones, the twos, the fours?

Like, where are we at? The ones, okay. Okay. What's your household income, and what's your portion? of that? So I make about 125 and then my husband makes about 130. Awesome.

And we have no consumer debt and we just have our mortgage. Cool. And you have an emergency fund? We do. Love it. Have you guys done a sort of mock budget using every dollar to see what life would be like living off of just his take-home pay?

We have, but not on the every dollar platform. We've calculated everything. pretty much by hand. And I think we would be essentially breaking even every month without making major cutbacks. Breaking even as in, you could still invest 15% of his income and still have enough to throw a little to college, enough to throw a little bit at the mortgage, or what? We would have enough for, to be adding to his retirement and then saving for college, I think, would be very slim and then saving for my retirement on top of that would be a very small portion

as well. So when we say retirement, you kind of have it broken out by his and hers. We're thinking of it more as a grand percentage. So we're looking at 15% of your take home pay, which in this case would just be his take home pay. So 125,000 times 15%, that's 18,750 a year going into whatever retirement accounts. It could be a Roth IRA for each of you. You maxed both of those out. And then fund a little bit into his retirement plan at work. That works. But your retirement number overall will go down because you're not investing a portion of your income anymore. Right. Okay. So I think you guys are in great shape. If this is what you feel called to do, I would not let a high salary stop you. There's been lots of people who make even more money.

And they go, I feel called to this and we're going to make peace with it. So what I don't want you to do is say, oh my gosh, you're going to judge either way, Carly. Here's what happens in the mom world. you get judged for leaving the high-paying salary job, you get judged for staying home. So which one would you rather be judged for? I think I would rather be judged for being with my family. There we go. And guess what? You don't care about their opinion, do you? No, I do not. So that's the key. Are you secure with the decision you're making?

My wife struggled with this as well. She was here at Ramsey for nine years. At the top of her game, executive assistant, crushing it, making great money. and she decided, I feel called to this, and it's not an apples to apples thing. This is apples to oranges. So it's hard to compare 120, 130 grand versus being at home with baby. It just does, I wish it could work that way because I love just logical math problems. This is a values-based decision that is very emotional. Yeah, I just want to pull the string a little bit more and double check because the retirement thing threw me off a little bit for you. So what is your mortgage? Tell us your mortgage right quick. our monthly payment is 2,200 a month. Okay, and that's including HOAs and everything? Yep, that's everything. Okay, and he's bringing home what? He brings home about 5,400 a month.

So that's what our... That feels awfully low for a guy making $1.20. That's after retirement. Mm-hmm. Okay, what is it after taxes? Do you know what his... For tax pay is? Yeah, that is after taxes.

We bring home of his salary about $5,400 a month. Right. But that sounds like it's after taxes, after retirement, after insurance, after everything. Do you know what just his after tax pay is? I just want to make sure that you do have the money to do the things that George is saying. At the very least, you've got to be able to do the 15%. Okay. Yeah, I do not know that number off the time.

So that'd be your homework. If you were going to sit down with your home with your husband tonight to say, hey, I want to let's look at what you're making after taxes and then let's compare that to what our take home pay to what our mortgage is and kind of see where that lies because what you're looking for is you got to make sure he's not just investing up into the match that he's really doing 15% that's going to set you guys up for the long term. And then that can if it's out of balance, that could just be you doing something part time on the side here and there just to close that gap. I'm not suggesting that you have to keep working when you don't want to, but I want to make sure that the money is there to do the things that George is talking about

and to do them in the right ratio and in the right percentage. Okay. Yeah, so right now I know, so like we each get a 5% match and then we both contribute 10% to our 401ks, and then I contribute on the side to IRAs for the both of us. Okay. Okay. So, what sounds like you're there, just double-checking those numbers to make sure and doing them as a full percentage and just remembering, yeah, your money's not going to be there anymore, it's just going to be based on his salary. But I like it. I like the idea of staying home. Yeah, a lot of green lights here. And the fact of the matter is you might have to make sacrifices. Your lifestyle might look different. We might not eat out as much. We might need to, you know,

lower our self-care and fund money budget. But I think the trade-off is absolutely worth it. And if you ask anybody who stayed at home, who feels called to it, there's no, no regrets there. So I think you're thinking through the right thing. It's a values-based emotional decision that then leads to a math problem. Yeah, I agree. So those are the two parts we have to figure out. And if the values, emotion parts there, now it's just what sacrifices do we need to make? What must be true for this to happen and not be super stressful? Where we go, money is so tight that we can't breathe. Listen, very rarely, very rarely, it's like, no, you can't, like, you cannot stay home. Like, if you stay home, no one's eaten. I mean, we get calls from people making, you know,

50 grand household with a bunch of debt and they decide to have a stay-at-home spouse. So if they can do it, you can do it too. But it's going to take splitting your income and half, that's going to require lifestyle change no matter what. You got used to a certain level of life and now it's different. That is so true. That was a very good question. Thanks for the question. And to Jay, to your point, what we are digging at there with the housing parameter. If you've listened to the show for a long time, we say no more than 25% of your take-home pay going to the mortgage. A lot of people think we're the bad guy for saying that, George. Yeah, but what they don't understand is what would you mean by that is your after-tax monthly income. That's right. Before other

deductions. So don't include the 15% to retirement. Don't include the healthcare premiums you're paying out of your paycheck. And that really helps to get closer to that parameter. And again, it's a parameter. That's right. If it's 26%, we're not going to knock on your door and say, time to move out, bud. That's right. And on the 25% side of the mortgage, that's including your HOA. It's included the taxes and fees, right? So we want to make sure that we're holding those sides together. And like George said, if you're 30%, you'll live. You know, it's when you start creeping up in the 35, 40 for a long period of time, it's unsustainable at that point. So these are what we call rules of thumb. And the goal is just to not be house poor. The goal is to have extra money to put

toward your college funds for the kids to put extra toward the mortgage. Otherwise, just trying to scrape by, that's not going to be a good quality of life. Which let's play this out even further. Okay. So a lot of times people will call in here. They're engaged and they're about to get married. And they're telling us the plan is immediately they get married and immediately they buy a house, right? Which we tell people all the time, George, we're like, hey, why don't you wait a year? Like wait a year, rent, you know, get to get used to your new lifestyle. Because what a lot of times happens in that first year of marriage, George, if you buy a piece of real estate and then a year later, the wife is pregnant, what happens? They bought a house based on two salaries. And now they're having the downside. downsides. And so you already went from like wedding stress into house stress? It's a recipe for disaster. I know. I know. And so all of the advice that we give you, just remember

it's because we love you. It's because we want the best for you. We don't want you to experience stress. We want you to have financial peace, financial ease. Stick around. We'll help you with that. Normal is broke. Common sense is weird. So we're here to help you

transform your life and your money from the Ramsey Network in the Fair One's Credit Union Studio. This is the Ramsey show. To get involved in the call scene today, you can call AAA 825-5-2-2-25 to get your name on the line. I'm here hosting. My name's Jade Warshot next to me, George Camel. George, are you ready to get it on? I've never been more ready. All right, let's do it. We've got Elaine from Indiana on the line. What's up, Elaine? Yes. Hi, thanks for taking my call. Yeah. How can we help? Yeah. So I am dealing with a little bit of financial infidelity from my husband. And I'm just kind of wondering, you know, how we can move past that. The original incident, well, I mean, it's happened several times, but the kind of straw that broke the back was about a year ago. I learned that he had borrowed about $14,000 from his employer. Oh, gosh.

if they offered to pay off a debt that was trying to garnish his wages. What was that? What was that? He had started a business several years ago, and so we're working on paying off a lot of the consumer debt that was kind of left over from that. Did you know about that debt before he got the loan to pay it off? I did, and we did get a notice about the, they had out the lawsuit. It was a court date.

he said he went to the court date, explained to them that the business had been closed, and they kind of just said they were washing their hands of it, and I didn't hear anything else about it. So he made up that entire lie? I think he went. I don't know that it was actually, you know, white clean. I don't think you told me the full extent of it. Well, clearly it wasn't because then he turned around and borrowed it from his employer.

Right. Well, if somebody showed up at his work. a deputy or something, maybe, and with that order to garnish his wages. Instead of doing the garnishment, his employer paid it off, and they took a lump sum out of each one of his checks. And I didn't find out until about nine months after his checks had been... So essentially, he tried to avoid wage garnishment by having his employer do it for him. Exactly. And so that was about a year ago. I found out that, and I actually, you know, we have kids, and I was down at that point.

He's made a lot of stupid financial decisions in the past. But before you go, before you keep going forward, I want to keep pulling that first one. So they were garnishing the wages out of his checks, $14,000. How much? Because how did you not see that when he got his own bank account? Got you. Okay. So finances totally separate.

Okay. So he made a lot of moves to hide this from you. Mm-hmm, yeah. Like open another bank, then move the direct deposit to that new bank without your knowledge? And then, have you guys had separate finances in the past? No, they were together up until about two or three years ago. And ever since then, it's been, yeah. So you said this was not the first thing.

Give us another example of something, because this one's pretty extreme. Well, when he had his business open, I saw a bill in the mail for, you know, one of his, I guess, suppliers or somebody, and it was a lot more than, you know, I had anticipated. I'm going to ask him about it, and he was like, no, what's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong, it would say he'd take care of it. And then finally, when I call, they're like, no, like, we've been trying to get hold of you. This amount is correct. This equipment was never returned. Your bill's, you know, $15,000. as opposed to what you thought would have been 15,000 as opposed to?

Maybe a couple thousand, yeah. Okay, so these are big numbers. Yes. Have you asked him directly of why are you lying about all this? What's behind it? He says that he knows that it stresses me out and so that he's just trying to take care of it himself without me having to know about it.

So take care of it means more lies, more hiding things. Correct. And you've made it clear that's not how you're going to rebuild trust in this marriage. Right. Yes. Has he fully owned up to all this? Where is he at today? Well, that was a year ago. And, you know, when I said that I was done and I was tired of him lying and hiding things from me.

And I actually moved in with the kids with some family and we, you know, he cried and hell never do it again. And so we decided to work on things. So we're living with family and collectively, you know, we have probably about $90,000 of debt from the same. previous, you know, company that he had started a bit and work out. So we said, we'll tackle it together. Well, a few weeks ago, I found out that somebody else had tried to, you know, sue him or whatever it was, and he got another loan from this company. Oh.

This one was only $3,000. Yep. And that for the past three months, he's been paying that off, and it's paid off now. And we were able to pay off the $14,000 one, you know, once I found out. about it and I said let's put everything towards it and so we did that so I thought everything was good after that and then but you guys you never you never really sat down and and counseled your way through this it was kind of just like let's try it again let's try it again let's try it again right I'm not really defensive you know here's a thing you're telling us this I 100% believe

what you're saying you said he you know you left him and he cried and all this stuff I don't know what the word is for that, but there's a word for the fact that he's making a mistake, but he's putting it on you by saying, I don't want you to be stressed. I don't want you to be the one that's upset. This is too much for you. Like, there's a word for that. I don't know what it is, but I know I don't like it. And there's just part of this where, yeah, you've outlined many instances, and yet he continues to do the same kind of crazy erratic behavior with his debt and with his money. Yeah, I would. I would sit down. with a counselor and in the meantime yeah I would keep the money separate and I wouldn't do much more

on this until you can sit down with somebody and say here's what's going on I don't know why my husband is continuing to do this behavior maybe I maybe I do have a hand in it I'm willing to own if I do right and you guys both sit down and until you've given this a fair shake with the help of a professional you know that's what I really want for both of you because something is and I'm not apologizing or giving merit to what he's doing. But something's causing him to do this, whether it's some sort of scarcity mind, the way he grew up,

some piece of him is feeling like he's got to control this and hide it from you. I don't know why. And I'm not saying that it's right, but I hope you guys can get to the bottom of it. And if it were me in the meantime, yeah, I would set some really clear boundaries. George, I'd be like, listen,

you have disrespected me and our family and our money and you've put us in an unsafe position. And because of that, I can't be, I can't be linked with money because I got to keep our family safe. So my question for you, Elaine, is do you earn any money? I do. And, you know, combined, we do make a decent. I mean, we bring in about $135,000 a year. About 45 of that is from myself. Okay. So you're bringing in 45. So what I would say is this. I'd say, what would make me feel safe while we're in counseling is for us to put our money,

into this account. And I will give you full transparency into what I'm doing with the money, but you're taking our money and you're putting it on debt and you're making payments and you're putting us in an unsafe space. Will you go to counseling with me? And if he says, no, he won't and no, he won't combine the money, then now that's your chance for you to take that to counseling and figure out what you need to do next because you can't control him. Yeah, you need consistent honesty from him over time and prove through actions. Those are the two things that will rebuild trust. And if he's unwilling to do that, that is him opting out of this relationship. So you guys need to go through counseling and start to set those guardrails and boundaries

and work towards healing. If you are a listener of the Ramsey show, you are listening to my voice right now. And I'm grateful that you are. And if this show has done anything great for you, I want you to help spread the word. You can like and subscribe. to and share the show by doing that on whatever platform you're on. We've got the Ramsey 101 playlist, so

that's a great way for you to share the show on YouTube with other folks. Or if you're a person and you like, you know, looking at our social medias and we post clips from the show and you think they're, you know, funny or helpful. Use little paper airplane icon and hit it and share it with somebody. Share a clip.

Yeah. You never know who's going to watch it and go, hmm, tell me more. Tell me more. And it's helpful for everybody involved, especially as it helps with the algorithms. So it's something you can do that's totally easy, totally free, and totally makes a big difference. All right, let's go to Bill in Illinois. What's up, Bill? Hi, how are you guys doing? First of all, I want to say that it really is a pleasure for me with you allowing me to speak with you today. It is an honor. And I have a question regarding what my wife would like to do. And basically, I want to,

find out what is the best way to convince my wife that keeping cash out of circulation, meaning out of bank accounts, you know, that it isn't a good idea. And there is a backstory to that if, you know, you'd like to hear that. Sure. How old are you two? I am 62 and she is 64 and we've been married for six years. Okay. And I assume part of the backstory is there's some trauma from the past where she is, has the, her security gland is just popping off going, we cannot keep this money out there. Was there theft in her life? Was there, was she poor at one point? What happened? Well, you're a little bit right. It deals with her dad, my father-in-law. And he was placed in a nursing home in 2021 and passed away in 2024. He had no savings to speak of. And he had the Social Security.

income, which of course was taken by the nursing home, and he possessed several low-value properties to include his home, which sold for $40,000 in 2023. So in addition to Medicaid, the state of Illinois conducted an audit of his assets that my wife had to painstakingly research to include collecting and researching all his bank statements and she had to account for every penny he had spent for the last three years and that consisted of going to the bank and explaining the situation to them and you know pulling all those bank statements and then she had to provide a reason why assets which he was a mechanic he had some old cars and they were sold and she had to backtrack to find out when they were sold

to whom and for how much. So she's just sick of dealing with banks and money and all of... Yeah. Right. And it was very painstaking and loss of sleep, tears. And of course, you know, when a spouse feels stress, the other spouse is going to feel that too. And there wasn't much I could do as far as, you know, consoling besides helping the best that I could. and then after doing our internal audit, making sure that we have all the documents,

they provided a very long checklist that we had to follow, and we did. And that's to say that my wife did. She's very meticulous, but they kept rejecting them, stating they were incomplete. All the documents that were provided, they'd come up with certain things. No, no. So here, let me cut you short for a minute, because what you're describing is the result of poor estate planning. It's...

Oh, there's no doubt. And that's the government bureaucracy on top of that. Exactly. So you get both and there. And what you're attempting to do is avoid that completely because what you can do is manage your money properly so that whoever precedes you and outlives you doesn't have to go through the bureaucracy that she had to go through, right? So if we can help her to understand that, I think we can win this battle.

How much money is she wanting to keep on hand in cash at the house? Right now, we got 25 and probably around 75. 25 and 75 or 75 total? 75 total. $75,000 just sitting in a safe? Right. And she says that would make her comfortable. And of course, being her husband, I want to make her comfortable.

And you guys are not broke. If you have 75 grand sitting around. Well, is that the only money to your name? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. There's retirement accounts. There's, you have a house, all of that? Absolutely.

What's your net worth? Well, the only debt we have is the house, which is, it'll be less than 102 after our payments that we make this month. What's it worth? The house is worth 304, according to Zillow. And what do you have in retirement accounts that are invested? We have a total of $652,349. Okay, great. And so she's just saying, hey, this $75,000, that's your emergency fund,

more than three to six months of expenses, probably. She's like, I don't want to keep that in HYSA. I just feel better having some cash money in a safe in the house. Is that basically what you're saying? that is correct so if i were to go into a home she didn't want to be in the same type of situation to where um i'm retired military so i feel that i would based on things that i've been exposed to throughout my military career that i would be the first one to go in and i just want her to not have to worry about the same things that she had to go through um with her dad and his estate

we are more organized. We have, I mean, you are. I can already tell that you are. And here's the thing, this $75,000 is neither here nor there in the conversation that you're having. The whole idea of estate planning and being well prepared, that really has nothing to do with the $75,000. This is a small detail of a bigger estate that it sounds like you have planned. The biggest thing to make sure that she feels good is you both, yeah, you both need a will. You both need to probably sit down and find out, is there enough wealth or is there enough transferring going on that maybe you need a trust, right? So that's the bigger conversation. And you guys can sit down and have that. You can take the will's quiz that we have that will decide if you can make a will on the spot or if you need to go a little bit deeper and do a trust or something like that. So that's your homework. And when you get off the phone, Kelly will pick up and make sure you're set up with that will's quiz. But this $75,000, listen, I'd probably split the difference with her. Honestly, I would say, hey, sure, we'll put half in high yield savings. And if we get a

safe for the house, we can put half there. I really don't care much on it. Yeah, you're going to lose out on a little bit of, you know, compound growth from the interest. But I particularly with what she's been through, I wouldn't die on this hill. I would maybe, like I said, try to get half of it in the bank. But the bigger, I mean, do you agree, George, the bigger conversation is not this 75,000? Yeah, I mean, It's a small part of your world collectively. You guys are just about millionaires. And so this is not a make or break, but I do think we need to deal with the scarcity mindset behind it

and helping understand, hey, what happened in the past is not going to happen in the future because we're setting our life up in a very different way than your father did. And there's more risk in her having it in a safe at home than there is having it in a bank account. There is a higher percentage chance that a natural disaster, theft, loss,

inflation eating away on the buying power versus having it grow in a high-yield savings account. There's more risk there than there is of the government's going to come take this money one day to pay for your home, to pay down. I don't know if other states have this, but in Illinois, there's a spousal impoverishment law. So hypothetically, if we had separate savings account and I went into a nursing home and then where we couldn't or my wife couldn't pay any more for the nursing home, they would start going after my assets, and I would feel that will protect.

But you're going to have a net worth. Your net worth is going to be so much so that you guys are going to be able to just live off of the interest and that nest egg is going to be there to provide for care. Because to your point, the average person is only in a nursing home under three years. So it's not going to be 10 years of draining this account down. And I would personally work with an estate planning attorney to walk her through all of this, to have a professional go, hey, here's how to protect the stuff you're talking about. here's what will and won't happen in the future based on how we set this up.

That will give her some critical confidence she needs. Yeah. I'm so sorry you're going through this, man. That's tough. Back to the phone lines. We go. What's up, Taylor? Hey, thanks so much for taking my call. We'll be recorded.

Are you recording me? Thank you so much for... What's that about? Taylor, are you still here? You know, we're going to record this too for quality assurance. Hello? Yeah, we're here. We're just making fun of you. Sorry, yeah.

I wanted to record it for my fiancé, because my question is that we recently got engaged in April, and now we are in the wedding planning process, and I wanted to know what you guys recommend for a budget based on our current finance date, And then also, when we're in a non-traditional situation where most of the wedding is going to be coming out of our own pockets and my family won't be paying for it, how can we split up that given that we do make different income? Yeah. Okay, good questions. So is this so that you can prove to him that you're right? So you're recording it just to, is this really a settle of debate?

No, just, yeah, just information gathering. And to be fully transparent, I don't know if I've even fully sold him on having a wedding. What? He has a proposed. He has also brought up elopement. Well, he's proposed. We're getting married, but the actual wedding ceremony and the whole party for all of our friends and family versus just the two of us going on a vacation together and probably cutting that cost in a quarter, if not half. What's his argument for eloping? It'll be cheaper. That's it. And is it because you guys are in dire financial straits? No, so to give you a little background, he w-tued about 180. last year. IW2 to about 120. I also do some babysitting on the side to try and make up for some extra income. He also started a new company last year, and he anticipates to bring in about

an additional $100,000 just this year alone. We do have a house together, so we broke the naughty rule. That was before we started listening to your show. And we bought it in 2021. It was $396,000. Our current principal is about $3,000. 20. Okay. Our regular monthly payment is about $2,000, $2,400, but we always pay more. We usually pay between $3,000 and $3,500 per month. Do you guys split that mortgage evenly? Yes, we do. So he's just kind of a little bit, he's just being a little stingy with the wedding purse strings is what it sounds like, right? You got money. How much are you looking to spend? So that was kind of my question to you guys as well as what's an appropriate amount.

based on our current finances. Based on what I've been researching, I'm thinking between like $50,000 and $70,000. And when would that be? Do you guys have a date in mind? Next year. Okay. 2026, probably towards the end, like fall. So let's say one year from now, we need $50,000 saved.

You guys could do that real easily. If you split it up 25 each, let's say, could you save up 25 in 12 months, making 120? Could he save up 25, making at least 180? The answer is yes. You guys have no debt other than the mortgage? We also have a boat. We owe about 30,000 left on that. Oh gosh. Okay. You could knock that out and save up for this wedding, no problem within a year. So as far as who's right and who's wrong, I don't think it's a, you know, if he wants to elope, that's on him. But you, your dreams and vision is involved now if you're getting married. And so you want to throw a party. Let's have a compromise because you are throwing a party for everyone else. That's what you're doing. That's really

the bulk of the cost of a wedding. And so understand that going in. Decide on a number. You're clearly the like the nerd in this situation. You know your numbers really well. So you run the wedding budget and say, hey, here's what we need to save up each month to make this happen. Are you committed? The only part that I might push a little bit in a different direction, not a different direction, but a little different is the actual split, like how you split it. I might do it by looking at the budgets because the truth is he makes a decent amount more than you, especially if he's making that additional $100,000 this year. So he probably has more margin to put towards it than possibly you do. But I would do that process together. I would sit down, I mean,

I'm saying this from, it sounds like you guys have already combined everything, but I'm trying to be correct here. So I'd sit down and look at your budget and say, here's the margin I have, him look at his paycheck and budget and say, here's the margin I have. And then you guys together decide, well, it makes sense that he would put this much and you would put that much based on your own margins. Does that make sense? Yes, exactly. And I did also want to mention my parents are gifting us $15,000 to do with it as we please, whether that's elopement, whether that wants to go towards our house debt, our boat debt, a wedding. They kind of are just saying, congratulations on taking the steps, do with it as you wish. Nice. So then we would just have to

split the difference. And also, I have $130,000 in my bank, and he has about $40,000 in savings. So we kind of are already there. I mean, obviously, those are emergency funds. But that's where it's just, you know, frustrating getting over the curve of why we can't afford this wedding when I feel like we are both in a very... No, you can't afford it. He needs to change his language and just get to the root of what's actually behind it. And it might just be, I really don't want to spend a bunch of money to throw other people a party. And that's fine, but he still has to put on a, you know, brave face, smile, have a good time. He wants the money to go towards his new business.

Yes. Yeah. The business of, yeah, a new boat with $50,000. Exactly. Well, he's going to have to get used to this because marriage is a team. And so the part I don't like about the, well, my, I make this and he makes this. We should, well, that's going to become tit for tat scorekeeping for the rest of your marriage. It's going to become, well, you made more this year.

So really you should apply more towards. this goal and I'm going to apply this much, that's an exhausting way to live. And I hope that when you're married and it happens sooner rather than later, which you could get married next month with the money you guys have. Nobody needs 130 grand emergency fund. You're doing great. I'm happy for you. But really, you could have this wedding four months from now. Yeah. And then move on with your lives, be completely debt free, throw the rest toward the mortgage and start to build a life together instead of one that's separate where, well, he made this and I made this. So this is how we're going to do things this year. Yeah, I'm 100% in with George. What is not going to be the case is

whoever makes more gets to make the decisions. It cannot be that and it can't start down that path. So the good news is you guys have some time to keep having this conversation, try to have it in a lighthearted way, but take detailed notes because how he reacts to this is going to tell you a lot about who he's going to be going forward. Man, wedding planning will reveal who you really are. It sure will. It is stressful. It's a lot. but it can be a fun season if you do it right and you guys are aligned from the get-go instead of have you know bickering about it the entire way there that's not going to be fun does it make it easier when your wedding's free well here's the thing jade we had a free wedding but the

parameters around it we had 50 people so if you guys don't know listening to the show my wife found a local wedding contest and we won that's so crazy but they only let 50 people that includes bride groom bridal party and guess has to add up to 50 that's the total amount total number okay which means we had to exclude most of our friends and family yeah you know a lot of people so we had to throw another party later that day which ended up costing about half of a normal you had two weddings on one day exactly we had a wedding reception and then another reception i don't think i realized that i was exhausted but it was a great time highly blessed and favored oh my god man weddings are just that were really test your you and your future spouse it will

I feel like Sam and I's wedding was pretty smooth for the most part. The biggest thing was I remember getting in kind of a debacle with another family member who was getting married at the same, around the same time. So around like dates. Like who is going to get married on which date? Here's my take. If mom and dad or mother-in-law and father-in-law want to invite extra people who you don't even know, they cover the bill for those people. Oh, man. That needs to be written.

Moses needs to chisel that in stone because that is, man. I know you want your old friend from college. there, but I'm not paying $120.20 a plate for them to maybe show up. Come on, man. Do you know what I read? I read a good rule of thumb is when you're making the guest list. So if you're going down and you're like, oh, Bob from college, should I invite him? You know, or like, Eddie, we used to be roommates, right? You're like going down the list. You're supposed to think about 10 years from that point. Like 10 years from now, will me and Eddie, will me and Bob still be, well, we still have the relationship we have today? Will it be better,

worse and kind of like foresee that. And if you can't see them in your life 10 years from now, don't invite them. Which, listen, that leaves out a lot of coworkers. Yeah, I'm not getting invited. I know that. I'm going to cut from the list real quick. And I think about that. Sometimes if people are getting married around me and I wasn't invited, I really stop and think about it. I'm like, listen, 10 years from now, you're a ghost. Like, we don't know each other. Be very judicious with your wedding planning friends. well if you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and feeling like you just can't get ahead number one i've been where you are and i'm going to tell you the antidote is you need to join our free

every dollar trainings guys there are new trainings every single week this month and they're all hosted by one of our ramsie personalities i actually did one today george on my lunch break wonderful yep and we're going to show you how to stick to the budget and even find up to $3,015 of margin using every dollar. That's impressive. It's a lot. 30 days, 3 grand on the line. Come on.

What do you got to lose? Nothing. Your debt. A. Okay. In distress. That's what I'm talking about. Plus, you can ask any questions that you might have during a live Q&A that takes

place at the end. So if you're interested in that, you can sign up for free at ramsysolutions.com slash webinar. Be there or B Square. All right. Scott is in Orlando, Florida. Hey, Scott. How can we help?

Hey, guys, how's it going? Doing good. Good. You know, there's some intro music whenever I signed in. I got to feel that's the last time I'm going to be dancing. Oh, man. Oh, no. I just started listening to this show, and I realized I need to make some changes.

And so I was just calling for some advice. Well, the good news is this is as bad as it's going to get. It's going to be easier from here on now. How much debt do you have? I've got about $300,000 in debt. Okay, break it down for us. It is, most of it's student loans. I got about $220,000 in student loans,

and then the rest of it is IRS that I have about $80,000 in taxes on that I said pay back. Wow, were you self-employed? How did you rack up $80,000 to the government? Yeah, so I ended up in both of these situations after college and term pro at golf. And I traveled around playing golf. And so this year, I got audited for, I've been using a Schedule C, I got audited for all my tax years from, I don't know, 2015, 16, something like that. And the auditor felt as if it didn't cost as much as it does for me to play.

So I had some losses on some of those years. And so he disallowed all of my Schedule Cs and then said, I owe this money back. Okay. So that's kind of how I ended up in that part of the situation. And then the same thing with the student loans. It was like while I was traveling in the world and traveling the country playing, obviously I wasn't paying back my student loans. Yikes.

It's just rack it up. What was your degree in? I got a bachelor's in business management. I have an MBA. And then about, well, I was about halfway through a Ph.D. Wow. Um, and, um, I decided out some at a point that it was time for me to stop that once I started, you know, listen to you guys, I realize all I'm doing is continuing to borrow money and put myself in a deeper hole. And I don't believe based on what I do for a living. Are you still golfing professionally? I, I am still doing it, but I'm doing it in a much different way to where I'm just doing stuff locally. Um, and if I can get to the point to where I'm, you know, playing at a high level to where I can make some good money doing it, I will.

What kind of money do you make? From work? Just, yeah, golfing, work, all of it. Yeah. In general, I make about $120,000 a year. Are you using your degree right now, doing something full-time, and then golfing on the side?

Yes. I'm working full-time, just like as a district manager in retail, and it allows me to have a little bit of flexibility to be able to practice and stuff like that during the days. And I also have a girlfriend, I've been with for a very long time, and so she makes decent money as well. So that's how I'm able to even be able to still play some and participate some

because, you know, I've got to put up all that money myself or these events and stuff like that. Are you doing any coaching lessons right now? I do just a little bit. I do this program where I teach veterans or people that have been wounded in the military and the PGA gives us a little bit of money. money for doing those lessons. It's not a lot. I probably make like about $4,000. Okay. But on top of that, could you start consistently coaching and doing private lessons?

Because you can make good money doing that locally without having to travel. That would be a great idea. And it's something that I think I need to figure out how I can just get started doing it. I mean, I'm certified to teach. And I've got an MBA. So you know how to start a business. That is true. Definitely true. And I lost just as it for, you guys will know. I lost. I had when I was playing, I was playing pretty well, and my agent stole all of my money. And he went to, no, it's fine. It was my fault. I didn't need an agent, but I didn't know when you're 21. Sometimes you just don't know stopping. Oh, that's tough. He stole about a quarter of a million dollars for me. And so that was everything I had. And then I just started borrowing to try and,

you know, keep going. And that's how I ended up here. So you're back here. You're back here. You're have checked that the 80,000 that you owe to the IRS is legit. You actually do owe that money. Good news is you have a good income and a lot of ways that you can supplement that on top, which George outlined. So from there, kind of how can we help? Give us a closer look at what your real problem is. Is it just knowing what debt to pay first? Is it having the motivation to put the money onto the debt and not spend it elsewhere? Kind of where's your pain point? I mean, I'd say that's the biggest thing for me. I find myself spending money on stuff that I don't feel like I should or even did I spend money on and I just

got to make some better decisions so I was looking for I just needed to talk to somebody to be honest I'm just getting going on there and I really wanted to talk to somebody that could um at least maybe it's been through somewhat of it um hey jade warshaw's been there man listen was it 468000 you guys paid off when he said his student loans 220 yeah we had 280 of student loans and our total amount was $460, not including our mortgage. So I kind of feel where you're at. And hey, here's the good news for you, Scott. You're making far more money than Sam and I were when we got started. So I really, I think for you, this is actually going to go a lot faster than you think it will. But what I hear, George, is we need a really strong why. Like, why are you doing this?

Because that's going to be the thing that you connect to every time you want to spend money on something else every time times get hard every time your girlfriend says let's take a trip to the Bahamas right you need something to tie back to and go why do I really why is it important for me to get this done what's it going to mean for my future what's it going to mean for the life that I see myself living and I think that it could be a good idea for you to sit down and spend some time kind of just plotting that out like where do you see yourself in 10 years what does that look like and be so detailed. Does it look like you having your own golf business

where you're teaching lessons and I don't know, I'm just making something up? Does it look like you, I don't know what it looks like. Only you can know that. Do you run a golf shop for a time? I don't know. But the math here is how much can I make and how little can I spend

to create enough margin to tackle this without taking a decade? And so the math there is pretty simple. If you can throw $4,000 a month of the debt, you're done in a little over six years. If you can throw five grand at the debt, we're done in five years. And so you can start to kind of get a picture of where you're going to be four or five years from now based on how much you're currently throwing at the debt.

And if you don't like the number you see, increase the income, decrease the expenses. And so like Jade said, you need to have your I've had at moment, this I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired versus I guess it's time to pay off this debt. Might as well get a start on this. I want to feel some urgency here to where you go, I'm going to be working every single weekend. my girlfriend's not going to see me and maybe marriage is in the future and you guys combining comes and that speeds up this whole process yeah and I listen I do want to take you to task just a little bit on the girlfriend thing because I don't know and you can stop me if I'm wrong because I just want

to be your friend here it's what I heard it sounds like you and your girlfriend are you guys living together we are living together okay and so it kind of sounds like you're combining your monies a little bit and that's making it feel like you have more than you really have. And I have a feeling that if you are on your own, in your own space with only access to your own money, I think you would feel the weight of this a little bit more or a lot more and it would cause you to get that fire lit under your butt like you need. So there might be part of this that do you see what I'm saying? Put yourself in a position to win and to feel the things that you need to feel because you know you're athlete like you're you're a competitor you know what it

takes for you to compete at your highest level and sometimes it's that you know what i'm talking about george you just need that push that i wouldn't get married as like a debt payoff hack but i would get married as an intentional life hack there you go interesting listen we're going to finish it off with a hot take get married and pay that debt All right, welcome back to The Ramsey Show. We're here in the Fair One's Credit Union Studio, taking calls about your life and money. Let's get straight to the phone lines. We've got Nicole, who's in Washington.

Nicole, how can we help today? Hi. Yeah, so my significant another and I have been together for about five years, not married, and I've been contributing toward the mortgage for about four years now. And in addition to that, I have probably also contributed about 12,000. thousand dollars towards house remodel and property updates. And we had kind of, we started the conversation that we need to figure out how to protect me financially since I'm putting money into the home and hadn't really got very far.

And then to add to the complication, my significant other's father built a shop on our property. And so now we have a third party who has basically invested in the property. and we're really stuck as to kind of like where to go from here. Yikes. Okay. Well, here's the simplest answer. Get married. Well, I would love for that to be the simplest answer. What's stopping it? Well, a couple of reasons. So he is divorced. My second father's divorce was finalized in 2022. Okay.

And so he's a little like married shy, his excheed on him. And then he's, He, like, had to pay out a lot of money financially for the divorce. Did he go to counseling? He did not. Okay. He's not really a big fan of counseling. Does he want to get better? He's a fan of a renter with benefits, so I think he can't have it both ways here.

You're clearly resentful that you're paying toward this thing that you don't own, which adds a lot of risk to your life. Because if you guys broke up tomorrow, you get nothing. And it's been five years. It's not like it's been five months. I'm actually not resentful. I was fully aware that this might be the case going into the relationship. It was a, we're both in our 40s. It was actually a very thorough discussion that it might take him a while to get to the marriage, you know, spot again. But then there's also. Is there a cutoff though? Because five years is a long time. Like, let me tell you, I admire your, you have had patience here and I admire your ability to try to see it and walk in his shoes and understand it from. his perspective, I think that's great. But what I do think is missing is there's no time frame.

And there's no skin in the game on his part to actually heal and move forward and commit to this relationship other than you helping pay his bills and renovate his house. And I think you deserve a little more than that. Oh, he, no, he is totally on board that I need to be protected here. Like, he is not questioning that at all. So how can we do that lawfully and not just a spit shake agreement? right well so yeah so there's that there's what's my financial contribution but now there's also his father's financial contribution contribution toward the property and i had started doing my research but

like all these terms kept coming up and i started to get really overwhelmed by everything and also in my search is when i started assembling across all the ramsy stuff and so i was like maybe i just need to go. Yeah. You're right. The father-in-law adding a shop to the property definitely through a wrench and things. Okay, let's look at this as it is. So the house is completely in your boyfriend's name. Yes? Correct. Yes. Okay. And you guys, I guess it sounds like you're splitting the payment every month. Yeah. So we basically, everything's cut down the middle as far as standard expenses go, mortgage utilities, all that. Okay. And then you've also put $5,000. into a remodel?

No, about 12,000. 12,000. So here's the thing. Like, I'm about to say something, but it's going to sound ridiculous even coming out of my mouth. I mean, if you wanted to create some kind of contract, you could get with a lawyer and say, here's the amount that I've put in so thus far.

And then you come up with a cutout, you know, cutoff date of once I get to 50,000, here's what must happen. And, you know, I also get my 12,000 back. and you guys sign it and agree. But what kind of relationship is that? Yeah, I don't, right. That's kind of where it gets complicated.

It's because I don't want it to be just a strict, like, then your other option is, then your other option is you move out and you get your own place and say, I live here, which is a great idea, by the way. I live here, you live there. When you're ready to commit, we'll get married and we'll move in together. And, Mama, there's where your leverage lies right there. that's where it is. Yeah, I guess. And it's when I say leverage, I'm not saying it in a negative way. I'm saying it in it's best for both parties. He's not ready to commit. And he said that. And that is fine. Like, I'm not mad at him. I get it. That makes total sense. But hear him when he says he's not ready to commit. And the best way to honor that is go, okay, I'm not going to put you in a situation where you're feeling forced to commit or worse, where I'm not getting honored in this relationship. So just live in your own space and date like,

dating people do? Well, I mean, like I said, we've talked about this. Like, he is committed to me. Like, he is not looking to date anyone else or see anyone else or be with anyone else. And if you're talking about what you said, which is how can we keep me safe? And you guys both say, hey, yeah, we want to keep her safe. Nicole matters here. The best way to do that is one of two things.

You either marry the person and you're protected under law or you live in your own space with your own money and you go on dates. and you hang out at each other's houses and you go to the movies and you date and he's committed to you in a dating relationship. Plenty of people date and they're committed and they don't live together. And by doing that, that's how they protect themselves. We're not questioning his love for you. We're just saying you're very committed financially to him right now and he's uncommitted relationally by law. And that's what's putting you at risk right now. So the question on the screen, how do my boyfriend and I protect our investments? You don't have any investments right

now all you're doing is paying someone else's mortgage and living with them and that's fine like i'm not here to you know bash you in the head going we're not dinosaurs going you got to move out today because of moral reasons no it's not moral at this point but you're asking us how to protect yourself it's either move out or get married or do this very complicated contract uh agreement that's going to just make this feel like a business partnership instead of love but those are only three things we could tell you to do and i would recommend marriage if he can learn to heal and move forward and rebuild trust, which I feel like five years of you being who you are should have proven that by now. I think so, but at the same point, I wouldn't recommend marriage

if we're five years in and he's still not ready to paint or get off the ladder. I would say, yeah, just wait and see. Backtrack. Backtrack it. And I even hate to say backtrack because it's not even, Nicole, I don't want you to think we're saying go backwards. And I love what George said. it's not even from a moral perspective. It truly is, how do we protect you? The way we protect your assets is to make sure your assets are spent on building your wealth because today, the truth is you're a single woman financially. You're not married. So why would you pair your finances? He could high step it out of there tomorrow and you would be jacked. Because today, let's be honest, today you are jacked for the 12,000 and whatever you've put towards rent. If you just, even if you decided to move on,

Right? So there's a part of this where it's like, hey, let's cut our losses. Like, let's cut this combination of money today. And it's not out of malice or ill will or the fact that we're not going to be together. And you just have your separate place. I don't know. I would do that instantly. I hope he handles this conversation well. I do hope that he's able to heal and move forward with the relationship. And I wouldn't put it as an ultimatum. Like I wouldn't do it like that because I don't think it is that. I think it's just. Cole can only control what she can control. And therefore, that might mean moving out if he's just not ready. Yeah. Man, that's a tough situation. It is tough. Sorry you're going through that. Yeah, me too.

Okay, something that George and I were talking about during the break. All right, James, permission to proceed. Trust me, it's good. You have to say granted. Okay, so during the break, George and I were talking about fun money, right? So fun money is an item that when you're married, it's on the budget when you're out of dead and, you know, through the baby steps, through baby step three for sure. And it's, yeah, it's it's a, it's instead of the allowance, you know, people call in, they're like, I'll give my girlfriend or I gave my wife an allowance. And we're like, no allowance, fun money, right? Both spouses should have it as a line item on the budget. So Sam Warshaw, my husband, comes to me the other day. He says, you. you know what, I'm going to start saving my fun money so that I can have like a big chunk of it and do what I really wanted to. And I'm like, saving your fun money? So this brings up a point, George. Is it ethical? Is it ethical? Does it roll over? That's the first question. Can you roll over

unused fun money? Does unused fun money roll over is number one? Number two. Yeah, like PTO. Is it unused? Number two, saving it up, is there a moment that it's like. Is it too much? Is it too much? And where do you keep it when you save it is like just in the sock drawer it depends how you do your budget yeah the people need to weigh into this okay what do you think is there a moment where it's like hey i said he legally found a loophole in the budgeting system it's legal yeah that if you had a hundred bucks a month and instead you want to not use any of it and spend 1200 at the end of the year why not be my guess but the question is is he really not spending anything those months or is he somehow still finagling it no the truth sam most most months sam does not spend his fun money

at all to I spend it because I'm like it's laying there I'll maybe I'll spend it I think we need a new rule does it get to be rolled over or does it must it be used each month in order to create fun I think it can be rolled over I think it should be rolled over okay and then maybe when you hit a certain Sam you just got freed my man you're out of jail you can do what you want now jay just said it get out of jail free listen am I setting all the other people free out there as well here is my hot take If it was, I would agree on a certain amount, and if it's a bigger goal, let's just set up a separate savings goal for that as a family. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

So that it doesn't feel out of line. Right, because I could see him saving up for a long time and buying like a golf cart or something. Okay, it could be 10 grand, 15 grand. To which I would say, ah, don't spend your fun money on that. Like, let's us save up together. A new line item of a thousand bucks a month in 12 months, we'll have 12 grand for that golf cart. 12 grand for a golf cart? You just said it.

You just stole me that. now here's the thing golf carts i found jade you can go on facebook marketplace and find one for two grand listen let's let's get more on that but i know sam warshaw he's pretty boozy he wants it to be you know murdered out speakers murdered out yeah just all you know blacked out like all matt black i think i can see him cruising around the neighborhood wow in his golf cart heads turning all right you could see that listen it's something to talk about amongst yourselves with your married couples, you know, we had a call around that like earlier this year. I'll try to dig it up and see what the discussion. Yeah. Yeah, this is interesting. I like it. Speaking of your

budget, speaking of coordinating your money with your family, with your spouse, coordinating a financial peace university class is a great way to stay motivated on your own baby steps journey while encouraging others. If you don't know, financial peace university is an amazing class. It's a system that we teach the baby steps through basically. And when you lead a class, you get access to FPU lessons, financial peace university lessons. You get access to the premium version of every dollar, which is the all new every dollar we've been talking about, plus additional content and perks free for the entire year. So there's a lot that goes along with it. That's our gift to you for coordinating the class. That's right. You'll also get support from a community of other coordinators, our team of experts,

and tons of free resources to help you lead your class. So yeah, basically what that's saying is, is we don't just put you out there in the world to teach this class. We give you everything you need. We give you the book to teach from. We tell you literally word for word what you can say. So if you feel a little bit nervous about it, you can follow the script. If you're like, I don't do a lot of public speaking. That's okay. We're going to do the teaching part. You're going to coordinate and be the face in the class encouraging and supporting your group. Perfect. Couldn't have said it better. So for this year, we've seen over $75 million in debt paid off and money saved from FPU classes alone, which is pretty, pretty crazy.

So if you have a passion for serving others, this is a great way to help others experience the life change that you've seen for yourself. And George, I can tell you, when Sam and I were paying off our debt, we coordinated FPU classes every year, sometimes twice a year. And it is. It's a great way to stay motivated, keep the material in front of you and help others in the process. So if you're interested, go to ramsysolutions.com slash FPU to get your first class set up. or you can click the link in the description

if you're listening to this on YouTube or a podcast. All righty then, let's go to Teresa in Iowa. What's up, Teresa? Hey, how are you guys doing today? We're great. How can we help you? Great. Well, I owe over $40,000 in credit card debt,

and I am contemplating taking a $50,000 draw from my TSP account to pay those off because the interest rates are so high on them and just give myself some relief and get a fresh start. And I want to know what your opinion on that is. How much is the credit card debt? It's over $40,000. Ooh. And it's several, it's several cards?

It is. Okay. So if you were to line them up, smallest to largest, how many is it? Eight. Eight. Okay. And are they in collections? No.

Okay. And what's your income? About 104 a year. 104? Yes. Are you single? I also, I am single. Okay. You also what? I also receive service connection from the military of about $2,300 a month. Okay, great. So what's stopping you from just attacking the debt regardless of the interest?

Because the truth is, if you attack this with intensity, the interest isn't going to be all that much. If you let this ride for 10 years, yeah, that interest would rack up. I have been doing that. I've paid off five cards already. Good. But it just seems like it's just... It's like whack-a-mole? Are you doing the dead snowball method, just hitting the smallest balance,

making minimum payments on the rest, and attacking that little one? That's what I started doing, and that's how I got the five of them paid off. but the largest one that I have is over $13,000. It was for getting something done in my house that was necessary. How much can you throw at these credit cards every month? I've been throwing about $2,000 a month. Okay. So I'm confused because you have $2,300 coming in.

That could go to the credit cards alone. So you're spending all 104 on other things after tax? Well, yeah, and by the time that everything is said and done, I have enough left for gas and groceries and a little bit after that. That's the part that worries me, because you have a great income. In Iowa, too. So where are the bulk of your expenses going? Right now, the credit cards. Is that $40,000 your only debt, or is there other debt we should know about?

Just, well, my house. Okay, what's that? Tell us what your mortgage payment is every month. It's about $1,230 a month. Okay, so that's not the problem. But are you bringing home like $6,000 a month plus the $2,300 from the military? No, I'm contributing to my TSP. I just received $12, and I also had taken out some loans from TSP, so I'm paying those back as well. So you do have more debt? I do have more debt. Okay. How much is that? What are the TSP loans? There's one for 15 and one for 16,000. So let's play this out. You've tried this scheme before, and it hasn't panned out.

So what I don't want you to do is go into more debt to try to pay off other debt, because we've realized that's not going to work. Okay. And the other reasons are, number one, it doesn't change the behavior that got us here. And so I don't want to see you back in the same situation a year from now, trying to, you know, again, play whack-a-mole, taking out one debt to pay off the other debt. Number two, it also puts you at risk. because you owe your employer back this money to this retirement plan and you're paying interest

on that. And number three, you're unplugging all that growth. So it may feel like, well, it's 40 grand, I'll pay it back. What you really are leaving on the table is hundreds of thousands of dollars if you would just let that money grow. So for those reasons, I would use that amazing income and figure out in a budget, where is it going every month? Because you're making great money. I would pause all retirement investing until you get these credit cards knocked out and you have savings in the bank. Yeah, we'll have Kelly pick up and we'll give you. you are all new every dollar and we'll let you try it out for a couple of weeks totally for free see how you like it i guarantee you will

today's question of the day is sponsored by why refi private student loans in default can feel like a dead end trust me i know but why refi works with borrowers when other lenders won't creating fixed rate plans tailored to your ability to pay go to why refi dot com slash Ramsey today. Remember that's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey, and it's not available in all states. Today's question comes from Sam in Texas. He says I'm 50 years old with a net worth of nearly $7 million. We have no debt and I'm retired. I want to buy a $100,000 Dodge Viper. My understanding wife is not against the idea, but I'm still hesitant. I've wanted a viper since I was in high school and it passes the quote, burn the money test.

Should I pull the trigger and buy the car? Goodness. This is like the most humble brag question of all time. I mean, come on. Just buy the car. If you don't like it, sell the car if you feel that guilty. But this is a tiny portion of your net worth of your world. And that's how we look at these things as ratios.

The other parameter is you don't want more than half of your income in cars, mostly because they're going down in value. And so it's not a smart move for your wealth building. You've already built a wealth. You're 50 years old. if you just let half of this money ride out there you're going to have a very sizable net worth you know every seven years that money could double that's invested so if you think about that when he's 64 he could have 14 million if most of this is invested you're going to be okay

the car is going to go down in value it doesn't matter for your world just go by the viper and stop yapping about it let me hit you with a technicality at what point net worth wise do you think the 50% equation dies out? You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, once your net worth is producing enough income to cover all of your expenses and more, to where your retirement's covered,

you're going to be just fine, especially at 50. The 50% rule can kind of drop off. Yeah, I agree with you. So unless their lifestyle is astronomical and they're spending a million dollars a year, which I doubt they are, just buy the car. And what you realize is, it's fun,

and it's still just a car, and it didn't change your life. So go do it so that you can say you did it And it's a cool thing And you're going to be looking for heads to turn at the stoplight And eventually other Dodge Viper fans will be looking over That's right Very cool

I don't know I see fancy cars like that We have a lot of wealth in this county that we're sitting in Williamson County It is one of the wealthiest counties in America I think it's in like number 11 or something Yeah you love it 11 you're right So we see a lot of nice cars And I'm not it's like I'm unfazed by it

And the flashier the color the more I go How much attention are you looking for? man. You want to know what though? And this, I'm not a car person, but I'll be honest. Sometimes a car will drive by and my husband will be like, oh my gosh, like that's a brand new Tahoe or that's a new Cadillac. And I'm like, it is. Unless it's like a sports car, like a Lambo or like something that's really crazy. I typically can't even tell that it's brand new just by looking. Take it through the car wash. You could fool me. So yeah, I'm happy for you saying you've done really well. You guys have no debt. You're retired at 50. You're doing incredibly well.

buy the car, you've earned it. Do it. Love it. All right. That was easy. We got one win in today. Sam, Sam, send us the photo when you get that Dodge Viper. What's your dream car? Oh, my gosh. I have no, I think cars are just very utility. So for me, it's just a new Tesla. A new Tesla. Yeah, with full self-driving. Oh, gosh. I know, I trust. You're on your own. I trust it more than my own driving. Wow, that's saying something about you, George. All right, let's go. You trust the computers over your own self? Yeah. Oh, man. What about the other people on the road? Yeah, have you watched them? They all are on their phones. I dare you, Jade, while you're on the interstate, go see how many people are just staring at their phones while driving. Oh, I've seen it. Please let the computers take over

because we clearly are not in a spot to do that. If you want to give yourself anxiety while you're driving on the highway, just think about what must be orchestrating at all times. The fact that we're not just all crashing into each other is pretty crazy. It's really a miracle. All right, let's go with phone lines. We got Judy, who's in Michigan. Hey, Judy. Hi. Hi, George, Jade. Hey, I have a quick question.

We've been listening to Dave Ramsey since probably 93, 94. Nice. We have bought a 40-acre parcel in northern Michigan as a vacation property. And we've achieved the millionaire status. Kids are out of the house, and now we're retired. And we want to invest like $306,000 into getting a vacation. home built on our property. We have an existing home there, but it's beyond repair, so we're going to have that knock down, build a new home on it, and we're just very anxious about do we want

to get rid of our cushion of money that's in our money market account and invest in this home. I mean, I think of it as an investment, not a purchase. And we're due to sign papers next week, I'm just thinking, what do you guys think? Well, let me challenge the language, because if it's just a toy for you guys, it's not making you money. It's probably costing you money once you factor in insurance and property taxes. Yes, there will hopefully be some appreciation. But you're not selling it.

Just free yourself and go, we've earned it. We've worked really hard. So how much cash are we talking out of your total nest egg? Well, we have about $1.1 million net worth. Okay. We're going to be investing probably about $306,000 into this new build. What's your current house worth? Our existing home, $250.

All right. And so you have about half a million, a little more sitting in retirement accounts or other savings? Yeah, we have investment accounts into a mutual fund. So the question is, can you guys still retire if you deplete it by $306,000? Well, your retirement nest egg still create enough income to cover your expenses in retirement if you remove that $300,000 that was growing. I'm thinking it will. I mean, we bring in between Social Security and our pensions about $80,000 a year.

Great. And we have about $250,000 in our mutual funds. That's outside of retirement? So you're not even using, you're living basically only off Social Security and pinching, you're not even touching a nest egg? No, not even. How old are you, too? I'm 67, soon to be 68, he's already

68. Okay, and you're going to use, let's say, a 306 out of how much of your retirement? A retirement, well, I just have my net worth as because you guys have the cash, you're going to use

cash to do this. Correct. Okay. We're buying cash, yeah. Yeah. So if you Let's say you let the other, let's call it, I don't know, $400,000, $300,000. Right. So if you just let $300,000 sit in there until you're, call it $75, you're contributing nothing to it, you would still have about $600,000 by then if you didn't touch it. So you would double your money from $68 to $75 if you didn't contribute anything, but you also didn't touch it.

Right. So the question is, can you survive off Social Security pension and $600,000? to cover you for, let's say, future health care expenses and whatever else, inflation? I think the answer is yes. Do you? Okay, because that's the scary part. Is everybody in good health? Are you healthy? Yes, both of us are healthy. It's just at our age, it's like, do we want to get rid of that cushion? I mean, because we've always been happy with this cushion of money.

It's nice to have the cushion. The one thing that makes me think, and I'm not saying that this is enough to change my mind, but the vacation house is on property that you are already own, which means, let's pretend something crazy did happen. It's not like you would just up and sell this property to an outsider because it's on your personal property. Correct. Am I right about that? Could you parcel it out if you had to one day? I'm thinking, if things went really sideways, we could always just sell the property with the house on it and have that money. Just that piece of the property. This is an investment for us, not so much a purchase.

But again, it's not going to make you guys money. So I'm just scared you're going to go, well, we're trading one investment for another. Well, one is actually growing, and it's going to double every seven years. The other might grow at three or four percent, and you're paying the property taxes and insurance and maintenance and upkeep on it. So I would sit down with a financial advisor. Do you have one right now that you trust? No, we don't. Okay.

I would jump on to Ramsey Solutions.com. Click on SmartVestor Pro. I would have a professional sit down with you guys, lay it all out, lay out all the scenarios to give you confidence. because this is a big purchase. It is big. I would not trust just a five-minute radio call to go back. Yep, boom, we're going to drop half our retirement on this thing. I would get some more info on that.

But I think you're on the right track. I think you're going to survive either way. And I think it's time to enjoy some of the wealth you've built. Your Ramsey Show, Scripture, and, quote of the day, Matthew 716. By their fruit, you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? No, they don't. Tricia Cunningham said, the individual who says it is not possible, the individual who says it is not possible should move out of the way of those doing it. I like that. Listen, get out the way. Get out. She went ludicrous on him. Luda.

Full luda. We love to see it. Love it. All right. Hannah's in Wisconsin. Johnson, Hannah, how can we help today? Hi, I'm a working stay-at-home mom currently, and I am working on baby step one and trying to think of any possible way I can make that happen a lot faster than what seems to be going on right now. Yeah, what do you think is the holdup? Is it you're putting the money aside

and you're just having to pull it right back out? What's happening? I think, yeah, so I think between, bills and income limited income that's the main reason but there's I mean I usually go into town and work with the kids as much as I can and then when my boyfriend comes home to keep the kids I work in the evenings so I'm going in and out of town twice a day sometimes I already sell what I can eBay Facebook local Facebook groups one of the things I guess I that you guys found upon, like, children's savings, I have a few piggy banks that are not

earning any kind of interest, just change in a piggy bank that I didn't know if that's... When you say kids piggy banks, when you say kids piggy banks, are you really saying, like, hey, I've got children, they've got money in their piggy bank, maybe I can tap into that. Is that what you're saying? Like a ceramic piggy bank. You're going to hit with a hammer and get the change out to try to hit your baby step one? Literally. Listen, yeah. I wouldn't touch the kids money. I mean, What is it? Okay. It's probably...

Is it like $1,000 in there, or is it like $20, $50? Well, there's cash and change, and I don't know. I just kept stockpiling change and any gift of money. I guess it's a combination of everything in there. So it wasn't money that they got from a gift or worked for. It's money, hey, I have spare change. I'll drop it in this. Yeah.

For them. Do they know about it? No. Oh. Listen, I might get involved in that. Here's the thing. let's let me frame this up. I just don't know that CoinStar is going to be the solution to our baby step one problem. There's something bigger at hand here. There is and George is right. There's three things that we need to kind of hit on. Number one, the equation is always going to be the same, whether it's for saving money or paying off debt, hitting a financial goal. It's income, right? You have to have a certain amount of money coming in and it's outgo. You have to cut back on the money that's going out. Something tells me you're at a bare bones budget. I don't know. that you are, are you?

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, we don't have internet. We don't have cable. We don't have. Okay. Then that means it's an income problem. That means it's an income problem because most people, here's kind of a parameter and you can kind of gauge yourself on this.

Most people do this, George, in 30 days or less. Like, baby step one should be a 30 day kind of deal where you're going so, you're like a flash, like a streak of hot, right? You're selling everything. you're working crazy hours. You're doing this in an extreme fashion to get this done in 30 days. It shouldn't be a months and months ordeal. And the fact that it is that makes me think you guys are really low on the income.

So tell us about that. So I used to, I have a four-year-old, no two-year-old. They used to be in daycare. I had a very well-paying job at the time. And daycare was getting out of control as far as cost. It was $510 a week for my two kids to be in daycare, and my net was, and without knowing the exact detail, the recalling the retirement contributions and stuff, I was netting about $200 a month after all my expenses. So, decided to quit my job and stay at home to try to save money. So that kind of got me to where I'm at right now.

But you said you know, our boyfriends, or are you guys living together and he's covering the expenses? Yeah, and I also bring in about $30,000 a year, too. Okay. I think that's part of the, this is complicated relationally, and it's making it complicated financially. Yeah, the $30,000 a year is tough. Like, that's going to be tough to live on. Yeah.

And how many kids, I'm sorry? Two. Two kids. How old are they? Four and two. Four and two. Okay. So are you bringing home like two grand a month right now?

Yeah, that's the goal. I do, you know, all your delivery independent contractor type all on like three apps at one time just to continuously have offers coming in to go, go, go, when I'm in town with the kids and after. Now, you're juggling a lot. I mean, staying at home plus doing all that and making $30,000 is impressive. But making $2,000 and trying to save up one of those while covering all the expenses on your own, that is tough. Yeah. So what's the future look like for you and boyfriend?

Well, hopefully marriage. And once the kids are back school age, hopefully going back to work, one of the biggest hiccups that about two years ago we bought a car that were underwater and now it'll be all about $10,000 more than it's worth and it also needs a lot of repairs. So then I sit there and scratch my head. Do I save up money to get the repairs done just to sell it? Because it's going to be repairs plus the difference just to get it sold. How much debt do you have total? 39,000. Okay, and you're able to make minimum payments on all of those debts

and cover all of your bills right now? Yes. You're not behind. You're not going into debt anymore. Correct. Okay, that's good. So you're just sort of breaking even every month without much to throw at your baby step one.

Very minimal. That's why the baby step one's taking forever. But think about it. You're trying to pay off 39 grand making $30,000 a year. And so the math is. isn't going to math as long as you're a stay-at-home mom without a spouse that's also supporting you financially. Well, his income, too, is factored into all that.

What were you doing before you were doing all of the Instacarts and delivery apps? What were you doing before that, or has that kind of just been what you've been doing as work? No, I told where I left my job at Frito. Okay. And what were you making there? Between 60 and 62. Okay. So that's that's our goal. We got to find something that you can do to get you back up to that earning potential that you had before, which I think could be even further beyond that. But I think it's going to cause you to have to get out of your comfort zone a little bit and really stretch for this because the truth is there are work at home positions. There are things that you can do with a flexible schedule that can earn you more than $30,000. So I think that's where you're, I think that's your homework. I think that's where your laser focus is.

is going to be is what can I do with the time that I have? Because the kids, they're back in daycare now? Or are you taking care? What's the current state? They're not. My four-year-old just started part-time, 4K. Okay. That's good. And then I have another two years with the little one before she starts school. Okay. And the boyfriend or whoever's in your life, is there anyone in your life that you can, that can provide some bit of child care in the day? We're two to four hours away from any family and we don't we're both new to the area we don't know very many people what caused you to go out there um distance from the city we're we're not city folk okay we like to yeah we like to be out in the in the sticks as they would say here well there's part of that that you're cutting off

work opportunities for you you're cutting off like you said relational opportunities to get help in the areas that you need so this is a complex problem and I think it's going to caught like you need to sit down and have some real discussions about where the priority lies because if you call on the show and say hey I can't save a thousand dollars and then we find out half the reason is there's no jobs around here there's no family to help with daycare around here hey but we like living out in the sticks do you see what I'm saying something has to shift in that priority we need a different variable here to change your result so are you recommend me going you know one of the things I discussed was going back

to work but we felt like we would be back to where one, most of the income would just be absorbed at daycare. Not if you can get the $60,000 that you were getting at Frito Lay before. Because why did you stop that job? You see what I'm saying? Well, I think, like I said, without me, just, me recently just catching on to Dave Ramsey's methods, I think I was probably contributing too much to my 401K, you know. You were doing too much at once.

Yeah, but we now know. We now know that you have the capacity to earn, right? 60, 65,000. And that's really what you need to be looking for. Listen, I trust you can do this. All right, guys, that does it for the show today. Thanks for hanging out with us. Remember, there's ultimately one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.