The Ramsey Show - App - Your Niece Is Taking Advantage of You… She Can Work! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Kristina Ellis & George Kamel answer your questions and discuss: Avoiding getting scammed when trying to sell a home, Why you shouldn't use your student loan to repair your car, "What's the best way to save for my kids' college?" Avoiding enabling a relative who is taking advantage, Buying vs. renting a home. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm Christina Ellis, Ramsey personality, joined today by my co-host, George Hamill, also a Ramsey personality and host of like a million podcasts. So many. I just love a good podcast. What can I say? Hey, you're great at it. We're taking your calls today. Give us a call, 888-825-5225. Let's go to the phones. First up, we have Carol calling from Lafayette, Louisiana. Hey, Carol, welcome to the phones. First up, we have Carol calling from Lafayette, Louisiana. Hey, Carol, welcome to the show.

Hi, y'all. Thank y'all for having me. Hey, thanks for calling. How can we help? Yes, so I became a widow three weeks ago. So sorry. Thank y'all. And so out of the blue, a lady came over and offered to buy my house four days afterwards before my husband died. Um, he said, honey, I know it's not going to be practical if you just stay in this home alone. Um, we were in the home for 36 years, raised our two boys there. And before then we talked about dying, downsizing, and it was all me because I didn't want to have to, you know,

clean it. But, you know, we did not. And so I just know I can't do it on my own. I can't stay there on my own because it's just too much, too much to do by myself. So what is your advice? Yeah. Well, Carol, we're so sorry for your loss. That's a lot to process, especially when you get into the details and the finances. I'm so sorry. What was his name? Ronald. What happened to Ronald? He had geosophical cancer, and he was diagnosed in July, and for December 6th, he was gone.

Oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry, Carol. It's very quick. Thank you. Well, how have you been doing this last few weeks? Do you have support around you, friends, family, church? Yes, all of the above. I did, right now I'm at my son's house for a while.

He lives out of 29 Palms, California, and I've been, you know, staying busy. They've been so supportive. I have my grandbaby. She's only two, and she's keeping me busy. Oh, that's sweet. They will do that. Are you okay financially? Yes.

What does that side look like? Yes, I am. Yes, we're debt-free. No, we don't have any bills. We are totally debt-free. No mortgage or nothing. No mortgage or nothing. No. That's great news. Well, thank God he did a good job of setting you up as hard as this is. It's great that you're in a strong financial position. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yes.

He did. He took care of his business there. So tell us more about this lady. So she shows up at your house and what did you say she offered you? She wanted to buy my house. She straight up just like knocked on the door? My son was out, the one that I'm living with now for temporary. He was out taking out the trash and she walked up to him and she says, my husband walked with your dad and I'm so sorry for your loss. But she says, I'm interested in buying your house, y'all's house. And my son came and told me about it. And she called me. She wanted to set up a meeting and she came and I walked it through and she's like, this is all what I wanted. I'm ready to buy. And as a matter of fact, last night, she texts me again just to keep in touch and to let me know she was still very

interested. Is this house for her as a primary residence? Is it investment property? What is she planning on doing with it? Oh, she wants it for her. Her daughter lives like two miles down the street and she has seven grandkids and she wants it for her and her daughter. Okay. Have you started working with a real estate agent yet? I have not. I have not. And my son is in the real estate. He's also fixing to graduate as an RN. And she says, oh, we really don't have to go through any of that. She says, save your money with all of that because she says you're going to have to give them a percentage. She says, we can go through you, son, and just do it ourselves. Now, you said your son's

in real estate. Is he, like, licensed? He is definitely licensed, but he's also, yeah, he's also about to finish school as an orient as well. There's something fishy about this, Carol, and I can't sniff it out quite yet,

but I'm getting some red flags about how this whole situation has percolated. Do you feel that, too? Yeah. It was like, yeah, I was kind of like, where does this come from? Is this a God thing? Because I'm very strongly in the Word of God, and I've been a Christian for, gosh, 25 years. My church is the one who told me about Dave Ramsey. And I've been through a session with him via, you know, video. And so, yeah, I'm like you. That's why I'm calling. I need some advice. How does your son feel about this? Does he have that kind of weird feeling in his gut? Or is he feeling like good? He's feeling good.

He says, Mom, maybe it's a God thing. Because he said, Dad did say before he left that, he said, Honey, I know that this is not practical for you to stay in this big home alone. And he says, you know, whatever you decide, he says, I understand. Do you want to move out? Do you want to downsize? I do. I really do. As a matter of fact, with all the support I'm getting from my two sons, I would rather be by them. I don't have a strong family support back home. Never did. It was just a weird family thing that happened to us a while back, and none of us are close anymore, and I've forgiven them all. I really have, but I don't have any reason to stay

back home in Louisiana. Okay. I'll be honest with you. Has she thrown a number out of what she's willing to offer you, and is this a cash deal? No, absolutely not. She didn't. The only thing she said related to that was, I'm about to sell my house I'm in now. But she didn't talk price and I didn't talk price. Okay. I mean, right now, my brother-in-law also is in the housing business and he said, you could easily get at least over $200,000 for your home. I think what's kind of tricky is, and I think this is what we're all kind of feeling, is there is the risk of a real estate scam. Like that's a thing. There are plenty of people out there trying to prey on people. But on the flip side of that, we've also left this crazy

housing market where people have put letters on people's doorsteps. They've knocked on doors because they've had to be more aggressive. So it could really go either way. She could be completely legit or this could be a classic scam. I think if I'm in your shoes, I'm asking a ton of questions. I'm going to verify that her, you know, her husband did in fact work with my husband. I'm going to be sitting down with a real estate attorney. I mean, I know your son has experience, but I want to sit with somebody who has legal experience. I want to have their support and advocating for me and really asking those deep, hard questions. Yeah, this is the biggest financial decision you've probably ever made. And so this is not

something where we do a handshake deal and just hope. So absolutely, I'm going to go to ramseysolutions.com, click on Ramsey Recommends, click on Real Estate, get in touch with a real estate endorsed local provider. Those are folks in your area that our team has vetted that are Ramsey trusted to make sure that they take care of you the right way. They're not going to scam you. And here's what you really need to do is work with a pro so that they can get you top dollar. I'm not worried about the fee. This isn't about money at this point. This is making sure that you're protected financially and they will get you top dollar. And if she wants to go through them the right way,

then I'm doing that deal, but only then. So tread with caution. Absolutely. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. The welcome back to the ramsey show we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225 give us a call we want to talk about your life and your money. Today, we have our question of the day coming from Dakota in Florida. She asks, would it be possible to use a student loan to repair my car? My car is paid off. I bought it cash, but it has major engine problems, and I was told by the mechanic it would cost nearly $3,000 to $4,000 to fix it with another engine.

I will need a way to get to school and eventually work very soon. So will taking out a federal student loan suffice? I do understand that you can use student loans for vehicle operation and maintenance since it falls under the transportation category. I just don't know what to do. Oof. George. George. George. George. This is a dicey one. So technically, when you take a student loan out, they're not monitoring what you do with that student loan. It sounds like she's saying she's going to take out a new student loan in order to do this, which is one of the worst types of loans you could take out because number one, high interest rates, and number two, you can't even discharge them. Right. That's really scary. Well, and what's crazy is this is a really common thing right now because you can take out student loans for your cost of living.

And I mean, that can be kind of squishy, right? Because what counts as cost of living? A vehicle repair? A lot of people end up shopping. I mean, there's a lot you can take out student loans for, sadly. And we hear all the time from people who did that. And now 10 years later they're still paying on that loan and they are stressed out yeah and the student loan companies

they don't care about you meaning they don't care what you do with that money because as long as they're getting that interest they're happy right so they're not going to sit there monitoring what you do with it well and they're paying they're preying on vulnerable people right like college students college students that's a great example. Right. We were all broke in college, at least most of us. And so to be able to have this like, you know, pot of money where it's like, hey, hey, do you need this? It's tempting. It's really tempting. So I would not do the student loan. We are not going into debt for this, but here's what we can do. We can do more homework. I'm getting a second opinion from another trustworthy mechanic to actually see, is this a $3,000 repair? Now, I don't know how much money you have in the bank.

I don't know. You said you're working very soon. Is there things you can sell? Do you have family that might be able to help out? Can you borrow a car? We've got to get creative. But as long as debt is off the table, then we can actually come up with some different ideas. But the solution here is not, let's go take out a student loan to get back on the road. Well, and that's the key, taking debt off the table, because it's like a lot of times when you know that there's a way out, when you know that there's an easy way out, then it's like you don't come up with that creative thinking. But if debt is not an option, you're going to find a way, even if it's hard, even if it's not pretty, even if you have to sell something that you like, you're going to find some way even if it's hard even if it's not pretty even if you have to sell something that you like you're going to find some creative way to pay for this and when it comes to car repair here's a good way to think about it we get a lot of calls about car repairs and you got to think about can you recoup the cost of the repair so if you have a four thousand dollar car

and the repair is going to cost three thousand dollars but then the car only becomes worth five thousand it's not worth it you may just want to save up and get a different car altogether. And so we don't know how much she paid for it. We don't know what the value of the car will be as is if she fix it up. And so there's more homework to do. You can do a lot of research online about the value of the car, KBB, RepairPal. There's so many resources out there to figure those pieces of the puzzle out. Well, and it's not to discount $3,000 to $4,000. That's a scary number when you need a vehicle to get somewhere and it breaks down that that's a lot to think through coming up with quickly. But like you said, if you do have to get rid of that car, there are clunkers out there for 1000 bucks. I mean, they may not be great, the AC may be a

little bit shifty. But they're out there and they can get you from one place to another. So even if it's it's not a glamorous option, even if it's a challenge, just remember it's a season, and you can continue to fight and figure out how can you pay for either the repair or a new car. Absolutely. That's a tough one. Broke college students. Ugh, and student loans, man.

I feel for them. We could rant on that for a while. You remember that life. Right. All right, let's go to the phones. Next up we have Frank calling from New York City. Hey, Frank, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you so much for having me. Thanks for calling. How can we help? I just have a question about college savings. I follow Dave Ramsey Solutions,

and I'm right now at step five, basically, where I want to put money into college savings for my two kids. Now, my only problem is that I looked at the past 12-month performances of the 529 plan options. They don't look so good. Can you guys provide some sort of like an alternative solution to college savings? Or if not, or if you guys, you know, really, you know, more gung ho on the 529, can you provide everybody some sort of like a confidence thing? Because I don't see any confidence in these options. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. Yeah, well, we typically recommend that you start with an education savings account because they do have more flexibility in how you invest your money. So it's similar to a Roth IRA. It's funded with post-tax dollars. And that's just a really great way to start.

The challenge with that is that it's got a $2,000 a year limit and it does have some income limits. So $220,000 if you're married, $110,000 if you're single. So if you do qualify though, that's a great place to start because you do have more flexible investment options. And then from there, we recommend going to the 529. Are you familiar with ESAs? Yes, I'm familiar with both ESA and 529. It's just that, like I said, I'm looking at all these performances. Are you looking at like the past year or two performance?

Yeah, yeah. The past 12 months, yes. Well, look at your 401k. It's going to have a very similar sad result. It's been a real down market for a period of time now. So I wouldn't let that hold you back from investing because we look at this as a long-term play. So when are you going to need this money for college? My two kids are seven and four

right now. So probably in like another 10 to 13 years, you know, give or take. And with that being said, I have a follow-up question if you don't mind is, how do I put money into like, so what I mean by this is, should I put a lump sum into

the ESA or to the 529 or should I spread it into monthly installments into the account? I mean, do you have a chunk of money right now that you're wanting to invest in one of the options? Well, to be honest, I do have roughly around 10k right now. Now I was thinking about we're doing half, each one gets half. But like I said, I'm trying to see if I should put it into lump sum, like put it all in one shot, or should I spread it? I mean, I think that's more of a personal preference.

I think if you do a lump sum, it's still good to have a consistent monthly amount that you're doing over time because it is easy and tempting to do that $5,000 up front and then kind of forget about it, and then you get in panic mode in high school. So I think it's really about about like, you know, your discipline and being able to consistently invest over time. Yeah, the lump sum will allow more time for that lump money to grow. The other side is what we call dollar cost averaging, where you're just putting a consistent amount of money in every single month. And that's also a tried and true strategy. And really what you're trying to do there, we can't time the market. We never recommend that. It's also a tried and true strategy. And really what you're trying to do

there, we can't time the market. We never recommend that. It's all about time in the market. And so either way is great. And Dave Ramsey would say, hey, if you got the money, go ahead and just put the lumps on it and forget about it. But if that's something where it's a budget line item for you, you can just invest a portion of that every single month over 12 months. So you can't go wrong. The fact that you're even asking these questions tells me these kids are going to go to school debt-free, but do not jump off of the roller coaster. Right now we're in the middle of the ride and it's the not fun part of the ride, but give it a year, give it two years, give it five years, 10 years, like you mentioned, and you're going to see that money grow way more than it would have in a savings account.

So that's the key. Well, and so that's the financial side of things, but with a seven and a four-year-old, the other thing is to really invest in their education right now and in their mindset about college. So, you know, teaching them about scholarships. I know it seems kind of silly. It's early on. But even just starting to talk about college, starting to talk about extracurricular activities and getting them involved early on can be helpful.

I talk to a lot of parents who have juniors and seniors in high school, and they're like, how do we motivate our kids to do stuff? All they want to do is sit around and play video games. And a lot of times I ask them, I'm like, well, have they been involved in activities before now? And they're like, no, they haven't really had a lot of discipline. So it's hard for them to make that big shift and pivot to now being like, well, now we want them to win scholarships that they need to build a resume and they need to do all these things that they haven't been doing over time. Oh, absolutely. But it's like, get your kids active early on, start volunteering as a family and get them thinking about, you know, the future. It doesn't need to be some crazy high pressure over the top

extra thing, but just get their mindset, you know, thinking about their future early on in a way that's fun and it gets them just excited. And if this is something that gives you some worry at night, get in touch with one of our SmartVestor pros at RamseySolutions.com. They can walk you through all of the options with ESAs, 529s, and give you some hope and confidence in that future. We'll be right back. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Christina Ellis, joined today by George Camel. We're taking your calls at 888-825-5225.

Next up, we have Nancy calling from Indianapolis, Indiana. Hey, Nancy, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you both. And I just compassed the will of God to get through today. I've had this burden and I just needed counseling and your wisdom. So thank you for taking my call. Thanks for calling. And a shout out to your screener. You're welcome, because he helped me try to sum up my dilemma. Oh, Austin's the best in the game. That's very kind. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay, basically, my youngest niece is in college over in Australia, and she's about to enroll in her third year this month.

Yes. So her mom is really not involved in her life. And so I felt burdened because at least my niece and I have a relationship. So I feel burdened for her outcome, for her success. So I've been helping her these past couple years with her tuition and living expenses. Although she has been working, the Lord's provided for her, but at this point with her third year, she doesn't see her schedule work, really working out for work. So because her mom's not really involved, what I guess part of my frustration is mom and I,

or her mom and I had received inheritance and she was given more, um, because she, at the time she had three dependents and this was in the last six, seven years. So I don't like it that I'm even feeling mercenary. I don't like that, and I feel like this is like a shining light on me not trusting the Lord to provide for me. I'm looking at my inheritance. So because of this burden I feel to help my niece succeed, and I believe in her because right now she has this vision, this goal. That's why she went into university. But because it's in a way straining my wealth in a sense, I want her mom to step in.

What's going on with her mom? I can't have conversation with her mom. Well, I guess bottom line um she's in i to me it's a cult and i felt for your previous caller i guess two calls ago this is divided she was saying it's just something weird happened her family well this is weird too so the leader has everybody turn their backs and anybody who doesn't support him so i feel the lord we're talking like a religious cult like a scientology level situation yeah well it's i think it's small base but yeah and it's just it's been devastating um she my niece and i so i feel because she was living overseas my niece went over to Hillsong

and it because of Hillsong and then left and because her goals changed and it's just as well because that church has had its own share of problems so what is she doing now so okay um her goal is she went the children went through foster care she and her sisters so her heart is my niece's heart has always been for children and she wants to be in like a social care system that foster care um which i commend her for and she's still in australia yes why isn't she back stateside there's no reason for her to come back. I'm not enough to bring her back. It's like the whole family has just divided themselves.

I imagine college, though, is more expensive in Australia for her than it would be here. Well, I guess her expenses are minimal because... She's not able to do anything. You're floating her expenses. That's what I wondered. Okay. I had that thought. So here's,

here's my honest take on this, Nancy. She needs to move back to the States. She needs to go to an in-state school community college because tomorrow her goals might change again. And aunt Nancy is floating all of the expenses at the detriment of her own financial situation. And she's just riding high,

riding free. And I understand you want to help her, but it feels like she's taking advantage of you in a way. Yeah. Okay. Do you feel that? Go ahead. Do you feel that at all? Yes. I don't think it's malicious, but I don't want you to feel this burden emotionally that you now have to be her mother and you need to take care of her every expense. She can work. I worked in college with a full schedule, graduated a half semester early. Christina worked. It's possible. And I'm not saying she's out there partying every day, but as a student, you have time in between classes and in between studying to work.

And so I'm going to challenge that piece of it. And I'm also going to challenge the fact that she needs to go eat, pray, love in Europe to get this degree to take care of kids. Do you agree? Am I more angry about this than you are? I'm just hearing the facts on paper for the first time. No, I like it. I've kind of sunset.

Maybe I was just hesitant to bring that up. I felt either you need to do this, this and this, or you're coming home, you're coming back. I just think you're a really sweet person. And I'm worried that you're becoming a doormat for her to say, well, my life's been hard. Mom's not in the picture. Aunt Nancy got this inheritance. She's okay. And at the same time, I don't want you to have to delay your own retirement and have no wealth and be in a really sucky financial situation because you allowed yourself to feel like a burden for this girl okay okay just free yourself of that have you had any conversations with your niece about this oh well yes but not

but not at the oh no i not to the point no, you need to consider coming home because I can't be funding you. I haven't had that conversation. How much are you giving her per month? Well, I don't know if I can average. I did look at the past few years. How much have you given her the last few years? I'd say maybe close to, I don't know if it's even $20,000. I know the two-year tuition in U.S. money has been $32,000 to $34,000.

Per year or over two years? No, for two years. If you want to continue giving but have boundaries around it, you could say, hey, listen, you're in your third year. I'm going to continue giving you, let's say, $500 a month for those two years. The rest is on you. You need to work. You need to figure it out.

But this is as much as I can do right now financially. Okay. And that's very generous on your end. And if you want to say, hey, I can no longer do this starting tomorrow, she's going to have to figure it out. And she's young and she's resilient. And she's living on her own, right, in Australia? Yes. Yes. And hey, Nancy, this may be a non-point, but does the mom still have inheritance or did that go to the cult? Yeah. Thank you. That's what it's been. I know a big chunk of it is gone to this cult. Do you know if there's, with her getting more inheritance because of the three dependents,

do you know if any of that money was in the kids' names or was it all in your sister's name? I think it was in my sister's name, yeah. And no other family involved in this situation? No, it's just she and two of her daughters and even a granddaughter. Okay, so you feel like that money is gone. There's probably no way to get that to actually go towards the kids. Pretty much, yes, because my niece has felt as much that she doesn't think her mom really is in the position to give.

And maybe that's why her mom hasn't offered to help her. Gosh, what a sad situation. Yeah. Well, I love your heart, Nancy. I really do. I want the best for both of you. And I don't think that means you have to just fork over all of your money to fund her life for an indescript amount of time. I don't think that's indescript amount of time.

I don't think that's the best for either of you. Yeah, Nancy, you are so sweet. It's going to take a hard conversation with her and really get the details of, hey, what is your plan? Here's how much you need to also sit down and figure out how much am I willing to give, if any more, but not just an open bank account for her to take from either. Yeah. And your heart is in the right place. And I think that there's a lot of grief at the loss of the relationship with your sister. There's grief that your niece was in the foster care system. There's a lot of emotions tied into this, but it's important to kind of separate what can you do from a mentor perspective? What can you do to love your niece well versus what needs to happen

financially? Because you're not responsible for what happened with her mother and her finances. That is your sister's bad decisions and you don't have to make up for it. But I do love your heart and your care for her, Nancy. You're a very sweet woman, but be willing to have that hard conversation. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. About this time of year, we get flooded with calls because everyone's looking for a fresh start with their money, especially after a couple tough years. So if that's you, you can't wish for things to change and expect it to happen. You've got to do some different things with your money and have a plan. And we can teach you that plan in Financial Peace University. This is the course that will help you rethink how you manage your money.

And you'll learn step by step how to pay off debt and build wealth. Guys, nearly 10 million people have taken FPU, followed this plan and changed their lives. It works. Don't try to reinvent this. And when you intentionally follow this plan with focused intensity, this year, it will be different. You will have more peace in your finances and your life. So start Financial Peace University right now at ramseysolutions.com slash FPU. That's ramseysolutions.com slash FPU. Next up, we have Carol. Carol Carolyn calling from Greenboro, North Carolina.

Hey, Carolyn, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you for taking my call. Of course. How can we help? Yes. So my question has to do with rent versus buying, but it's a little bit more nuanced. So we're basically in a situation where we're already renting as cheaply as possible. We even had to move over to summer to avoid a rent hike that put way outside of our budget. And we can't seem to follow the 25% of take-home rule, essentially. Our original plan was to rent really cheap for a while and have a big down payment and buy a family home, but now I'm wondering if it would make more sense to look to buying something like a condo or a townhome for something close to anywhere between like $80,000 and townhome or something close anywhere between like 80 and

90,000 and going ahead and purchasing that since we can't get that percentage down to 25%. What's your income right now? And what's your rent? Right. So our rent right now is 82525,000. My husband's working. His take-home is about $2,200 a month. We're newly married, so we've been married about a year and four months. I was working part-time, and then I had our son, and I stopped working. My plan is to be a stay-at-home mom. There are a few things I'm planning on doing on the side that should bring in maybe close to $400 a month,

which would bring our, I guess, our take-home close to $2,600 a month. Okay. Yeah, I don't see this as a, you know, I know the percentages are really helpful, but it's not a legalistic piece of the equation. What I do think is the bigger problem here is the income. There's just not enough coming in. If you're going to be staying at home, we need to get his income up to where we're still able to live our life and invest 15% and save for college for this baby and pay off the house early. And so if we can't do that, we need more margin. And there's only two ways to get it, make more or spend less. And it sounds like you guys are doing your very best on the spend less side. Yes, yes.

The biggest thing I'm trying to tweak right now is just groceries. His job is, I mean, he's only been working professionally for two years. I'm 24 and he's 23. And we expect, well, he's been promised basically a promotion and a raise. He's already had one. He hasn't been at the job yet for even a year. So we expect growth on that end. What does he do?

I'm sorry? What does he do for a living? He's a project manager. So he's working for a relatively new company. So they basically hired a whole bunch of young people and put them in complicated positions. So it's been good for him. He's been able to get a lot of experience really fast. The salary isn't there necessarily yet.

I mean, he has a salary, but it doesn't really match what he's doing. But the company is growing really fast, so we're hopeful that he will be able to progress quickly. He's been told that he'll get promoted to a senior project management position by the second quarter of this year. That's good news. And so do you guys have any debt? No, we don't have any debt. We already have an emergency savings bill cut up and we have $30,000 already saved for a down payment. Wow, on top of the emergency fund. Is that right?

You have your fully funded emergency fund plus $30,000? Correct, yeah. We plan on putting a little bit more in the emergency fund now that we have a baby. How did you guys get to that amount? Well, we were both homeschooled kids to conservative parents, and we were just raised that way. I was able to get through college debt-free and worked all the way through.

He has an associate's degree. He's planning on going back to get a bachelor's at some point. Yeah, I don't know. So everything that I was making before I left my job and had a baby, we just put straight into that down payment. That's awesome. That's really awesome. So tell us about the condo.

Is that an option that it's like, oh, man, that's like last resort. We're not excited about it? Or could you see yourself living in that condo for a while and being content? Well, we're not super excited about it. Our plan, well, our plan now, like in the apartment we were in, we got, it's small, but there's two bedrooms. So the whole plan, I was like, technically we could fit three kids in here. I mean, we plan on having a large family.

So that was the plan. But then when I think about condos, I mean, we plan on having a large family. So, um, that, that was the plan. But then when I think about condos, I mean, just, I've looked for, there's not very many on the market right now, but just looked around a little bit. Basically you can get a condo that's roughly the same size of our apartment. Um, and it's the same sort of deal. Like we could manage to live there probably five years or so longer if necessary. What do those condos cost? It seems to vary, and I'm not as familiar with the city we're currently in, so part of that I need to look at, like, crime maps and stuff. But roughly they're going for anywhere between $80,000 and $90,000.

Okay. So you guys would have, if you got the condo today, which you're in a position to technically do it with $30,000 down on a $90,000 condo, that would put you on a 15-year fixed at a payment of about $730,000 or so. Right, yeah. Now you do have extra costs. There may be HOA, there's going to be home maintenance, repairs, property taxes, home insurance is going to be higher than renter's insurance. So you want to factor all those pieces in. But as far as a financial equation, you could do this. Okay. And I, my first home was a townhome and we loved it.

And you don't have a lot to worry about with condos and townhomes versus single family homes. So I think it's a great step for you guys if you really want to get out of the renting game. Okay. Honestly, we're renting now. We're pretty content, too. So I just don't know if it's smarter financially to get a condo versus renting. So really, we're open to do anything that's very for the next five years.

I just wouldn't be in a rush. I mean, it is so wonderful when the toilet breaks. You just call someone, and they just show up and fix it, especially being a rush. For the next five years. I mean, it is so wonderful when the toilet breaks, you just call someone and they just show up and fix it. And so there's, especially with a baby. So there's a lot of great things about renting. There's a, it gets a bad rap, but for a lot of situations, it's a good move. And long-term, it's always a great move to be a homeowner.

So I would encourage you to do that. But if you want to save up more and go, hey, we want a single family home, that's going to be double the cost. We need to wait till we have a bigger down payment. There's a lot of wisdom in that, too. Well, you guys are good savers. Like you guys have saved quite a bit on a relatively small income in the grand scheme of things. So as your husband gets raises and you continue to be aggressive with your finances, you know, in a year or two, the opportunity to get a single family

home may be within reach while still keeping it under that 25 percent you know do you feel in your gut that you would rather wait it out or do you kind of feel that rush to buy something i definitely don't feel a rush to buy something um it's just i mean recently it's just struck us how frustrating it is to just throw rent money you know out the window um when we could be putting it toward something like a condo and then have that to sell in five-ish years but towards a single-family home.

So, yeah, I can really just see it going either way. So it's nuanced and we haven't just been sure what to do with that. I would just set a goal and say, hey, a year from now, we want to be in a position to buy. Here's what we're kind of looking at and just be about that savings goal. Yep.

And I think you're in a really great position. I love that this is something that could go either way and you'd be comfortable in that position. I mean, you're set up with a down payment. If you want to do a condo, I think you wouldn't go wrong. But also, since you are in a hurry and you're content renting, you know, if you're willing to wait it out, you might be able to get something that you're a little bit more excited about in here. I think it's a hard one where it's really going to have to be some soul searching and what you want to do. All right. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Thanks to everyone in the booth and thanks to everyone listening. We'll be back soon. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone.

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