The Ramsey Show - Change Your Habits, Change Your Life

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a Free Personalized Plan.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ❓ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Have a money question? Ask Ramsey is here to help.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ George Kamel and Dr. John Delony answer your questions and discuss: “Should we get engaged knowing we're going to have a massive combined amount of student loan debt?” “I make $1 million a year and want to buy a $1.3 million property—how much should I put down as a down payment?” “My husband doesn't believe in saving for retirement.” “As a single dad, how do I get out of debt and stop living paycheck-to-paycheck?” “Should I cash out my retirement account to pay off debt?” Next Steps: 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET 📩 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email Dave On-Air With Your Questions on Debt and Finance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💻 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠New to the show and want to learn more? Check out our 7 Baby Steps!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💵 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🚢 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cruise With Dave Ramsey and 2,500 Ramsey People⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧮 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Need help with your taxes? See who we trust.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ❤️‍🩹 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get trusted insurance coverage that fits your budget⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect With Our Sponsors: Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Angel Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to discover entertainment you can feel good about. Get 10% off your first month of⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BetterHel⁠p⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Boost Mobile⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to switch today! Don’t try to figure out Medicare alone - you deserve peace of mind, not confusion. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chapter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to connect with an advisor today! If you want your car to keep going and going, trust ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Christian Brothers Automotive⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Find a local shop and get an exclusive Ramsey discount of 10% (up to $250) off New members can receive a 50% credit toward their first month of membership. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Christian Healthcare Ministries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code RAMSEY. Get started today with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Churchill Mortgage⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Equal Housing Lender • NMLS ID 1591 • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠NMLSConsumerAccess.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Churchill Certified Homebuyer program is available for qualifying borrowers and select loan types only. Ramsey Audience offer of up to a $500 credit applied at closing toward fees incurred for appraisals for a limited time and may be discontinued without notice.  Get 20% off when you join ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DeleteMe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FAIRWINDS Credit Union⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for an exclusive account bundle! Debt collectors hassling you? Take back control of your life at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Guardian Litigation Group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Save up to 50% on health insurance. Talk to a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ advisor today. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Helix Sleep⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for special offers! Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mama Bear Legal Forms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NetSuite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ today to learn more. Sign up for your $1.00/month trial at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Shopify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Make navigating healthcare easier with a patient advocate. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Solace Health⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to see if you qualify. Get started at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠World Watch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ OR use promo code RAMSEY for a 30-day free trial. Get started with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YRefy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 844-2-RAMSEY Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Zander Insurance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 1-800-356-4282 for your free instant quote today!  Try ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ZipRecruiter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free today. Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💡 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rachel Cruze Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🪑 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney, taking your calls in the next couple of hours at AAA 825-5-2-2-25. Sarah joins us in Cleveland to kick it off. What's going on, Sarah?

Hi. I was calling, I just have a ton of debt, and honestly, I've made the payments and everything for the last year and a half, but it's gotten to the point now where all my interest rates went up to where my payments have doubled. And I'm basically, I've made all my payments every month, except for after I make all my payments, I tend to live off of my credit cards because I don't have any cash left on everything. and I just, I don't know how to get out from under my credit cards. This is the first time I missed three credit card payments this month that I didn't get paid. And I just, I don't know how to get out from underneath them.

Why didn't you get paid? No, I got paid. They didn't get paid. Oh, they didn't get paid, okay. Yeah, like this is the first time that three of my credit cards didn't get payments. Gotcha. Are you talking about minimum payments? Yeah, it's just the minimum payments.

Okay. Well, let me tell you, if you just make minimum payments, the debt will swallow you whole. That APR of 29% while you're making a payment of 50 to 100 bucks a month is not going to touch the balance. So what you need to do is just lay them all out and attack the smallest one and just make the minimums on the rest. Now, it sounds like you were trying to do that, but you're also still using the cards. And that's part of the problem. Well, one of my credit cards, the payment is $679 a month. Goodness. How much credit card debt is this altogether?

All together credit card. That one there is just, that one there, I owe $21,157. What's the total, total, total? Give me everything in one bucket. How much is you? 21,800, 12,000, 6,000, and 17,000 and 1800. Those are all my credit cards. Do you have other debt?

I know. I do. I have like, I buy how to get siding on my house. I have 14,000 for that. And I have a personal loan that was 7300. I have a mortgage and a car payment. Wow. Are you single? Yeah. I am. Okay. How much do you make annually? About 103,000. Okay. Wow. Well, you're calling us because you're at the end of the rope here. You're going, I can't, I'm starting to miss payments. You weren't making progress before. You were just barely staying afloat, it sounds like. Yes. All right, Sarah, I want to tell you this, okay?

Number one, I'm glad you called. And number two, this is really scary. And we're going to give you a plan that will work 100% of the time if you'll just work it. Okay. But you have to decide I'm done with this way of doing life. Oh, I am done. I want to just, because I make fantastic money. And if I didn't have all this debt, I would, I would.

Wouldn't need. There you go, sister. That's it. You already are future casting what your life would not only look like, but would feel like, how much peace you would have, how much laughter you would have. Like, just how well you'd be able to sleep if you didn't have this because you work in your butt off all week, all month, all year, and then you find yourself getting further and further behind. But it can't be, and again, this is 30 plus years of doing this. It can't be, with the hole you've dug, you have a big show. which is great, but you can't partly get out. You have to decide I'm all in, or we'll love you

and we'll just say best of luck to you and we'll still be friends and all that, but you have to make the choice, and I'm calling you out and make the choice today. I'm going to be done with doing life this way, and that means I'm going to have to be radical and my friends are going to think I'm weird and I'm going to do something completely different so that I can make this great six-figure salary doing what I'm good at and what I love, and I want to start loving the life that I have all around that job, right? Yes. All right, game on. I'm glad you're here. Thanks. What's left on the car loan? The car loan, I owe $14,238. Okay. So based on my napkin math here from everything you threw at us, you're in about $95,000 in debt. Does that sound about right outside of a mortgage?

Approximately, yeah, maybe a little less, but yes. Have you pulled your credit report to get a real picture of what's going on? The last time I looked at it, it was like $6.85 was my credit score. No, your credit score, your credit report. That's going to show you all the accounts, all the balances. One of my credit cards gives that to me free, so it has it all on there. What a gift. That's nice of them. There's a perk we don't talk about enough. That's like giving you an ice pack after we punch you and punch you and punch you.

It's like, here, we give away free ice. Like, thanks, me. Yes. Okay. So what are you doing for work? I'm a nurse. I work three days a week, and then I just picked up a second job, and I've been trying to pick up extra at my job. Good. What's the second job? The second job I'm working in a doctor's office just one day a week. What's that pay you? The doctor's office pays me $25 an hour.

Okay. And you can ramp that up if you needed to. I'm trying to figure out which levers we can pull here for the income side. Well, I could pick up extra more at my other job, because, I make more money there. I make $5560 an hour. Yeah. The more you can do with your full-time job, it's going to be even better. You said 103 is your gross income? Approximately. I don't, yeah, I think it was 103 in some hundreds last year. Okay. Are you taking home about $6,000 a month?

No, my bring home is almost $5,000 a month. I have like insurance. It's like $300 a pay. And I did cut down my 401K because I I did have it at 8%. I dropped that down to 3% so that way I wouldn't still get not get the free money they offer. Like, because, you know, they match it. So I went from 8% down to 3%. Are we concerned about free money right now when we're missing our credit card payments at 29%? No, I guess we shouldn't be. So what if we're doing something countercultural, like John said, and we took our match down to zero?

Okay. Just for 18 to 24 months. That's it. And then, boom, you just freed up $3,000 a year right there. Okay. I may not feel like a lot, but what that does is two things. Number one, it frees up real money back in your paycheck, and it also gets you a little bit more angry at your debt.

Because now it's not just stressing you out in the present. It's robbing you from your future. And now you have an onus to go even harder in the pain at this debt, and that plus a thousand other things is what it's going to take. It's not going to be one thing that's going to be the magic sauce here. It's going to be, a budget every day, look at my accounts every day, look at the balances every day, and look at that smallest one with a vengeance and attack it with all the margin I can muster up through

extra work, cutting my expenses down to nothing, and you're single, so you can do this without affecting many people, right? Right. Good. So no one's going to be like, man, I wish you were home more. It's just you. So that's a blessing because right now you could work 60, 70 hours a week. What's your mortgage payment every month? 1178. Oh, wonderful. Good, good. So the debt payments, have you added them up to see what it would take to just cover the minimum payments on all debts for a month? I think I did, but it's like... Is it $2,000? No, it's more than that.

Okay. So here's your homework. I'm going to give you our every dollar premium budgeting app, and what you're going to do is list out the next upcoming paychecks. You're going to jot down all of your expenses, including the minimum payments on. on those debts, and then you're going to see how much margin there is. And if there's not a lot, that tells us we've got to cut some expenses, we've got to increase the income. That margin, that little green number at the top showing you there's a thousand bucks left over if you do it this way. That is your ticket to freedom. Meal prep, no more going out to lunch, no more got to

dinner. We're going to be all over this getting this debt paid off. Hey guys, it's Rachel Cruz. When it comes to life insurance, most people fall into one of two camps, the ones who make a plan to protect their family, and the ones who hope everything will just work out. But hope isn't a financial plan. When you get married or have kids, your money decisions aren't just about you anymore. Your income helps keep the lights on, pay the mortgage, and put food on the table. And if something happens to you, will your family have protection or uncertainty? Well, at Ramsey, we recommend term life insurance that 10 to 12 times your income, with a 15 to 20 year term for the years that your kids are at home and your mortgage is still being

paid off. That's why Winston and I have our term life coverage through Zander insurance. They're an independent broker who works for you shopping all the top companies to find the most competitive prices on coverage you need. Get instant quotes online in just minutes at zander.com or call 800 356-4282 to get your family protected with term life insurance. That Zander does, Zander, or 800356-4282. Alyssa is in Oklahoma City up next. What's going on, Alyssa? How can we help today?

Hi, yes. Thank you for having me. And John, your work, book, and show just has impacted my life so much. I just want to say thank you for... That means the world. Thanks, Alyssa. I appreciate that. Yeah, so my husband and I haven't married 12 years.

Majority of those years, we don't do finances together, which is not my choice. and up until the last year and a half that we've been back together because we separated for six months due to DV. Things have gotten much better except this area. There's been small changes, and I've had to set boundaries. We didn't file taxes together this year to protect since I don't know what's going on. And my question is, is how much longer do I give grace and set boundaries before its ultimate? you know, comes down to how do we want to do life moving forward? I think this is going to sound strange because you're called the Ramsey show.

But yeah, as I hear you lay out your story, money's a distraction from the real issue. Oh. Coming back from a domestic violence separation, the chief objective here is safety. Yeah. And part of safety is physical. part of safety is emotional and sexual right but part of safety is financial and you can't pick and choose safety because as van der Kolk says your body's keeping the score so you can't you can't say I'm not going to put my hands on you anymore but I'm still going to live my life this way and this way

and this way and you just got to deal with it right that means you're not addressing the full picture of safety okay and so by just choosing to isolate out all the other ways he's continuing to gaslight you, not tell you the truth, live his own life inside of the house. You all share it together inside of the marriage I'll share it together. Do what he wants to do except just not for this one pretty awful thing. And then it kind of leaves you out to dry to feel crazy about it. The more you focus on just that one sliver, your body's going to continue doing what it's supposed to do, which is ramping up the alarms, not letting you sleep at night, making you feel unsafe in your own house because you are

and safe in your own house. Yeah. I mean, domestic was, I mean, like I said, God did a huge work. Otherwise, I wouldn't have, he took full responsibility, apologize. It's just this financial area where he's having a hard time, even with his phone. It's just like this. He hangs on, like there's these things that he gives bits and pieces. But it's like.

But that tells me he's still being deceptive, and that tells me he's still not ready to fully be your husband. Okay. Okay. And I know that sounds dramatic. and I'm saying it that way intentionally on purpose. Okay. That's not a guy who's interested in doing life with you.

It's a guy who's interested in trying to hang on to his marriage and he won't do this other thing anymore. Okay. And so part of you setting the roadmap for, here's what it's going to look like for A, us to keep this marriage together and B, you to move back into my home is I am choosing safety and here's what safety looks like for me. And here's the deal.

You get to lay out what safety looks like. And I'm telling you now, if you're just sitting with thousands of different people, individuals and couples, you're not going to feel safe if you don't know where the money is. You don't know what he's borrowing, where it's going. You're not going to feel safe if he flips over a cell phone every time you walk in the room. And how dare you ask for the code of my cell phone? He's not going to feel safe if he slams the laptop closed every time. You know what I'm saying? So you get to paint the picture of here's what safety is. Now, I'm going to tell you the hard part about doing this is you have to have an or what statement on the other end of that. like here's what I'm here's what I'm requesting as like the path back to trust the path path back to us healing our marriage all the way not just you don't hit me anymore but all the way is here it is here's what safety looks like for me are you in he could say no I'm not I will never get there and then you have an or what statement are you going to say okay I'm just going to this is the this is the marriage I'm choosing I'm going to I know for the rest of my life I'm going to be on my own financially. I'm never going to file taxes. I'm going to keep my own retirement,

my own self safe. If you want to make that choice, you're a grown adult and I'll still love you, still be friends. Or if you say these things happen or the marriage, I'm going to take your signal, your action steps as a language, behavior as a language, I'm going to take your action steps as you've left this marriage. You're no longer interested in being married to me and helping your wife feel safe in her own skin and her own home. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? man. Yeah. And I know it's harsh. I know it's real direct. I can feel my own chest tightening up here on your behalf. Yeah. And I don't want any, especially, and again, I've, I just got history sitting with women in this situation. I don't want the super bad thing to not be there anymore. And suddenly it wallpapers over all of the other things that make you feel unsafe in your own home. Yeah. All safety matters. And there's no relationship. the baseline for any relationship at all starts with safety and trust.

If you don't have those two things, you don't have a true relationship. You might have a co-partnership. You might be able to live autonomous lives right next to each other real close. Even share the same bed, whatever. But you don't have the true foundational relationship unless you have safety and trust. And you don't have either of those things because your husband won't play ball. Yeah, it's hard to not compartmentalize that, but I see what you're saying. I know.

But I want you to know your body. body doesn't compartmentalize it. Right. You're not wrong. Your mind does, but if he pulls into the driveway, does your chest tense up? Not as much as you used to. Okay. I want you to hear your language.

Not as much, but yes. Yeah. Right? When the bills come every month, do you, do you, nobody enjoys opening bills, but are you in terror when you tear the bills open? Are you just annoyed? He pays 90% of them, but you, you know, Yeah.

Okay. So all of this, everything I'm telling you is hard. It's scary. It's hard. All of it. I want you to choose the hard path that's going to get you to safety and trust. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Cool. All right. Well, thank you. You bet. Man. I'm so sorry, Alyssa. I hate you in the situation.

Actually, Alyssa, hang on the line. I'm going to hook you up with three months free with our friends of better help. I want you to talk to a licensed professional therapist. And you can start within 24, 48 hours. Somebody will see you. Just so you can have some, they'll be able to walk you through an actual action plan. What's this conversation going to look like? What's an or what statement going to look like? What is managing the response going to look like?

I want you to sit with a licensed professional and they'll be able to see you within 24, 48 hours. So hang on the line here. We'll get up with better help. Man, John, that's a, that's a heavy one. I like this method of going, what must be true for this relationship to continue? Most people never get to that point. They just sort of tolerate. They learn a new normal. and they go along to get along. Yeah, I think one of the most heartbreaking statements a person can make, especially inside of a marriage, is this is just the way this is going to be. This is just the way this is.

And I always want to shake that snow globe and say, it doesn't have to be, right? And that's often forces folks, especially in this situation, say, okay, I don't want it to be like this anymore. And he says, well, I'm not changing. And if that is, I'm always going to have. I'm not going to remember to rinse the sink out after I shave. There's always going to be a little bitty hairs, right? Some of that you get over.

It's annoying and whatever. On big stuff like putting my hands on you, big stuff like I'm taking care of the money and you will never know where the money is, how much I owe, what our situation is, how much debt we have, how much gambling debt I have, how much other addiction debt I have, it's tragically unsafe. And so if somebody's violated the fidelity of a marriage, right, if someone's blown it up, whether through abuse, whether through infidelity, whether through financial infidelity, the person who's grieved, the person who says, okay, I want to rebuild trust, they lay out the map. Here's what it's

going to take on a weekly basis, then a monthly basis, and then an annual basis. Here's what I want to see. And then the other person's got to say, I'm in or I'm out, right? And that's a tough place to be, especially, like I said, when something so bad has been happening with that super bad thing's not happening anymore, it's really easy to drop your shoulders and say, I'll deal with all the other bad because this big thing's not happening anymore. And man, I want to call her and her husband to a better way to live, man, a more peaceful, connected way of doing life. Everything in your life gets better. Whatever you think you're protecting by holding on, not sharing, not being honest, not being vulnerable, not, whatever you think you're hiding there, whatever you think you're protecting,

I promise you there's more peace on the other side of connectivity and honest. honesty and exhale, right? That's the hardest part of marriage, is letting go of those parts and letting someone see it all. See it all. And then praying, they look across the table and say, and I still choose you. When you take your car to the shop, you're probably thinking two things. How much is this going to cost me and is it going to get done right? What you need is a mechanic who will give you transparent information so you can make the best decision for your car and your wallet.

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See store for details. Sarah is in Denver up next. Sarah, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you. Absolutely. What's going on? My question is about college and saving. Okay.

Um, I, we have, my husband and I have completed baby step four. Um, we have six kids and no savings for college. Oh. My oldest is a junior. And we have five of the six kids are going to graduate within six years. Party. Along with that, we know that we have an upcoming medical expense next summer that will be about 40,000 out of pocket. So we are wondering, now that. that we are fully funded emergency fund. Where do we allocate our funds? Like, what is the best way to move forward? Because we don't want to go back into debt.

Is there any chance you all have like a, I don't know, I'm thinking of like a small tree house in the backyard of your house that might have $2 million under it? No? I wish. Like gold mine? Yeah, I was just, I was trying. I was trying.

I know. Well, the good news is I don't want you to feel obligated. that you have to cash flow every single dollar of every single child schooling or else you're a bad parent. Sure. So you need to prioritize what's happening in your life right now, and that's the medical expense. The other priority is we're not going into debt.

And you can hold all of that together, and that means a conversation with every kid, and you're going to have to do this kid by kid because life could look different six years from now. You might be able to cash flow of the last kid's school, and it's not going to feel fair to the one who had to hustle and work three part-time jobs. But the conversation needs to be, hey, kids, we don't have money to cover college.

And as a family, a value of ours is we're not going to go into debt to do this. We've seen how it hurts the students. We've seen how it hurts the parents when you take on these Parent Plus loans. So we need to make a plan for how you guys are all going to get the education that you want or need debt-free. What is their awareness of all that right now? Are they just like, well, mom and dad said we'd figured out, so we're good. No, they're aware. We talk about it.

We do have two adopted, and I don't know if there's anything out there that would help them. But yeah, they're aware that they're going to have to sacrifice. So depending on what state you're in, and depending on how the adoption was done, I know in my home state of Texas where I grew up and where I worked, if a kid is adopted in certain trajectories, I mean, their schooling is taken care of. So it would be worth exploring there in Denver. It may not be the case, but there may be resources there. How old is your second oldest? She's a freshman. Okay, so you have a freshman and a junior?

Yep, and then I have three middle schoolers. Okay. I would as quickly as possible, because we're going to blink and the first semester is going to be over, right? I would you and your husband get on the same page, and I would take your 16-year-old out for breakfast somewhere and just lay it out. And if you can do just some cursory inquiries into, does Colorado have free community college for two years like many states do, is like bring at least one or two or three options on the table? We are projecting that we might be able to help $500 a month with food or with, you know, books or whatever. But just lay it out. The greatest gift you can give this kid right now is honesty.

and that way there's I've been in these conversations with families you don't want this because this conversation is going to happen you don't want it to happen their second semester of their senior year when all their friends are getting

their acceptance letters or when your son comes running in the door with an acceptance letter to a college that's pretty great but just like Alexis it's amazing but if you can't afford it you can't afford it and that's a much harder conversation than just laying it out on the front end

and look if you feel embarrassed if you feel like this is not what you wished like you wish you wish you could just write checks for their call tell them that okay this is not how we drew this up it's not how we would have designed it this is us um owning reality and wanting to walk alongside you and we're going to plead with you to not take out student loans okay so any extra funds we have now we should just put in a savings account for that medical bill absolutely 100% and not even think about college until that's paid for that medical bill sounds like it's the priority you know what's happening you know the dollar

amount, you know it's going to be out of pocket. I mean, unless you'll make quarter million dollars or 500 grand a year and you're going to have extra on top of a 40,000. No. Okay. How much do you guys make? I wish. I'm a stay-at-home mom. My husband's a primary care physician, so he makes about 300,000. Great. So you guys might figure out in the budget, hey, as this goes on, we can start to budget for this and allocate, I don't know, $50,000 per year in a high-yield savings account for college. And then that means that's the budget for that kid coming up. And if they can get scholarships, they can get grants, they can work part time to supplement all of that. But the goal is we are not

going into debt, so we got to figure out a plan, which means we're not going to go shopping at the Porsche dealership. We're not going to go to the big name brand schools touring across the country because then the school down the road from you is going to seem like you're just getting a, you know, a Kia Serento comparatively. And so you want to make sure that you're very clear that we're not just cart blanche. You can go wherever you want. want. The world is not your oyster in this case. The world is, hey, you don't even know what you want to do, really. So let's just knock out our gen eds at the local community college. And it's not a less than experience. The education has come such a long way that community college is on par with the

state schools. And the state schools are on par with some of the private school education. So they're going to be okay. They're still going to have their hopes and dreams fulfilled. It just may not look like that out of state across the country school that costs 50 grand a semester. And if making 300 grand, if after you get this medical expense taking care of, y'all are able to even cash flow of $1,500 a month, $2,000 a month, and you and your husband can make a budget and project out that far, that's great. That's awesome. You can start a, every semester, you can put that semester on a payment plan with the school and not take out a student loan, and you can pay it monthly. And so maybe y'all are able to help in that way. I don't know

how it all trickles down if you got six kids there. but and what your life expenditures are and your cars and your home. I don't know all that. You and your husband have to figure that out. I'll also tell you this. Here's what I do with my kid. I have a 16 year old who's a junior. My wife and I sat him down the summer and his mom and I, my wife and I are nerds.

Like that's no surprise. We made a pretty complex spreadsheet that basically laid out, here's some schools I would love you to go to. And here's what percentage of those schools I'll pay for. And, but the big thing I put in his lap was, if you get X, Y, or Z on the ACT or the SAT, which, by the way, that test in of itself does not matter, but that score has a dollar amount to it. That's just part of playing this game. I will pay for prep courses. I will pay for tutoring support. But if you get this particular score on this test, here's, I'll write you this big of a check on your graduation day. right and what I'm doing is I'm putting some of the onus on him you're going to self-select out of certain schools and there's certain bands of schools that my wife and I told him you can go to them we will pay zero dollars right so you're going to be earning

every bit of this on your own but we were real clear just laid it out but I wanted to give him as much responsibility as possible and what a junior can can own right now is making their full-time job outside of school studying for one of these standardized tasks Yeah. The other thing to think about is not every kid may want to go to college. Right.

Have that conversation too. There could be trade schools, associate degrees, certificate programs, they might be entrepreneurial. And so that's the good news is we don't have to figure this all out today. So let's just kind of like the debt snowball. We're focusing on the smallest debt. Let's just focus on the oldest kid, see where their heart is, what their mind is, what it comes to further education.

And then let's make a plan around that. And for that 11 years. year old, you may set up a 529 and go, hey, we got seven plus years to fund this thing. We can invest the money and have a grow for us. Let compound growth do a little bit of the lifting. And you might have some state tax benefits as well with that. So there are a ton of options, but the homework I would give to you guys is do like a family movie night and go watch Borrowed Future. This is our documentary on student loan crisis. And what will it do, it'll open their eyes to what's actually happening in higher ed and open their eyes to all of the possibilities

and solutions there are to avoid what is this 1.7 plus trillion dollar crisis where everyone's gone nobody told me this is you telling them this is your way of opening up that conversation to where you don't have to start it that will start it for them they'll be asking questions by the end of it and you'll see our friend dr john deloney in there as well if your business is making seven figures or more you should be proud of that but that's growth probably brought a mess with it. Systems that don't talk to each other. It's impossible to track down your numbers because they're scattered everywhere. That's a visibility problem, and NetSuite has solved that problem for more than 44,000 businesses like yours. NetSuite

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It helped us know our numbers and we've never looked back. If your revenue is at least seven figures, try NetSuite next for free at netsuite.com Ramsey. That's net suite.com slash Ramsey or click the link in the description. Hey, if you're a new listener to the Ramsey show, every answer we give is rooted in the seven baby steps. So if you want to know what those are, take a few minutes to learn the plan. You can get a whole lot more out of every episode if you know them. So we'll drop a link in the description of this episode if you want to learn more about those baby steps. All right, Jake is down the road in Nashville. What's going on, Jake?

Oh, not too much, man. How are you guys doing? We're doing great. how can we help? All right, so I am about 45K in debt and some of that personal loan, some of that credit card, and a 15K car loan. So with my new income, I've just picked up another job and I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm just going to ask you guys some, what priority and I'm thinking about selling my car and when I should do that. What's the car worth? So I owe about 15 on it and I could probably get 11. five to 12 from a dealership.

As far as private sale goes, I know that the brakes might need to be replaced soon, so it's more of like a personal, like, I don't know if I want to sell this privately and have it come back to me later. Well, and you let them know. Or you fix it before you sell it. I would be completely honest, yes. Sure. I want to kind of avoid that whole process. Okay.

So you think you could get maybe 13 or 14 out of this even after the breaks get repaired? Yeah. Yeah, if I did that and sold it, well, if I sold it private sale right now, I'd probably get like $13.5 or something. Okay. Cool. And how much do you make? Well, right now I make probably between $110 and $120. I picked up another job. I make about $60 in sales. And then I also film weddings full time and make about $60 a year doing that. Nice. Way to go. Okay. So can you keep this up for another six to 12 months and knock out the debt? Yeah, yeah, so that's the thing about.

See the light of the end of the tunnel. I'm making great money, but the thing is, is I have a, on one of the credit cards, it's a $9,200 balance at 0%. But in January 2027, it goes to 29%. So that's obviously top priority. I got to pay that off before that interest kicks in. Disagree. You disagree? I disagree.

I don't think interest is your problem here. you need a mind shift shift oh well i haven't added to my debt since probably april so i i've changed my habits let me let me change it this way that going up is annoying and it's going to be frustrating it's going to cost you a few bucks but if you just start busting your butt and do it in a way that will also not only get you financially out of debt but it will shift to you psychologically as well the way we've taught millions of people to do it um you're going to be out of debt in

at a year or less anyway. Exactly. So it doesn't matter. But I promise you, chipping away at a $9,000 debt instead of getting the momentum of paying off the $1,000 debt, the $1,200 debt, the $2,200 debt,

there is a momentum that begins to pick up and you're taking all that money and dumping it into that $9,000 one versus just with an ice pick out there at the bottom of a mountain, just slowly chinking away, like, ding, ding, ding away at it. Man, like, that's a recipe for folks who just get burned out

to give up. Yeah. How much is the personal loan? So I have two personal loans, 11,000 each. One's at 6%, one's at 7%. My car loans 15 at 9%.

So your next smallest debt is the credit card, or is that on multiple cards? So that is the smallest one. So you're going to attack it first anyways, but we're not doing it because the interest rates come in. I'm going to insert my foot in my mouth. So here you go. You've got to get your ice pick.

and start trying to take this mountain down. And to your question, nothing about this is screaming you need to sell the car. It's far less than half your income, which is our parameter for all things with wheels and motors. You're going to pay the car off within a year. So if you like the car, just keep the car. Because it's more hassle to cover the amount you're underwater on. Go buy another car. And then you're going to yell at me if it has one issue and go, well, now I've got to cover this repair on this $5,000 car.

So I would just keep the car. Fix the brakes on it. Don't be driving dangerously out there. If you need to pause your debt snowball to save up and, cover the break repair, go for it. You have a thousand bucks right now? Yeah, so right now I have $8,000 in the bank just in my...

Jake, you hold me. The lead, man. Lead with that, dude. But... No, no, no butts. Have this credit card paid off this time next month, period. End of story. Yeah. He's going to be like, I have a life-saving surgery I need next month,

John. That's why I have the money. That would be the second. No, no, no. I just want all this paid off like by the spring, and so my My mindset is, you know, if I were to sell the car, get rid of half of that debt, and then have that extra $400 payment a month. Dude, you're doing some Benson Boone backflips over here when you don't need to. You have the money to knock out the credit card next month. You just freed up a huge payment there, a huge chunk of the debt.

Now we're attacking the person alone, the next person alone, and the car is coming next. Can you throw $4,000 a month at these debts? You're bringing home like, what, seven a month? month? Well, so, you know, as a wedding video, for a lot of my income is seasonal. So next month I'll make about 8K and that, but then I don't have any more until next year. So, you know, but I make 5K a month. Nobody's getting married until next year? Well, that's just how my schedule works. During the wintertime, it just kind of drops off. I might pick up one or two through the winter. Okay, but hold on, hold on. You're telling me you have $8,000 in an account right now.

Yeah. You're going to get another $8,000 on top of your regular paycheck next month. Yeah, but I have bills and a family, so I can't take all of it. But I'm saying you've got money coming in. Yeah. Can you pretend like that wedding gig money is just debt payoff money? Like you don't touch it. Yeah, so that was my intention. But we just had a baby five months ago, another baby.

So we have two kids. And I'm taking up a lot more of the slack on like the daycare costs, just the life of live, the cost of living expenses. My wife's a teacher. So she kind of, her dollars are kind of allocated to certain things right now. But you're making 120 and she's making another, what, 50, 60? 50, yeah. So you guys make 170.

What do you talk, Jake? We should have no issue paying this off. It's more about how quickly can I do it. Hold on, I don't like the language you're using, dude. What is her money allocated for? Oh, she just like with her, with our specific bills and stuff like that, we, she doesn't make that much. She makes $50,000 a year.

I want y'all to take all of your money and put it in one big pot. That's as much debt as you have. If you just took her income, you'd be out of this in a year. Yeah. So here's the thing. You've been talking about my mindset, my plan. It's y'all. Are you willing to try a different way?

Yeah, so we've, this has been an ongoing thing for many years. And so we've talked about it. And I just. So you guys have separate finances? No, no, no. No, but when it comes to my dad, I try to do that on my own. Oh, so you don't want to bring her into this. You're like, hey, this was my debt.

You don't worry about it. I'll stress about it. Yeah, basically is what that's come down to. And I know that goes against your principles. Well, forget our principles for a second. You didn't hurt our feelings. Yeah. Forget our principles for a second.

Just rest assured, you trying to macho up and I'm going to cover my debts and I'm going to work extra all weekends, whatever, to try to protect your wife. from having to participate. I promise you, brother, she's wearing it. Oh, I know. We talk about it all the time. Okay. Let's stop trying to be a hero

and let's actually solve this problem. Y'all make a bunch of money. This whole thing can be done in seven months. Max. Yeah. If y'all suck it up and just have a pretty real tight budget and you'll allocate and you take a couple of extra wedding gigs and you get out there and hustle and get this stuff knocked out,

you will be debt-free before you know it. All right. So don't sell the car. No, no. Don't sell the car. Think about this. You got $8,000 right now. If you took seven of that through it at the debt, you're down to $38K total, right? Yeah. Now, John said seven months. So that's $5,400 a month, come hell or high water, is going towards minimum payments and extra on the smallest one. That's what you're committing to? Out of your, what, $10,000 take-home pay between the two of you? Yeah.

That's what we're working with here. So now we need to figure out in the budget, what's feasible. Okay, we bring home $10K, daycare's two, K plus plus we have the rent, the mortgage. Add all that up with a budget tonight for the both of you, with both of your incomes in there, and you will see a very clear path to how quickly you can do this. And you can shake hands and say, we're not going to go out to eat until June.

June 1 is when we're going to go on a date, because that's when we're going to hit send on the final payment. Make that commitment to each other just to be done with this stupid thing. Man, y'all make too much money to be living like this. How old is your other kid? You got a five-month-old? And how else? Four.

Four. Awesome. Dude, think about that. By the time you have a one-year-old birthday party with a smash cake, you're debt-free. That's the picture I want you to have in your head. So get out of your own mind. Get a line. And work this plan, dude, and call us back.

We'll celebrate with you. I'll even get that one-year-old birthday gift. Running a business is hard enough. The tools you use to run it should make your job easier. Too many business owners spend more time fighting their software than selling their products. You didn't sign up to become a web developer. You signed up to build a business you're proud of. And Shopify gets that.

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Shopify handles the rest. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash Ramsey. That's Shopify.com slash Ramsey. Shopify.com slash Ramsey. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm George Camel here with Dr. John Deloney, taking your calls at AAA 825-5-2-2-25.

Courtney is in Columbia, South Carolina, up next. How can we help, Courtney? All right, so my question is, how do I get my husband to save a retirement as a small business owner? I can give you some backstory. Yeah, what's stopping him? It sounds like you want him to.

Does he not believe in it? So he thinks that the business is the retirement. Okay. So it's a family business. He just took it over three years ago. It's debt-free. We own the property. We own all the vans.

We own everything. And so his long-term goal is that we will sell that, and that's what we will live off of. I like his confidence. How old is he? Right. He is in his 50s. I am in my 40s. I'm a school teacher, so I've been, instead of doing the pension, I chose to do the optional retirement and put my money in the stock market. So I do have about

$300,000 in my retirement. Good. And he did, I will say he did start his guys on retirement, but he only puts in like 3%. What kind of retirement plan does he have? He has the simple IRA. Okay. So does he have to put it in as much as the other guys are getting? Yes.

So he does, he matches himself. So he puts in 3% and he matches 3% with the business. Okay. And he's not doing any investing elsewhere? Correct. So he's investing 3% of his income. And then he thinks this business could sell for how much down the line. So when his dad had it appraved, you know, 15, 20 years ago, it was about $3 million.

When we took it over, that was not what the assessment came back at, but he has grown it in the last three years. He has a whole other leg of the company that he has grown. What's the business? It's commercial refrigeration. Okay. That's good. We're going to need fridges in the future, I hope. That's a solid business, but has he played out a scenario where the business isn't worth as much it is today, and he needs a backup plan?

Because he can't work anymore, let's say. I mean, I don't think he's ever thought of that. I think it's been like a 35-year-old business that even with just a property and the way that our town has grown up is like he, if the business had nothing, we would still have those assets. I the thing that's coming to mind and again I I am overly biased here so hear me say this but I was born and raised in Houston Texas and there was a company I think at the time was the fourth fourth largest company on planet earth and that was called Enron and I had friends I had family that worked there and one of the magic things they gave their employees was 100% buyback for stocks

Why would you put your stocks in the market? You can just put them back into this big giant, the fourth biggest company in the world, and it's growing at 5 billion percent a year, right? And I have a lived experience of people who went to bed millionaires who woke up with zero dollars. Nothing. Right. And so for me, it feels like that at a much smaller scale, which is if you just think of this as his retirement plan, he's putting every single egg he has in one 30-year-old basket.

But does that, but does my, like, income and my retirement, like, offset that? Oh, you're saving the day. If you think about our stuff as a portfolio. You're saving the day right now, yeah. And that's what you're doing. You're hedging your bets, and diversification is key. I mean, even Dave Ramsey, the Ramsey children, they all invest outside of the business, even though they are owners of the business.

And so it is wise. diversify just like you would if you wanted to buy some real estate as another diversification. And so I would encourage him that while the business is worth a lot of money, let's also save over here to split it up. And that way you have options. That's really what you're giving yourself. Even if he started fully funding Roth IRAs, if you all fall within that bracket. I mean... Yeah, what's your household income collectively? So he doesn't pay himself the market wage of a CEO. He pays himself actually less than my teacher's salary. So together we make about 150,000. And why does he do that? Because he grew up, as he says,

they're poor, and his dad has, like, over a million dollars sitting in a savings account. That's just how they grew up. So they're just kind of scarce, city-minded and frugal. Yes. Yes. Okay. And what kind of future do you guys want as a couple? Sounds like you have a different picture. Well, I mean, he listens to you guys, And so, and that's why he got his blue-collar guys to start investing, which none of them had ever done before. It's awesome. So I don't know. Like, we live in our dream home. He's one of those that he will work harder to make more, to make it happen.

And I guess, A, I mean, I've got so much respect for this, dude. I love it. I love the hustle. I love the, and as a fellow scarcity-minded guy, I get that. and by the nature of me and George's job, our whole job is predicated on one thing. Somebody's plan didn't work out. And so when I hear the type of work he's doing, man,

he's one accident away from a lawsuit that's going to bury that small company. He is one of the vans falling apart in a driver, right? You know what I'm saying? So I see so much risk here, but I love the hustle. and I love the intent. And also, I mean, I can't imagine what even the dirt, how the dirt is appreciated in Columbia. Everyone wants to live in Columbia right now. I get that.

Yeah. But pretending that's going to be the case 25 years from now, who knows, man? Think back 25 years ago. There was no such thing as a podcast, YouTube, smartphone. None of that existed 25 years ago. No, but he says AI won't take over his job. Wonderful. Great.

I would be careful because the overlords, every time they hear that, they're like, all right? hold my beer, I'm going to take over that one too, right? So, and you know what? They probably won't, to be honest with you. That sounds like a viable bet. But I want to, like George said, I want to have some risk spread out a little bit. And you are doing a fantastic job as a teammate here. And if he looks at you at the end of the day and says, I can't, I can't.

I won't. I can't. Then I want you to continue doing what you're doing because you're, all you can control at the end of the day is you. And he sounds like he's a great guy. He's just really, like, not struggles, but he's really committed in this area. Maybe you max out your own retirement. That's it. Exactly. And that might be, you know, 40% of your income. And then I guess our next goal of a couple is, is to pay off our house. So that's still, that's like another. So you still have a mortgage. How much mortgage you have left?

Yeah. Oh, well, we just bought our dream home. So about $500,000. I would love to see him pay himself an actual wage of what his job is worth and draw from his company and get his house paid off. Well, and that's what we did talk about that because our accountant, who we really love, she changes to an escort because she knew he wouldn't pay himself more. And she says, if you need it, it's there.

He can take a draw from it any time. Sure. We have talked about doing that. As sooner you get that house paid off, the more you're going to be able to invest. There you go. So that would be the game plan. And invest 15% of your household income right now.

That might be mostly you. A little bit of him with his 3% into the business. But outside of that, let's get the mortgage paid off, get him paying himself more. Then we can really batten down the hatches and save big for retirement. And you guys will be okay in the end if you diversify. More than okay. Hey, George Camel here. Listen, if you're behind on debt payments and drowning in debt, I already know what you're thinking.

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Hey, thanks for checking my call. Absolutely. How can John and I help? I have two kids, 23 and 25, both recent college grads, and we have about 150,000 left in their combined 529. Wow. Nice. How much did you save up for them? I'm curious as someone who's actually done this, and it sounds like you cash flowed both of their school all the way through? All the way through, I did, and I really just contributed the minimum in my state to get the tax credit.

but I started it immediately. When they were like zero? At birth, basically, and just caught some, like, massive gains a bunch of years. Wow. Way to go. Okay, I just want to let people know that this is possible. And they're like, I can't save enough. It sounds like compound growth did a lot of the heavy lifting, and you started early.

It did, and then also they received some scholarship. And at that time, I could have taken money the equivalent out of the 529s, but I wasn't really sure when they were going to graduate and all kinds of uncertainty, so I didn't do that. Yeah, that's a good note for people out there. You can withdraw against scholarships that come through. You will owe taxes on it, but there won't be any penalties. So there'll just be income taxes.

Okay, so you're wondering, what do you do with 150K sitting there? There's no more kids in the picture. What are my options? Right. So I'm looking at the options, but of course maybe I've missed them. So one would just be leave it, keep an invested. And maybe it's something they inherit or it's like a retirement parachute for me, but then I'm looking at like a 40% taxes and penalties to get it out.

Yeah, there's a 10% penalty on the earnings portion, and the earnings will be taxed at your ordinary income as well. Right, plus my state will then claw back the credits they gave me. Ah. Yeah, I don't love that. That, to me, is like a worse, worse, worse case option. There's a lot of other things you can do. Number one, you can roll up to 35 grand to a Roth IRA up to the annual limits.

Right. I'm looking at doing that, but I'm not yet even retired myself. Okay. And that seems a little for me to now be funding their retirement, but I understand that then that money in their Roth, now that can hopefully explode for them in the next 30 or 40 years. Yep. I could roll the dice.

They don't even know that they're going to have kids. Even if they want kids, they're going to have kids. And there's no other, anyone in your immediate family, grandchildren, nieces, nephews that could use this money that you'd want to give them, give it to? Correct. Correct. Okay.

Mike, I got two kids, if you want to just change the beneficiary, brother. I got you. We can start a little kind of go-fund me for the Ramsey audience. And as happy as I was to fund their undergrad. I don't necessarily want to fund grad school. I want them to be able to do that. that on their own terms. I don't want them to go because someone's offering their money. I don't want to feel like they have to go or can't stop because of that. I just want them to go figure

that out. So I'm leaning towards funding the Roth. But again, it just seems a little, I just, I guess I had this nagging feeling that that could have been a parachute for me because I know that it could become a million dollars in 20 years. Now, how much do you have in retirement? I have, I'm told to retire in two years and I have about $3 million. Oh, what are you concerned about? Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike. You're like, I don't want to give them $7,000. I only have $3 million.

Well, I'd be giving them, you know, 70, or it's $150,000 that I know I could turn into another million. Am I going to regret that? What's the actual regret? That maybe three is not enough. Okay, there we do. That's the real question here. Yeah. What's your current lifestyle?

How much do you spend in a given month? I am spending probably, let's say $4,000 a month. Okay, it's $50,000 a year. I own my cars. Yeah. That's it. So let's say you doubled that. Would that be balling out if Mike doubled that number?

Absolutely. $100,000 a year. Do you want to know how much that is of your actual $3 million? I know. I mean, I've done the 4% of it. I guess I just worry that you can never have enough in retirement and that I'm passing my money too soon. Well, what if you, what if you reimagined it?

Because I think I hear some of the struggle, like this money was already designated. Good point. You gave it away at birth. And now I love two things you can do with this. One, the thought of putting, getting them that far ahead with fully funded raw. at 21, 22, 23. I mean, you're talking about transforming your potential grandkids that you may never meet. You're talking about transforming their life.

And I like the idea now where you're in the driver's seat when it comes to one of your kids decides to go, I'm making something up, man, but get a graduate degree in engineering or go to med school or something wild. And they come up with the first year. And all of a sudden at Christmas, you surprise them and you say, hey, I'm taking care of next year. I'm proud of you. Yeah, and they'll still be a little left. If I give them the 70 over the next combined over the next five years, they're still. It's going to keep growing over those seven years.

Yeah, man. So think about that. This could be a generational endowment. Well, do you want to go down saying I could have had $3.5 million and said I had three, or do you want to go down as the guy who said, my great grandpa covered our college funds generationally? that's a pretty cool legacy. That's the other thought is just to keep it invested in a 529, but I just don't know that they're ever going to have grandkids

because it could be a million dollar. I don't know if we're all going to be here tomorrow. So there's a lot of things we don't know. I'll tell you this, Mike, with how you've set your kids up and how you have loved them well, the data tells me those are guys that are going to go have their own families. They have a lived experience of what the good life is. Yeah.

Are they working full-time? Yeah, they're both working full-time. Upstanding citizens? Yeah. Okay. That was a little bit hesitation there. I'm just going to note that. Nobody's an upstanding citizen at 21, Mike.

Okay. I'm just saying they're not entitled kids. These are not people who are like, well, Dad's, it's, you know, Bank of Mike over here, and we're just going to go to him. If they got work ethic and they want to pursue higher education, I'm going to just cover it. that's a worthy thing to cover and bless them with so they don't have the stress in their early adult life because you remember being 23. Yeah. Now picture being 23 in 2026 with current prices and how the heck am I ever going to own a home?

So the way that you can set them up now is far better than anything you can leave to them as an inheritance when they're in their 60s and don't even need it. Yeah. But once it's in the raw, that's kind of taking grad school off the table. Why is that? you're still going to have a lot of money leftover there'll be some money but not necessarily you know grad school for both of them

but yeah I could help with it but do they want to go to grad school or is this another story you're just wrestling with no they're figuring it out but again I'm sort of the I don't want them to go because there's someone paying for it I want them to figure all that out and also not started and feel

obligated to finish something they don't want because I paid for it I want them to do that on the realm I get that but you're all also wrestling that up against them. You might have trained them really well to be to be diligent with their money and their 23 work in a job. They don't super love and they have an opportunity to go to grad school and up their skill set and up their profit, I mean, their ability to their earning potential. And you've got this pot for 75 grand for each of them on the side that they don't know about. Absolutely. Yeah. I'll help them, but it will be, I am

when I think, prioritize getting the money into the Roth and whatever's left certainly can go to grad school. Yeah. I think that's a good point. or future grandkids. I mean, I don't know many people who are going to grad school for fun. It's not like you're, you know, financing a party in Vegas for them. It's grad school.

There's a lot of people who go to grad school to avoid the real world. Yeah, who kick the can down the road. Yeah, not these two guys. All right. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't. Even at 55, I'm not crazy to be funding someone else's off.

No. I think you're, crazy is too strong of a word, but I want you to make sure you have something to do the day after you retire at 57. Yeah. Because all the data tells me that when somebody retires and they don't go to a thing,

their body checks out. And their mental health and their physical health falls off a cliff. And so have a service orientation, have a new job. You've always wanted to start a new group of people you want to help. Have something you're going to in these two years when you retire. So that your body will continue funding itself in pursuit of a purpose, right? Hey, this is Dr. John Deloney. I take my sleep seriously because better sleep means better health. And if you've been losing sleep or waking up sore because you've got some old, thin, gross

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to find the type of insurance you're looking for and connect with a Ramsey trusted agent. Kayla is in Charlottesville, Virginia. Up next, what's going on, Kayla? Hey, can you hear me? We got you. Okay, great. My husband and I are about $49,000 of consumer debt,

and we own our former home and are renting it. And it cash flows about $692 a month. So we're just trying to figure out if we should sell it. He really doesn't want to. and just like how to get out of this debt. Are you guys renting right now in a different home? We own our current home also. We tried to rent but have pretty big dogs that made our rent go up really high.

So it made more sense from a mortgage standpoint to buy here also. Yeah. What's that other rental worth? It's worth about $505,000 and we owe about $380,000. We also really love the home and would maybe retire there one day. It sounds like you're attached to this thing. You're not willing to sell it.

Well, my husband is definitely attached to it. Is it close by? No, we are about two states away from it, but we have a pretty good management system. We have friends that are helping manage it and great renters there right now. Let me ask you this question.

Yes. If you are where you live right now in Charlottesville, Virginia, You and your husband are $40, what do you say, $46,000 in debt? Yeah, 49. 49. Okay, you're 50 grand in debt. Would you all look at each other on Saturday morning and say, you know what,

let's buy a half a million dollar house in two states over and start renting it out? No, probably not. Okay, there's your answer. Okay, so as in sell it. I personally would, based on what we know. Now, let's get into some more details here. What's your household income? Um, he makes about 5,554,000 a month. His salary is $82,000 a year. Okay. And are you working on

a single income? No, I have four young kids that are all at home with me. Okay. What kind of debt is the 49K? Um, half of it, about 24,000 is a car and the other 25 is credit cards and they're interest free until July of next year. Well, don't tempt me with a good time. Okay. What's the are worth? About 28,000. And you said how much is on the loan? 24,000. Okay, so you could sell it and walk away with $4,000 and knock your debt in half?

Yes. How about this is a compromise? I'll give you two paths and you can choose which one you guys want to do. If you desperately want to keep this rental, I can't force you to sell it. That's the easiest path. You sell this thing. You're going to net $100,000. You're going to pay off all of your debt and have $50 grand in savings.

All in one fell swoop. That would change your life, wouldn't it? Yes. Or we sacrifice, we sell the car, and for the next several months, we're trying to throw two grand at this thing for the next, you know, 12 months in order to pay off the rest of the debt. Those are two paths forward. Neither of those are fun. Can we agree? Yeah, definitely. Which one is actually feasible?

Out of the 5,500 income, can you guys throw two grand a month at this thing? Oh, I don't know. We're pretty tight. What if you sold the car? What's that payment? The payment is $600 a month. The problem is that we just bought it because we sold my car that we had paid off

because it kept breaking down on me with my four kids. Why is that a problem that you just bought it? No, it's not a problem that we just bought it. It's just I just sold the part we had paid off. Yeah. So now what you're going to do is turn around, take that $4,000 and whatever savings you have and go buy a different car that's going to be not as nice of a car.

Let's put it that way. Yeah. So those are the two paths that I see out of this. Otherwise, you're going to stay in the same spot a year from now, two years from now, because you just told me you guys don't have any margin to pay off this debt. Right. So something's got to give. There's got to be sacrifice on either side.

Personally, the easier one, as much as it's going to hurt, is to sell that other rental that your friends are managing. Yes, you'll lose $600 a month, but you're going to gain all of the payments that you are sending to lenders every month. Plus, what did you say you have 170K in it? Yeah. What we owe... 125 in equity?

Yeah. What do you owe on your current mortgage now? We just moved here six months ago, so I don't think we paid much off of it. I know, but what do you owe? It's $321,000 that we paid for it, and let's see what we have. We're paying, I think, $319,000. Okay, so imagine that... So to me, this is two separate issues.

One, you have a debt problem, which George gave you a path. And B, you have a out-of-state landlord issue. And so I would sell the house regardless of the debt, just simply because it's going to give you peace in your home. You're a mom with four kids. Your husband's working his butt off, and you all have zero margin. Like, I would sell that just simply for the stress. And there's two ways you can look at this house. One as this fantasy that one day we're going to move back.

And you can keep that out there. or you can look at this house as what an extraordinary glitch in the matrix blessing this is that we bought this house, we rented it out for a while, and it's about to knock a hundred thousand dollars off our primary mortgage, bring us down to 219. It's also going to pay off our debt and fully fund an emergency fund. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You're talking a game changer in the peace and freedom of your home.

I overstate it that a bit. probably going to end up with 75 grand to put towards your house, but still, like, man, you're talking transformation inside your house. Yeah, definitely. So how much do you guys have in savings now? We have 76, well, like cash right now that we can get to is about 2,000, but my husband has $76,000 in retirement. Oh, retire. Okay, let's not touch retirement. No. That is untouchable. So you have $2,000. What is the chances of that changing drastically if nothing else changes? Are you going to have 10 grand in there soon? 20 grand?

Are you going to pay off extra debt? No. So have you ever had $50,000 sitting in a savings account ready to protect you from life? Definitely, definitely not. With four knucklehead of kids running around? Right. You know what I mean? No, we have not, yeah.

If you guys were just like a newlywed couple living your life, I'd say you could probably stomach some of the risk. But with four kids, I'm trying to solve for peace. I'm just going to give me some peace. I don't want to see him working 90 hours. a week to sacrifice for the next 12 months, I'd rather have him home. And if that means, I mean, if this rent money was changing your life, you guys would be debt-free by now. Yeah, for sure. So instead, you're using it as sort of an excuse to hang on to this thing as if it's some magical investment that's supposed to change your finances. It's not. And so I would sell it.

That's a harder conversation to have with him. It sounds like he's less willing to sell it than you are. Yeah, definitely. By the way, that conversation can't be about real estate. It can't be about the dollars and cents that has to be that conversation is a wife sitting down with their husband saying I want to choose peace in this house and we have one switch we can flip that will a take all the stress outside of the state off our shoulders be fully funded emergency fund C for the first time in our marriage drop our primary mortgage with a two in front of it D pay off all of our debts so would you you would say take the money that we made profited from it and put it into the equity here No, I'm saying pay off all of your debts first, that $49,000.

Right. Then you can keep the car. That's a nice perk. Then whatever's left, you then put an emergency fund. And then anything beyond three to six months, you can throw it at the mortgage. I throw that at the mortgage. So that's the filter. Is consumer debt first fully funded an emergency fund in a high-yield savings account?

And let's say that's $30,000 for you guys. And you have $25 left over. You can chunk that at the principal on the mortgage. Okay. So if you walk away, like after fees, stuff. If you walk away with $140,000, you're taking 50 of that to pay off your debts. You're taking 30 of that to or 50 of that, whatever number you feel comfortable, like for your emergency fund. And with four little ones, I'd probably go more closer to the six month mark than the three-month

emergency fund. And then you're talking, what, 50, 60 grand against your mortgage, 70 grand against your mortgage. And suddenly you have, go from 319 down to 275 to 265 to 250. And you're, and you're talking, And, man. And you'll have margin to keep at it. Gosh. Yes. Have you guys ever been debt-free since you've been married? Yeah. Probably about five years ago.

So you know how good that feels. A different time, a simpler time. Let's get back to that. Absolutely. You've got a cheat code to get there with this rental property. You've got a big, you've got a, like a do not pass go. Do not collect $200 pass, man. This is incredible.

Hey, it's Rachel Cruz. I don't know about y'all, but I can build something up in my head until it feels. way harder than it really is. I'll convince myself it's going to take forever, be super complicated, or cost of fortune. Then I finally sit down to do it, and I wonder why I waited so long. Making a will might be one of those things for you. That's why I love Mama Bear legal forms. They've taken something that can feel overwhelming and made it so simple. Their online wills are designed by attorneys and tailored for your state. And while you're on the Mama Bear website, it'll walk you through the whole process step by step so you feel confident that you're doing it right

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Carly writes, we are aggressively paying off debt in Baby Step 2 and we recently became grandparents. We don't want to wait two years until we're debt-free to visit those babies. We travel very cheaply in our paid-off car, but we'll have to stay in an Airbnb. A week-long trip could cost us up to $1,000. Would it be okay to cash flow or create a sinking fund to take a couple trips every year? This is a main question, Carly. You hit our soft spot with the grandbabies. I know.

Bring grandbabies into this. I know I don't know how old they are. but and I don't know how much debt they have, how long Baby Step 2 is going to take. If Baby Step 2 is going to take you five years, you've got to see your own babies. Two years exactly. I don't know.

This feels like... Two years until they're debt-free. A couple trips a year, again, there's some vague language here. Is this like three, four trips a year? Now it's four grand a year going towards this? That's my question mark. And does it have to be a week long?

Because that can cut down if you're, you know, the Airbnb stays, what's crushing them here. Right. And so one of the things, George and you and I, and we talk about this off the air, like the principles are like everybody knows somebody in their life that plays the credit card game like a xylophone, right? And they're always moving. And that's the life they've chosen to live and they figure it out. And so I couldn't sit here and say, I don't personally know somebody that plays that game and is not doing fine financially. I know. I know. I know one person in my life that that's what they do it's like they're that's their video games or skateboarding or whatever similarly the reason we tell people just go bananas on this is because of the question you just brought up can you can you can you limit yourself to two trips and could

you stay three days instead of five could you do a one bedroom could you stay in a hotel where it's cheaper than an Airbnb like once you start once you crack that door and that's that's what the principles, while we're so dogmatic about the principles is what we've know about human beings, myself included, George included, all of us included, is once you crack certain doors, the flow of water is so powerful coming from culture, coming from businesses, coming from out, just comforts. It's almost impossible to stay the course. Carly, you may be the, you may, you and your spouse may be the one, right? Y'all can, you all could create a sinking fund while you're aggressively paying off this debt. And I can't sit here in good conscience and say,

don't go see your grandkids. I can't do that. I would love for my parents to be around my kids all the time, right? On the other side of it, you and your spouse have to be very specific about we are still in sacrifice mode. And that means if we do this trip, here is the absolute end-all, be-all budget. Here is the compromises we're going to make on where we're staying for how long we're staying. We are going to be overly sacrificial. Because we've got to go see these. babies. I get that. And we can't let that crack the door open to. We're going to make five trips. We're going to go ahead and stay in a really super nice Airbnb and pick up all the meals. And, man, you're talking meal prep. You're talking, you know, you're bringing groceries on the

road with you. How much could you contract this thing? How much sacrifice are you willing to put in on these trips? And so that's, that's my thought on it. What do you think, George? My thing is always, what are you willing to do to make that happen? And if you're willing to cut your expenses down by $100 a month to create that zinking fund, cool. If you're willing to work extra to make this trip happen on top of your already your debt snowball. So you're saying keep your debt payments fixed. If you can stay on your debt free plan if we're doing this in two years or less and get found money from working more or spending less, that makes me feel better about it, that I'm not derailing. I'm not having to let go of one to get the other. And then I'd feel

real good about taking this trip without guilt. Okay. So let's, I like that because that's a little bit of, that's the Missy Elliott, slap it up, flip it and reverse it. So instead of you, Carly, looking at the baby steps saying the baby steps aren't allowing us to go see our grandkids. I like George's tech, which is look in your budgets and look up every single streaming service, every single cell phone plan ability you all have. And then say, no, it's not the baby steps keeping you. It's, no, we want to keep all five of our streaming services. We want to. We want to to keep this. We want to keep the lawn service. We want to keep these other things. And we want to keep buying fancier groceries or whatever on our grocery runs. That's what's going to keep you from

that. I like that because that puts the ownership back on you. That way you can't look in the mirror and blame us for not seeing your grandkids. Go see them. But what sacrifices are how deep are you willing to cut to make that happen? I like that, George. That's good. And maybe they visit them. Once the baby is a little older, easier to travel with. They get one visit where they go to Oregon. Maybe, yeah. During the holidays. And that way they cut their visits down to two per year. Yeah, for the first couple of years. And this is a short season. The babies won't remember.

That's the good news. It's your own memories that you're foregoing. I know, but still. I tried. Grandparents need to be around the grandbabies. Jennifer is up next in New York. What's going on, Jennifer? How can we help?

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Can you hear me okay? Yep. Okay, great. So my question is, I have a relatively high income, and I'm looking to purchase my first apartment.

I'm calling to ask if the numbers that I have laid out are prudence or if you think it's a bad idea. So basically, I want to purchase a $1.3 million apartment which has $1,800 a month maintenance cost. My plan would be to put down 20 to 25%. I've already been pre-approved. And so my two questions are, would you recommend that 20 to 25% is a healthy amount to put down? and once purchased, is it smarter to pay the mortgage down fast given the current interest rates, or should I keep investing aggressively since I can out-earn the mortgage interest in the market? Great questions.

And great use of the word prudent, by the way. Very impressed. George doesn't hear that word that much. That's awesome. How much do you make? Pre-tax or after-tax. You can give me both. That'll help. Okay. Let me just look here

So at 2025 I make just over a million pre-tax After taxes about 600 yeah God bless New York taxes Yeah Oh yeah It's a killer I cry

Every three months Are you debt free? Sorry Are you debt free? I am debt free Awesome How much do you have in savings Aside from the down payment

So I have 400K liquid and then 1.2 in investments. Wow, those 1.2 are non-retirement? About 40% is non-retirement. Wow. Are you willing to give some of that up for this house? I kind of don't want to.

I don't know if that makes sense. I don't want to pay capital gains. Sure. No, I understand that. Okay, so what is your actual monthly take-home pay on average, just after tax monthly income? About 50K. Oh, fantastic.

Because I'm crunching the numbers here on our mortgage calculator. And based on 25% down, I even did a 15-year fixed, which will give you a lower interest rate. You're looking at about $11,000 a month for a payment? Yeah, I saw even lower, actually. I was looking at around like at 9, but I guess my fear is that, like, what if something happens, then I'm suddenly making a lot less money. That's a legitimate fear. So I was going to ask you, how consistent is this?

Because here's my parameter, is 25% of your aftertax monthly income going toward that payment? So if you can tell me, hey, I know I can get 40K through the door with a 10K payment, I would feel good about you going for this. But if you're saying, hey, there could be a bunch of months where it's only 20, I would be a lot more nervous to lock yourself into this payment. Yeah, it's consistent months a month. And from last year, you know, every year I've made more than the pay. previous year. I haven't had one that's, you know, decreased. But I think I'm just, I'm very cautious and I'm just, and it's just me. So I'm just scared that, you know, what if something were to happen? Am I setting myself up to, you know, be house poor or to be in a really bad situation?

Well, can I compromise with you? What if you just sell some of the non-retirement investments and you put 50% down, bringing your payment down to like $8,000 or less a month on a 15 year? That would be pretty cool. Because now you have a lot of wiggle room. Yeah, the offset of the capital gains, though, it wouldn't be. Is it long-term capital gains? I don't know. It probably would be if you've held the assets for longer than a year.

I would crunch the numbers on the tax hit and go, all right, I'm willing to pay 50K one time in taxes to have this condo that I really want. You're trading stress one place or the other. You're trading stress from pulling it from the market, or you're trading stress from the stress you feel that I've got to earn a million dollars every single year or I go underwater. So pick your stress, but you're... You're doing great.

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That's BetterHelp, help.com slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney, and we are taking your calls at AAA-8-25-5-2-2-25. Jump-in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Lee's in Tallahassee up next what's going on lee how can we help hey how you doing fellows great so I am a single father of a 14 and 6 year old currently going through a divorce and I am trying

my best to get out of living paycheck to paycheck um I uh I had to leave a job to maintain my 50-50 custody So I took about a $30,000 a year pay cut. And tell me about that. Why'd you have to quit your job? So I was traveling on the road. Okay. Past several years making better money. And when the divorce process started, I got 50-50 custody awarded to me.

So I had to leave that and come back to a municipality job that I had once before. I want to tell you, I'm proud of you for making that choice. Well, thank you. That was hard. And it has a true financial cost, a true stress cost attached to it, a true identity cost attached to it. And you prioritizing those kids and the limited time you're going to have with them, you're going to be a laser beam focused on them. That's pretty impressive, brother. Is your 50-50 custody, is it every other week or is it part of a week?

How is it broken up? It's every other week, Sundays to Sundays. And how old are they again? 14 and 6. And currently also trying to get majority custody. Okay. What is, how much debt do you have? So, dead I'm sitting at 11,573.

Okay. What kind of debt is that? Credit cards that were racked up while I was away from home. Okay, and that's your only debt? Is 11 grand the credit cards? Yes, sir. Okay, and what are you making? Currently, I am making $30,000 a year.

Man, that's a big pay cut. When you said you were making $30,000 less, it cut in half? In half, yes, sir. Okay, but Lee, you could, in Tallahassee there, you could go work at a Starbucks and make that. Why have you chosen to take this job? It comes with state retirement and benefits, medical, dental, vision. My check is taking a hit because I've added the kids to that. that. And it's a different, you know, the municipality pays for mine, but not the kids.

And the X is not contributing to her portion of half of the expenses for the kids. So I hear this all the time, especially with my friends who are in government jobs, is there's a, I don't know, golden handcuffs, if you will, to the benefits. But right now, that's, that's killing you. You've got to make more money. Because you're bringing home like two grand a month? $2,400 bring home. What's your rent? I own a single wide and two acres that I'm on. Okay, what's the cost of that every month?

So total, like, expenses for the house is about $900, I'd say. Is that with utilities and everything? Yes, they're groceries. Okay, so when you don't have the kids, do you have the ability to go and just work like a madman, extra? I'm currently searching for now is a job that will work with me after hours in my full-time job, and then as much as they will on the weekends that I don't have the kids. Even if you have to go sign up driving back and forth to airport via Uber or doing food delivery or pizza delivery or something, where you're kind of in control of your schedule and you're

flipping switch on and off to say I'm working or I'm not working, I want to challenge you to expand, like you're settled in, you got health insurance, you got the kids covered. And by the way, when you, you know what, let me stop myself. When is your divorce finalized? It's an ongoing process right now. She's not currently participating. She's actually been held in contempt a couple times. Okay. Is there a point when the judge is going to come in and just sign it off? I'm sure hoping so. Okay. I, George, tell me if I'm wrong here. I want to see you stack cash and get through the divorce. Are you paying an attorney right now? Um, I, I, They did have, excuse me, I already have paid him up.

And just waiting, like I said, waiting out this process right now. Okay. Because the goal is to not go into any more debt. So I don't want you trying to tackle the debt, but then going into other debts on the side because the divorce isn't finalized. But I don't even know if that's your problem. I mean, the water you're trying to swim in is so shallow. 30,000 bucks, man. That's so tough.

Yeah, I feel like I'm barely keeping my head afloat. Yeah, you are. What do you do for work? What kind of line of work are you in? Natural gas utilities. I was going to say I have just went bare minimum on everything I can to cut out, and I was able to save like $300-something that way, and I also got through one of y'all's insurance people

that helped me lower my vehicle insurance and save me some money that way. Okay. Now, I mean, you're cutting down to the bone on the expense side, and so the income side is the lever that we can. can really hone in on. And that's your ticket out. Because if you pay a thousand bucks a month towards these credit cards, you're out in a year. Okay. So that's the easy math I can do with you on air. The hard math is you coming up with an extra thousand dollars a month. And that's where I'm saying the week that you don't have the kids, you're coming up with an extra thousand bucks that week.

Gotcha. Yeah. That's the goal. That's the process of right now. I put in applications left and right all these past two weeks. Are you a handy guy? Yes, sir. I can work any piece of equipment that's got a key in it. I mean, if you just start a little handyman business on the side, you could make 50 bucks an hour doing that. Or if you went and just joined up with a construction company for a year or two, and I know

you might have to make some concessions on benefits and stuff, but man, oh man, you have too much of a skill set that's in such high demand in certain places. And you're a guy that I'm rooting for so hard because I could tell you're a good man. And I can also tell you're trying to defend your wife, right? You're trying to not say negative things about her, which tells me you're a man on her, even though she's blown your life up. And you are struggling just to take gulps of air, man.

And so here are two guys that aren't in the middle of it like you are. We see a guy with a ton of potential, and it's hard for you to believe in yourself when you look in the mirror because you're so freaking tired. Know that George and I believe in you know that everyone listening here believes in you. Okay? Thank you. And it might be you stepping out,

on a limb and calling some local construction companies, some local builders, some local whoever, and whether that means you're just running a front-in-loader on weekends, doing dirt work for folks just on the side or you're getting off work and then you're going straight to a job, like whatever that looks like, just know, okay, for one more calendar year, I'm going to be exhausted, and then I'm going to be free. Yes, sir. So the short term is let's get a side hustle, let's clear the dust on this divorce, let's knock out the credit card debt, get a little bit of savings.

once you have that and you can up your income full time, now we can breathe a little bit. So there's a short-term version of this, which is the next year, year and a half. But then long-term, we don't want you side-hustling forever. That's not a sustainable future for you. So that's where we're saying this government job as stable as it is and the benefits are great, may not be the thing for you for the next 20 years. And I want to say it one more time before we let you go. George and I believe in you, brother.

I sure appreciate that, guys. I spent a lot of time talking with men that I think need to step it up. And it's an honor to talk to a man who is laying it all on the line for his kids. Hang on the line, Lee. We're going to send you some resources. One is every dollar, the premium version. You can list out that income, those expenses. It'll give you a real clear picture of how to get the most control of every dollar.

And I'll also give you my book, Breaking Free from Broke. I hope it's an encouragement to you. And that way we can walk with you through this. Hopefully, year-long journey, maybe even less. You're one of the good ones, man. Stay on the path. People ask me all the time. George, what's your number one money saving hack? I'm glad you asked.

Nothing makes me happier than helping another frugal friend. So here's the hack. Get on a budget. Seriously, how are you supposed to save money if you don't know how much you're spending in the first place? And that's what makes the every dollar budgeting app a game changer. With every dollar, you'll get a clear picture of your spending. And from there, it's easy to see where you can get more intentional, cut back, and save more money. How much money are we talking?

Well, the average every dollar budgeter frees up $395 in their very first budget. And if you ask me, I think you're way above average. So why are you still listening to me? Go download every dollar for free and start saving more money right now. Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool that's built and trained on proven Ramsey principles. And today we're going to break down one of those questions we received. Here it is. If I'm a stay-at-home mom, how much life insurance do I need?

I love that you didn't ask, do I need it? You said, how much? That's fantastic. So to start, every stay-at-home parent absolutely needs life insurance, even though they don't bring income into the home. I'm putting that in huge air quotes. The work you do has a real financial value that your family would have to replace. So estimate how much it would cost to actually replace that role for a year. What would child care, daycare costs, housekeeping, laundry, meal prep, cooking, transportation, errands, all of that. So as a baseline, I like to say, let's put that at a half million dollar policy

because we tell people 10 to 12 times your annual income. And let me tell you, in today, world, it's going to cost you at least 50, 60 grand plus to cover that kind of role, especially depending on where you live. So, 400 to 500,000 plus would be a good starting point for a stay-at-home parent on a 15-to-20-year term policy and Zander insurance is who I have all my term life insurance through. And John, my wife stays at home and we have a policy on her. Same with our family, me and my wife, yeah. So that's exactly what we do. We don't tell people to do things that we wouldn't do or haven't done ourselves. So if you're unsure about your next step, your specific situation, check out Ask Ramsey. It's going to give you very personalized advice. You can go back and forth, have a

conversation, and get answers just like you would on this show. Ask Questions today at Ramsey Solutions com and click on Ask Ramsey. We'll drop a link in the description of this episode as well. Jess is in Columbus, Ohio up next. Jess, welcome to the show. Hi. Thank you for having me. How are you? We're doing great. How can John and I hope? Yeah, thanks for taking my calls. So I just had a quick question. I stepped away from my career last year to stay at home with our three dog, three young children at home. And so we're currently living on just my husband's income. And we are new to the program. So we're working through the baby steps right now. We're currently on baby step number two. Working to pay about $114,000 in debt. And we're kind of struggling with

what to do. So I worked for the state. And I still have money in my retirement account from there. from the previous years I was there. I was there about eight years. And now that I'm staying home with the children, I'm just kind of struggling with what to do is it would make sense to withdraw that retirement and use it just because we have such a significant amount of debt to try to make a dent in that, or if you think I should leave it alone, if I possibly decide to go back in the future to state employment or kind of what I should do with that? I will beg you to not touch that retirement account. And here's why. Okay. Number one, you're unplugged. all of the future growth. And if you pop that into an investment calculator, you'll see this is not a

$40,000 decision. This is more like a $400,000 decision. And on top of that, when you take that money out, because it doesn't sound like you're at retirement age yet at 59.5. You're going to pay a penalty of 10% plus taxes. So that's like taking out a loan of 35% interest to access this money. Okay. So you're far better off using any savings you guys have, any non-retirement investments you can liquidate things you can sell plus future income. So it sounds like you guys, you basically said we're doing this at all costs. It's a priority, but the math wasn't mathing quite yet. Yeah, yeah. And we just kind of got certainly everything. And I only had like 54,000. That was the account value that I had. I know with the federal tax and the early distribution tax,

I think it was looking at like 33. So it wasn't a huge amount anyway. How old are you? I am 33 and my husband's 33 too. So let me just play it out for you from 33 to 63. If you just leave that $54,000 alone, are you ready for this? Yeah. 30 years of growth is what we're talking about. It would be a million dollars. Okay.

That's a 10% rate of return on average. Which you're not going to get. You're not going to get from the pension it's in or whatever return for the state retirement. You might need to move that with a smart investor. So if you forgot the password to your retirement plan and you just left it alone, you would open it up at 63. to see a million bucks in there, most likely. That's what you're giving up. Instead of, well, it's not that much. Yeah, I'll get 30 granddad. It'll help with some debt payoff. It is not worth it. So how much does your husband bring home? So he just got a new job. So he's

making about $130,000 a year and plus some bonus potential. Good. And what kind of debt is the $114? So it's a little bit of everything, some credit cards. We both have student loans that are about $50,000. Between both of us, we have a car loan. And just, just like a personal loan. So just a little bit of everything. And that's really eaten up a lot of like our monthly budget. It's just that's probably a couple thousand dollars in monthly payments right there. It is. It's about like 21, 22. And it was, you know, important for me to stay at home. But it's just been kind of a struggle each month like with the budget. And we're just, we're getting used to using every dollar and trying to stay on that budget. But it's just been

difficult to do that. So I was just kind of digging like, well, maybe I could put that money towards it. But that is not. So is there a possibility? And here's the beauty of being an adult. old, okay, is you get to change your mind. And could it be that you staying home is an incredibly important value to you, to your kids, to your husband, to your whole family? That's a thing y'all are striving for. And because if we're just, if we're just trafficking in reality for a minute, we wanted to grade our yard, but we dug a huge hole over the last five, 10, 15 years. Before we do that, we're going to have to, before we go. Before we do that, we're going to have to, before we grade the yard and plant all new side and make it beautiful like we want it,

we're going to have to spend some time filling that hole back up. And so could it be that you made a huge jump, you walked away from your job, noble, awesome, and then y'all did the math and realized we can't even afford to do this. And so you're going to have two competing values. One value I want to stay at home. And another value is you and your husband want to still like each other and y'all want to have peace in your house, right? And so let's, it might be that you get in a room and say, okay, I've tasted how much I want this. I've tasted how important it is, what a big deal it is to our family, but I got to go back to work for 18 months. And you want to talk about, you want to talk about someone who's going to be committed to a budget? You, because

every dollar you spend is another hour away from those kids, right? And so we're going to just go bananas getting this thing paid off. That would be the conversation I think I would have to have in my house. Okay. Which is we set our, this is a huge value for us, but we're, we, this is a huge value for us, but we set ourselves up to where we can't live into our value yet until we clean up past messes. Yeah. Okay. What's left from the car loan? The car loan is I, it's worth about like 23, 24, but I still owe 27. So that was something I was trying to, maybe I could get rid of the car, but I'm kind of upside down on that because it's a huge, it's 672 a month. So it's a big chunk of our money. And I was, that was something I did when I was still working. So it wasn't, you know, a huge

but now it's, you know, that's a huge chunk of our money eaten up every month. So I've tried to look at maybe getting rid of that, but I'm upside down. So I'm not really sure what to do. Well, there's a couple things to do after you get off this call is look up the private party value on Kelly Blue Book, not the trade in value, not the dealership, what they're going to give you because that's going to be a way low ball. And once you find that number, now we have real figures on if we sold a private party, we'd be underwater by three grand. Okay, now how do we come up with that three grand?

We can do that through our future income and set that aside and make minimum payments on our debts in the meantime, plus how much we need for a car to get us from A to B for now. Or you go down your local credit union and get a loan for the difference plus a little bit for that car. So that way instead of being in, you know, 24 grand of debt, you're in 10 grand of debt. So that's one solution to get rid of that car payment, which will then give you a little breathing room to attack the next smallest debt and the next smallest debt. And this also might mean he's working extra in the meantime. Yeah. So there's going to be sacrifices on either side like John mentioned. So you guys just have to choose your heart in this case. But this is a lot of debt comparatively to your income. So this might be a two and a half year journey. But knocking out that car loan is going to, you're going to get under that six figure mark. You're going to gain some momentum. And with every debt you knock out, you free up a payment. And can I ask, can I put one more thing out into the ether, Jess? Yes. A common conversation I have behind closed doors with women who were ballers, professionally who choose to stay home.

Yeah. Is a total loss of identity, a sense of loneliness, and this nagging feeling that I'm not contributing because I can't attach a dollar amount to what I'm bringing to this household. Yes. I can not identify with that more. I can't, I can't free you from it, but I want to free you from that. Yeah. Right?

Y'all have a real math problem on your hands, but beyond the math problem, I want to want you to know, like, you bring immense, almost unmeasurable value to your home. And that's not attached to a dollar amount. You are not your net worth. You are not your salary. You are the people who love you and people you love. And that's your family. What you're doing really matters. And it's very, very important. You've heard from me and the Ramsey personalities for years, but nothing beats actually getting together in person. That's why we created the Live Like No one else cruise for seven days we're vacationing with you and 2,500 Ramsey people in the Western Caribbean with live shows, us, new content, us, and more. If you're on Baby Step 4 or

beyond, come spend the week with us next March. Choose your cabin at Ramsey Solutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes. Ramsey is taking over an entire cruise ship. If you haven't heard, it's called the Live Like No One Else Cruise. It's happening in 2027, March 14th through the 21st, seven nights in the Western Caribbean, Bahamas, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Cozumel. And this is more than just a vacation. This is a whole week of Ramsey experiences. We're taking over the entire cruise ship. You heard that right. So it's all our fans, people who have lived out these principles. They're debt-free. They likely have their home paid off. I mean, I feel like over half the crowd was Baby Step 7. Yeah. But this is for those people who

have made it through Baby Steps 1, 2, 3. They're out of debt with an emergency fund. We want to mark the moment, celebrate with you guys. You're also going to get new wealth-building teachings from Dave. We're going to have the world's largest debt-free scream, live tapings of your favorite Ramsey shows, and a lot more surprises. So if you want to join us, all-inclusive pricing starts at about $2,100 per passenger. That's cabin food, entertainment, taxes, tips, the whole thing. So click the link in the show notes or go to ramsysysolutions.com slash events and book your cabin. I am pumped.

Shea is in Richmond, Virginia up next. What's going on, Shea? All right. How are we doing today? Doing great. How can we help? All right. Yeah. So I'll give you a brief rundown and then the question. So I'm a 20-year-old college student at Liberty University. My girlfriend also goes here. I'm studying aviation to be an airline pilot, and she is going to go to law school. And we have plans to get engaged next year than married.

But there is a lot of student loan debt with all that. just seems like it's growing continuously. So I just want to know what you think the best course of action is, you know, in our current state and how you feel about us wanting to get engaged and married at this point. I love y'all getting engaged and married. I think that's fantastic. What, when you say you have a ton of student loan debt, are you projecting into the future that you're going to have to borrow money for flight school? She's going to have to borrow money for law school and just doing that math? Or are you guys already underwater with your undergrad? Well, already underwater. So I'm in flight training right now.

So right at the moment, I am accruing a lot of C-at and loan debt. But she, I mean, she does have a bit, but it's going to be a lot more in law school. She's finishing the undergrad this year. Okay. So the challenge before you is not whether you should get engaged and get married or not. The challenge before you is you're worried about a problem that you are consciously choosing to engage in and you're planning to engage in even more in the future. Yeah. Do you what I'm saying? Yeah, I just don't see how there is personally, like any other way, because for me, flight school is just, it's way too expensive for anyone to pay out of pocket in this moment. Is there only one flight school there?

Yeah, yeah. How much is it? It's, well, it depends on the course. It's the whole thing with like, depending on it, it's a four-year school. school, but I am at a four-year school, and it's about like 10 to 15,000 per semester. Okay. And so if I guess I just want to challenge you on that. It's, A, you said a magic word in this moment, right? So you're right.

You might have to slow down a little bit. It's going to disrupt your imaginary plan for what you're going to do and when you're going to do it. That's just called being an adult. Like, it's just called. Like I want a hunting ranch and I want it to be really nice. I just can't afford it right now. I could go take out a loan right today and go get it. I could do that today and a bank would give me a loan for it, but I don't want to do that.

Right? So I'm delaying the thing I really, really want in exchange for peace and making sure me and my wife are still connected. Right? So A, that's the choice. B, a thousand bucks a month or two thousand bucks a month, you can go out and get a job and get to work. You could do that. It would suck and it would not be pleasant. and you wouldn't be able to live your college experience,

but you could make that happen, and here's how I know. I was just talking to two different private pilots. One is commercial, one's private, because my son's expressed interest in flight school. So I dug in, what does it cost? And both of them reported back to me, there is as many paths to a flight licensure as there are students. And so it sounds like you've got an idea for a way you wanted to do it,

and a college counselor said, here's how you can do it and you just follow that path. And when you lock yourself, same with law school. I was a dean of students at a law school for six or seven years. I know a lot of students that, man, they were, talk about exhausted, but they went and worked or they scrounge scholarships or they went to the law school I was teaching at. I think that was a part of because it was the least expensive of a bunch of other options and they got scholarship, et cetera.

You can do that. If you have it locked in your head, I have to go to this school at this time. at this date. Yeah, man, it's like walking into a car dealership saying, I will leave with this fancy car that I want. Somebody's going to sell it to you instead of saying, I'm going to wait two years and save up the money and get the car that I want, and it's going to be mine. I'm not going to owe anybody any money. Yeah. Yeah, it just seems, it just seems hard because, like, I'm almost, yes. I'm almost done since I'm a year out, and she's just about finishing undergrad. So you're saying, just, you know, weigh the options of having other, you know, the priority

getting married financially stable and having another job if we need it at the moment. You said it's going to be hard. Yeah. And I want to tell you every decision you make moving forward as an adult, it's going to be hard. It's choosing which hard path is going to get me where I want to be. And so if you and your wife want to get married, I want, dude, run to the altar. Go do that, man. Like as soon as you can and start building a life together, but do it based on shared values.

and if one of your shared values is as a couple, we do not want anyone, no bank, no federal program. We don't want anyone telling us how we're going to live our life, which means we're not going to owe anybody any money. Make that a core tenant and then live with the consequences of, I really want to go to law school this year, but I'm going to have to stop and earn money like crazy and save up and save up. I'm going to go in two years. Or you say, I'm going to get through flight school and I'm going to go get a job adjacent to instead of going to get my hours because I want to get this debt paid off. Okay. Right.

What I don't want you to do is just you're resigned to this thing as though it's, there's a wave coming at you and there's nothing you can do about it. And I just want to shake that up a little bit and say, dude, there's so many things you can do about it. None of them will be pleasant. And I will tell you, being a newlywed owing $500 grand after law school, flight school, and undergrad school, that will not be fun either. And staying single so both y'all can rack up a bunch of debt, that won't be, that's going to be hard, right? Right.

All of it would be hard. Choose the hard path that's going to get you where you want to be. And I hope you choose the thing that will accelerate health, finances, everything, and that is having a good or great marriage. Yeah, no, that's actually helps a ton. I appreciate it. Does that make sense? And we hear too many stories, Shay, where people call in and they're 28 and they're married and they're going, we got 600 grand. We didn't realize what life was going to be like carrying all this debt. And now we just had a baby. And she wants to stay home, but we have all this law school debt. And so it's an impossibility. And so we're trying to give you the most options, and that means front-loading the sacrifice. So if you guys say, we're taking debt off the table, we're going to take it slow, we're going to do this in an affordable way, go to the most affordable path we can to get to the goal, that means you're going to actually get there and not be stressed with $4,000 in minimum payments on the other end. And I can tell you this, I'm not a, I've never had to call big law or anything like that. I've had to engage with attorneys multiple times as an adult, zero times. have I asked them where they went to school? Right.

Zero. Zero times. And I don't know where any of my pilots went to school. I just assume if they're letting him fly the plane, he's probably good for it. And also tell you, hey, let me say, I want there to be great pilots in the world. I really do. And I really want there to be great attorneys. They do an extraordinary service for humanity when they're good.

Okay. So I want both of y'all to go do those things. I really do. But it might not happen at the same time. It might be you finish flight school, you get a job, now boom, green line. she can go to law school because you have an income. What won't work is both of you just piling on debt to cover your living expenses so both of you can pursue the dreams at the same time. That's the part that worries me. So I would caution you to do more of a baton pass with this.

Okay. But getting married is going to help. Yeah. So combining your lives together, combining finances, combine your goals and vision, it's so much easier and better with another person, a ride or die, as John would say. So, Shay, here's my last piece of advice. Don't wait a year to get engaged this weekend call it brother quit waiting you already know you'll already have a plan and you have a roadmap get engaged this weekend go ahead and call it let's get this thing going baby ring by spring john that's the that's the liberty promise that's the liberty promise i just made that up i don't know but i'm sure it is ring by spring make it happen by graduation or your money back that would be fantastic whether you're a small business owner or an individual doing your taxes is not fun it's like an

algebra test where if you get anything wrong, the IRS can make you pay with actual money. But if you work with a Ramsey trusted tax pro, you don't have to be a tax whiz because they are. They know taxes like the back of their hand, which makes filing super easy. So work with a Ramsey trusted tax pro and get back to doing what you love, which probably isn't taxes. Visit ramsysolutions.com slash tax pro and fill out the referral form to get connected to a Ramsey trusted tax proe today. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 1311. dishonest money dwindles away

but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow. I love the ESV version of this John it says money gained hastily will dwindle but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. That's some get rich quick right there. Yep. Andrew Carnegie said if you want to get rich, think of saving

as earning. Nice. All right, Andy. Good stuff. Ryan is in Georgetown, Texas up next. What's going on, Ryan? Hey, what's going on, Jens? I appreciate you guys having me Thanks for calling, brother. What's up? So I didn't grow up with the best financial examples, and now that I'm making a little bit more money, I want to be a better steward of it and then build a solid future for myself or if the Lord ever decides to turn me into a family man. And I'm contributing into my 401K, but beyond that, not really sure what the next smart move is, whether it's paying off the house or investing it in other means and what that looks like. Wow, how old are you?

I am 29. Great. Well, you figured this stuff out early. I know it feels like you're behind, but, man, a lot of people don't get this kind of financial literacy until way later in life. So you're investing currently. Do you have any debt? I do. I have a good bit of it. I have 377 in a house, and then Dave's favorite, 21 in a truck. 21 a truck.

Okay, you scared me. So 377s and a mortgage. Are you married? No. I am not. It's just me and my dog. What forced you into this house? That's a big purchase.

Nothing forced me into it. I just figured I'm going to be in the area for a while, and I liked the house that I saw when I was just out and about. Okay. How much do you make a year? After taxes, it is $9,200 a month. Nice. Okay, solid income.

What's the mortgage payment every month? 2150. Okay, and that's on a 30 year, I imagine. Yeah, and I pay an extra $3 to $400 every month. Okay. Why aren't you paying extra on the car? Why are you hanging on to that debt?

I do pay a little bit extra, but yeah, not nearly as much as I guess I should be. How much do you have in savings? $12,000. Okay, good. So you got $12,000 savings, any other investments outside of the 401K? I don't think you guys would consider it, but I do have a few vehicles that are all paid off and whatnot.

So it's kind of like a fun emergency account. Tell me about these vehicles, brother. You buried the lead on us. Okay. So there's a classic Mustang, a couple trucks, a few bikes. What does this all add up to, the value? Probably about 90,000. Goodness gracious.

And 20 of it is debt for the truck. Okay, so you have 90,000 things with wheels and motors, and our parameters, half of your annual income being tied up in that. And so right now you violated that principle. Yeah, violator. That's a lot of your world tied up in things going down in value. Maybe outside of that Mustang. I don't know any of the stuff is, you know, more. Tell me about the trucks.

Okay. The truck is a 2024 F-150 and a 2005 Tacoma. Oh, man. Both of those are awesome. Do you need the truck for work? George, he's a Texan. No, it's more so just for hauling the vehicles and stuff. Tell me about the bikes.

Okay. There's a 22 Indian FTR-1200 and then a adventure bike and a Harley. Gosh, dude. You have all. cool stuff. All the toys before you're 30. Yeah, but these are cool toys. I got to give it, I got to shout out, Ryan. You're not like buying

ridiculous. You don't have like 14 jet skis. And also Thank you. Also, you know I'm going to tell you, if you sold just a couple of these things, you clear up everything, man. You clear up everything. What would you be willing to sell? I'm not even going after your

Mustang. If I said you had to sell stuff to get rid of the 21K on the truck, what would you sell? Probably one of the bikes and then the Mustang. Oh, you're going to sell the Mustang? I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt to hang on to it. What's the Mustang? No, I just, I could probably get 25 out of it.

So you only need to sell that. You don't need to sell everything. I was just saying if you could sell just enough to get rid of the truck payment. Does it have sentimental value? Not too much anymore. It's kind of just eating up too much money. And, I mean, it's very easy just to sink more into it. Sell it today. Put on the market and have it gone this weekend and be debt free by Sunday.

Okay. I like this plan. And by the way, you have 12K in savings. So you could use 11 of that and knock your debt down to 10 and just sell one of the bikes and be done. So there's a lot of ways to go about this. I like that one a lot more. And then your next goal, every single piece of margin you have, every dollar and margin from those paychecks goes towards building an emergency fund of six months of expenses. Six months. Okay. Now you've reset, right? no consumer debt. You got six months of savings in the bank and you have enough margin to now

invest 15%. And you're making nine grand a month. So now you're dropping three or four grand a month towards your house payment. That thing's going to just start to dwindle right underneath you. That would be amazing. Yes. Okay. So I want to, um, how do we want to do this? I'm going to challenge you on two things, okay? Okay. Thing number one is I want you to also do the math and I want you to see it all laid out in front of you what the registration and the insurance and the gas and the maintenance on all keeping all of these vehicles is costing you every month okay my guess is it's going to be six or seven hundred bucks for the privilege of these paid off things sitting in your in your garage and i want you to ask yourself is 600 let's say 500 is six thousand dollars a year to not do any not to

drive them, not to play with them, just to simply, for the privilege of owning them, is that worth it to you? Okay? Got it. That's thing number one. And here's thing number two. You ready? When you started this call, you said, if God blesses me with a family one day, I want you as a 29-year-old making great money, who's a homeowner, who's actually thinking through future stuff, I want you to get out of your house and go meet people, go on dates, and go get after it. Okay?

I want you to think Where do you go out to meet people? I don't drink anything or anymore. Dude, join leagues, go to a local church, go join a bowling league, join a chess league,

join a book club, join a karate class, go take yoga, go do stand-up comedy. There's like 14 clubs there in the Austin area. Go out and meet people. I want people in their 20s and early 30s to only be at home to sleep.

Wow, okay. That's the opposite of me. I know, I know, and that's why I'm leaning on you a little bit. Here's why. This is the grossest reduction of marriage I could possibly make it, okay? But if you look at marriage simply from an ROI factor, having a good or great marriage amplifies your net worth over time, your health over time, your overall happiness and joy, like health outcomes, recovery from health, like it just is a magnifier because you're anchored in

with one other person doing this amazing wild adventure called Life Together. And so when you're thinking about optimization and where I want to be down the road, I want people who are like you who are going to be a great catch for somebody. I want you putting yourself out there being awkward, getting rejected, going again and again and again, making, doing all the uncomfortable things so that you can put yourself in the best position to meet somebody and build this amazing life together. Okay. Got it. I will flourish and being awkward. Yes. Hey, that's one of my spiritual gifts. I'm being awkward.

But here's the thing. I think George, I think we see value in you that you don't see. Okay. Well, I appreciate it. Okay. Let me put it this way. If my daughter comes home one day, she's 10 right now, so don't even think about it. But if my daughter comes home one day and says, hey, I met this guy. He's a good, man of faith. He's bought his own house. He's making a great income. He actually has an old Tacoma that he paid off that he takes out on adventure trips out in Texas. I'm going to be like, dude, I got to meet this guy, right? And he's dead free on top of that? And he's debt free. That's, you know what I'm saying? Like, you're a catch, brother. You barely need a personality at that point.

We're all awkward. Get out there and go meet people. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. Remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.