The Ramsey Show - Facts Are Your Friends...Not Feelings

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a Free Personalized Plan.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ❓ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Have a money question? Ask Ramsey is here to help.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Dave Ramsey and Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: “We found mold in our home and I might be getting laid off soon. Should we pull from savings to pay for the $45,000 remodel?” “I’m 19 years old with $58,000 of debt. How do I get out of this?” “How do I keep my financial standards while dating without coming across as rude?” “Should I use gifted money to pay off debt instead of the intended purpose it was gifted for?” “How do I get over the fear of not being financially ready to start a family?” 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!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ❤️‍🩹 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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! 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 Find top health insurance plans at ⁠⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠⁠ 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. Get started at ⁠⁠⁠World News⁠⁠⁠ 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 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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 and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Washall, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author,

is my co-host today. The phone number is AAA-825-225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth. exactly what you pay for it. Nick is with us in Philadelphia. Hey, Nick, what's up? Hey, Dave.

I'm just, I have a couple questions concerning how to get out of debt. Okay. So, I am a sanitation worker. I make a monthfully 75,000 a year. I just got married about two months ago. Congratulations. Thank you. Our combined is

She makes anywhere from 20 to 25, so close to around 95,000. Okay. I am currently in $41,000 in bed across personal loans, credit cars, and a car loan. Okay. How much of its car? Car, I'm halfway paying off my car. It's about 15 and a half almost. Okay.

And what's the rest of it again? 21 of it is personal loans and five of it is credit card. Okay. What kind of personal loans? Just at the bank? So when she got pregnant a couple of years ago, it was a really quick thing. We had to move out quickly and I had to cover the maternity leave and all that stuff. So I took out a quick little six-rayan loan so I could be secure after we moved into our apartment and just have the money to find.

help her. And then I just, what I started doing is I just started racking up personal loans because I was stupid with my money and would get in credit card debt and need to take out another one, another one. And then the last, then I took out one to get her in getting her. So what happened the other day that stopped your friend? And you said, I got to call Dave and Jade and we got to change. What happened? I just, I'm living paycheck to paycheck and something ain't working. And it doesn't make sense to me. This should not be having. You're a good man. You're a good man. Thank you for calling. You are while we're here, brother. Okay. So, hmm, how old is the baby now, too? She'll be two on Friday. Okay. What does your wife do, and why does she not work full time? Um, she works four days a week.

She, um, she is a dollar an hour. Wow. Yeah, that's a lot of time working and not a whole lot of money being made. What's the type of work? She's a dog trainer. She makes, it's based on commission. She can make anywhere between 20 to 25 a year. She's not working as much as you said. I almost wonder if she could dog train on her own and make more money and set her own clients and set her own pay. Because she'd probably, here's the thing. She'd probably do more, she'd probably do more money in less time doing that freelance. And she could probably make that a side hustle and get. another job. Yeah, I mean, I'm also looking to get back into.

I also, I'm a delivery driver, so I work on get cash under the books, although I haven't been doing that for the parents two months because I had issues in the summertime slowed up so they let me go for a couple months. Why are they paying you off the books? Why can't you have a job where you're paid above board? I don't know. Any pizza shop I've ever delivered at, they've always paid. under the box.

Okay. All right. All right. So here, one part of the equation, the reason we're poking at that is the income part. The other part is the outgo part. Okay. So we're going to get up above this problem because what happens is when you get down in the weeds, you get lost. And it becomes overwhelming and really, really scary.

And that, and chaotic. And that's kind of the way you were feeling right before you called us. So what I want to do is I want to get in the way. the drone and I want to get up above the weeds. I want to get up above the situation and say, okay, there's two parts. Income and outgo. You and your wife sit down the night and start talking seriously about what we can do to add to your good $75,000 job that is reasonable with a two-year-old in the house. What can she do to double, triple, quadruple her income? What kind of side hustle can you have that has integrity to it and that doesn't get you in

some kind of a bind later and that is steady? Sounds like, these guys come and go. And then on the outgo side, we're just going to sit down and say, all right, gang, we're two grownups with a baby. Game on. Because that's why you called. Game on. And we're going to say beans and rice, rice and beans.

No eating out unless you're, you can't see the inside of a restaurant unless you work there. Do you have a budget, Nick? No, not really. Okay. Though there we go. Let's start with that. We need that. That's the foundation.

Every dollar budget, Jade. Yeah, we'll give it to you. We'll make sure the phone screener picks up and gives you that. But here's the thing. You've got to do it tonight with your wife. You both sit down. You fill in the numbers. You make sure you're both in agreement on how we're going to spend our money.

And that's it. That's how you do this going forward. And the biggest number to look for when you plug in all your numbers, Nick, because the goal is to go through and think of all the things you might spend money on. And at the top, it's either going to be in the red or it's going to be in the green. Whatever is in the green is your extra margin. That's what goes to your smallest debt. okay after you make minimum payments on everything whatever is green that number goes towards

the smallest debt we're going to do them smallest to largest and that's how you guys are going to work this out yeah list the debts yeah i actually just i actually just worked away a good uh like five six hundred dollars of credit card debt okay good do you have any money saved letting gifts do you have any money saved uh we have the remaining of our wedding okay wedding gifts which is how much yes but uh I want to say around 5,000. Okay, good to know. So here's what I would do. Get rid of all your credit cards tonight.

Pay them all off and chop them up. That's your wedding gift. Ooh, I like that. You became a credit card dead free. And if I gave you a wedding gift and you were a sharp young couple and you had a new baby and you told me that that's what you did with your wedding money, I would be very proud of you. That's what I would want to do with it. Hang on.

I think you just blew his mind. See, we're going to put you to action, man. That's right. What you've been doing sitting on the sidelines and letting all this crap happen to you, and now you're about to happen to it. That's what's going to get. It's called proactive. And it's one of the seven habits of highly effective people, according to Mr. Covey,

Dr. Stephen Covey. And so check it out. You happen to things instead of things happening to you. Most people in America, Nick, are right where you are right now. broke, chaotic, disorganized, because all these banks and car companies are more than willing to happen to you. Their job is to screw you, and they are better at your job, at their job of screwing you than you are at keeping enough of happening. So not today. Today it changes.

Nick's a dad, Nick's a husband, and we're going to get on it. We're going to get grown-up land. No eating out, no vacations, no buying nothing until we get this debt cleaned up. because if you didn't have any payments and you had two good, solid jobs, y'all be making some serious money. Oh, yeah. And that's where you're headed. You're going to be in a position.

Think about what it would be like, Nick, if you had no payments. Holy. That's what's going to happen if you do what we teach you to do. And we're going to show you how. It's possible. Hang on. We'll pick up and get you signed up for every dollar. It's our gift to you.

Oh, there's another wedding gift. 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 Xander 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 Xander.com or call 800 356-4282 to get your family protected with term life insurance. That's Xander.com or 800 356, 4282. Candy is with us in Philadelphia.

Hi, Candy, how are you? Hi, good. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? My husband and I are 53. We have no debt. We have a fully funded six-month emergency fund. Our investments were contributing to 15%. Most is in a traditional and some is in the 401 tank through his work, which is a traditional. Way to go. You're killing.

House. Yeah, we have a house fund. It's almost 250,000. A year ago, we sold our home that we raised the kids in. We're basically empty nesters. We decided to rent for the past year just to see where our youngest ended up. But we're looking to move to Northern Virginia, which is a pricey area. At this point, I'm just concerned about being my age. I'm going to have to take somewhat of a mortgage, obviously 15 years. How do you feel about like I'm hoping? hoping it would only be about 200 or so. What's your household income? I just feel like we're a little 205. How much of the 250, didn't you say you had 250,000 saved? Yeah. Yeah, but she's going to Northern Virginia, and you're thinking you're going to spend 450. Yeah, I know.

Is that what you said? I know it's probably nearly a lot. No, I mean, 450 in Northern Virginia is not much. Yeah, it's not. So you would put half down? We're looking on the outskirts. Yeah. Yeah, we're looking to put half down.

Okay. $250 down, take out a $200 mortgage. Is that the plan? That's what I want to ask you about. And your household incomes, what? I was hoping 205. Okay. And you're how old?

We are 53. So I'm worried about being behind in retirement investments. That's my concern right now. How much is in the 401Ks? The traditional has $585,000, and the 401K has about $20,000. four, they're both traditional. So should I open a Roth with the extra that I put in? If your company offers a Roth 401k, I would switch my contributions to that. Did you say 5-3 or 6-3 years old? With the traditional? How old are you? 53 or 63? Oh, we're 53, 5. Sorry,

my hearing, I'm sorry. All right, so 53. So you've got plenty of time. Okay. So you've got $600,000 plus, it'll be a million two when you're 60. It'll be 2.4 when you're 70 if you're invested in good mutual funds. And that's if you don't add anything to it. So you're fine on retirement. You're doing fine. You keep adding to it. You're going to have millions of dollars at retirement. And you're going to have the house paid off. You're going to pay it off how quickly if you take out 200, making 200. You guys have done a great job of diligence and excellence so far. So I'm going to guess four or five years you got this thing paid off. Does that sound right? Yeah, I could easily put a lot towards it. Yeah, every month. Easily be able to double the payment

every month if you wanted to or more. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Okay. It doesn't, you're not setting yourself back in net worth. You're increasing your net worth because the house is going to go up in value and the debt's going to go down. So if you took out a $200,000 loan on a car and the debt went down slightly even the car went down in half, then you'd be setting yourself back. But a house is going up in value. So you're not setting yourself back. What you are setting yourself back in is cash flow because you're going to have to dump some on this mortgage to get rid of it. But that's not setting yourself back. It's going to actually cause you to accelerate faster, especially when you get it paid off. Oh, okay. Yeah. I would do this. I would do this plan. I'd put it on a 15-year fixed rate

or a 10-year fixed rate, one of the two, and I'd pay it off in four or five. Totally reasonable. Yeah, absolutely. I could do that. Yeah, you're going to be fine, Candy. That's awesome. The good news is with people like you that if you just are smart enough to ask the question, you're already on the way.

Right. And you're already, you're already dialed in. You've got everything else dialed in perfectly the way we teach. Okay, great. 15% going into retirement today. 250 sitting in an investment account from the last house that sold. You've got an emergency fund in addition to that. You've got no consumer debt, no debt at all today.

And you're going to make this move to be with family. This is why you work to be near family. Absolutely. Well done. Well done. And then the mandate is that that little turkey has grandkids. If you move to northern, in Virginia for that little turkey, that little turkey needs to have grandkids. That's your job,

little turkey. The number of my friends and my age group that are following kids, oh, wait a minute, they're following grandkids around the country moving from places they've lived for 40 years is amazing to me. You'd probably do the same thing if you had to. Yeah, Sharon would and then I'd have to go with her. That's how it works. Yeah. Dave, Dave, Dave just doesn't want to move. Dave loves Tennessee. That's all right. Dave loves Tennessee. God bless America. Elijah's in Indiana. Hey, Elijah, what's up? Hey, Dave, how you doing? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Yeah, so my boss put me on the Ramsey plan just a few weeks ago, so I've been reading the books, using that all that good stuff. But, uh, Just the other day, I went back in, use my credit card, so I can, I'll explain why I did that.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Indeed, yeah. There was some, there was some paint on my sink, and I didn't want to gouge the surface with a metal scraper, so I found my credit card actually works really well. That's funny. Okay. Well played. You got us. You got us.

Okay. You reeled us in. We're hooked. Yeah. There was some frost on the windshield. Yeah. All right. Well, so I do have a question, and it's about money gifts. So in a situation where a friend or a family member gifts you money for like a specific purpose, should you just use the money for that specific purpose or is it kind of disrespectful or dishonorable to instead just throw that money

at debt and try and get out a baby step two? I don't think it's dishonorable or disrespectful. full. It would be one thing if they said, here's some money for you to, we do a family vacation and here's the money for you to go on the vacation with us, right? That feels a little different than just happy birthday. Here's a couple hundred or however much money cash. How much was the gift and what was it for and who was it? So my fiance's parents gifted us $5,000 to help cover wedding costs. Oh. Okay. So they're paying for the wedding. Uh, in part. Yeah. They wanted to just chip in.

So how much were you planning on spending on the wedding? We had a $10,000, sort of window that we wanted to stay in. Um, and, yeah, that's more than $5,000. So where's the problem? The problem is I, you know, I've sort of paid for a lot of things myself. And like we could use that money to make the wedding like a little nicer. Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait a moment.

So the wedding budget, you had already covered some of it, and they refunded you. That's a good way to look at it. Yeah, I guess that's one way to look at it. If we had a $15,000 wedding budget and they put in five, and I've already paid 12, I'm pulling my two out. It's a refund. Yeah. I mean, that's fine. Okay.

Nothing wrong with that at all. Now, did they say, did they give it saying 10 to 15 is not enough? You have to spend this on top of what you've already done? Was that specific? Sorry? Did they say 10 to 15 is not enough? We think you need a nicer wedding here's four. $5,000 more dollars?

Well, they just, like, love helping and being involved with the wedding, and they felt like they weren't doing enough. So they're just, like, here, like, have some more money. Oh. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That sounds like code for your fiancé was whining that she wanted something she didn't have yet in the wedding.

So Mommy gave her some money. We were cutting corners. Yeah. So what does your fiancé think about this money? You cut corners. Otherwise, they're 400 grand. Yeah. When you said to your fiancé, hey, I'd like to use this money to pay off some debt, what was her response to that?

I haven't asked her yet. Oh, no. Okay. Let's pretend this call never happened. All right. Let's stop. Let's go through a couple of possible scenarios and then you go work it out in the real world, okay? Scenario number one is that you guys are in agreement.

We're going to spend $15,000 and you've already prepaid some of it and you're going to refund yourself for the 5,000, that's perfectly fine. I don't think that's what happened. Scenario number two is your fiancee was whining to her mother because she wanted a better X, Y, Z for the wedding. So her mother said, oh, I'll give you some money to do that. Well, now you've got to deal with your fiance, not your mother-in-law. You better get some clarity on communication here, brother. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey, my friends at BetterHelp just released their annual state of stigma report. It's full of all sorts of data about why so many people, people avoid getting the help they need for their mental and emotional health challenges.

And here's a data point that stood out to me. More than three out of four Americans reported anxiety or depression symptoms just within the last few weeks. If that's you and you're carrying stress, anxiety, or depression, or symptoms of anxiety or depression, just talking to someone can help you more than you realize. I want you to contact my friends of BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that matches you with one of their 30,000-plus licensed therapist based on your goals and preferences.

It's easy and it's super convenient and you can message your therapist in schedule sessions right in the platform. And if the first therapist you're matched with isn't the right fit, you can switch at any time for no extra cost. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Visit betterhelp.com slash Ramsey and get 10% off. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Ramsey. Brianna?

Breon? I don't know how you say this. Brian? Brian? Yes. Is it Breanne? Yes. Hi, how are you?

I'm Dave. Good to meet you. Welcome. Yeah, so I just had a quick question. A little bit of a background to my question is I am a 20-year-old college student that currently has no debt. I have almost a $1,500 emergency fund. And I am someone who is also trying to get better at budgeting.

My question is, what advice do you have? for somebody that is looking for somebody who is on the same track for a life partner? Is it too much to ask of a guy to have an emergency fund, to have no unnecessary debt to be able to budget? And then how do I explain that to people who think I'm just being too picky when all I want to do is be able to be smart financially? I love this question. I love that you're thinking about this. Is there somebody that you're seeing now? or there's nobody

there's nobody in the picture right now? Well, about three months ago I just ended a relationship that was a bad idea emotionally, mentally, and financially. Okay. So... Three strikes you out. Uh-huh. What I'd be looking for

more so than dollar amounts, I'd be looking for someone who has the same financial philosophy as me and is working towards the same goals as me. And we might be at different points along that path and that's okay. But if we see eye to eye on money and just the basic philosophy of money and debt and spending and wealth, that's a really, really good sign.

That being said, I'm not interviewing every guy I go on a date with. I'm not interviewing them on the first date, right? Because there's also opportunity for people to evolve. And so I'm looking for the things that show this person is interested in person. growth, this person is interested in growing and getting better, not necessarily changing towards me, but getting better. Yeah, because the relationship I just got out of, there was no sense of knowing how to do a budget, unnecessary purchases for a vehicle, and just multiple, I don't know, what we call

red flags. Sure, yeah. Yeah, and that's fine. And it's too much, like, is it unrealistic to have? some financial expectations for... I don't know if financial expectations are the question. It is... It's not what we would recommend that you say,

okay, you have to have a $10,000 in an emergency fund and be doing a monthly budget. Let me see your budget or you're not available. No, that's not... You're not eligible. No, that's not what I would say. I would not tell my own kids to do that, and I did not. And I'm freaking Dave Ramsey, okay? So my kids were taught to look for someone like Jade's,

said that's into personal growth, they have character, they have some maturity. Because a lot of times financial irresponsibility, just complete irresponsibility is just tied to immaturity. It's like a four-year-old in the serial aisle. I'm keeping my four-year-old grandson taking him to the fair, and he has a complete meltdown if I don't give him what he wants. That did not happen, by the way, but it would be like dating that person, right? And so give me what I want. I want it. I want it. And I get a I'm going to go into debt and I'll get whatever I want and I don't need to I'm I mean you know and you just hear this kind of pattern in their emotional or lack in their emotional maturity or lack of it and so maybe they don't have an emergency fund maybe they didn't come from the exact same background uh you came

from but they're going somewhere and you can see that and you believe that that's what I'm looking for more than let me see your budget and let me see the balance on your emergency fund account I agree That's very good. You know, and because you can get a budget and an emergency fund in about 20 minutes. That's right. And I also want to say this because this is just part of, I think, dating people and meeting that person is you have to go on dates to get to know that person. You're not going to be able to avoid getting to know someone and liking someone and then

maybe they don't meet the standards. And so there's a little bit of heartbreak. Sometimes you can't avoid that and that's just part of finding that person. So this is not something that you can. can figure out the prerequisite and save yourself from it on the first date if that makes sense. You have to go through the process a little bit. And that's just hard of it. It's been so long ago, I forgot. So. You guys. Dave, I'm not going to, I'm not going to. No, really. I mean, I've been married 45 years.

All I remember is I chased her until she caught me. That's all I remember. So, oh, my gosh. Tommy's in Dallas. What's up, Tommy? How are you? Very good. Very good. Thank you. How can we help? I have a question. I'm an 84-year-old man. I'm still working. I have an office that I have other people run for me, so I don't have to do a lot of work. But I have recently gone to the divorce,

and I'm looking at trying to recover. And I have a good income. And I have some debt. And my question is, which comes first? Should I pay off the debt and then stack some money away for retirement? How much debt do you have? I have $20,000, $20,760 in debt. And what is your income?

$270,000. I'm sorry, $270,000. 9.44. It seems like that you could pay off that 20,000 fairly quickly, couldn't you? I could. You probably have the money in the account right now to pay it off. I do. Okay.

So if it's me and I paid it off, it would give me peace. I'm solving for peace. Yes. I mean, I don't think we're working with a 30-year time horizon here that you're going to go build wealth. You're 85. I'm 65. I don't think I'm working with a 30-year time horizon. All right. So, you know, I'm making decisions today on what give me peace or what influences and helps my family tree that I want to change. So long term with the kids, grandkids, that kind of stuff.

So how long were you married? 20 years. Wow. Oh, man. So you got married at 65 to that lady and at 85 you all get divorced. That's wow, man. It is. What's in your nest egg?

Not much. I have about 100,000. That's it? How much do you have in savings? 50. Okay. All right. Well, what was the 20,000 in debt?

That was a credit card for 3,600, a car to 13,000, and a personal loan for 4,100. Wow. So when you are not going into this office at all, will you continue to rent it? Is it something that you still own that you'll continue to make income off of after you retire? I continue to make income as long as I'm in the picture as when I step away, walk away, income in. So I'm still hanging on as long as I can. Yeah. Well, what I would do then is hang on as long as I can.

I'd write a check today and pay off the 20,000, and I would not borrow another dime the rest of my life. And then I would start setting some money aside, adding to that hundred, which gives me the ability to step away. The bigger that number, that 100 number becomes, the easier it is to step away when you want to. Yeah, that office rental, is that a building that you own, that you can sell? He's going into the business. Okay. It's a business. I own a business. Yeah.

When he goes to the office, it's going to the business. Got you. Yeah. All right. And so, yeah, that's what I would do. I would build the emergency fund. And then, you know, and she makes a point when you step away, is there not some way to sell your ownership rights at that point also to someone?

They ought to be worth something if you're making $270,000 out of it. So I don't know how you're structured or what you've got there, but that's a good question to go with it. First thing I do is pay off the debt. Second thing I do start stacking cash in a good investment and adding to that. 100 while you're making 270, that's pretty easy to do. And third thing I'd do is assess if there's anything in that business that, and we don't know that because we weren't talking to you long enough, that you can sell and make money on. As a dad of young kids, I'm starting to think a lot more about

the world they're growing up in and how I'll help them make sense of it as they get older. And that's why I like World Watch, a video news service for preteens and teens. Because one thing I know for sure, if you don't teach your kids how to understand the world, somebody else will. And these days, that could be TikTok, YouTube, Instagram influencers, or whoever happens to show up in their social media feed. World Watch's 10-minute videos help young people understand what's happening in the world through a Christian worldview without all the outrage, negativity, and noise that is everywhere these days.

The reporting is factual, engaging, and designed specifically for preteens and teens. And World Watch creates opportunities for something every family needs more of, meaningful, conversations. Instead of just reacting to headlines, kids learn how to think about what's happening in the world and parents get a chance to keep those conversations going at home. Because when my kids are old enough, I want them informed, not overwhelmed. And right now, you can get a 30-day free trial. Just go to worldwatch.com news slash Ramsey or use promo code Ramsey to get started. That's worldwatch. dot news slash Ramsey. If you're sick and tired of being sick and tired and you're ready to get off the rat wheel, don't be a rat in a wheel.

that's normal. And there's only one way to do it when it comes to money, and that's actually tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. That's called a budget, and the best way to do that is with every dollar. Now, this is not simply a budget, though. The budget's just part of it, gets you started on working the entire Ramsey plan, and then as you work the Ramsey plan, the Every Dollar App is going to teach you how to walk those baby steps the shortest distance between where you are

and being a millionaire, a dead free. Millionaire, by the way. In just 15 minutes, you're going to find thousands in hidden margin. You're going to feel like you've got to raise. Don't be normal. Normal sucks. Start your every dollar app for free in the app store or Google Play. Skyler is in Richmond, Virginia. Hey, Skyler, what's up? Hey, Dave, how's it going, man? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Yes, sir. I am 19 years old. I have an eight-month-old daughter and a fiance. I'm a making about 10 to 11,000 a month consistently for the last eight months. Doing what?

A question for you today is pressure washing and exterior window cleaning. Wow. By yourself? Yes, sir. Totally by myself. I thought about hiring technicians. I'm trying to go as long as I came without hiring people. But my question for you is how do I get out of debt at 19?

With the money I'm making, my problem is I don't feel like we're seeing the money that I'm bringing in. I have about $58,000 a bit. That is from two cars, $600 in credit cards, and a $3,500 personal loan. Okay. Is part of the reason you're not seeing the money you're bringing in because you're not subtracting expenses out of what people are paying you? I mean, do you have it separated in the right ways? Yes, ma'am. I think the problem is not a budget.

I watch you guys a lot, and I've been a lot. talking a lot to the fiance. We are on a complete scattered budget. We know what the bills are, and then it's constantly going to Walmart buying this, buying that, eating out seven times a week. Her or both of you? Both of us. Okay. All right. Well, let's stop for a second. And let's make sure we've got some basic structures in place that statistically tell us you have a higher probability of winning. You have a baby. You're 19, and you have a fiancé. When is the wedding scheduled? The wedding is scheduled at the end of this year, and we're not looking to spend a lot of money on a wedding. Honestly, I think what she wants to do is just go to the courthouse, get married like that,

and then maybe have like a little get-together because... How about next week? Yeah, if it's a courthouse, how then we can't do it now? Next week. That sounds good. That sounds wonderful. statistically, she and you have a higher probability of your marriage working, your relationship working, and your wealth building working, and your career is taking off as a married couple, then you do is too shacking up, thinking there's a courthouse five months in the future. Okay? So I'm just giving you the data points.

And so if you were my little brother, that's what I would tell you to do first. This weekend, we're having a wedding and a get-together. Okay. Now, then let's move on. With your business, you are kicking butt because you are not afraid of hard work, and you're showing up on time, and you're pricing yourself reasonably. I know all of this because you're making freaking $120,000, $30,000 a year as a pressure washer by your freaking self. You're incredible.

Way to go. future. All right. Now, here's how we run a business. First thing is, do you have a separate checking account for the business? No, sir. My dad told me that I need to start doing that ASAP. Yeah, you need to do that today. Go down to the bank. You don't have to have anything except your social security number. It's called a DBA account, a doing business as account. It's Skylar so-and-so, DBA doing business as Skyler's pressure washing or whatever the name of company is. It's all it's got to be. Okay. Then here's how the math works and it's going to help you get organized. 100% not a dime less of the money that you get from a customer for doing a job

goes into only the business account. Got it? Got it. Now what about... Just a minute. Let me finish. I'll walk you through it and then you can ask, okay? Then the second thing is nothing comes out of the business account except you and the business expenses. You don't buy groceries or lights or car payments out of the business account. I'm going to get there in a minute, okay? So what expenses do you have at the pressure washing company? You have gasoline you have to buy for your pressure washer and your truck that pulls it, right?

Yes, sir. What other expenses do you have? Chemicals, you know, like mop, squeegees. Right, right. Those things go out. You write a check for those or use the business. debit card for those. You don't buy anything else out of the account. So in business, your revenue minus your expenses equals profit. Follow me? Yes, sir. Profit this month was nine-five.

Good. Perfect. Now, when you take, if you want to leave a little bit in there for next month's expenses, that's fine. So when we take $8,500 out of that account or $8,000 out of that account, we leave $1,000 or something in there. We don't want too much. in that account, but we're enough in there to run the business. And we take $8,000 home. We write a check to Skyler that he's going to deposit in his personal account. Oh, wait, taxes have to come out. And taxes on a self-employed business your size are about a fourth of your net profit. So on $8,000, that's going to be $2,000. So you write a $6,000 check you put in your personal account and a $2,000 check you set in a savings account for your quarterly estimates.

Remember this and go back and watch it on YouTube. Your quarterly estimates have to be filed on this, and you have to file and pay your income taxes quarterly, and they're going to be about 25% of your profit. So now you're not going to get behind with a stinking IRS and mess up this whole thing. Now I got $6,000 in my account to now start working on $58,000 worth of debt. Now we sit down and say, all right, I got a budget this month of $6,000 and we put that in every dollar.

Yeah, I think that was your problem having one account. You and your fiance were seeing, oh my gosh, there's $12,000 in here. We can eat out if we want. Yeah, and we can do whatever we want. You can't eat out unless you sell both cars. Uh-huh. And now that Dave has separated that for you, I think you guys are going to have a more realistic approach that combined with every dollar.

Now, I just want to know, you said you have two cars. We might be able to clear some of this out really fast. What are the cars worth? Yes. I have a truck. That's why I used for the business. Not being smart. I was 18 when I bought it.

Not being smart. I saw it up a lot. Signed the papers. Paid 32 for it. And the Kelly Bueblock is 16.5. Yikes. And it has a salvaged title. Yes.

Okay. What about the other one? The other is her car. It's a little bulk of wagon. We pay 24. It's worth 20. Okay. That's a lot of cars.

I mean, for what you're earning, you're right on the line, but it sounds like you're interested in being debt-free, so I'd work on either knocking these out or selling off at least one of them. Yeah, I'd get them paid off very, very quickly. Here's the good news. You guys aren't used to making this kind of money. So quit spending it. You know?

You're just spending like you're in Congress, man. So your dad's right. Get your every dollar budget out. Write it down. Put everything down. and dude, you're way too smart to be acting this way. All right. And so, and you're way too good at the other parts of this.

So we'll give every dollar a name, $6,000 at the top. Every dollar has an assignment and don't go out to eat again. She gets to cook. My last question is, should I tackle every extra dollar on payments? Yes. Or should I just bite the board and get rid of the truck of the car? You might get rid of the car, but let's just attack the debt for a month or two and see how it feels. After fighting it and fighting it and not going out to eat and not going on vacation and not doing anything except paying off debt, because you've made a mess that you can clean up fast if you lean into it.

But if you screw around with it, you're going to be looking like this when you're 35, and you don't want to do that. The good news is for your truck, since it is your business truck, you could use your business money to pay it off. Nah, no, I would just pay it off out of it. It's a person. I signed for it personally. He's just started his business. It's not a, yeah, yeah. I'll just knock it out.

Let's just knock it out. It's not a, you can't, there's anything you can write off on it anyway at this stage, except maybe depreciate it, and that might be a nightmare. So, no, I, let's just lean into this thing and take $6,000, $7,000, $8,000 a month after taxes, and let's attack the $58,000. and how fast can that be gone. Crap, man. Six or eight months, you're done.

But you live on nothing, dude. As your business grows, everything becomes more complex. There was a time when Ramsey Solutions had too many disconnected systems and not enough visibility across the business. We wasted too much time chasing information instead of making decisions. That's why we got NetSuite. NetSuite brings your financials, inventory, CRM, more together in one place. More than 44,000 businesses run on NetSuite, including Ramsey. And now

they're taking the next step with NetSuite Next, making it easier to put AI to work across your entire business. NetSuite Next helps you make the most of your time, automating routine work like forecasting demand and following up on overdue accounts. With NetSuite Next, AI is built into everything you do, So you can ask it questions, just like when you're talking to a member of your team. And right now, you can try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenue is at least seven figures, go to netsuite.aI slash Ramsey. That's netsuite. com.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. Jade Washaw, Ramsey Personality, best-selling author, number one, best-selling author, is my co-host today. Alice is with us in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hi, Alice, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? First of all, I can't believe that I'm talking to you guys right now, and I am so anxious.

So if I sound completely dumb, please forgive me. You'll be fine. We've never lost a patient. Okay. So my question is, how do you get over the fear of not being financially ready to start a family? Okay. tell me what that means you're not financially ready to start a family. Okay, so in a little bit of debt, we've paid off a lot of our debt, and I'm very proud of us so far,

but we still have some to work on. We have a $20,000 student loan, that's mine, and then we have a $45,000 student loan. That's my husband's, but he's about six months away from the public student loan forgiveness program. So right now we're kind of just paying the minimum monthly payment on that, and hoping that forgiveness comes since we're so close to the end. And then the only other debt that we have is our house and our mortgage. How much have you paid off so far? Of our student loans.

No, you said you paid off a bunch and you're proud of that. What did you pay off and how much? We paid off our credit cards. That was about $6,000. And then we paid off both of our cars. I lost my mom last year and I got some inheritance. money and we were able to pay like $50,000 worth of car payments off. And yeah, that felt really good to have that weight.

It's about $110,000. So if you make $110,000 and you have a $20,000 and a $45,000 student loan, why can you not have kids? Because I just feel like there are so many things that I would want to do if I became a mom and like... Like stay at home? Well, I would love to stay at home, but I just know that that option is not possible. I think that's where we, I think that's the first step in this is clarifying what that means to you

and having a really clear picture of if I want to have kids, this is the way I want it to look. Right, right. And solving for that. So it's not the, she's exactly right, because you're not, it's not the debt. The debt's not the problem. It's not the debt. And it's not the kid. It's what you want to do.

because there's a kid. Yeah, and what's the income breakdown? I think I heard you say you make 110. What do you make and what does he make? We both make around 55,000. So it's pretty split down the middle. So you already have a mortgage, right? I think I heard that. Yes. So our mortgage with like taxes, insurance and everything is like $2,200 a month. All right. So yeah, that's the game you've got to play is if I want to have a child, I want to stay home. Now I've got to run out the budget on $55,000. Or if I don't want to stay at home and I want to do other things associated with the kid, maybe it's the other things that are the problem and not the kid. Right.

My biggest concern is like I want to contribute to a 529 plan and I don't want. We'll get out of debt. Finish getting out of debt and then do it. Yeah, we're trying to. Well, I mean, you'd have 20 years to work on that. The kid's just born. The kid's not even born yet. Right, right.

I know like daycare and things like that, like it's such a. a common like thing that's so expensive for people. And so I'm just like, ah, it's a lot. You've got to run a faux budget. You've got to run a faux budget. Running a budget and seeing the actual numbers is going to give you real answers to your questions. Right now, there's just a bunch of things floating around in your head and you're thinking, I think it's this. It might be this. It could be that. Just give real numbers to it. And you can do that. You can run the budget as it is looking at your margin and saying, okay, looking at the margin we have now, working extra. This is how quickly we're going to pay off the $60,000 in debt. Once we've paid off the debt, this is how quickly we can have the three to six months

of expenses saved. Once we do that, after we start investing 15%, this is how much money we can put in the 529. These are all numbers you can know this evening. Your child is going to be fine. You make enough money. If you pay attention to the money and you continue on the track that you're on, you guys are going to be fine. You make enough money to have a child. What you may not have enough money to do. It's been $462,000 on a nursery. Right, right. I mean, like go nuts, okay? Or $46,000 on a nursery. Either one. Neither one isn't going to work. This is a very small human. They don't even know what's in the nursery. It's only the mother that does. The father doesn't even know what's in the nursery. So, and people go bananas. So if the things like that and you feel like,

you know, well, we'd have to get a bigger car. No, you don't. It's a little, it's a very small human, they'll fed in that car. They don't take up that much room. Their car seat takes up more room than they do. But if you do, and you have to decide, what do you think, are you thinking that you're going to stay home? Because that is the biggest part of this conversation. Because if you do, that does reflect on your comfort of living with a $2,200 mortgage. So you guys have to look at, okay, if you make that choice, what's your husband going to do? Are you going to work part time? There's got to be something that you do so that mortgage doesn't become half of your take home. Yeah. So the answer to your,

overall question is, facts are your friends when you don't, Jade's exactly right, lay out a budget for the way you see this going. And the budget will look at you and say, no, you can't spend that on a nursery. And here's your daycare budget. Go out and shop some daycares. Talk to five or six or ten daycares. Get actual numbers. Not what your friends said, not what you heard on the internet. Because both are liars. And so let's go find out what's really going on. And what the real cost is. And honestly, diapers and formula, they're not that much. Diapers wasn't the thing.

I feel like there's too much emphasis on diapers. Everybody goes crazy talking about it. I mean, it's like. I feel like the other things. Everything is everything else. I think our kids got like two years worth at all the baby showers. Yeah. I think we had a warehouse for diapers.

But all that being said is I think it's what she's trying to do is plan for this. And I commend that. If you plan for it, your anxiety will go down. Yes. planning for when you're going to have a family is so important and that's exactly what you're doing. That's what this is called. That's what it looks like. This is what it looks like to plan for children is what you're doing right now. If you use some common sense and your choices, that is mathematically sound, you should have no trouble and you're eligible based on the numbers you gave us today to be

a responsible person and have a baby. Okay. Let's play this out because I have to say this because we get this call. What what there is the potential for is I have this baby. Now I want to stay home. Now I'm down to a $55,000 income with a mortgage that's $22. And I never paid off the $60,000. Can't do it. Now that is the call that we get. And that's the person calling and stressed out. The answer is sorry. Exactly. And that's the part that I just want to call out is there are things you can do to make this a better, easier process for you. And if you have the ability to do that and you would like to do that, it's a good thing to do. Yeah, like get the debt paid off. Yes. As an example, build your emergency fund. Yes. The further along the baby steps you are, the easier this, all of this is going to be.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, but you can't just go, oh, I'm really sad. I'm really sorry. And you get to go to work. You may, you know, play grown-up games, get grown-up prizes. I know that's right. So that's how it works. That's the deal. So, but the actual shock. old thing of, I can't afford to have children. I mean, if you got, you know, too many kids and you just keep spitting them out, you're going to have trouble. Okay. That's not the issue. But you need to think about, you know, what is a reasonable process here with the income that you have and, you know, the, a typical family size and you will be fine. Practical ways to save time and mental energy, especially during the summer when life gets busy.

between vacations, camps, deliveries, travel plans, online shopping, and trying to keep everyone organized, my mental load can get pretty full. That's one of the reasons why I love Delete Me. Most people don't realize how many data broker sites have their information online, like old addresses, phone numbers, and even family connections. And that can put you at risk of being a target for spammers and scammers. But removing all of it yourself can turn into a giant project. That's why Delete Me is amazing because Delete Me handles it for you. Their privacy team of experts removes your personal information from hundreds of data broker sites and they keep monitoring it throughout the year.

So far, Delete Me has saved me about 90 hours. I would have spent myself removing my information. And honestly, it feels so good knowing that someone is in the background, helping me, and I don't even have to think about it. So this summer, give yourself a vacation with one less thing to manage. Get 20% off annual plans at joinselitme.com slash Ramsey. That's joinselitme.com slash Ramsey. Alex is in Rochester, New York.

Hi, Alex. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on. Long-time listener. I appreciate you finding time to get me on today. Our honor, sir. How can we help?

So I have a question for you. I think my wife and I are in a phenomenal position. based on how old we are and everything that we've been able to accomplish so far. But I have one point of contention with her. I think you'll agree with me, but I want to make sure I'm not violating another rule while I try to accomplish this. So my wife and I are disagreeing about paying off the one vehicle that we have a note on right now. So we paid off her vehicle.

We have my car. It's about a $60,000 balance on it. I'd like to pay it off of what we have in savings. But I want to make sure I'm not violating any other rules based on our income, so on and so forth. What's your household income? It's $150K a year. Okay. And did you say you had your mortgage paid off?

Did I hear that? Yeah, we were able to sell a payoff of our mortgage when we sold the business and also did well on selling our first home. So it's just this one car. Did you buy the car after that? No, I bought the car before. Why did you not pay off the car too while you were at it? Well, I wanted to. That's what I'm saying.

So she wants to keep a car payment? What's the difference between the car and all the other debt? She wants to keep the cash. She wants to have more in our savings. And I think we have way more than we need in savings. How much is in savings? $150,000. Okay.

So it makes her feel uncomfortable to take 60 of the, the 150K to pay off this vehicle and be completely debt-free? Correct. As with anything, I mean, there's more of the stories. So we had a second child. And at the time, we were concerned about medical bills. We'd gone through infertility, so we didn't pay off, you know, we didn't want to pay off the car at that time.

But now I think we're in a position, babies, healthy, you know, and I think we're in a position where we could pay off the car and be completely debt-free. And I think at that point, there's really nothing else for us to do than into the 15%. Make sure we're funding the 529s. And you make 150 a year. Correct. Yep. Just we're just on my salary. She stopped working back in October, which is another, you know, thing that happened.

That changed pretty much. So if you run out the numbers, pretend that you pay, let's just pretend you pay off the car today. You have $90,000 in savings. How quickly, if $150 is the magic number, how quickly could you get back to that? Yeah, well, again, I don't want to get back. That's like part of the contention as well because I'd like to shift anything additional to you know, obviously in the market. I agree with you. I agree with you. Okay. Let's back. Let's back up a second. Let's back up a second. Where you guys should be is your emergency

fund should be about $30,000, maybe $40. Yeah. And you should have 50 in investments and no car payment. That's where you should be. Agreed. Okay. And so now what we've got to figure out is why we're not there in her mind. So if we have no car payment and we have 50,000 in investments that we can get to on a one day's notice, if it's in a good mutual fund with a smart investor pro, you can send them an email and you'll have the money in 24 hours. Yep. Okay, maybe 48, but somewhere in there, okay?

So it's not like it's not liquid and accessible. And it's going to be making a good deal more than that stupid savings account. and I've got 30,000 or 40,000 sitting there in 40,000 in this case, for an emergency fund, and we've got no debt. Now, what's the problem? Yeah. That's what I want to ask her. And I would. Because it sounds like it's mythology in her head.

I would play this out with her because there's something that's causing her to freak out. And you should probably ask her the question, what is the worst in your mind that you see taking place and what would it cost? And how could we, and why could we not handle that? With this arrangement. The roof blows off the house randomly, right? You know, what truly in her mind is the worst thing? And that's how you run this back and help her see. I mean, even medical bills with a child with, you know, issues when they're born,

you've got freaking insurance. Your maximum amount of pocket's probably 20 grand. And you're sitting on 150 worried about it. Yeah. Yeah, no, I totally agree. Well, what we got to deal with is facts are your friends. And we need to say, okay, with these facts, explain to me what the fear is. Yeah.

Jade's right. And then let's get into it rather than just fighting about, no, I don't want to pay off the car. Right. Okay. Bull crap. Now, why? If we have 50,000 in investments and 40,000 and no debt in the world and we make 150, and Jade's right.

What is the scenario that you're worried about, that you've dreamed up this catastrophized in your head? and let's talk that through and then you go oh okay and so an example of that is my wife and I were considering a a large generosity gift okay uh for us what's a large gift and um she's like I'm kind of nervous about this and I went okay well let's just pretend that we took that much money and we put it in the middle of the floor and we burned it are we okay oh yeah Yeah, we got this and this and this and this and this. We're okay. So what is it you're nervous about?

I guess I'm playing tapes from the old days. Oh, okay. That's fair because our tapes in our, the old days, the best of and the Ramsey House sucks. It was bad. You don't want to play those tapes, right? And that's fair to say, oh, some of that bankruptcy stuff when we were 28 and the lights got cutoffs coming up in my throat. when we start talking about giving a gift with that many zeros on it. That's a great conversation to have.

But all that is is admitting that where we are is different than where we were. And just as Deloni says, just because your body is reacting doesn't mean that those are facts. No, and it's a good time to remind yourself with the facts. Facts are your friends. And the facts are that your family is in great shape. Your family has done a wonderful job, such a good job that you. You covered all the infertility issues. You covered her quitting work.

You covered any issues that came up with a child that was born with issues. You've covered and your debt-free house and everything but one stupid car. I mean, you guys have done great. Y'all are amazing. You're in the top 1% of Americans. So, yeah. So that's a fact. Now, what are the fears and what is the thing we're believing that's the boogeyman?

Well, let's turn on the lights and see. if there's really a boogeyman, come look under the bed. Yeah. There ain't no boogeyman under the bed. Okay, let's look in the closet. No boogeyman in the closet. Can you tell I've been keeping grandkids? And so, you know what I mean?

It's like, but this is, what are we afraid of? Facts are, you know, and it's not to speak down to her in a condescending way. That's not what I'm doing. No, it's to get to understand the root of it. You need to, as a grown-up woman who's staying at home with your children as a result of our financial decisions, You need to have a grown-up adult reason for this, not just a, I don't like that. Bull crap. Let's have an adult discussion here.

Because here's the thing, that 50,000 bucks in investments would be 100,000 if you'd put it in an investment back then, because it would have doubled when y'all did this since then. So you've lost $50,000 for screwing around with a stupid savings account. That's expensive. Yeah. That ain't okay. You know, and so we're going to have this discussion. That's called opportunity cost, folks, when you miss out on an opportunity.

Yeah. Yeah, that's scarier than letting go of the $60,000 missing out on all that money. Yeah, and I'll tell you what happens, and it happens at my house too. Y'all probably don't do this. But sometimes you get to arguing about something like that, and you finally go, it ain't worth it. Oh, yeah. I'll just leave the stupid $150 over there. It's not the right thing to do.

It's wrong. it ain't worth it. I did that with life insurance a few years ago. Oh, yeah. S-W-I. Sharon wants it. There's no reason I should have had life insurance. I had millions and millions of millions of dollars. And if I die, she had millions and millions of dollars. She was fine. But she said, I want a million dollars on you. I'm like, why? So you got another million? I mean, why am I buying this stupid life insurance? And it wasn't that expensive. It was like, I don't know, a thousand bucks or something. I'm like, whatever, it ain't worth it. I'll just

buy S-W-I. And then one day, finally, she went. I don't think I need that. And I went, oh, you didn't need it. Four years ago. But there we go. Okay. Hey, guys, it's Rachel Cruz. If you're working the baby steps, every major expense deserves a second look.

And health care is one of the biggest expenses in most family's budgets. And that is why I recommend that you check out Christian health care ministries. CHM isn't insurance. It's a health cost-sharing ministry. That means members help pay one another's medical bills. and they've been serving Christians since 1981. CHM programs start at just $115 a month. And here's why that matters.

If you are paying more than you need to for health care, that money could be going toward paying off debt, building your emergency fund, or reaching your next financial goal. And your monthly cost isn't based on your medical history or where you live. Y'all, a lot of families find CHM gives them more room in the budget.

That's why so many members say they're better, with CHM. And right now, new members can receive a 50% credit towards their first month of membership. Go to CHMistries.org slash budget and use promo code Ramsey. That's CHMistries.org slash budget and promo code Ramsey. Today's question of the day is brought to you by Y. Refi, when private student loan payments started getting away from you, well, it can feel like you're paying for decisions you made years ago because you are. Why Refi helps borrowers explore low fixed rate refinancing options and payments designed around your current situation. Visit why refi.com slash Ramsey might not be in all states.

All right. Today's question comes from Cooper in Maine. He says our household income is $225,000 and our only debts are $9,000 in student loans and our $300,000 mortgage. We pay $150,000 a month on the student loan and her employer matches our payment. Should we include this loan in our snowball and make larger monthly payments when we get to that point? Or should we keep taking advantage of the employer benefit and let this thing ride for another two years? Well, first off, yeah, two plus years. Well, first of all, you said your only debt is the $9,000 in student loans and the mortgage. So you're not debt snowballing the mortgage with the student loans. You're just paying off the student loans.

And yes, I would 100% go ahead and knock this out. You make freaking $225,000 a year. This should be done in one month. It should be gone out of your life forever, not squeezing out two or three plus years. Of $150. I mean, gosh, what is that? Yeah. Are you clipping coupons too?

I mean, my God. It's just not necessary. No. It's amazing how our, like in the name of math, we do some of the dumbest, smallest, little dinky butt things and act like we're financially sophisticated. Well, yeah, because it's, your body is paying the tax. I'm getting a free airline mile, which you will never use. You fool, 78% of them are not redeemed. That's the actual number.

Eight out of 10 never get used. Yeah. And yet you went into credit card debt in the name of airline miles. And see, this is the kind of stuff people deal with. Or the guy who's like, I get 1% back on my discover. That means for every $100,000 you overspend, they give you $1,000 back. On what planet does that make you a millionaire? Yeah, that's interesting.

100 out for one back. Hello, are you in Congress? What in the world? Who thinks that works? It's a very good point. All of a sudden, you're interested in $150. And you made $225,000. When it was time to take the debt, you didn't care about the money.

Exactly. Oh, my. Yeah, pay it off yesterday. You probably have the money and savings right now. Absolutely. Quit screwing around with, don't major in minors. Madeline is in Los Angeles. Hi, Madeline. How are you? I'm good. Thanks, guys, for taking my question. Sure. I guess this question is coming more out of fear than anything because for the last 10 years I've been in real estate. But prior to that, I used to work in dental practices. And being that the current state of the real estate market is what it is right now, I'm feeling like I'm back in, you know, the dental field where I capped at, you know, whatever, $20 an hour back then.

And I guess that's where my question is coming from. I need to know if I'm doing the right thing. If I have my money and I have way too many accounts, and I feel all over the place. How many accounts do you have? Doing the right thing. I have two CDs, one IRA, two business accounts, another just savings account, sitting there doing nothing and yeah and cash that um i don't know if i you know should put them

the cash into more of the counter how much money in cash do you have huh um i think it's like 80 what's your um what are you trying to accomplish by having all these separate accounts is that your way of diversifying what are you telling yourself by having all those Yeah, and I really didn't know that I could have a step IRA. And then I just thought, okay, well, I'll just put them in CDs. Okay. Let's simplify. In my last 10 years, yeah, in real estate.

And I have two rentals. And basically that's where my income is coming from right now. And that's why I feel like I'm back in the dental office, you know, because now I have to pay a mortgage. Where I live, my condo is paid off. And the rents are what's keeping me afloat. I pay the mortgage and then I'm back to my income. I'm not sure what this has to do with the dental, but let's go through the numbers and see if we can simplify this.

So you've got a paid off condo. That's great. The two rentals, do you carry mortgages on those? One mortgage. Yes, I just paid off a HELOC that helped me build the ADU that I rent, you know, So how much debt do you carry on the rentals total? Rental. $3.60.

Okay. And then the $80,000 in cash. What's in the savings account? Combined in IRAs. It's almost three. No, no, no. Just the savings account. What's in the savings account?

Oh, the savings that's like 30. Okay. And then what's in the two CDs? That's, there's three CDs. Okay. Almost three. Almost 300,000. Three hundred thousand. Okay. And when do those mature, when are you, when do they reach their target date?

They have different dates. Some are on five months or six months. How old are you? I'm so nervous. That's okay. Don't be nervous. How old are you? I'm 50. I've been a single mom. What's your best year in the real estate business? My best year was 2020, 2021 through 24, 25 I sold in nothing like zero.

And 26 I sold three-ups. Why did you sell zero? In 25? I was exhausted. I was burned out. I was building my ADU in 24. I got the occupancy certificate of occupancy in 25. I was burnt out.

I was so tired. I'm a single mom. Everything is on me. My daughter is amazing. She just graduated from C-Sy and, you know, she's been a really good thing. You made more money you ever made in your life. You were tired. That's why.

You're tired. Why were you burn out? I hustled like big time. Yeah, that doesn't kill you. Every day from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. So why not cut your hours back to a normal hour? instead of going to zero houses sold, just cut the number of houses you're selling back. Well, I didn't do that on purpose.

I think I was working. You said you quit because you were burnt out. That is on purpose. And you said you're mostly living off of the rents, the rentals. Okay, so, yeah, go ahead. Here's what I would do. I am because I don't touch anything. There's two parts to this question.

There's two parts to this, Madeline. Number one is if you feel like you need to cut back on working, you can do that, but you still need to be working in some way. I don't think there's any reason that you shouldn't be selling any houses. I think that there's just something there that you've got a mental block there. As far as this money, I think there's ways that we can clean it up. I would take the $300,000 and I would invest them. You can do a step if you want.

You can do an individual 401K, maybe get with a smart vester and decide what the best option is for you for retirement. I think the savings for you, I would keep six months of savings and a high-yield savings account. if six months for you is around 30, 30 to 40K, that feels fair. And then the rest of that cash, I'd put it with the $300,000 and I'd invest that. And then if you want to simplify even further, I'm not sure, but you might get to the point where you sell off one of these rentals to pay for the other. And that way you have one paid for in cash rental that's generating cash, and then your own condo is paid off.

How does that sound? It doesn't cost much to exist at that level. And you need to be working. You don't have to work seven to 11. No, but you can do something. But you could work from 9 to 4 and do a lot of house sales because you're good at it. You just talked yourself into the corner of saying, oh, oh, I'm dying. You're not dying.

Yeah, go back and listen to this call. You don't need to slow down. You don't need to quit, though, because you have the potential to earn a bunch of income. And so, yeah, what I would do is go to Ramsey Solutions and hit SmartVestor Pro. Sit down with them. They'll help you put some of this cash together and do some real investing. but that only works if you can, you're not sitting on your butt

trying to live off the rentals at 52. Go to work, girl. When you're trying to hire, you don't have time to dig through stacks of resumes hoping someone halfway decent floats to the top. That's the world's least fun game of Where's Waldo? What you do need are qualified candidates who won't waste your time

because you can be sure they actually want your job, which is why I love the way ZipRecruiter is helping small business owners right now. ZipRecruiter has a new feature that finds the kind of people who will go the extra mile for you. Candidates can now tell you why they're interested, nay, passionate about your role. And ZipRecruiter's smart matching technology automatically puts the most qualified, most interested candidates at the top of your list. So instead of sorting

through a pile of just okay, you're seeing the right people faster. In fact, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. That's not a coincidence. It's because ZipRecruiter goes the extra mile for you, just like the candidates you want to hire. ZipRecruiter for free today at ZipRecruiter.com slash Ramsey. That's ZipRecruiter. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. One of the biggest mistakes people make is thinking they can skip doing a will because they don't need one. I'm too young. I'm too healthy. I don't own anything. Not as the case. Not as the case. Not as the case. You can die at any health or age and anything you have will be dictated by the government lord help you if you don't have a will including where your kids go.

Yeah. So it helps protect your family. It gives clear instructions and can keep your loved ones from having to guess what you wanted during a difficult time or from going at each other's throats. If you're ready to create a will, go to mama bearlegal.com. If you're not sure where to start, text quiz to 33, 7, 8, 9. And we'll help you figure out which option best fits your particular situation. Amanda is in Minneapolis. Hi, Amanda, how are you? Hi, I'm doing well. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Um, so thank you for taking my call. Um, so my husband and I are on baby step number five. And before we kind of go, uh, into saving for our children's future, um, we were kind of met with a mandatory kitchen renovation. that came up. It was a kitchen back from the 80s, and, you know, we had rotting cabinets and appliances were falling apart, and it was time. And so we felt with our finances where they were, we were able to save up. We did about a 25K budget for that with about 5K in fluctuation in case something came up. But the problem with that is that we experienced a huge mold problem that we had no idea. And so my question in this goes into, we have about 30 saved up for the renovation,

and then we have another 30 in what we call our emergency fund. And my question is, should we be going into our emergency fund? And just to give a little bit more detail, we were told last Friday, I worked for a big corporation that layoffs are coming. And then our manager followed up shortly after and stated that our group was not safe. And so my question is, should I be, right now I make about 105. What do you do? I work for med device. What do you do?

Sourcing for a big med device company. What's your husband make? He makes about one thing. Okay. So did you start your job hunt last Friday? My job hunt? No, you didn't. You laughed.

Hey, the guy told you he's getting ready to fire you. You need to listen. Okay. You need a job by next Friday, making 120. What's the moldron? And then give them the fingers you walk out the door. Corporate America's trying to piss on you. You better get ready.

Okay. It's come. I mean, they're not kidding when they say your group's not safe. That's code for, pack your desk. Your next. Yeah. Okay. What's the mold remediation cost? Right now, they have told us it's looking about an additional $12,000 based on the rotting that they continue to find as they move forward.

So if you said... I have mold remediated many, many, many, many properties. The one thing I have found about it is it's a very emotional subject for the... the property owner typically. And the mold remediation companies have a spectrum of work that they can do from safe to crazy and drama. And so that industry does not have good credibility. Because in other words, I hear stuff anywhere from 30,000 to 4,000 and 4,000 absolutely will fix it in that case. and I've personally experienced that taking bids and remediating mold. But it's so it's like, your children are going to die.

And so that's where they start, right? And it's a problem. And so, and I've got, you know, we've got rental properties and the renter calls us up and go, my children are going, no, they're not. We're going to remediate it. And remediate it simply means get rid of mold. That's all it means. So I want you to get three more bids on this mold issue because I,

Because anytime someone says that mold has taken over the house, I always want to make sure that really happened. And is there something else we can do? And, you know, what's the process we do? Basically, we need to be rid of the mold and we need to seal so that it doesn't come back and get rid of whatever water problem it was that caused the mold in the first place. Have you identified that part of it? Yes.

It was a renovation that we did about five years ago that caused it. where a storm came in and it just caused a major leak. And so we know where it came from. It's already been dealt with as we obviously finished the renovation. So we just got to tear out whatever rot there is and seal it and do the proper remediation. And that might not be $12,000. It might be. $12,000 doesn't sound completely unreasonable.

So, but I'm guessing you've already torn the, you've got no kitchen right now, right? There's nothing there. We have no kitchen. No kitchen and no job. great. What a great week. And so, yeah, you've got to put it back. You don't have a choice. Yes. Okay. So I want you to get three more bids on the mold. The mold and the mold associated rot repair. Get some more bids. It's different than the kitchen guy. You may or may not use the kitchen guy after that. And then if it is 12, you've got 30, 12. You've got 30 in your remodel budget, right?

Correct. And you've already given them some of that, right? Yes, we've put down about 90% of our money already. On work that hasn't done? Oh, boy. On work that's not done? Well, it was to get everything kind of delivered and, yeah. It don't take 90% to get it delivered.

Oh, that's scary. It is scary. I hope they meet your standards. Yeah. So they have 27. thousand of your 30. Correct. Oh, boy.

Can't breathe. Okay. And right now you've just got a hole in the wall. No cabinets, no nothing. Nothing. Okay. Gulp. All right.

So, well, be careful how you talk to this contractor because he owns your butt. So in terms of getting the other bids on the mowl. and stuff, but I would get some other bids just to say, I need to make sure we're safe and make sure our numbers are right, because I think I'm losing my job. Just tell the contractor that, and then get some other bids. And then you have, how much in your emergency fund again? 30. 30. So it's 30 and 30, too. The two numbers are both 30. Okay. And you need 12 of that, in addition, the way it's bid out today, to be able to finish the mold remediation and put the kitchen in.

Correct. And just a question. Which leaves you $18,000 and your husband makes how much? 135. Can you live on your husband's income when you get laid off if you hadn't gotten your new job yet? I hope so. Okay, good. All right.

Have you plugged that into a budget just to see what it looks like temporarily? Yes. Okay. And it's scary. We have two kids in daycare, which is obviously not cheap. Our mortgage is about $2,500 a month. They won't be there if you're not working. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I mean, if you're sitting at home and we're living on his income, the kids are at home. Yeah, take him out for a couple months, yeah. So, all right, so here's thing. One is get more bids and finish the kitchen, 12,000 or less, okay, leaving you 18,000 and his 135 to live on when you get laid off. Thing two is, go get a job right now, as fast as you possibly can, making 120.

and then quit and go, well, my group left. That's what my group did because we saw it coming. I mean, yeah, your group is not safe. That's some scary but words right there. Yeah, all right. So there's something about that process that makes people think it's not going to happen to me. Maybe it'll be everybody else but me. Yeah.

No, I'd be trying to get a job now while you have a job. get out of there as fast as you can and make more money somewhere else, as fast as you can. Well, I'm not going to get severance. My severance is see you wouldn't want to be you. I'm done. Getting out of this place. Hey, what's up guys? It's Jade.

This back to school season, everybody's looking for ways to save money. But here's the thing. The best ways to find margin in your budget isn't on one-time purchases like new shoes or backpacks. It's on the bills that show up month after month. That's why I recommend switching to Boost Mobile. Boost Mobile's unlimited plan is just $25 a month forever. No contracts, no hidden fees, no surprise price hikes, and if you already have a phone you love,

you can keep it and your number when you make the switch to Boost Mobile. That's my kind of budget win. You're not asking your family to give up anything. You're just paying less for something you already have. So if you're looking for ways to stretch your budget as the kids are going back to school, don't let a high phone bill eat up your money. money that you need for something else.

Go to boostmobile.com slash Ramsey and make the switch today. That's boostmobile.com slash Ramsey. $25 forever requires customers to remain active on BoostMobile Unlimited Plan. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. Jade Washall is my co-host today.

Greg is in Seattle. Hi, Greg. How are you? I'm doing good. Actually, better than I should be. Amen. How can we help? Well, I'm 70 years old, retired. I have an $81,000 mortgage.

Is there any reason I should not pay that off? Nope. You should pay it off. Well, I guess there is, if you only have $81,000, how much do you have in your nest egg? About $150. Ooh. That's your total nest egg to live on the news. Let's take that cash, $150.

Okay. No, no, no, no. I said nest egg. What is your net worth? Nestate, about $1.8 million. Now look at this. That's what I thought. I kind of smelled that. Way to go, Greg. Congratulations. I don't guess you inherited that, did you? No, I worked for it.

The old-fashioned way I earned it. Yeah, right to check and pay off your mortgage today, Greg. Okay. Let me ask it in another way. Okay, let me reverse it on you. There's sometimes when I'm making a financial decision, I use this reverse engineering thing to check my logic, okay? You got 150 in cash on a $1.8 million net worth. I heard that right?

Correct. Okay. And an $81. That's not an $1,000. Okay. So if instead you had called me and said, Dave, I have a paid-for home. By the way, what's your home worth? About 600.

Okay, I have a paid for a $600,000 house, a $1.8 million net worth, and I have $70,000 in cash. I'm thinking about going and borrowing $81,000 on my house, so I've got $151,000 in cash. Okay. You wouldn't have made that call, would you? No, I wouldn't. No, I wouldn't. I guess one reason I made the call. call is my interest rate is 3.875. Yeah, but you didn't get rich on borrowing on your home to invest.

Exactly. You got rich by avoiding debt and investing steadily. Okay. Am I right? You're correct. Because you're not a debt guy. The only reason this debt's around is because it was so cheap, you just made you think about it twice. So the other debt you got rid of years ago. Correct. Yeah, yeah. That's how you got here. Because you're what we call a baby steps millionaire. You follow the stuff where the principles that God and Grandma talks about that you and me grew up with. Only most people didn't do them even then. And you're one of the unusual ones that did. And so now you're what we call sitting pretty.

Well done, sir. I'm so proud of you. Yes. Debt free. Greg's debt free. And he worked for it. How did you get that money? I worked for it.

So he's one of those guys like me when somebody, I says, you're so lucky. You just want to smack them? Oh, yeah. No, I'm blessed, but I'm not lucky. Luck came dressed in work clothes. I know that's right. That's how it came.

Luck knocked on the door and said, you got some calluses handy? Put your hand to this. And that's where that came from. Yeah. It's not accidental and it's not random and it's not a lightning strike. Greg followed the age-old principle of living on less than you make and investing it. I'm so proud of him. Way to go. Very cool. Very cool. Gabby's in San Antonio. Hey, Gabby. How are you? Hi, I'm doing good. Good. What's up? Hello. What's up? So, I recently got laid off from my

job two weeks ago. And previously before that, I had, last year, actually, I had the company closed that I was working for. I had been, and I had been laid off for nine months, so I was just starting a new job, and I was starting to get settled. I had moved to be closer to work, and I really enjoyed that new city

since I grew up in a rural area. And I was budgeting and starting to get to the swing of things. I had even gotten a part-time job for the weekend to make sure I had a buffer in my budget, and then I got laid off. What kind of work do you do that you've been laid off twice? IT work. The first time it was because the company shut down.

Again, they were based up in a rural area and it was a government job. They closed off. And this time around, they just decided not to move forward with me after the six-month probation. Why? It was due to a project that I didn't know how to do, and I felt like, and I would ask the manager for help, and I didn't get the help that I needed on that project, and nor did I get all the information clearly for that project. So he based off my six-month probation on that one project. Okay. What kind of IT work do you do, huh?

that one was a network so I was doing with switches and things like that which when I first started I told them that I was willing to learn that I was not that's not what I would do help desk and other things like that so they still hired me on even though I mean my background that I would do you know help to ask six computers things like that but that was a higher level and they said okay no door you can learned. Of course, I wasn't. They expected me to do the project without training me. Okay. Okay. The way you've approached this each time, I don't want you to ever tell anybody that again. Okay. Three times you blamed them, and you took a job knowing that you didn't know how to do the job, and then you did not force help, and you're blaming them. Yes, they are also at fault. I don't really disagree with you. But if you're ever in an interview and you blame your former employer for not training you, you won't get the new job in the interview. You got to have some personal responsibility. Does that make sense? You follow my logic here? Yes. So I want you to reframe that in your head and go,

this was a bad choice. I should not have taken the job. And I certainly shouldn't have settled in like I was going to get to keep it forever, knowing that I didn't know how to do the job. And that I was, you know, there's a gap between your knowledge and your ability to perform. And that's, that's okay. We all have that and something. But then, um, and this company was not set up to do that. And you're young and you're just starting your career. So you don't know yet. You're learning the hard way to be forceful on, uh, before I take a job doing something. I don't know how I have to be forceful about the processes that are in place to make sure I can learn fast enough so you don't fire me later. And that, that's, you know,

that's part of the interview process for you. So I think your position is simply this. You need to get another job. Yep. And you learn from these last two things. Okay, I had a rule thing that folded up because it was government supported. Learned something there. Took a job I didn't know how to do.

Didn't work out. Learn something there. So now let's go do it again. I think you still have a good knowledge base in IT. And I think you land yourself a new one. Hang on. We're going to send you a copy of finding the work you're wired to do with an assessment in it. I want you to take that and see if this is really the stroke where you want to go

with your life. And if not, if you want to go a different direction, that's okay too. But you're young and you're learning, and this is an experiment. We found two things that didn't work. Now let's find one that does. Hey guys, George Camel here. You ever feel like you make good money and still have nothing to show for it? You run into Target for one thing and somehow walk out $87 later with toothpaste and emotional support candles. Just me? Okay. Well, that's the problem. Most people don't pay attention to how they spend their money. So it does whatever it wants. And that's why we created every dollar. It's a budgeting app that helps you create a simple plan for your money. Every dollar is simple, it's clear, and it helps track where your money's actually going. Plus,

you get daily lessons, to do's and reminders along the way. It's like having a money coach in your pocket. Your money's been freelancing long enough. It's time to give every dollar a full-time job. Go download every dollar for free on the app store or Google Play. Well, we wish we could get to Every single calling question on the show. We can't. There's just four lines and just three hours. I mean, all we do, we love you. We want to get to you, but we could do this 24-7 and still not get to everybody.

But guess what? We can now, because we have something this 24-7. It's called Ask Ramsey. It's free. It's a free AI tool, and it's built and trained only on Ramsey answers. AI can only spit out what you feed it, so we only feed it. So we only feed it Ramsey and it only spits out Ramsey. How cool is that?

You get an answer the same exact way we'd answer it right here on the show. Free. Ask Ramsey. Ask your question today at Ramsey Solutions.com. Ask Ramsey is the tool or click the link in the description. You're listening on the podcast or the YouTube. And you'll find out exactly what we would say about that. Sarah's in Boston.

Hi, Sarah. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you. Thanks for taking my call. Thank you. How can we help? So I'm just wondering if I am missing anything here. My husband and I, we make about 90 a year.

I do stay home with our three young kids, and we have a two-family house, and my mom is going to be moving in upstairs. And I think my main concern is that. Who was upstairs before? We had a renter before who was there for four years. Okay. So it is a duplex. It is actually two sets of utilities, two operating domiciles, correct?

Yes. Okay, cool. All right. You're going to let mom live up there. Is she supposed to pay your rent or what? Yes. So the plan is that she would pay us $2,000 a month. My concern is that that is a part of our income.

and long term does that make sense because she is 64 and she's planning to retire next year. And I'm not sure that I would be going back to work anytime soon. Our youngest is one. Our oldest is five. I don't think you're working. It has anything to do with it. Are you saying she won't be able to, she won't have any income after she retires to pay the rent? Is that what you're concerned about?

I think, no, I think she will have the income. just concerned about never being able to increase it. Okay. I don't know if that's something. Okay, so 30 years from now, she could be 95 in paying that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So is she selling a home to move in there? Yes. So she's going to have a big lump sum. Why is she not just purchasing something for herself? Um, she wants to be close to the grandkids. Purchase something close to the grandkids. Either that or be treated like a normal renter where the rent goes up periodically. Yeah, but if she's 65 when she's 85, I wouldn't have wanted her to, if she just called said,

I want to rent for, from 65 to 85, I would tell her not to do that. I would tell her to buy something for her own good. Right. So that was a thought I had to is that she moved in temporarily as she, she looked for like a condo or something. Yeah. Another reason why she's moving in is to downsides because my two brothers were living with her and recently both of them moved out.

Good, good. So how much is her home selling for? Right now it's off market, starting off market, $7.65. Is it paid for? No. What does she owe on it? Maybe five something. Okay.

All right. So she could put a $260. or $200,000 or whatever, down payment on something that is smaller, maybe a 400,000, a nice condo that's near you, so she can be near the grandkids. And then her life is stable. She's not stable as she moves in with you unless you take the hit and don't increase the rents. That's my concern. I think the mom, here's what the plan is.

the most you can stay here for your own good is two years. During that two years, I want you to purchase something that's good for you, for you to go forward and have a great retirement in. Because here's the thing. You tell her you talk to a financial coach, and he told you that because I am, okay? Because for her, if she just asked me,

if you hadn't called me, if she called me and said, hey, I'm selling my house and I'm moving with my daughter. I would say, do that only as a temporary measure and get out of there and get you a condo, $300,000, put down the $260, $250, whatever, get the condo paid off. So when you go into retirement, you're living in a paid-for property, and that stabilizes your most expensive part of living, which is housing. But I will say, I mean, I'm just, this is a caution to you, even if you put the caveat out there that this is only for two years,

the minute you welcome her in there, there's a risk associated with that because if she gets comfortable and you guys get comfortable and you get lackadaisical on your own deal, this gets messy real fast. Yeah, I've already seen it in the past. And I think my other concern is she enables a lot of other family members. Listen, don't do it. You've already said enough that you have enough misgivings about this. Don't do it.

Okay. Tell her to go rent a one bedroom somewhere while she looks for a house. I think you think this is going to go sideways you keep saying it in different ways I'm just nervous I don't know you're you think it's going to go sideways you're nervous for a good reason you've observed your mother's enabling you've observed her inadequate behaviors around money and you think it's going to end up in your lap and you're right yeah listen to your gut okay yeah it's not mean mom I think you need to own a house I don't think you need to be a renter and to encourage you to do that, I want you to rent a one bedroom.

I found a really cool one over here in the neighborhood. I'm going to rent mine out. You shouldn't be paying $2,000 a month for rent. I want you rent something cheap while you look for your new house or new condo, so you're not spending much on rent. I'm going to charge too much over here, and it's not going to be good for you. And I'll help you, I'll coach you. And, you know, we want you to be around the grandkids.

We want you around. But it's not going to be good for you to be upstairs. And so for so many reasons. So I'm going to help you not do that. and just be kind and forceful and say no. Because you told us four different ways why you don't think this is going to work. We kept trying to say, oh, you could do this. You convinced us out of it.

And then it's like, no, that's not going to. So you know what this is going to be. You just know and you want someone to say out loud. So, okay, you talk to a financial coach and they told you not to do it. I'll be the bad guy. There you go. I'll be a bad person. It's Jade's fault.

Tell her Jade said. I'll take the blame. I'll take the hit. You could get the hate mail, Jay. That's okay. I'll take it. I can handle it. You know, the funniest one was the first two years I was doing talk radio show, a lady called in.

She goes, we've been married three months, and my mother-in-law's coming to visit for a week, and we don't have a couch. And I said, well, you don't have any money. You can't buy a couch. And she said, yeah, but my mother-in-law's, I said, tell your mother-in-law, sit on the floor. and she said, what do you mean? I said, you don't have any money for a couch. You need to be a grown-up. No couch.

Yeah. And she's laughing, and she's like, she's not going to like that. And I said, she's going to love it. She's going to love it because she used to have to do that. And she used to have to put up with a mother-in-law. And you'd be kind and you say, we got no couch because we're broke and we're getting out of debt and we're going to get a couch later. I'm sorry.

We appreciate you coming to visit. You don't have to stay in a hotel. Welcome to the camping chair. You know. And so I go out to dinner that night, the lady comes over to me and she goes, hey, I was your caller today and this is my mother-in-law. And the mother-in-law is laughing. She goes, you were right. That's so funny.

It's so awkward. Oh, yeah, that is awkward. That is my, that was your caller this afternoon. When you're doing local talk radio, that stuff happens, you know. Oh, man. How was your caller about the couch lady and this is the mother-in-law? Oh, man. You told her to sit on the floor. Yeah, that lady's going to call up Jade and say, hey, I want to meet you.

You wouldn't let my daughter rent to me. We'll meet you in a back alley. Sorry, I'm pretty strong. I can take it. You don't feel threatened, do you? No, no. She's probably what? She's 60. I can take her. You can take her. Hey, hey, hey, ageism. I love it. That's a new story. I've never heard that one, Dave. That's a good one.

You do talk radio long enough. You've done a lot of dumb things. I can just tell you. Well, that wasn't dumb. It was just interesting. Too funny. Hey, guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next.

Now, you can get that same kind of help any time with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show, Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's Ramsey Solutions.com. If you didn't know, you're more than welcome to visit us at our headquarters where we do the show from.

We're on the glass in the lobby. And generally speaking, there's 50 to 200 folks out here, closer to 50 today, watching the show. I think school's back in. And we've got a big lobby, big bookstore. We've got free homemade chocolate chip cookies and coffee for those visitors. And you can sit and watch the show. We do it from 1 to 4 central time every day Monday through Friday. Also in that lobby is our debt-free stage.

And guess who's on the stage? It's Kevin and Ashley. Hey, guys. How are you? We're great. How are you? Better than we deserve. Welcome.

Where do you guys live? We're from South Bend, Indiana. South Bend. Very cool. And how much debt have you guys paid? We paid off 30,000. All right. Cool. And how long did that take? 12 months. Good for you. That's quick. And your range of income during that time? We started with 30,000 and we're at 65. Wow. What do y'all do for a living? I'm an administrative assistant for a women's ministry. And I'm a full-time seminary student, and then I also work part-time for the school. Ah, very cool. So how did you pay off 30K making 30K? Well, we live.

lived in a family friend's basement so that brought our rent down. And we were just were on the same page. And we just knew that we wanted to pay off our debt. So we got a few extra part-time jobs. But did you let Kevin eat at all? Lots of food. Whatever. It was in the basement. We had a lot of 15 bean soup. 15 bean soup. Okay. Well, that's not as much as a 20 bean suit. There we go. Wow. Look at you guys. So I mean, you really, you're acting like broke college kids to knock out this debt. What kind of debt was it? 23,000 of it was student loans. Seven was a car. Very cool. Okay, so now you're free, and you're continuing in seminary. Yep. And you're continuing as an administrative assistant.

And so the plan is to get out of seminary and go into be a pastor or what? Yeah, so I'll graduate in about two and a half years and then wouldn't be a pastor. And then I've also talked to the about staying on there. But I'm willing to serve wherever God calls me. Amen. Pastor role would be great. Good to be available. Good for you.

And educated. There we go. Both. Very good. Congratulations. So what put you on this track? What made you decide to go all Ramsey? Yeah.

So finishing up college right after we got married, we had the debt and the car loan, and we were making payments and realized we were just making no progress. And we said, we're just never going to be done making these payments. And that was discouraging. And we had listened to Ramsey the show a little bit. And we just said we need to sit down and talk about this and figure out our money with a real plan. And so we got every dollar. And we were like, we're just going to go for it. And so we made our first budget because we said, someday we want to have a house. And we want to have some things that we want. And that would be good for raising a family. And we want to go out on a date every once in a while. And so we made a budget and started. doing it. So what about the friend's basement? Did they approach you or you approached them? We approached them. I had known them for a while and known that they'd housed some other people who were especially looking to go into ministry. So I just said, hey, we need somewhere cheap to live.

Are you guys available? And they said yes. So that's where we started. Well, there you go. All right. Very cool. So is it cool to ask what they're charging you? Oh, well, we're actually not there anymore. So that was like the first step. We were there for a little less than a year. Okay. That knocked the dead out. So we're out of the basement.

No, we're out of the basement. Yeah. I love that. Good. Ashley's happy. In a real apartment now. Yeah. No more basement.

No more bean soup. I love that for you. Life is so much better. I like it. We're free. Okay. This does set you up, though. I mean, you guys really, you sacrificed at a time when things were already pretty lean.

because you're in school. And then on top of that, you sacrifice even more to go ahead and clear the debt so that when we can come out, we'll come out swinging, right? And there's a lot of stuff you'll be able to do now because you don't have this weighing you down. But it was kind of an inopportune time to attack this, agreed? Yeah. Yeah. But you both did it. Ashley, did he have to talk you into it or did you talk him into it?

At first, I was a little bit hesitant, but it didn't take very much. much. You're like, I'm committed to this. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get rid of this mess and get it behind us. Does it, how does it feel to be 100% free? It feels really great, Dave. It feels free and we are able to save for a home now. And when I finish seminary, we know that we're going to be ready to move wherever, wherever God calls us to serve. So it feels very free. You know, as a person of faith, as a fellow Christian, I've run into this a lot over the years of people who are serving one way or another. One of the places I run into is like young people that, young people that want to go on the mission field, but I've got $187,000 in student loan debt, you know,

and well, you're not going on the mission field because you've already, you already made that decision accidentally when you decided to go so far in debt, you couldn't breathe because on the mission field, nobody's going to give to you to pay off your student loans. They'll give to you to eat and, you know, maintain a house. household while you do mission work, but nobody's excited about supporting $187,000 a student loan debt. And so you really do get to live out in that setting. You mentioned twice wherever God calls me to serve, wherever God calls me to serve. You're living out that scripture where Jesus said, it's tough to serve two masters.

You will love one and hate the other. And what that means, of course, you know as a seminary student is that you've got to make a choice. and I got to pay the bank or I got to go where I feel like God's calling me and I can't go because I got to pay the bank and so the borrower

truly is slave to the lender then you can't listen to God's voices clearly or at least you can't respond to it as clearly as you can now that you've set yourself up in this situation

it's very cool I'm very proud of you thank you who was cheering you on parents and grandparents really yeah they they helped us out

in any way they could and they're just always there for us and we did laundry at their house. That's fabulous. Yeah. Very cool. Good for y'all. Well,

well done, well done. Well, we're proud of you. I don't know if they're proud of you. Congratulations. And so how long before the seminaries finished? Two and half years. Two and a half. I think you said that, but I want to make sure I heard it.

Okay. Very good. And paid off $30,000 in 12 months making. All right, here we go. Kevin and Ashley South Bend, Indiana. Payed off $30,000 and 12 months, making anywhere from $30,000 to $65. thousand and lived in the basement, whatever it takes to get debt free. Count it down. Let's hear a

debt free scream. Ready? Three, two, one, we're debt free. I love it. Well, a major sacrifice. I can't tell you how many people I know that are people of faith, Christians, you do too. We've both experienced it and watched it that God has blessed them financially. They've done really well financially and they let somebody live in their basement or let somebody live in their condo. Yeah. And I've got one friend. He has one condo that's just dedicated to missionaries to when they're home. That's really cool.

He just leaves it open and they have a place to stay when they come home. That way they don't pay a hotel them for living a hotel, which is not as fun as a condo. When they, you know, they come home for three months or something like that. Which is a short time. It's all he does. It's what he does with the whole thing. And sometimes he has weird stuff happen, but most of the time, it's just a great joy to be that. to be able to be generous.

So that other couple would do in the same thing. That's living like no one else so later you can live and give like no one else, they're on the other side of that letting this little seminary student couple,

brand new marriage, have a place to stay for almost nothing. Not fancy, but we're not trying to be fancy. We're trying to get out of debt. Yeah, getting the job done. And that's, you know, that's truly beans and rice.

Only they did 12 bean. 15 bean. 15 bean. Have you had 15 beans? I don't, I didn't know there were 15 beans. Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, that's not a southern thing to make soup out of 15 beans. That's not something I've run into it.

We'll have to learn about that when we talk to them at the break. Yeah, we will. We will have to learn about that. It's a different, when I said beans and rice, I didn't know I meant 15. That's to a whole different level. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of 15 beans soup.

But in the south, I guess we'd have pinto beans. Yeah. We have white beans and cornbread. Black-eyed peas. Black-eyed peas. Yeah. Yeah, we're getting close. Yeah, we keep counting up.

We might get to 15. Tuna fish. Oh, go away. Get away from me. Gross. I knew that'd get you. I always just runs a little chilled on my backbone. It's a scary sandwich. I love it.

Cat food. Hey, I'm proud of them. Great, great young couple. How fun is that? Way to go, guys. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade Warshaw. Listen, summer spending adds up so fast between vacations and road trips and camp fees and events.

and all the extra gas and grocery runs, money can get tight before you know it. To really get your money under control and keep it that way, you're going to need a plan. And that's what you'll get with the Every Dollar Budget app. It helps you track your spending, free up cash to put toward debt and savings, and it's the simplest way to make a plan for your money before the month begins. So no more wondering where your money's going. You're telling it where to go. Download every dollar in the App Store or Google Play and start for free today.

Scripture of the day, Colossians 317, and whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. John F. Kennedy said, I would rather be accused of breaking precedence than breaking promises. There we go. Shooting sacred cows instead of breaking my word. I like it. Jeanette is in Pittsburgh. Hi, Jeanette. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my husband found out about two weeks ago that he's going to be losing his job at the end of December. And my question is, should we stop contributing to his 401k now, or should we wait until his time is done before we stop contributing? And then also, what should we do after he's done with the company?

should we, how should we refinance or, you know, roll over that money to make money for us? Good question. We teach to always take your 401K with you and roll it to an IRA. And so what I would tell you to do is go to Ramsey Solutions.com and find a smart investor pro, which is someone in the investment business that we recommend. They'll have the heart of a teacher. And then you do what's called a, when he leaves, you do a direct transfer rollover. Now, what that means is, is that you sit with a SmartVistor Pro and you say, I want to put the 401k in these four mutual funds.

And I want to roll it over into an IRA in those four mutual funds. And you sign all the paperwork. The paperwork is then sent directly to your husband's HR or former HR department. and they will send the money directly to the mutual fund. That's called a direct transfer. You have to do it that way or you're going to get messed up because if they send you the check, they are required by the federal government to withhold 20%.

How much is in his 401K? He has about $200,000. Okay. And so they would withhold $40,000. You'd get $160, but you're required when you do a roll-overd, into a 401k to a Roth to put all of it into the 401k or into the new IRA within 60 days or you will be penalized and you don't have all of it in the scenario I'm talking about because they sent 40 of it to the government on withholding and you won't get it until April.

Okay. So don't do that. Let the money be direct transferred and pick out the mutual funds. We suggest, and I personally do, Jade does. Jade and Sam Dave and Sharon, put hours across four types of mutual funds, growth, growth, and income, aggressive growth, and international. And I put a fourth in each, so about 50,000 in each. Now, what does he make a year? He is making about 48,000.

Okay. What's he do? He's a warehouse employee, so he works for a communications. company, but he does, you know, taking all the end stuff in and taking it back out. Why are they laying our buy off? I think they're just looking to close down that warehouse. There's kind of a merger going on. How long has he been there?

26 years. Wow. Sheesh. They're offering him a severance. I mean, he is going to get a severance. How much? 39-week severance at his current rate. Okay.

So at least we have that. And then as soon as, you know, December comes, we're going to start looking for a job for him. No, no. We're going to get a job now between now and December that starts at the end of December. But you start looking now. Okay. You know how fast Christmas is going to be here? You blink and it'll be here.

Yes, I do. Yeah, don't blink and go when we got 39 weeks. No, listen, here's the plan. The day he gets laid off and they send it, they put him to sign him up. for the severance. A week later, he starts the new job. That means you just gained a signing bonus of 39 weeks. That's right. Okay. Now, should we stop contributing now to his 401k and work on paying off our debt? I mean, we do have a little bit of debt. Oh, you should have already done that regardless of being laid off. I'm sorry. Yeah, how much debt do you have? No, we're definitely trying.

I mean, I've been trying. No, you haven't stopped it. You haven't stopped contributing to it. Well, the problem was I was let go last year unexpectedly and that kind of... That doesn't keep you stopping to contribute to him. No, what Dave is talking about is the best way to pay off debt quickly is to temporarily pause your investing so that you have all of your income to throw out your debt so that you can pay the debt off as fast as possible. So in your situation, no matter how much debt it is, go ahead and it's a temporary pause, right? Pay off the debt. And then once you've stacked up three to six months of expenses, now we can press play on investing again. Do you guys have any savings?

No, not really. I've been really just trying to pay off the debt. And then, like I said, I lost my job. So we kind of got set back a little bit. How long ago did you lose your job? I lost it last November, but I got a new job in January. So I've been, you know, trying really hard. My son just got married, so we were helping them with the wedding as well.

so there was just a little bit of a delay there. But we are definitely back on track. Like he's gotten a second job. We're just trying to pay this stuff off. So, okay, Jay's right. Temporarily stop all investing and saving. Okay. And focus every ounce of energy you've got on reducing debt.

How much debt have you got? It's 13,000 in credit cards, and then we still owe on our house. Okay. So only 13,000, and you're done. The feeling you've got to have a, the feeling you've got to have a, The feeling you've got to have around this is a never again feeling because you experienced the job lost last November. He's experiencing the job loss now. And that would feel completely different if you had no debt with six months saved, wouldn't it? Right. So that's what you've got to tell yourself is there's going to be another storm at some point in the future. And when that happens, I'm going to be ready. I wasn't ready last November. I wasn't ready this time. But the next time, I'll be ready. And that preparedness starts today. right okay yeah yeah very good so janet i want to reiterate because i really think you drove by this on me get a job you have him get a job now start working on it now do not wait because it's going to sneak up

on him and december's not a good month to look for a job no it's not right so september for sure i want it might have several good leads if not already figured out it says okay i'm gonna have to start late i can't start until january because i'm getting 30. week severance unless you want to pay me for the 39 weeks I can't start early but I really want to come to work here and I want to come in January and he starts shopping around and looking for that position it's going to take a little while to land something he's not used to doing it's been 26 years since he went on a job interview right yeah so don't wait it's just because of severance doesn't mean he gets to sit on his butt no no he definitely don't know but he's going to be

sitting on his butt if he doesn't doesn't have a job. I'm trying. So we got to line him up a job. He's got to be ready to go. January 1st, if they lay him off, you know, the first week of January, they lay him off last week of December. Wow. But 39 weeks of severance, so six months, seven months, eight months, which is not much for 26 years. It's not much. Yeah. And if you're, if you're not careful, it can make you kind of low you to sleep a little bit. Yeah, it acts like it's a lot of money. Oh, I got, I got eight months. No, you don't. Yeah. You get to put the, that eight months in your pocket, extra money to bill wealth with, and turns this job loss into

a blessing. That's right. The goal is not to have to touch that. That's the goal. That's the thing. And turn it into a signing bonus by getting your timing lined up and your domino's lined up and then push that end domino and go, baby, go. Here we go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Get it. Get it. Let's go. And that makes all the difference in the world. But the human tendency is to act like December's a long way away. Thirty-nine weeks is a lot of exit rim. Right, right, right. I'm okay. Everything's okay.

And you're going to look up and it's going to be December the next year and you're going to be going, well, that's when we went through the hard patch. Yeah. Because I didn't get off my butt and go get a job. Now, consider it a blessing to know. Oh, and by the way, if someone offers him a job for $75,000 this week, forget the severance. Got to go get it. Take it. That's more than your severance is going to be.

Take it. Yep. He might figure out he's worth more than they've been paying him for the last five years. This could be, if you treat it right. The biggest blessing has happened in years because it pushes you out of the nest and makes you go fly. Oh, yeah. You have to believe that that's the point. It's a possibility. It's as big a possibility as a crash. Yeah. But you better get after it while you can. It's good stuff. Good stuff.

That puts us out of The Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace. Christ Jesus.