The Ramsey Show - App - You Need To “Happen” to Your Life Instead if It Happening to You

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Welcome to the Ramsey Show America, where we help you win with your money, win in your profession, and win with your relationships. Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman. Phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. You ready to go, partner? Let's giddy up. She's ready to go. Jacob is up in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Jacob, how can we help? Hey, how are you guys doing? Good. How are you, Jacob? I'm doing okay, I guess. Yeah, so my situation is that I had a business fail a while ago. I was on the job search for quite a while. Couldn't find anything. I'm actually in a rural area, uh, outside of Cincinnati. Uh, so I applied to get into a trade union, uh, the, the electricians union. And I got in and I'm waiting on a job call. Um, and as soon as I get into a job, I should theoretically be okay, but I have no idea when that job call is

going to happen. And I'm up to my ears in debt. I'm about to not be able to make my payments on my cards and my truck. Okay. What kind of income, let's just assume that we could snap our fingers and give you the income that you used to have. What do you need to make at a minimum to be able to cover all your payments and have a little bit of margin? What's that number? Well, I have a pretty unique situation. So honestly, if I made $1,200 in a month, I would be perfectly fine. How so? Why is it so unique? Tell us what is so unique about your situation.

So I actually built my own home on family land. I have my own water system, so no water bill. I pay for electric, which never goes over $100 a month. Okay. No taxes? Insurance on the land? Yeah. Oh, the property taxes were $1,300 for the year. How long have you been going without income?

Probably three months now. And what were you doing prior to that? This was your business? Yeah. Okay, so what did you do, what'd you do prior to your business failing? What'd you do for income? Uh, so I came over here and I built my house and then I was doing like, um, wellness coaching, um, and kind of doing odd jobs while I finished kind of building out the land. Okay, when was the last time? So I'm hitting you here because we got to get to your debt situation with Jade, but we got to figure out your income. You have zero income. So Jade can't

help you on the debt until we figure out income. So take me back as quick as you can to the last time you had a 40-hour-a-week job. What were you doing and how much were you making? Take me back. I was working at a wellness retreat center. Doing what? And I was managing staff, teaching yoga. How many hours a week? How many hours, how many hours a week? How many hours a week did you do that?

Um, I guess it would be around 50. Okay. And so the trade thing that you, I'm getting somewhere, partner, I promise, at least I'm trying to, uh, so, so the trade thing you signed up for, what kind of trade work is that? Electrician. Okay. And you're skilled and, what kind of trade work is that? Electrician. Okay, and you're skilled and ready to go. You can do that.

Yes. Okay, here's what I'm getting at. I had to get some information to go, Jacob, you don't sit around and wait for this opportunity. I'm glad you got signed up, and presumably something will come, but you're also in a rural area. So right now it sounds like you're a pretty mobile guy. That means you've got to do whatever it takes and go wherever. So whatever and wherever are two of your favorite words right now. Love that. And what I'm talking about is that if you

just need $1,200 to get by, then all you effectively need to do is find 40 hours a week at $10 an hour. Now, I think you can do way better than that. But if you can be an electrician tradesman, that means you can do a lot of other things. So we're talking every handyman job possible. Get to Cincinnati, Ohio. Get somewhere where you can deliver something, show up and pick something up and place it on a shelf. You don't need a lot to live, which is the good news. $1,200 is our baseline for living. So based on that, Jade, if we can get you to where you're actually making

a good bit more than that, then you can go through the debt snowball. And I'm bringing my partner here, but my friend, like you've got to happen to this problem. You are so relaxed. I think you'd be a great yoga teacher i think the great news is is like i'm sure you're great at yoga but right now bro like you don't need to be chill you need to be running around like your pants are on fire because i think your pants are on fire 100 they they are i put in four applications in person today, did the same thing Saturday.

Everything's closed on Sunday. Ken, you're not done yet. I'm not. I'm going to jump in. Listen, I don't want to knock you putting in applications, but we don't put in applications in a moment when our pants are on fire. Do you know what we do? We find out who is hiring.

We ask everybody that knows anybody, and in a small rural area, trust me, it's not hard to find out who's actually hiring. And this may be like taking a page out of my buddy Mike Rowe's famous show, Dirty Jobs. If somebody's shoveling you-know-what on a farm right now, and they don't have anybody that's showing up to do that, that's where you are. Because you're going to shovel you- know what, all day today. Today. For sure. For sure. Okay. Yes. All right. Now let's assume you got some money coming in. Walk Jade through your debt situation. Yeah, tell us what the problem is, because I'm like, $1,200 makes it tick. You know, I can't assume there's much debt in the situation, but tell me otherwise. Oh, no.

$1,200 is just survival. Okay. We knew that. So tell us, list out your debt if you have it, or list out the things that are keeping you, aside from your job, keeping you from hitting your next money goal. So I owe $29 on a truck, which has been attacked by a peacock so a resale would be difficult for real what's that look like for real i'm not favorite call favorite call of the month already we still have a lot to go a peacock attacked his truck you should see the truck yeah yeah peacocks can really really take down the resale value of a

truck it's incredible they got a strong beak i guess is it like are they like monkeys and they throw stuff you know they throw the stuff at it or are they like attacking it with their beak well here's what if you're an idiot and you buy a brand new truck with an unstable income it's shiny and then when it's shiny they see the reflection in the truck, and they attack the reflection. You got a flock of peacocks near you, Jacob? Is that what's going on? Yeah, I live near my grandmother. Okay.

Does she have a pet peacock? She sure did. She sure did. Oh, you didn't hurt the peacock, did you, Jacob? No, no. Okay, she did. He sure did. Oh, you didn't hurt the peacock, did you, Jacob? No, no. Okay, she did. He said that in the past. Listen.

I thought maybe he saw the peacock pecking his quarter panel, and he took care of the peacock. This call just went down a road. Do you want to hold him over and give me some advice? No, I don't want to hold him over. We're good. Be careful. He's got to sell the truck another reason not to buy a shiny truck that's not paid

for the peacock you gotta get a job ramsey show we'll be right back hey you guys i'm not a fan of the big banks and you probably already know which ones i mean but i do like credit unions because they're non-profit organizations that focus on their members. And I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously. In fact, they design products to help keep you from going into debt in the first place. Fairwinds has been in business for over 75 years, and they serve hundreds of thousands of members worldwide. You can feel secure because your deposits are federally insured by the NCUA up to $250,000. thousand dollars it's easy to join and fairwinds partners with more than 5 000 credit union

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If you want to jump in, 825-5225. Sam is up in Birmingham, Alabama. Sam, how can we help today? Hey guys. So I wanted to know if you would honestly recommend that I start with a $1,000 a month emergency fund and why after kind of reading you off some stats here. So I have a 30% interest rate on a $33,000 car loan. I have 9K in back taxes owed, 5K in credit card debt, nothing. My ex-girlfriend has 50K in credit card debt that I kind of want to help her out with. Your ex-girlfriend? Unfortunately, yeah.

And you want to help her with the debt? Yeah, wow. Sorry, I just, that got me. Really nice guy. I'd like to know more. Why are we doing this? Well, you know, it was a six-year relationship. I lost her last Q4. I was pushing myself too hard, finally burnt out after about 10 years of extremely hard work. And I just feel responsible for a lot of that. I'm sure some of it's mine. I'm sure a good bit of it might be mine. You used her card? You used her card sometimes? Well, we worked together, you know, like it was a, like she would help out with, like, I don't know. I think someone, I think my car insurance, for example, is on the credit card. Okay.

Things like this, right? I think. So you don't even know. Listen. How does that change your opinion? Does it change your opinion? I'm going to say something really controversial right now. Oh, I'm very excited.

She probably rode in your car lots of times. Does she need to help you pay off your opinion? I'm going to say something really controversial right now. Oh, I'm very excited. She probably rode in your car lots of times. Does she need to help you pay off your car? You know what I'm saying? I'm not making her do that. Sam, she makes a good point. She may have used your credit card debt. You may have paid for some things for her. I think what it sounded like, I don't know, but you said she got away.

It sounds like you're still recovering from this. He's dealing with guilt. You still care for her. You might feel some guilt. Obviously, you still care for her, but I would, I would not feel

any obligation to pay 50K to an ex. Is she asking for money? Um, not, well, not really,

no. Do you want to know what I think? Do you want to know what I might think as your older sister who cares for you? Okay. This is like when you go on a date with somebody. I think this was from Seinfeld and he would leave something in her apartment on purpose. So he would have a reason to come back and knock on the door.

Brilliant move. Yeah. I feel like this is a reason for you to come back and knock on the door. Yeah. Well, i love her i mean oh and oh you're not you're not you're not ready to let go if you could dedicate a song to her right now what would you dedicate oh great question sam take this seriously what is it take this uh well so listen there's too many to count um i'm writing uh i'm writing letters about every day oh i'm sorry to her art situation look i know that's the biggest debt but this 30 this 30 interest rate on this 33 000 car loan uh is really bugging. I didn't know what that meant when I signed the contract. I thought it meant 30% of the car's value in total. I didn't know that that was appreciating. I didn't know

that that was every year. It goes up. 30% rate? I thought you said 3% when you first said it. It's 30%. No, no, no, no. It's 30 And it's an Italian car. Oh, OK. I'm sick to my stomach for you, Sam. You have to take. Oh, my goodness. What's the snowball? Where are we at on the snowball? Did we get there? No, because your initial question. I'm sorry. I got hung up on your your love situation. The initial question was, do I really want him to go down to a thousand dollars of an emergency fund? Yeah. Is that where I start or where do I start here him to go down to a thousand dollars of an emergency fund um yeah is that where I start or where do I start here guys yeah that is where to start so let me just go through um the baby steps with you right quick Sam um just so you see how this all fits and how long

have you been listening to the show are you a new listener I'm a new I'm a new listener yeah you guys are on uh on my YouTube shorts okay so you only get bits and pieces on that thanks for watching but you only get bits and pieces so the first step this is seven baby steps for you to achieve financial peace is what we're talking about so you do them all that i'm saying you do them consecutively in order that's the first thing you got to do them in order if you jump around it won't work and you'll be wasting your time. The first step is you get $1,000 saved. So if you don't have any money saved, you got to go out, work, sell stuff and get it done.

If you do have money saved, you drop it down to $1,000. And then the next whatever money you had left over is going to go to baby step two, which is you paying off all of your debt except your mortgage. This is all the consumer debt. Okay. And you do this using the debt snowball method. Debt snowball is we list all the debts, smallest to largest. You pay minimum payments on everything. And then any extra money goes to the smallest debt. Does that make sense? Yep. Okay. After that, now we stack up that emergency fund. Three to six months of expenses

is what we're looking for. You get to decide, is it three, four, five, or six? After that... So number three is three or $4,000 a month in expenses. Three to six months of basic living expenses. So just for round numbers, let's say you had $5,000 worth of expenses every month. What we're saying is that three months is $15,000, six months is $30,000. You tracking? Yep. All right, so that's what we mean by an emergency fund. We say three months is a minimum, so that would be $15,000 on this example.

That's what she's talking about. That's right. And for Baby Step 3, it's really about your basic budget. It's not three to six months of paychecks necessarily. It's what it takes to make your house go on a basic level. Okay. Baby step three B, it's B because it's not the case for everybody, is if you're looking to buy a house, now's when we start saving up a down payment for the house. Okay. After that, you go to baby step four. You could do three B and four at the same time if you want to. You're putting 15% of your gross income into retirement funds. So that's your 401k, Roth IRA, that sort of thing.

Then after that, if you have kids, you're planning for kids, you can put an amount of your discretion towards kids college. We say a 52929 or an esa is where you would do that and then finally baby step six if you have extra money in your budget again at your discretion you're throwing extra money towards paying off your house early most people who do that pay off their house in like 10 12 years so that's and then finally baby step seven you just live like no one else you give you're a happy person and you got no cares right so that's kind of the big cars with cash hey okay but like can we talk about i'm dying right now you did such a good job can we talk about this man's car yeah tell us what's the car worth paint us a picture oh man the car is like 21k i bought it for a very, I think Dave will appreciate this. So like I'm 29, I have an online business, and I bought an Alfa Romeo because it was the coolest car you could get under $30,000.

Love it. How much did you pay for it? Yeah. So all in taxes, I had no down payment. It was about $33,000. So that's the loan I'm paying off. Okay. So it's worth $21,000? $33,000. So that's the loan I'm paying off. Okay. So it's worth $21,000?

I think I can get a little more for it. I think I might be able to get like $24,000 or $26,000. Okay, good. I mean, I think you've got to sell this car right now at 30% interest rate, Jade. I know that's extreme. He said it's 3%. 3%. I thought he said 30%.

Is it 3%? No, it's 30%. It's 30%. You asked that twice, and he said 30. No, it's 30. You asked that twice and he said 30. T-H-I-R-T-1. Listen, I just turned 41 in my old age. I can't hear anything. He's paying 30% on this car. That's painful. Yeah, you got to get out today. You got to sell it. Do you have any money saved?

No, I can get some money this month though. I mean, the income's good. Yeah, you got to find at least $10,000 so you can get out of this and though i mean the income's good yeah you gotta find you gotta find at least ten thousand dollars so you can get out of this and get yourself a little beater car to drive around until you can save up for a better one so yeah but is that is that you know here's the reason i bought this car it's the coolest car under 30k and what do you make no it doesn't matter how cool it is what do you make well'm $9,200 a month consistently for two years. The last Q4, I was paying myself about $14,000 a month.

Really going overboard with the whiskey and the oysters. Here's what I want you to do. What a life. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to apply that $9,200 to get out of debt. I want you to quickly save up what you can to get out of this car. Buy something cheap in cash. It's only temporary.

You're going to be out of debt in a year, and then you're going to save up, and you're going to buy the same car in cash. All right. Jade and I are going to look into some whiskey and oysters ourselves. I know. That's right. For after the show. We'll see what the order looks like, but we'll be right back.

This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever. Because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely. Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment will be a consistent, manageable part of your monthly budget. Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest expense.

Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards turning you into a Baby Steps millionaire. So get started on the American dream of home ownership today at churchhillmortgage.com. That's churchhillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Rent with Tennessee 37027. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is with me and we're here for you. 888-825-5225. Hey, it's that time of year, Jade. Have you already got your taxes bundled and ready to

go? Are you working on them? Everything is everything, Ken. It's all signed, sealed, delivered. Wow. I'm not sure I know what you said, but I'm not sure what you said. I've gathered up all of my documents, 1099s, whatever they all are.

Okay. And I give them to Sam. You're not unburdened by what has been. I am. You see what I just did there? That's what I felt. She's in her chair, folks. She cannot get to the mic.

I pulled that subtly. It felt like you were laying down for me, and that is not you. I'm unburdened. I'll keep moving. One of the best things you can do for your finances is to have a really good tax pro in your corner that you can trust, that'll help advise you on the best moves to make for your situation or your small business. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash tax pro. I got her, now I got me.

RamseySolutions.com slash tax pro to find a CPA and enrolled agent that had been vetted by the Ransom team. By the way, I have a local pro and I'm telling you. It's good stuff. Well, I just never stress at tax time. You just don't want to mess with the IRS. All right. So there you go.

I didn't mean to rhyme there. That was good. Thank you. You need a gold chain. All I want to do is go on my bank sites or my investing sites and print off the little tax form and turn it in. I don't want to turn in a bunch of stuff. Right. I'm the same way. I just don't want to go to jail. Well, I also don't want to go to jail. I wouldn't do well. I just wouldn't look good in those stripes. I don't know, Ken.

You might do too well. Hey, hey, hey. I knew you were going to say that. Don't say that. It's going to give me nightmares. I'm sorry. I got the shivers. You're a fine-looking gentleman walking into the precinct. Oh, stop it right now. Let's go to Logan, who's joining us in Provo, Utah. Logan, how can we help? Hey, just quick and get right to the question here is, do I take equity, like refinance and take equity out of my home in order to pay for HVAC upgrade that is needed for my home? Interesting. uh tell us a little bit more about the situation because what i tend to find um is that if people

are considering debt to solve a problem it's usually the symptom of other issues that are playing out over time so give me a bigger stitch give me a bigger profile on this are you guys currently in debt tell me about your. Tell me more about your financial situation. Okay. So, um, so kind of background just recently found you guys like the Ramsey show and everything. Um, so I've been, been diving in and trying to see what, you know, the baby steps and where my wife and I would be in that. So we don't have any other debt other than our mortgage. Good. Um, cars are all paid for, um, everything like that. It's just our mortgage. Um, we have like $350,000 in equity in the house. Um, but we just recently found out that our HVAC system, um, is pretty much, we're lucky it's still working. And we're not sure how much longer it's going to work.

What will it cost to fix it? So it's an older system that has a type of coolant in it that I guess is no longer legal or available to use and to update the system, it's going to cost around $18,000. $18,000. Have you gotten a second opinion or is that one guy told you that? So we're just out in a rural area. So it's kind of just the one guy that could come and give us the quote on it. Are you sure about that or have you really done due diligence? Because unless you live, you know, in Mayberry, I feel like there's at least got to

be more than one person, right? Yeah. It's a pretty consistent price with everything that I've looked at. Okay. I'm not convinced. I think you need a second opinion. But for now, so you've got $18,000 that you're thinking it's going to cost. Do you have any money saved anywhere? We have, I think, just about $1,000 in our savings, and that's just about it. Okay, $1,000 in savings, and then tell me about your income. What do you and your wife bring in

combined every single month? So we bring in, it fluctuates a little bit just because of my wife's work hours, but we're usually north of $4,000 a month. Okay, north of $4,000 a month. Okay, north of 4,000 a month. Okay, here we are. Okay, so if I'm you, my first, like I said, first on my agenda is I'm getting somebody else just to come out and tell me. I just want to confirm what it is. Then the second part of this, and I will admit I'm not an HVAC professional, but if I understand right, it's, if you didn't know, now you know. I was wondering at times. It's divided into the heating side and the cooling side right yes okay yeah is there a way is are you replacing the whole like dat gum thing like the whole thing it would yeah it would have

to replace the entire the entire unit but it's working right now and it just needs some rare coolant? Illegal coolant. Oh, yeah. Yeah, legal, essentially, yeah. So it's about 21 years old, so it's at its life expectancy. Yeah, but let me ask you this. But it hasn't broke down yet. If I were to find a truck full of that illegal, outdated coolant, Would it function? Potentially. It's just a matter of how much are we going to end up having to replace kind of cost? Are we going to cost more in the long run trying to piece things back together as they go out? But again, listen, we're not being silly here. If I were in your shoes, I would find that coolant.

I'll bet you you can find that coolant. Because all this illegal stuff is all this garbage crap coming out of Washington, D.C. or your statehouse. I'm sorry. It's all environmental crap that 10 years from now we're going to find out. There's nothing wrong with it. So in all honesty, if I was sitting in your shoes, Logan, I would be trying to find out there's nothing wrong with it so in all honesty if I was sitting in your shoes Logan and I would be trying to find that coolant so that I could follow Jade's advice and save up the money to where we get a whole new unit but like what does the patch look like and I don't

like the fact that we got one dude out there in the holler who's the only guy I'm with you Jade I mean I don't know if they have hollers in Utah, in the South. That's what we call a hollow. But the point is... Get another guy in there. Or find that coolant somehow. Yeah, I think the coolant will buy you some time. Because the truth is it hasn't broken down yet. But I like that you're thinking towards it because the time will come and it's going to be here probably before you know it.

So my goal would be, okay, I'm going to get with my wife. I'm going to figure out how quickly we can save up a half and then find out how long, and that way we know how long it would take to do the other half. And then I'd find a guy and say, here's what I have. I can pay you this. And then at this point, and I can pay you this at this point to get this job done. Maybe you do the right side first, and then you do the left side or you do the hot side first, then you do the cold side and really get creative because if there really is only one guy then he probably needs your business as much as you need him so get creative on it and i'm looking around my house for things to sell period i'm like okay do i need this do i not need that maybe i'm picking up just temporarily like a

second job because the reason for all this because I do want to address this because plenty of people are probably like, Jay, that's too much. Just take out the loan from your house. I would never do that. The purpose, when we talk about home ownership here on Ramsey, the purpose of home ownership, there's several reasons, but the ones that stand out to me are A, it's stability, right? We're taking the biggest line item on our budget and we're stabilizing it by getting into a home, right? Where the payment's the same. We start to put that stability at risk when we borrow against our home. So that's number one. Number two is one of the biggest reasons to buy a home is to build equity and wealth, right? And so when we borrow against it, we're stealing from the wealth that we're accumulating. Because the truth is, when it's time to sell our house, we want that cash.

We don't want to look up and be like, man, my cash is gone because I bought a new water heater and my cash is gone because I over renovated a room that's not going to return its value on me. Right. So those are the two reasons. We want stability. We want wealth. So let's not rob ourselves of those two really, really important factors in homeownership. So that's why I'm pretty adamant about not doing that. Just a little background thoughts there. Is this R22 Freon? Is that what we're talking about?

I can't remember if it's that one or if it was the one before it. Oh boy. I'm on the trail, folks. I would be the guy trying to get myself some of that black market free. You know a guy? I don't, but it would be fun to find him. I mean, when you're staring at an $18,000 repair, I think it might be an adventure. Go on Reddit. Go on Reddit. I bet you there's a whole Reddit.

There's a corner of the interweb. Yeah, guaranteed. There's some dude in Arkansas, I feel like, who's got himself barrels and barrels of this stuff. You want you some of that 922 Freon? I got it. We're going to search for it on the break. We'll be right back.

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slash Ramsey to find out more about their student loan refinancing. That's laurelroad.com slash Ramsey. Laurel Road is a brand of Key Bank National Association. All credit products are subject to credit approval. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show alongside Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman. So excited that you're with us. 888-825-5225. It's been quite the hour. We've had fun. The calls have been fantastic, very interesting, and we're having a little too much fun. So we'd love to hear from you today. Jade will help out on how to handle the money, and I'm going to help out on how to make more of it. How about that for a combo? So if that's you today, we'd love to have you jump in. We're having a good time while we coach you up. All right, let's go to Indianapolis, Indiana, where David is joining us. David, how can we help? Ken, Jade, you guys are awesome.

Oh, thank you, sir. I'm excited and I'm nervous. Oh, well, you're going to do great. You sound fit. You've got a great voice, so you're already off to a great start. Thanks. My question is, I was wondering if I should save up money or go back into investing. The reason is I was feeling fatigued. I went to the doctor. They gave me an EKG, and I left the doctor with a stage four cancer diagnosis. Oh, David. So I'm on chemotherapy right now.

Yeah. But the Lord's going to help me through this. We're going to make it. Facts. Yes. David, you're amazing. Your mindset and your spirit is all ready to be commended. So sorry you're dealing with this.

How long ago was the diagnosis? It was in December and I've been doing chemotherapy for about a month how are you doing how you feeling well you know the the first round I had some side effects the second round was a little bit better the third round starts this Wednesday so okay just dealing with it and uh you know getting some side effects and stuff like that but uh i've got a good job good insurance and stuff like that good is it just you or do you have a family uh my daughter lives here and i do have family and i've got friends and got lots of support from the church and just everybody around me i'm really blessed okay so you've got some support i'm glad that you've got that i hate that you're going through it, but I'm glad that you've got a good support system around you

because you'll need that. So you asked about saving money or investing. Can you break that down for me? What's the money for? What are you thinking about here? Well, I quit investing because I was paying things off. I believe I'm in stage four now. I only have my mortgage and my HELOC. Okay. How much is the HELOC? $22,000. Okay. And how much is the mortgage? $60,000. $60,000. Okay. You're almost there. And not bad. Not bad. What are you earning right now? Every month or every year? Right now I'm making $80,000, but I'm burning up sick leave right now. I'm on FMLA with the intent of probably going into disability retirement, federal retirement, which would start out at 60% of what I was making

and then 40% of what I was making until I turned 62. What do you have in your emergency fund? SSDI. I've got $6,000 in my emergency fund, which is about three months. Okay. I did have eight in there, but I had a water heater go out. Yeah, but that's why it's there. It didn't freak me out.

I just said, yeah, go ahead. That's one of four. Let's do it. Nice. So, you know, if I were in your shoes, I probably, my biggest goal right now would just be stacking up a bunch of cash. Yeah. And I just throw it in, you know, high yield savings account and have it there so that

if something pops up, if there's a treatment I want to do and I have to pay out of pocket because it's out of network, like, you see what I'm saying? So my goal would be stacking up money so that I can use it for health opportunities or for, you know, other things that pop up. And then when you're done on the other side of this and you whooped cancer's butt, then you can take that money and say, all right, what's the next thing? Pay stuff off, yeah. I've already maxed out my out-of-pocket for this year on the insurance. Good. So that should, everything should be covered.

Okay. But you know, things do pop up. Okay, good. Did you say you are investing or you paused that? I was investing and then I paused it because, you know, I listened to you guys a lot and I was like, you know, I could be putting that extra $800 a month towards these bills and I was paying stuff off. And I was at the point where I was ready to start reinvesting. And then of course I went to the doctor and they said, guess what? I mean, technically speaking, I mean, like, again, this is not for me to say that you need to be dealing with this right now. Cause I don't necessarily think that you do technically speaking with the

amount of the HELOC, I'd count that as a baby step two item and say, Hey, I'd pay that off first and I'd call it baby step two. And for that reason, you would pause investing so more money can go towards paying that $22,000 off fast. And then once you were done with that, I'd start investing again. But that's for later. focus right now is getting well and knowing that you've got some money stashed aside and you have a piece about that because like I said, you never know what trials might come up that maybe insurance doesn't cover, but you want to jump into one, that sort of thing. That is true. Hang in there, David. I agree with my colleague on this one. Let's just stack cash right now because you can always move that cash back into the baby steps and keep on investing turn that back on once you get on the other side of this so that's true i was thinking that but i wanted to confirm no thank you for calling how old's your daughter she's 26 okay

okay good okay uh yeah i so she's keeping an eye on me and stuff too so okay that's good very good very good yeah love that. Thank you, David. Let's go to Moe in Winnipeg, Canada. Moe, how can we help today? Hey, how's it going, guys? Good. How are you? I'm good, good. So I'm just about to graduate from my undergrad in criminology and uh i have i i'm i'm in zero debt i haven't had debt actually at all in my life but um flight school uh i'm thinking of going to flight school after and uh flight school costs about seven minimum 70 000 for 18 months and so i was wondering, should I actually go into debt and take out a student loan for that? Because I can't pay it all in cash. That's just an insane amount of money. And that's just the minimum cost. I'm going to one of the cheapest schools in Canada.

Is that $70,000 total for the program? Total for all the licenses, yes. Okay. How much do you have set aside right now since you have no debt? How much cash do you have? I don't have any set aside because I just paid tuition. Good for you. Going out of my pocket. How did you come up with the money to pay for tuition?

So that's just, I still live with my parents, so I don't have to worry about rent for now. And yeah, I work for PepsiCo, so I make around $2,500 a month and yeah, just aggressively saving and then paying tuition every four months. Good for you. So I have a question about the criminology. Did I hear you say criminology degree? Yeah, that's correct. My original plan was to go into law school. Yeah. Okay. But I'm just curious, because again, I don't know the Canadian situation, but is there or are there multiple jobs that you can, with that degree, move right into

for a season and make a good bit more than you're making right now with PepsiCo? With PepsiCo, I could move up to a sales position where, because right now I just do the manual labor stuff, which is like merchandising. I could move into sales, but that would require a full-time availability since I'm in uni. I can only work part-time. Okay, when are you finishing up? I'm sorry, when are you finishing up uni? That would be, so my last semester, I would graduate May of next year. May of next year?

Yeah. Okay. Well, so I know Jay and I are on the same page on this one. I mean, here's the deal. You've already made enough money to be able to cash flow through college. I would come out of school and I would upgrade my job full time. I'd take a full time upgrade if I could get one with PepsiCo. They already got you in the building.

Let's see what you could do. Okay. Or I would use that criminology degree to go get something that, if possible, would make me more money, and here's why. I would work for a couple of years if that's what it took to actually save the money for flight school because I've just talked to so many people on this issue. In the States, it's $100,000 sometimes.

We hear that number. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's a lot of money. And you don't want to be trying to get out there, lowest level, flying in the friendly skies, stressed out over that. So I would take my time. The flight school will always be there. We would tell you to save up. You can save up more if you've got a better job and you're not working in college.

You can work like crazy. You're not going to class anymore. So that would be our advice, my friend. I don't want a stressed out pilot with student loans. And let me tell you something. The need is there. The opportunity is going to be there. Just be patient.

And you'd be surprised how quickly you can earn $70,000. So there's our thoughts. All right. Good hour, Jade. Thanks so much for being with me. Thanks to James Childs and our fearless crew. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome to The Ramsey Show, America,

where we coach you to win in your money, win in your profession, and win in your relationships. Alongside the incomparable Jada Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman, and we're excited to be together for you all. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225.

Let's go to Dayton, Ohio. Jeremiah joins us there. Jeremiah, how can we help today? Hey, how's it going? So, in April 4th, my lease is up in my apartment with my girlfriend. But we've been having some relationship problems ever since we moved in together. Uh-oh. That's always fun times. You know that's what marriage is like in your first year.

Nobody ever tells you that the first year of marriage is what you're experiencing. You just learn how to live together, and there's all kinds of problems. Yeah, I hear that a lot from my dad. But I was curious about, I've been talking to my dad about moving back in with him. He would charge me $400 a month in rent. I do have medical bills coming up from a motorcycle accident that happened. Oh, no. You okay? I turned out okay. Yeah, I turned out just fine. So I got a question for you. Quick question. Before we get to the money, because I think this plays into the money issue. You've been living with your girlfriend for how long?

A year. A year. So last year, April 4th. A year. And you developed some real relationship. Okay. And you developed some real relationship issues now that you're living together. And so you think the solve is to to stay living together

but just go back to dad's house um we would go separate she would go to her parents and i would go to my dad oh i missed that okay i'm okay that's actually okay i'm feeling better with that i didn't know because you guys got to figure out your relationship issue and living together is probably not the best way to do it uh in my. I know I'm old school. Does the issue have to do with money or is it separate? She gets very angry at me over little things and don't get me wrong I'm not I'm a human I'm not perfect I do some things wrong to myself and see her money issues or she's not great with her finances. I've tried to coach her a little bit based off of your guys' teachings. You just can't really pull it together since the year we've been.

But is she getting angry at you over money things and your coaching or is she getting angry at you about other things? Just house if i i come home from work and i just kind of want to relax and do nothing she'll start getting angry or if i don't if i forget to do dishes sometimes she'll get on me like i said we we take turns cleaning whatnot but yeah is she okay i gotta ask i'm so sorry i can't help. Is she angry or is she just perturbed? In other words, I want you to rank it for me, her reaction from a 1 to a 10, 1 being like maybe a little sigh where she's rolling her eyes, to angry, she's throwing something at you.

Give me a ranking. What's happening? I would give her like a solid 5 to 7. It's no throwing we don't we don't ever lay hands on each other or anything like that well thankfully yeah that's why i put it at 10 throwing at you okay wow jade what do you think of this um i feel like you need to get involved here yeah i wanted to know how long you were dating before you moved in together oh good question three years three years and was she angry

at that time too no it just really started since we moved in together so this is last year april this is playing into what we know which is a lot of people i'm stepping into the waters now ken you know a lot of people when they move in together the thought ken is i'm just going to test it out like i think I want to marry this person. I think I want to be with this person for the long haul. Let's test it out and see. But really, it causes people to go in the opposite direction. And there's been studies now that say that living together is you're least likely to

have a successful marriage or even see. Oh, really? Yeah, because it's almost like a commitment thing. It's like you don't have to dial in full commitment. Which makes those things even more irritating. Yeah. It's almost like a, it's almost like a symbol of lack of commitment. I think you're right. Stacey stuck with me, you know? Yeah. Like we got paper, we got some ink, we got, you got to pull all that apart. It's not easy. Yeah. I get what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. Whereas it's like, hey, I don't want to marry you. I'll live with you. It's like the ultimate signal of lack of commitment. I don't want to marry you. So I wonder if underlying she's feeling something. It's like,

I'm with this guy and she might have marriage expectations, but you're not actually married and so you guys are feeling that tension of yeah the reality versus what you kind of think it is in your minds although i will say this jeremiah you are probably 100 on she is ever since yeah she's big on uh marriage she's always kind of mentioned that to me but i've always always been a little skeptical just because, I don't know, it's tough out there. Well, Jeremiah, this is where the rubber meets the road as it relates to my advice. It's true. You need to understand, young man, that if you put a ring on her finger and you marry her and you come home. And ain't no going back. And you just jump on the couch and you don't do what she's expecting you to do as it relates to your house stuff, she's going to still be angry.

So we've got to figure out relationally, what is your part in this deal? And where do you need to step up? And then if, now listen to me, Jeremiah, if you step up, does she chill out? And so I'm going to make a ruling here. Yeah, make a ruling. The starting question was, should we renew the lease? The answer is no. I think you need to go your separate ways for six months, and let's figure you two out.

And you, young man, need to start with, do you want to marry this young lady? And the answer doesn't have to be yes. And if it's not, fine. But you owe that to her because she's made it clear she wants to get married. You're just kind of kicking the can down the road. I think I'd start there. Let's separate. Let's live apart.

I'm not saying break up. See if things get better. I'm not saying break up, but let's not live together. And let's see where we want to go. We're on Team Jeremiah because you called. But I'll be honest with you, if she called, I'd have been on her team. When you separate your living situation, like we said, you're still dating. Then take that time to start figuring out what it would look like if you're there.

I don't know if you are, but if you are there, if we were to be married, what would it look like? What do we see for each other? What are gender roles? What do you think a man's role is? What do you think a man's role is? What do you think a woman's role is? Like you guys talk about that stuff because you did get a little glimpse of you thought you could come home and pop open a beer and watch the game. And she said, no, no, no, no, no. There's dishes in the kitchen.

So you guys have to talk about that and arrive at what that means for both of you. And of course, if you do get married, go through marriage counseling and go through Financial Peace University. Yeah, I agree. In your house, who does the dishes? Whoever doesn't cook does the dishes. Oh, really? So if you cook like me, I rarely do the dishes. It's usually Sam that does them. And that's a fair exchange. Yeah. Now, every once in a while, if I really feel like the meal, how can I put it? Like if it really was a lot of dishes and the meal was just like, why were there so many dishes?

I'll help him out a little bit. Yeah. I'm the dishwasher king. Yeah? Yeah. You put them in the dishwasher or you wash them by hand? Oh, no. What are we talking about?

It's 2025. Who washes by hand anymore? Well, I have certain dishes that I don't put in the dishwasher. Well, of course. The fine china. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the dishes guy.

Yeah. Stacey will help when it's a lot of dishes, but I'm on the kids all the time. Do you complain about it or you don't mind doing it? Oh, no, no. I like it. I am famous. I like when I go to bed at night, I like the kitchen to be clean because I'm the first one up in the morning.

Oh, yes. Making the coffee. And I don't like to walk into. Oh, the worst. To uncleanliness. You got to have the kitchen. The counter's got to be wiped off. Floor's got to be swept.

Yeah. Like, I don't want to come into. I don't want to see dishes in the morning. Oh, negatory. It's not a good got to have the kitchen. The counter's got to be wiped off. Floor's got to be swept. Yeah. Like, I don't want to come into. I don't want to see dishes in the morning. Oh, negatory. It's not a good way to start my day. It messes my mind up. It's got to be clean. Agree.

So that's one of my things. Yeah. And I got other things I got to do, too. And I do them, young man. I do them. 50-50. We'll exchange lists on the break, but we'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show.

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out to less than nine bucks a month. Super affordable. It's amazing. So again, that's joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. Make sure to check it out, you guys. All right, folks, welcome back to the Ramsey show alongside Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman. Excited to be with you here as we take your calls about your money, about your profession, about your relationships. And by the way, excited to debut a new show on the Ramsey Network. It's my new project called Front Row Seat, something I've been cooking up for a long time. Very, very excited. And this is a deep dive conversation show. That's how I broke into broadcasting many, many years ago. But we've added an element to it, Jade, and it is the audience themselves are a part of the show. So they get to sit in the room. They're in the round with us. And it's not just me asking questions or

making points. These are conversations, not just a back and forth interview. The audience themselves gets to be a part of the conversation by asking questions themselves. And so we made this. It's a beautiful set. Looks fabulous on YouTube. You can also get it via podcast. So on YouTube or your favorite podcast app, it's called Front Row Seat. What are we doing? We're deep diving in three areas. Content that'll help you get better as a person. So think the physical, the spiritual, the mental, the emotional, things of that nature. And then we talk about your professional development, soft skills and hard skills. And then if you're in a leadership role, how to lead well.

So we talk about it's get better, up and lead well and that's what we're doing so it's called do the math for us i like that oh well see it depends on the age but if you're if you're if you're in your late 30s mid 30s late 30s 40s you know this math really well it's inside the actor studio famous show on bravo meets masterclass which is a very popular app now meets mtv unplugged love that i feel like that's a great way to describe it because for someone like me i know exactly what i'm about to get so uh bottom line is it's a conversation show a wide variety of guests but you see yourself in the audience as they sit there uh ask questions. So it's a really fun format. It's called Front Row Seat. Get it on YouTube. Subscribe on YouTube. Like it. And you can also get it on

your favorite podcast app. So fun stuff there. Toronto is where we're going next, and Chris is sitting there waiting for us. Chris, how can we help? Hey, how are you doing today, guys? We're having a blast. What's going on? Not much. Hey, so I'm basically 40 years old, and I worked very hard for the last seven years, and I paid off my mortgage. Yeah, wow. Yeah, on my forever house, too, so I don't need to do any kind of movements or anything like that. Forever house. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It was something I wanted to do. My wife, uh, she just supported me through it and, uh, we're on the other side now, which is great. So new things. So, um, so now, you know, I've always not really spent a lot of money. I, I, you know, I, I do very well in my career, but I don't live that way. I got two cars that are both owned.

The one needs to be replaced in maybe a year or three, you know, but so some upcoming expense there. Now, I've never been into the investment part or anything like that, but now that I've got my house paid off, I need to start looking at how does my money work for me? Absolutely. Because I've always been working so hard on getting it so I'm not paying somebody else money to borrow money. I don't know, do I start looking at, you know, maybe investing in a house and maybe making, renting it out and paying that mortgage myself to maybe make that

only a 10 year um mortgage so then in 10 years that's free money to me every month or do i start dabbling in investments like i heard a lot well i've been doing ten dollars uh uh uh every two weeks for the last two years because all my friends talk to me about investment. And what are you at now? What's your nest egg? I'm at $6,000 now. Okay. So what that tells us, that's a great, I'm glad you said that because a lot of people are into like acorns and saving the change and all that. And while I could understand that something's better than nothing, if you adopt that kind of as your way of thinking

around investing, you won't get very far. So I like that you're thinking towards this. Listen, I love that your house is paid off, but I do at 40, I do want you to have more invested and I want you to start working towards that. Typically the way we would have taught it is that while you're paying off your home, you would still have been investing 15% of your income, but spilled milk, we move on. So what I would say at this point for you is, yeah, you are able to invest 15% and beyond because your house is paid off and you don't have any other debt, correct? No, the only thing I have is $30,000 on my HELOC, which is a pool, which I'll have that done in a couple months. Okay. So $30,000 as a HELOC. Yeah. I would focus in, I get that paid off lickety split,

like immediately. And then I would invest, I would invest 15% and beyond. When you look at your monthly budget, how much do you think that you could put towards investing and still like percentage wise and still, you know, enjoy the life that you've set up for yourself well for easy math right now i'm paying the pool uh thirteen hundred dollars every two weeks to the pool um on top of when i get commission checks i just throw those towards it right but that's easy to switch over to investments in in two months time okay yeah so you'd be putting 2600 2600 every okay and is that kind of maximum for you or do you think there's even more and what percentage oh i could do i can do more because that does not even include my commissions that i get uh every month on the first paycheck of every month.

So what would 15% be for you? If you invested 15% of gross income, what number would that be? So the number after taxes times 20.5. Before taxes? Gross? Well, I make like 340k a year canadian though and then but like you know we get we get taxed and i get taxed pretty highly so i take all about half of that okay but we want the number before taxes so it's 45 000 if he did it per year yeah yeah okay so do you have that is that available to you in your budget yeah i can i can make my budget however i need to make it okay so that what i'm getting at is that 34 3500 that's the baseline

for you of investing and since your house hundred dollars a month and since your house is paid off you could go beyond that and you should go beyond that and i would in this case i would probably start there before i'd go to real estate and i'd build up a pretty decent nest egg and then when you start feeling like okay like i'm doing well then if you wanted to also save up and buy a piece of real estate in cash you could um but that's kind of what i'm doing now is just kind of the math to see where you would end up so i put in the 6 000 that you already have saved and i thought okay he's 40 years old maybe he you know retires by the time he's 62 if you put that 3400 aside every month that's 3.2 million okay okay so you can see that's just the starting point

so if you add beyond that you know you could be doing really really well but it's just to say like listen it's not too late at all. But you've really got to be diligent about this. And that's not a problem at all, right? So with no mortgage, that makes that very easy to achieve, right? Yeah, exactly. So and when you talk about investments, like I said, when I was paying off my house, everybody was calling me crazy because i should be investing that money and um so i started doing ten dollars here and there and

just kind of learning you can't make money buying and selling day trading i learned that you're right on on the cheap which was my whole reason of only doing ten dollars uh-huh now now that i'm doing larger figures you know i the the thought i have is that I always hear about the S&P 500, which I have a little bit in that. Is that where I really should be kind of focusing my investment? I love this question, and I'm glad you asked it. Yeah, we're not talking about day trading at all. So if I were you, and this is what the advice I'd give to anybody. So the first place I'd start is with my 401k. Do you have a 401k through your job?

We have RRSPs in Canada. Okay, yeah, RESPs. Do you guys get matches for that? Is there a company match? Not mine, no. Okay, so if there's no, and I understand there's differences in US and Canada. So what we would say here is if you have a 401k or an RESP that has a match, you'd start there because it's free money. But if there is

no match, then here in the States, we have basically a Roth IRA, which is, you know, money that's already taxed. You know, you're paying taxes on the money, then it's going, you're going and investing that money so that when you pull it out later, you've already paid taxes on it. So we like anything here that has a Roth treatment. So the Canadian version of that, I'm not sure what it is, but I'd go for that and max it out yearly. And then after I've maxed that out, if there's still money, I'd go back to that RESP and fill that out. I don't know what the max is for Canada, but I try to max it out. And if you can do those two things, you're really going to be well off. Good call.

Got to run. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, Jade Warshaw with me. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. Why ReFi refinances defaulted private student loans and builds a custom loan based on your ability to pay. Now you guys, private student loans, are different than federal student loans like Sally Mae. So to learn more about this custom refinancing option and a lump sum payoff option you could qualify for after 24 months,

go to YREFI.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. It may not be available in all states. Okie doke. Today's question comes from Taylor in Alabama. They say, I started an entry-level job at a bank six months ago. I'm 19 years old and it pays about $35,000 a year. I was recently offered a higher paying job at a different company, but I plan to go to college in the fall. I'm scared that future employers will not hire me if I only stay at the bank or another company for a few months before heading off to school. Would you recommend that I go after a new job or should I stay at my current job to avoid future employers thinking I'm a job hopper? Neither of the job options are

related to my chosen career path. Ken Coleman, you're up. Yeah, I don't think you're going to look like a job hopper when you're 19, and this is just you making money to go to college. So the narrative on this would be, I got a chance to make more money. I was working at the bank. I got an opportunity to make more money, and all of that was going towards paying my tuition, so I took it. That's the narrative. You're not a job hopper. So good question, though. What constitutes a job hopper? I don't think there's any set rule, but if you were to look at one's resume and you were to see multiple jobs

in a span of a year and a half to two years. Like three or four. And it doesn't have a narrative. In other words, it wasn't I got promoted. Okay, which is, that's not words, it wasn't, I got promoted. Okay. Which is, that's not job hopping. That is, I got promoted. Going to the next level. It's not, I got recruited. And so I was at company A, company B came along with a great offer. And so I upgraded to the tune of a title and a pay bump. That doesn't make you look like a job hopper

unless you keep doing that. So if you see multiple of those in it, it'll paint the picture is my point. I see. Somebody goes, oh, you don't hang around for very long at all. You're looking for the next best thing. So if I hire you, I may not have you in six to 12 months. That's what you're worried about. But if it is a legitimate narrative and you aren't just taking the next best thing in other

words got it you know you you aren't playing the field as they used to say when i was in high school you know you were called a player if you had too many girls on your arm in a short amount of time that you would have been called a player that's right and then somebody might say don't hate the player hate the game yeah and you're saying but in this case the game ain't helping you out right so if if you want to eventually settle down and all the girls in your high school have seen you play in the field then maybe they don't trust you like we don't want you same deal with a potential employer they want to feel like you're you're you're the marrying type okay right good good good job ken so it's

kind of straightforward common sense uh let's go to Shannon in Phoenix, Arizona. Shannon, how can we help? Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I'm in a mess. Uh-oh.

Well, I don't know. This is dramatic. Okay. So my mortgage payment is $4,500 a month. And we just bought this house in June. And the income has changed. And so I own my own business. So it's definitely, it fluctuates, but I make between $4,000 to $6,000 a month. And then my husband has an income of $4,000 a month currently. Okay.

So that is, that's what we're looking at. So on a really good month, your mortgage is still about 50%? Ooh, mama. If not more of your income. Yeah, if not more, yeah. Okay. And you said the income changed. What was it before?

Was it ever a good idea? Well, probably no. No, probably not um there we own another house too i don't know how much do you want to know i want to let me tell me the tea spill it so we we moved and um we we had another home and um we were trying to sell it and uh apparently when we went into escrow and inspection and stuff, the foundation needed to be replaced, and that was like $140,000. So long story short, we still have that home. Did you fix the foundation? No.

We are working on that because it's $140,000. This has just been, anyway. So tell me, before you move on, so that house, what do you owe on it, and what's it worth, barring the fixed foundation? So we owe about $650,000 on it, and it was being listed for $1.1 million, but with the foundation issue, all the buyers were scared to even take it. So with the rent, we make $1,400 profit a month. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yes and no. You and I's definition of profit is different because you've got a lot of money sunk into it. Okay. So 100%.

Got it. So you've got this one house. If you fix the foundation, it's worth 1.1. Yes. You haven't fixed it yet. Are you in the process of it or tell me more about that? So we applied for permits and we're waiting on that. It can take up to five months. So we've just been working through that the last couple months. How would you pay for it? Exactly. I would have to pull out a HELOC and the whole thing is just a nightmare. Okay. Have you done the research on if you were to sell it as is? I mean, I know you said certain realtors wouldn't touch it, but I'm sure certain realtors would. What would that look like as far as the value well we well we tried um just to give it away for uh even 950 um and all the that doesn't feel like a giveaway let me let me that's not a giveaway that's you just less the value of getting it fixed well we do owe about 150 000. Okay. But that's not on the next buyer. You chose that, right?

Well, yeah. I just mean in order not to take... For you to not take the hit. Yeah. So I think you might end up eating a big loss on this house you might i mean if you can carry it and get this foundation fixed in cash then i but i but i would not take out more debt to fix this house so there's that can i ask really quick how far away are these two houses the one you're living in now versus the one... How far? A state away. Oh, boy. Six hours. Oh, boy.

And you said there's also $150,000 in solar. That's a separate loan. Yeah. Okay. And they're a state away. And you moved to where you are now because of your husband's job or your business? Well, originally, it was my husband's job or your business? Well, originally it was my husband's job. He's been in the military forever, so we moved here.

And anyway, we're staying here. Yeah, at this point. So Shannon. We shouldn't have bought this house. Yeah, tell me about your current house because this may be your way out of all of this. Your current house, what do you owe on it and what's it worth? So we bought it for $460,000. $460,000.

And when I just called a realtor, I got a Dave Ramsey realtor, and she told me because we bought it just in June that we'd probably, with closing costs and everything, probably take about a $30,000 loss. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You're probably right.

I mean, she's like, I don't know based on it. Yeah. So, so that's not an option. Like selling that for profits, not an option for you right now,

which I wondered if it would be. Uh, yeah. If I were you right now, which I wondered if it would be. Yeah, if I were you... Well, what is rent? What if you guys were renting in your area right now? What would that set you back? Yeah, so rent here is amazing. Well, relative. So we could get a rent, the same equivalent home for maybe $2,000 or $2,200 a month at the most yeah the only thing is i don't want you adding more loss to this in the form of thirty thousand dollars in fees yeah so i'd ride i'd

hang out for a little while in this home um if you can to get right side up on it if you can make it you can come up with that money yeah then get out then rent take care of this other place to stay away and get out of that it feels like that's the progression that's the only way the good news is like you are getting some money from rent on this just to pay the mortgage but i it's a hot potato i'm gonna try to get out of this as quickly as i can before it burns your hand oh this is a tough one i feel for you you had to go with hot potato for people living in Phoenix? You had to go with the burn? Yeah, it's hot.

It is. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is alongside. Our last caller, what a story. Yeah. They move from one state to another.

Very expensive house in the one state they leave behind. Can't sell it because it's got about $150,000 worth of foundation repair. It's cracked. Nobody wants it. They couldn't give it away, or at least that was their statement. And then they moved to the Phoenix area. Oh, by the way, they also got $150,000 worth of solar on that house. They moved to the Phoenix area, buy a house that's costing them about $4,500 a month.

It's over half of their take home. Ooh, yes. No, half of their gross. Yeah, it is. And so we were sitting there going, okay, wow. And they can't sell the current house without taking about a $30,000 loss. Yeah, because they've hardly been in it. They've hardly been in it.

And so we ran up into the break there. And so you were thinking through this a little bit. You wanted me to bring this back up because they don't have a ton of options. Yeah, we kind of ran up against time. But then during the break, Ken, you and I, my colleague, Ken Coleman. Yes, that's right. He's like, you know what? Really, what you guys need to do, if you can attack the $30,000,

that would be your loss for selling this house. That might be the way to go because then at least you can go rent. We established that they can rent for half the amount. So that gets them back into the 25% range, which is good. So if I were them, Ken, I would be looking for maybe cars to sell. They sound like they're off the line now, but they seem like the kind that might have a couple of cars and you're driving just beaters for now, but just something to gain some sort of pecuniary advantage here.

I would be working like crazy. I mean, can we make an additional $2,500 a month? Yes. That would be my target. I would always look at that and go, $2,500 a month is $30,000 in 12 months. Yes. Yes. That would be my target. I would always look at that and go $2,500 a month is $30,000 in 12 months. Yes. Okay. So I'm going to start there. I at least go, okay, what would have to be true for me to bring that in to be able to make that difference? Because

now they can reset. That's right. Because next, the big hurdle they have is they got to come up with $150,000 to fix the foundation in another state to be able to unload that house so i can tell you there's a lot of hard work and long hours ahead of them to be able to get out of this mess but at least they create some margin by selling the current home and getting into a rent situation that's right at least they're going to free up way more they're going to free up money yeah and they're not going to feel the weight of all that debt you know two mortgages solar panels can you imagine being that that kind of up to your eyeballs and then you got a house that you can't even fix you want to talk about the old millstone around the neck analogy

that's what that was 100 so tough stuff there but it's doable but i mean we're talking about enormous intensity for a for a pretty good season to dig out of that. It's a mountain. Let's go to Richard in Chicago, Illinois. Richard, how can we help? Hey, yeah, my name is Richard. I'm 28 years old. So I got into a pretty bad hole of debt on credit cards.

I got a house about two years ago with my ex now. And, uh, you know, I buy, I was buying stuff for, um, the house and then we broke up and I went down the rabbit hole of spending, you know, not being pretty financial intelligent with my money. So then I got, I'm looking at it now and I'm about 50 K andK. And I was using 0% interest, and now all of them are hitting that mark where the interest is starting to come. Okay. So the $50,000 is all credit cards? Correct.

And you mentioned you had a house with your ex. Is this ex-girlfriend, ex-wife? Ex-girlfriend because we never got married but the house is just mine it's only in your name okay and what do you owe on that house um i bought it at 230 it's my mortgage now is at 209 okay and what's it worth just curious um i think about 265 270 on a good day okay and can you tell me what percentage of your take home is it in the right spot or is it too much what are you paying every month i pay everything raised up from when i got it but now it's at 23 65 i take home about

43 a month 45 okay so we're again we're in a similar situation as our last call. Very similar. This is way, way more house than you can afford. Is that why you're calling? Because this thing is eating your lunch? Yeah, everything, you know, with all the interest going up, it's going to look scary. Yeah. Lay out the totals for us, the credit card. Go smallest

credit card debt up to the largest. Smallest it would be for my business I try to go into, it's about $2,800 right now. And then it goes to $4,300. And then it's $6,, 6,700, 8,33, 9,000, and then a 12,000. Yeah. It sounds like you bought a house that you couldn't afford because at the time you're thinking, hey, she'll pay half, I'll pay half. We have two incomes, we can afford this, which I mean, you're not alone. Many people enter into things like that. The danger is, like you saw, if the relationship folds, there's nobody else on the debt that can be on the hook for that, unless you find yourself a roommate to bide you some time. And even that, I would only suggest that if you know your income is going up here in the near future is your income going up

in the near future no but i got a girlfriend and she's staying with me my guy you just you just oh boy all right so what are you doing to me wait a minute we gotta call this out are you meaning to tell me that you're gonna put yourself back in the same situation that you just were in that you're calling here about well i think it was more on my responsibility i think i you know after the breakup i started spending money like it was nothing going on trips but you want to know what it makes me feel like and i'm just i'm like andre 3000 i'm just being honest i feel like this is very convenient for you to just let somebody else up and move in.

Right, but I'm not expecting anybody to help me. She helps with like groceries and, you know, that's nothing else. I could ask, but, you know, I'm not trying to do that. Okay, listen, I... So she's not paying any rent to you? I haven't asked, no. But now this is, then it's still weird because you just have somebody living off you, and you don't want that type of lady.

This is not a... But I get, you know, she buys me, you know, certain stuff. She'll give me some money, you know, for a bill here and there. She'll pay all the groceries all month. Bro, you're too broke to be dating somebody who's living with you and not paying her share of the rent. That's just a fact. So that's step one, get her to pay half? No, step one is you've got to learn how to operate your living facility on your own.

That's step one. And that's just you. Like Richard, learning to take care of Richard. How about a budget, Richard? That's what I'm saying. So you can answer the question, how much money could you pay off debt? How much could you pay towards debt every month after you're paying off the basics? Your utilities and food and gas and all that. What could you put towards towards debt probably the minimums at that because the minimums are looking dangerous now yeah he doesn't have the money because he's at 50 trying to figure out okay richard here here's step one if i'm you step one is you got to get out of this

house you can't afford it you you had a plan before it it didn't work. And it didn't work because honestly, it just wasn't a good plan. You didn't know it then, but you know it now. Lesson learned. This house is too expensive. If I were you, it'd be on the market as soon as I've got it cleaned up and can take good photos of it.

Sell it and get into something that's no more than 25% of your take home. Nobody else's added income because it's just you right now and if you're gonna shack up with the lady she's got to pay her portion yeah come on you at least want somebody who's gonna do their part you don't is that unacceptable in today's i have no clue i've been married so long i don't even have the floggiest idea if two people are living together and in a romantic relationship are they are they both paying equal share of rent i think so i think

studio audience do we have yes that's the deal okay i think that's the deal like if i'm if i don't think this the the standard changes if i'm a lady which i am i'm looking for a guy who can take care of himself he can pay his own rent pay for his own car pay his bills and if i'm a guy i think you'd be looking for the same thing in a lady someone who can right take care of herself not just you know live i mean if we're gonna like be dating and we're jumping into a house i'm gonna go hey this is my part of the rent this is yours right nothing wrong with that 50 50 sell the house richard gotta sell the house sell the house and stop moving in with these ladies. She buys me stuff.

Who cares? You're broke. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm going to get some peps at AC after that call. This is the Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession.

Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite and you should too. Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see

into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Welcome to the Ramsey Show America, where we help you win with your money, in your profession, and with your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is with me. We're here for you. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225.

We're going to start it off with Mike in Orlando. Mike, how can we help today? Hey, how are you? Good, Mike. How are you? Good, Mike. How are you? Good, thanks. So I had to leave my previous position because of a military transfer for my wife, right? So I went from New York to Orlando, and I'm throwing my resumes out there. I'm, you know, working on some certificates. I, you know, I can't even, it's rare that I hear anything back from a company. If I do hear anything, you know, a rejection letter, I can't seem to break the mold. I can't seem to beat the

algorithm and get a company to, you know, want to talk to me in person. Yeah. How long you been in the Orlando area? Less than four months. Okay. And what were you doing in New York? I was an engineer. And what type of engineer? Mechanical slash application. Okay. And what, pretty good size company, small business? What was the background? It was for a large, let's say, semiconductor applications company. So we created the instruments to make sure that semiconductors are, and various other components are created properly. And what was your income? Only $75,000 with five years of experience.

Okay. Well, a couple things are going on, and I just set this up as context because this is where we are in the country right now as it relates to some of these jobs. And this is what we would call a white-collar job in some respects. It's not like a trade job. But companies are contracting their hiring. We've seen a progressive slowdown, Jade, of hiring in this country. In other words, companies aren't hiring as fast. They aren't offering or creating new positions. There's just an overall cooling in the marketplace.

And where we've seen that hit the most is in that higher two-figure, excuse me, five figures. And then the six-figure income, it's also tightening there as well. So all that to say, I'm not surprised by what you're saying. That's just where we stand. The other thing is, is you've only been in Orlando for four months. So my guess is you're doing all submissions of resumes online and you're just getting chewed up into the algorithm, correct? Yeah. Yeah. You might as well be nameless and faceless, right? So, you know, I'm sorry. I mean, really, that's the truth.

Several years ago, I wrote a book that became a bestseller called The Proximity Principle. And The Proximity Principle, the formula is the right people plus the right places equals opportunity. In other words, when I'm around the right people, they connect me to more of the right people. They point me to the right places. When I'm in the right places, guess what happens? I meet more of the right people. So right now, Mike, what's happening for you is what I think would happen to just about anybody. And I say that to encourage you to say nothing's wrong with you, number one, but what you're doing is wrong.

There's nothing wrong with you, but what you're doing is wrong because you're just playing the odds, and the odds are not in your favor. Okay? This is like playing the lottery. So what you've got to do is begin to connect. You've got to start to get involved socially, whether that be if you're a person that goes to church, plug in. Start talking to everybody. If you've got kids that are playing sports, talk to everybody in the bleachers. You've got any type of social or I call them hobbies, plug in. Social media, get on social media and you're telling everybody to listen. Hey,

I've been in Orlando for four months and I'm not cracking the resume submission game. Here's what I do. Here's what I've done it for. And I'm in this range of this type of work is what I'm looking for. And so you are beginning to do all of this and this becomes your full-time job. Now there's one other thing here that I'm going to mention. You have got to be looking at companies. Let's say you've interviewed for, excuse me, you've submitted resumes for 10 companies. Every time that you look at a company where you go, okay, there's a position that I'm qualified for, you've got to go to the well of relationships and go, do I know anybody that works over at company XYZ?

If I don't, do I know anybody who knows somebody who works at XYZ? Now, this is all about as simple as advice as you can give, but here's the deal. Every time I've talked to somebody like you, and I've talked to thousands of you over the last several years you're gonna lose if you play the resume submission game it's why the people don't win the lottery it's the same deal so there is some intentionality here that's really brutally hard to accept because it's not fun no so my father I like to say my father created he had the great sin of going to work and coming home. Yeah. And what that led to was a very difficult circumstance if he got paid off. Yeah.

And I think you're right. I don't want to repeat the same mistake. That's right. Now, I do have a very quick question. Yeah, go for it. As a follow-up, if I can put that in. Yeah, go for it. Okay, so I may have the opportunity to restart as a plumbing apprentice.

Now, the average salary for an engineer in Orlando with five years' experience, $88,000 to $100,000 from what my recruiter is allowing me. Okay. I might be making like $30,000, but at the end of the day, you know, it's very difficult not to find work as a plumber. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I really am intrigued by this. My question is, how long are you making $30,000 as the apprentice, and when does that jump up?

You know, I don't know the answer to that. Find out the answer, as I think you're going to be surprised. But here's what I would do if I were you. I would be using the proximity principle, which I'm going to give you a copy of the book, by the way. So when we put you on hold, I'm going to give you a copy of the book. I want you to read it and make it become your plan. But if I were you, I would take the $30,000 right now and learn a trade that could turn into a massive, massive opportunity for you in the form of your own business three, four years from now, maybe sooner. And I'll tell you what else I would do, Jade.

While I'm collecting the $30,000, I'm still using the proximity principle. And if I were to get into this thing long enough to go, plumbing ain't for me. It's a stopgap. I can do it. But I want to get back in engineering. I would be, instead of driving Uber, I'd be learning a trade. Yeah, I wondered, though, what made him pick plumbing?

It has an engineering touch to it, is my guess. Is that what it is? Why plumbing? I was a bad student as a kid. My mother always told me plumbers make good. They do. Mike, I want to paint a picture for you. Mike, I'm going to paint a picture

for you as to why I would do what I just said. This is a new trend in America, Jade. I don't know if you know this, but we are seeing major, major venture capital firms come in and buy up very successful trade businesses we're talking small town america people small businesses yeah and they're putting them together

in one big giant so they may own 400 electrician firms or 400 plumbing companies i'm not saying that's his exit but i'm saying no, no, no, that's amazing. They're getting paid big money because they are very profitable small businesses. So getting into the trades, I mean, I think the work of being an engineer, a mechanical engineer and being a plumber, a lot of transfer there. I think he'd be surprised what he could do. So that's my advice. I would do, I'd keep searching, but I would take the opportunity right now to get that trade. That is worth a lot of money being a plumber. In Orlando, Florida, come on.

It's on a poppin'. Quick break. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Thrilled to have you with us. Jade Warshaw joins me. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Let's go to Atlanta, Georgia, where Victoria joins us. Victoria, how can we help?

Hey, thank you so much for taking my call today. So I'm calling because me and my husband are more in forbearance with our home all of 2024. And in January of this year, we were offered a modification. We were offered two. We denied the first one, declined the first one. We accepted the second one. The lender is now saying that the first one, when we sent it back, they told us it was not executed properly because the last thing was first with a comma and then the first name written by the notary.

And so we sent it back, updated. They say that they didn't send it in time, and we received a denial letter because it was not executed properly and not given the chance to correct it and told now that our home is in foreclosure because they either one did not receive it or did not receive it on time. We're being told different things and we're just at a loss and can't even at a loss and can't even believe that something like this is happening over a document that could have been corrected. Wow. So you were right up on the wire. You sent in this document and for whatever reason, it wasn't accepted. Can you tell me how long this,

how long has this whole process been going on? Well, the forbearance was all of 2024. and then in January, they contacted us. We contacted them to see what the next steps would be coming out of forbearance, which is when we were offered the modification. This was just a week ago. January 29th is when we get the letter stating that we are no longer offered the modification, that we are now going to go to foreclosure January 29th. What caused all this to onset? What caused you guys to get behind? Has that matter been cleared up? I want to know more about how you got into this mess. We're self-employed, and things just changed with our income and business, the ups and downs of being self-employed, and that changed.

We were able to rectify those issues, and we were ready with the date that they gave us in February to begin again with our payments. We were ready and able to pay the monthly payment that we were paying, and that's a little bit of the background. What was the payment, the monthly payment, before it was modified? Right at $1,400, and that was going to be the same. Okay. And what are you guys earning consistently month to month at this point? Consistently net at around $7 thousand a month okay and that must have just started here in january because you said all of 2024 was kind of this forbearance thing

correct okay so what i just started picking up um what I'm what I want to make sure is if it's the right thing for you to keep this home and if you can truly afford to keep this home um versus really trying to cling on to something that's kind of pulling you down well is that a question or a comment a little of both because based on and i might be this is your story i'm only hearing brief segments of it so based on what you're saying what sounds like to me is all of 2024 was a struggle and then you said well we've got ourself right side up but it's we're just now into february so I guess what I'm trying to say is how long have you been right side up not long because it's only February and I'm just right well the second half

of the year I think we started um getting on our bearings and doing a little bit better and we're able to save and able since we had the forbearance able to save able to strategize and all of those things so when we came together to discuss with the lender again and had the agreement and signed an agreement to start back our payments in February we're up and running and ready to go so no I don't feel like neither one of us feel like based on our income and what's going on and what we've been able to say that this would be an issue moving forward. We've had our home since 2021. Okay. And who was helping you with all the paperwork and filing all this? Were you doing it on your own? Was somebody helping you?

Just me and my husband. Okay. Yeah. Something is, what we can't figure out, at least I can't, just listening in, is what changed. And I'm not even sure you know what changed based on what you've described to us. And it feels like, if that's true, that they've just lost faith. I don't think they think that you guys can take care of this, and they're looking to cut their losses. Am I missing something? Well, I was looking for some,

I can't see how that would happen when we have an agreement. The first agreement, the first modification didn't make any sense. The second one did make sense. Tell me why it didn't make sense. Tell me why it didn't make sense. That's that'll give us some light for us. If I recall, we were,

okay, sorry. If I recall, we were okay sorry if i if i recall we were gonna be um paying like basically starting over i don't know how to describe it or put it in words basically starting over like none of the mortgage payments we made in the past would have counted and it would be adding on an additional 50 30 to 50. It was just a lot of years added on and a lot of extra payments. Okay. So what was the, because we were running out of time, so I'm going to try to speed us up, Victoria. So what is the current agreement that you said does make sense and that you just said you just signed? The current agreement was just, we were going to start payments in February and it was just going

to be the the payment regular right but my point is and then you said within just a matter of short amount of time if I heard right that they've now said no that's not going to work we're going to go ahead and foreclose but it was a technicality they're saying that there's something wrong with the paperwork is what what I gathered yes that is correct so that's the problem the only possible thing you could look I mean do you agree is there something wrong with the paperwork or you don't see any errors with the paperwork we already corrected it what they said was wrong was that the last name was first instead of the first name last that was written by the notary on the document and then when you accepted it and then they won't they still they said well it's past the deadline

yes yes you see what i'm something's not adding up this doesn't add up to me this clerical error doesn't just turn into now sorry we're foreclosing that's what i'm saying like on the one hand what we're saying yeah and that correct. I know this is insane, but this is what has happened. So on the one hand, you could continue to fight this on your own. It's going to be a lot of energy and effort on your part. The other thing is maybe you get a lawyer involved, but that feels like a lot of money that you don't have to have necessarily to spend. Who have you talked to?

Yeah, that's a good point, Ken. Well, we have talked to them to no avail. We have a supposed case manager, and we have talked to an attorney and had things sent out on Friday. And what are they saying? Just since last Friday. Well, this was just Wednesday when we met with the attorney, and today is Monday. So they haven't heard back from the attorney. We're not much help to you on this because of what's going on. And I'm sorry about that. But I think an attorney is the way to go. Does your attorney feel like you have a case? Yes, because she looked at the documents and she's saying it's a clerical error. Then fight like you've never fought anything else in your life.

That's what, you know, many times Dave has said, we've said it, when people call us, we tell you what we would do if we were in your shoes. And I would get a lawyer, and I would fight, and I would become the biggest thorn in their side, however I could do that without being a jerk, but just this steady drip of this is your fault, and your lawyer should be a bulldog on this. You want your lawyer to be the bulldog to fight for you. Because if this is absolutely a clerical error and all of a sudden your house is in the balance, fight. And fight with everything you've got.

Yeah, I agree with that. It's all you can do. I agree. I wish I could say more. Me too. There's no strategy of do this, this do this right now I mean she did what I would have told her to do which is get a lawyer and see if they see the issue and if they can

fight it and if they can it feels like they can't but I would also say I'm going to stick this in here Victoria because I agree with Jade the affordability I'd sell it I would try to get it out of foreclosure for the sole purpose of selling it. And you all focus on your business and rent some place over a garage for a while.

This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is with me. Hey, the best way to make the most of your money is a budget. And I want to make sure that we mention our EveryDollar budgeting app. It is the best out there. You can get it for free in the App Store or Google Play. And you can also get the link in the show notes. And also, I want to mention while I'm at it, things the real estate market are you paying attention to what's going on uh-huh I'm dabbling you got a prediction and dabbling you got a prediction for this year oh no I don't like I can't be like Dave I don't make those kind of all right yeah well yeah I'm reading you have one no not at all but I am reading what a lot of

people are saying they're saying it's going to kind of be we might have little roller coaster moments but it's largely going to stay the same yeah so here's the point a lot of people are still sitting on the sidelines going and waiting for jerome powell yeah and uh all the factors maybe they're thinking trump who knows what they're thinking uh bottom line is is we believe right now that if you've got the money uh and and you can afford it to buy or sell go Go ahead and do it. Don't wait on this perfect rate. Shoot your shot. Make the move. But this is intimidating.

It's confusing. So go to Ramsey's Real Estate Homebase. This is the point. Ramsey's Real Estate Homebase. We've got so many resources there. Articles, guides, calculators, how-tos, video course, and even a book. You can go get it at ramseysolutions.com slash real estate. That's ramseysolutions.com slash real estate. All right, there you go. Good stuff that you need to know.

Remember this, by the way, anything we talk about is in the show notes. So it's always, if you didn't hear me say it, you go, what did he say? Let's go to the show notes. It'll be there for you. Nathaniel is joining us now in South Bend, Indiana. Nathaniel, how can we help? Hey, thank you so much for having me on today. You bet. What's going on? So I am 23 years old. I've got no debt. Right now I'm living with my parents because my goal is to save up enough money to buy a house outright. I really don't want to take a mortgage at all. And basically my question is just, as I'm saving up money, is it okay to stay with my parents at this age for the moment? How long do you think it'll take you? How much are you trying to save?

Honestly, I think at most it would take me two more years, and I think it could take much less. How old are you? I'm 23. How much do you make? It's a little variable. Last year I made $50,000. Okay. uh it's a little variable last year i made 50 000 okay um uh you know here's where i am with this typically here's where i'm thinking i'm not saying i'm right i'm just telling you my thoughts okay what i'm thinking is when people say hey i want to stay with my family for a couple of months or

a couple of years to pay off debt and they have a good relationship with their parents they have a you know pulling case of a in case of emergency string that they can pull it and get out of there as quickly as possible right there's an end date to this i'm not mad at that i think that that could be a great way to utilize the most of your income to pay off debt. This feels a little bit extra to save up to buy a whole house. It's not like nothing's on fire. You don't need to do this. Then the next part I'm thinking about, like if you were like 19, but I'm like, okay, two more years, you're going to be 25.

I think you're on track. If this were your boy, you got a son, what would you be saying to him if he was in this situation? I think I'd be saying either no or split the difference because my thing is, are you dating anyone? No, no. I feel like you're in prime dating, getting to know people, putting your best foot forward years. And I find that a lot of young women get turned off when the gentleman is living at home god that's good to hear i wasn't sure anymore you just never know even if it's like in this situation he could be living on his own it's not like he's like quote living in his mom's basement like it's not that type of scenario right but at that, 24, especially, there is a little bit of like wanting to see independence.

Now, if you get to know her and you say, listen, I'm saving up for a house, she might understand it. But I feel like there's that side of it. And there's the side of no matter what, no matter who, unless you're legit living in like an apartment style. You know, I live I have a separate entrance it really is my apartment I still feel like there's a lot of parental-ness that gets in there that keeps you from being all that you can be as a young man on who would be living on their own you're very nice I agree with you Nathaniel I think you're too old to be living with your parents to save money for a house it's time for you to be an adult I would ask for your man card if I met you're too old to be living with your parents to save money for a house. It's time for you to be an adult. I would ask for your man card if I met you on the street.

I'd go, hand me your man card. See, Ken's not as nice, but he's right. No, no, no. Nathaniel's got a lot of character. He does. That's why I'm – He's asking, and I'm saying, I think that you are too old to be living with mom and dad. Yeah.

We like you, Nathaniel. That's why we're sidestepping a little bit. Get out there. Meet the ladies. How much money – let there. Meet the ladies. You know, how much money? Let's just run the math. Are you saying that you would be not paying anything to mom and dad? No.

So I'm paying living expenses. I'm working around the house to earn my keep. I'm not. I know you are. You're a good guy. I'm saying how much money is rent versus what you'd be paying? What's the difference between what you'd be paying mom and dad to live with them versus renting on your own? What's the difference?

Just for the heck of it. I'm not sure exactly what rents is in this area, to be honest with you. But it's South Bend and the surrounding area. Not expensive. Yeah. So my point is where I was going to try to paint you into a corner, on the math side of this, not the man side. I already commented on the man side. You said man card card pulled that was all right I said hand it over you're a boy still

give me the man card I think that you'd be surprised it's not that much money it's my point that I'm making especially with a roommate and Ken makes a great point because the third installment of my points was there's something to be said for having an experience in between mom's house and home ownership. Like there's so much to learn about what it feels like to be under the weight of 100% responsibility. And it's nice to do that in the confines of renting, as opposed to just going straight into home ownership, because home ownership is quite serious. There is no like little thing it's like if the ac goes out it's on you you got to be in control of the hedges and here's the other thing

you know we haven't discussed yet you make a very good point it made me think of this there's also something to be said for living on your own with yourself yeah you know we were talking about this and you and i've been married a long time to our spouses. Yes. In the first year. To other people. Yes. I said to our spouses. I know. I know you did. You're all worried about people thinking, oh, they're married.

No, we're not. We're colleagues. Yeah, there you go. You always want me to call you a friend. You're my friend. Yeah. All right. So I was trying to make a point.

Now I'm all flustered. I'm sorry. I made you laugh. So here's the deal. One of the hardest things about being married is learning how to live together. In other words, everybody brings Nathaniel, like you're going to bring to your marriage, or even if you're shacking up with somebody, by the way, this applies. You're bringing the habits that you saw your mom and dad.

You're bringing that environment history with you. So is the other person. That's one of the hardest parts of marriage nobody ever talks about. So I like the idea of him getting out, even if he's with a roommate, it's still like he's responsible for himself. He's living with himself. He's going, I like the dishes to be this way, or I like to go to bed with this routine or whatever the deal is. I also think there's something to be said for figuring out that before you marry somebody, that's just another, I just think this comes down to adulting. It's what they call it now. It's the dumbest term ever. But the point is that,

Nathaniel, I think you need to get out and spread your wings. I think you're going to look back and go, man, this was good for me. Yeah, I think so too. And there's no rush. Homeownership is a wonderful thing. You got time. You're 23. You have time. Let me tell you something else about homeownership. There have been many times over my many, many years of being a homeowner where I'm like, dang, I wish I was renting and I could give this problem to somebody else.

I mean, it's nice. It is. But it also comes with a lot of blood pressure moments. A lot. A lot. You know? Yeah. And you got to have stability.

Like you got to have, A, my guy, he not only needs to have three to six months of expenses, he's got to have a nice down payment because stuff inevitably is going to pop up. Stacey and I rented for two full years. I want to say two and a half years before we bought our first house. And it was the life. We talk about it now, like back in the days when we were double income, no kids, renting in a great apartment complex. Do you know what I mean?

I don't want to go back to renting. I rented for 10 years. I didn't say I want to go back. What I'm saying is for young couples. Yeah. You should start there. Renting doesn't suck. It's actually perfect for the season of life that you're in as you're saving for that first

It alleviates some of the stresses. Can you hit on a point? You spend 18 years in your parents' house, just trying to be somebody that somebody don't want to slap you upside your head. And then you immediately go marry and you're supposed to immediately know how to live with somebody. You just,

you just figured out how to not get yourself slapped upside the head. Live with yourself before you can live with somebody else. It's kind of a new bumper sticker. All right, Nathaniel, you called Boyden. We give you the head. You've got to live with yourself before you can live with somebody else. I know, right? That's kind of a new bumper sticker. All right, Nathaniel, you called. Boy, did we give you the advice. We did. Poor guy. We dumped it on him.

It's good stuff, though. Quick break. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman. Our scripture of the day comes from Philippians 1, verse 6. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show alongside Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman. Our scripture of the day comes from Philippians 1, verse 6.

God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished. Our quote from Nathan W. Morris. The speed of your success is limited only by your dedication and what you're willing to sacrifice. Well, you could put that right on top of the baby steps. You could just lay it over. Factoids. That's really good. Love it. Okay. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is where we go to talk to you. Leo, how can we help? So I'm having a problem. I make decent money at my job, but I can't seem to save. It doesn't matter

if I try separate accounts that aren't connected to my checking account. Mm-hmm. It doesn't matter if I try, you know, separate accounts that aren't connected to my checking account. You know, and I just cannot seem to save money to have an emergency fund to pay off debts. What happens? You transfer it over there and then you end up just peeping back in there and sneaking the money out? Yeah. Yeah, I just keep dipping into it, whether it's for something important or just something that I want that's not important. I just can't seem to connect the dots between saving and not using it. All right, Leo.

So I got a question. I'm asking this on behalf of my friend here. If we were following you around with a documentary crew for a week, what would be the top items that you're spending, the type of things you're blowing money on, you're spending the money on? If we're following you around, we'd go, oh, Leo, he's spending money on this. Give us a top five just off the top of your head. Oh, it's gas station, energy drinks, hunting supplies,

things that I don't need. Okay. That was good. That was a good list. Anything else? Not really. you know things that i i don't need all right okay that was good that's a good list anything else not really you know uh when i was younger it was uh before i had kids and real responsibilities it was uh i'll make more money tomorrow and i carry that over now and i can't seem to get away from that trying to out earn bad spending habits i gotta ask another follow-up leo if i'm following

you all right and we're in the gas station parking lot, we're zooming in on the doors, and you're busting out of that thing, what do you got in the arms? What do you got in the old bag at the gas station? I'm curious. Oh, I already know. Usually it's two to three energy drinks, maybe a snack for work, and a can of tobacco. Dip, corn nuts, Mountain Dew.

Right in it. Oh, man, that's disgusting. Say it's not true, Leo. Oh, it'd be so. Oh, it is. I gotta tell you. If I was on a desert island and the only thing I had

was a bag of corn nuts, I'd starve. Corn nuts. I really would. I'd die. They're actually delicious. So let's help a man out with his budget, Jade.

Okay, so I think I heard you say you had kids. Is that right? Yes, I have four. How many? Four? Okay, and you're married still? I'm not.

You're not, okay. We are dating. We are together. We live in the same house, but we have not gotten married yet. Okay, so you have a woman that you're soon to marry. Yeah? Yes. Okay.

Okay, so let's talk about the money money first and then we'll go back to the relationship because we're not gonna speed past that like you didn't just say what you just said okay so first off what you really need i think the solution here is a good detailed budget i always say that budgets should be three things detailed realistic and flexible and that will really help you out because I think what's happening, like you said, you're kind of spending the money before you get it. And it's like, I can out earn this. I can out earn this. And if you don't, then you end up having to pull back out that savings. So we'll make sure that you get set up with every dollar. And what I want you

to do, I want you to sit down and create your budget. And I want you to be so detailed about all the things that you know you spend money on, even the energy drinks. If you know that's something that's part of your life right now as it sits, put it on the budget. If you know, hey, like I buy a hunting knife at least once a month, put it on the budget. Be realistic and honest with who you are in your spending so that you can begin to see, okay, I see what's going on here, right? So that's a good place to start. And then obviously the same way that you're budgeting for all the other things, you budget for things like savings and you can actually see, do I have money to put

aside in savings? Can I live the lifestyle I'm living and still have money to put aside in savings? Right now it seems as though the answer is no, but when you do the budget, you're really going to get a clear picture of what's going on so that's thing one um thing two i haven't even asked you about debt yet do you have any debt uh we have two two vehicles that i pay for and i have maybe two thousand dollars of credit cards that i'm slowly working on paying off okay so um putting everything into perspective right now if you do find extra money in your budget after you've budgeted for everything right now the money wouldn't necessarily go towards savings you'd save up one thousand dollars and that's it if you can get a thousand dollars and

just set it aside tuck it aside for a rainy day that's great everything else needs to go towards paying off this debt okay okay now let's talk about the elephant in the room with this the relationship because i don't know why mom is not paying for her car i don't understand it i don't get it well i don't understand why mom is not married i don't go to school well i'm with you on that i'm as traditional as they get why aren't you guys just married yet and it's 100 my fault um i am i want to give her everything that i possibly can wedding wise like i want it to be the wedding of her dreams yeah and with with the money situation i am not to that point where i'm comfortable spending that money on something like that i hear that so it's me holding back she wants she's pushing for it which I have no problem doing it, but I want it to be everything she wants. I don't want her to have to hold back on something because we don't have the money for it. I 100% honor the idea that you want to give

her a wonderful wedding party, but I want you guys to frame that as that's what it is. It's a celebration. It's a party. You can get married legally and don't nobody have to know but you guys and then you're at least protected legally huh she's been looking into that through the courthouse and things like that how about this how about you guys just get married and then you can you can throw a celebration years from now or you can rededicate your vows and she can put on the dress i mean spoiler alert everybody is married before their wedding day. Everyone, the moment you get the document, the moment you go and sign the document. Boy, you had me there for a second. I was like, uh. So the idea that it's like, no, I want to wait until the day. I'm like, we all get married on

paper a week or so before we're actually married. That's right. So it's not even like, we make it more of a thing than it is. So think for you guys it's like yeah get married on paper that way you can do all the things we just talked about with your wife yeah that sounds nice doesn't it okay it does it does sound nice yeah and then you guys can save up for this wonderful party you can do all of it how much you think you're spending a month in energy drinks bro oh it's usually about ten dollars a day yeah okay so we're gonna do 30 days in a month all right that's three hundred dollars my guy is rick flair on those energy i'm telling you man you need to get rid of the energy drinks that's a three hundred dollar a

month raise do some push-ups some pull-ups all right get some good night's sleep you won't need an energy drink i don't need an energy drink i wake up with the juice man okay i'm just telling you i have a little bit of coffee but that's like two cups max that's the energy drinks two cups all right not energy drinks those are yeah those are the tori but i'm not getting on your health i'm actually saying three hundred dollars a month i wanted you to see quickly how you just changed your life. That's a big deal. That's a big raise for you. True or false?

True. You can get rid of the energy drinks. Don't get me started on the tobacco. Well, I'm slowing down on that. Good. I know. You got work in. And that's why I didn't bring it up.

I am trying to actually be sensitive. I get that one's harder to kick than the energy drink. If you do this budget, I think you're going to be astonished. And especially when you share it with your new wife, since you guys are getting married this weekend, I think you're both going to be astonished. And there's something about seeing your behavior on paper written out that you go, like you clutch your pearls.

You're like, I can't believe I've been spending my hard-earned money on this when I could have this. And so what you could have is what you and your wife, when the time comes, you need to be dreaming that up together. You're giving all this great financial advice. I'm trying to help him, but in a different category. You're my friend. You are Mrs. Clean Eater. Yeah, I try. Give him some.

No, you do a great job. Thank you. Give him a healthy snack instead of the chips at the gas station. What's he taking to the office for a snack? Come on. Ken, I'm glad you asked this. Let me tell you what I want right now. I knew you would like it.

I take a Granny Smith apple. Oh, I love a Granny Smith. Sour. Sour. I slice it up, right? So we got slices. Then I get a little jar of peanut butter. It's not just that.

We are separated at birth. I know we look like it. Wait, I'm getting more. Hemp seeds. So I go apple into the peanut butter, into the hemp seeds. Last, salted caramel. I don't know if I need to be that chilled out at work. Salted caramel.

It is so good. Is the hemp seed going to knock his intensity off? No. Hemp seeds are a complete protein. They're really high in protein. They're delicious. I'm learning something new every day. There it is, Leo.

There's your healthy snack, man. We just saved you more money. Yeah, man. No more corn nuts. Put it in the cup holder. This is The Ramsey Show.