The Ramsey Show - I Cosigned 2 Cars For My Mom And Now They're Repossessed

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

💵 ⁠⁠⁠Have a money question? Ask Ramsey is here to help.⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a Free Personalized Plan.⁠⁠⁠ George Kamel and Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "I cosigned two cars with my mom that were then repossessed" "How do I get my husband to combine finances?" "Should I file for bankruptcy?" "How do I keep my child from being spoiled by the Trump account?" "How do I become okay with spending the money that I've been saving?" "Does it make sense for me to gift my son my house?". Next Steps: ✔️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Help us make the show better. Please take this short survey.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET or⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠send us an email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. 💻 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Need help with your taxes? See who we trust.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💵 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🚢 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Set sail with Dave Ramsey. Book your cabin today.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect With Our Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BetterHelp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Boost Mobile⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to switch today! Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Casper Sleep⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code RAMSEY to learn more 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% off Learn more about⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Christian Healthcare Ministries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get started today with⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Churchill Mortgage⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get 20% off when you join ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DeleteMe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FAIRWINDS Credit Union⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for an exclusive account bundle! Debt collectors hassling you? Take back control of your life at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Guardian Litigation Group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find top health insurance plans at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mama Bear Legal Forms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NetSuite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ today to learn more Get started with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YRefy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 844-2-RAMSEY Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Zander Insurance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for your free instant quote today!   Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💡 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rachel Cruze Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🪑 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Ramsey personality, Jade Warshaw. And we're taking your calls at AAA 825-5-225. Arley's going to kick us off in New York City.

What's going on, Arley? Hello. Did I get that right? Is it Arlie? Yes, it is Arlie. What's happening? So when I was around like 20 to 21 years old, I had a pretty good credit score of like 800. And then my mom kind of guilt tripped me into being a co-signer for one of her cars. And then the following year, there was a second car. that I was unknowingly signed into when we refinanced the first car.

And I think about two years after that, both cars have been repossessed. Oh. And the first car was, there's a judgment on that car and it's under my name. Oh, boy. And I guess. And there's also a personal loan that my mom kind of made me take out around the same time. What do you mean made you? What's that sound like?

Are you against your will? Well, she guilt-trip me into doing all of that. Yeah, but you're a grown person at 21 years old. Yes, of course. Like, I understand that, but I guess, like, culturally speaking, it was always, you can't. Like, I've done so much for you. I need you to do this for me, and you just went, okay, fine. Exactly.

Exactly, and it was, like, non-stop. So, essentially, after all of this, we're, like, 20. K in debt just on my mom alone. And I guess I'm trying to like figure out how to move on from one, getting these two cars off of my name and like, you know, paying, I guess paying it out. Yeah. Because I just recently got married and me and my husband haven't been able to join our account because of this major issue. Absolutely. I kind of like want to find a way.

I'm 26. Okay. Oh, okay. So this has been a while back. Yeah. Okay. But I think the repo just happened, like about two years and... What are they coming after you for that, for both repos?

Tell us the amount for both. So the first car, well, the major car was 10,000. Okay. That's the deficit that you owe? Yes. Okay. After it got options off. What about the second one?

The second one is $8,000. Okay. So the good news is you're going to settle both of these. You're not going to pay the full amount because it's been forever. They'll be happy to get anything from you at this point. Okay. Do you have any contact with your mom anymore? We do, but unfortunately, I don't really trust anything she says.

Rightfully so. For the sole reason that January of last year of 2025, she actually moved to another state and we came to find out that she kind of owed a lot of people, a lot of money and it came to around like a total of like 50 close to 100K and just like personal loans like under the table. And this year I kind of talked to her or last, last year I talked to her to try to settle the personal loans.

Well, let's talk about you. Let's imagine that she's not. going to help you solve any of this. And your name's on the debt. And so they don't care about where she is and if she's going to refine to her name. You just need to act like this is debt I took on and I got to clean the mess up. And it's a learning experience. So I'd be looking to settle these for 40 to 50% of the actual amount owed.

That's what I'd start with. And so that would be your goal to save up that cash. Because anytime you're going to settle the debt, you've got to have the cash in hand ready, lump sum. Yep. And you want to get it all, all those stipulations in writing. and you really want to laminate it and keep it forever because you never want these things to come back and bite you in the butt. How much is the personal loan? Is that another two or three thousand?

Yeah, 2000. Okay. So 2000 on the personal loan. How much do you and your husband earn every month? We, every month would be about six, seven thousand. Okay. And is he on board in the idea that we're going to clean up this mess? or do you feel like it's kind of on you to do it on your own?

I think personally I don't want him to take on the burden. Can I tell you this personally? I don't think you're going to be able to clean this mess up on your own. No, I know, but I think he does listen to the Ramsey show, so I do know that he'll be willing to settle this with me. If the tables were turned, would you be willing to help him? Of course. Okay, there you go.

So as long as you know that you're not asking more of someone than you would want asked of yourself, then I think it's okay that you participate, that you receive that if he's willing to do this with you, which I think he should, by the way. The hardest part is going to be swallowing your pride and going, you know what, I know I feel guilty and shame about this, but I'm going to bring him in because this is marriage. Yeah. No, he actually helped me because when we first got married, we settled, I think, about 2,000 of credit card loans that my mom also. wrecked up. So, you know, okay, has any of this been done fraudulently?

Guarantee. Because she's not able to just like forge your signature. It sounds like you were there, you at least signed some documents on most of these loans. So the, like I said, the first car was her car that she was driving and I was helping her. You co-signed, so that one's legit. I did. The second car, I didn't co-signed. Yeah, she did herself. I did co-sign. I did co-sign, But what happened was when I went to the dealer, they told me it was a refinance. When it came out, like, I think six months down the line where we were getting like these late payments, they were telling me, oh, it's the car that I took out for my cousin and you are co-assigned. And I was like, I was never informed of this. But by then they told me it was too late to back out of it.

Okay. Do you guys have any other debt outside of this 20K? No. A student loan debt. How much? How much? I have about 16K and my husband has about 9K. Okay, promise me. Make me a promise that you have learned your lesson, not just in co-signing, but really in borrowing money in general.

Look at how much heartache and pain this is caused. This is literally, and don't get me wrong, this is if I were to assign blame, which I'm not usually in the habit of doing, but most of this is on your mother, okay? because she was, there is an imbalance of power there when you're 18, 21 years old and a parent is saying, you need to do this, you need to do that. You do feel the overwhelming need to need that either they're right or that you should be listening to them, even if you shouldn't be. So I hate that that happened, but this is such a learning opportunity for you. No more debt, no more co-signing. You pay this off. Never again is really the line in the sand that you need to draw. Have you frozen your credit

with all three bureaus, Arlie? No, I haven't. You need to do that yesterday. And while you're at it, pull all three credit reports from the bureaus. You can go to annual credit report.com, do it for free, never pay for this. You need a full picture, because who knows what else is out there before we can move forward and do this debt snowball and settle these debts. Let's get a real full picture of what's going on and freeze your credit.

So nobody, you or your mom, can be opening up debt in your name ever again. That's right. Wishing you the best. This is not a fun situation, but I'm very confident you guys can clean this up if you combine your finances together and attack this as a team. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies. And there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet. I also discovered that there are a lot of rip-offs in the life insurance world, like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity.

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For instant online quotes, or for a more personal touch, give them a call at 800-356-42-82. Barbara's in New York City up next. Barbara, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Absolutely. How can Jade and I help today? So my question is, how can I convince my husband to combine our finances? How long have you been married?

We're coming up on 12 years. That's a long time to now start this conversation. How long have you been trying to do this? So several years now. So when we got married, I made significantly less. And he actually purchased a house a few months before he proposed. So it's, and I really feel like it's his house. So that's the other part of the conversation trying to convince him to put my name on the date and all that and the mortgage.

So I feel like, and I bring it up every so often and say, hey, you know, maybe we should be doing this. I mean, I worked hard to better myself. So when we got married, I made about $35,000, which isn't very much. Why does it matter if you made a dollar or $100,000? I'm shook by that. I feel like this is like you're trying to prove that you're worthy of being next to his name by you getting yourself together. Did he set a benchmark? Like, hey, once you hit $50,000, then we'll talk.

I kind of feel like we have to be equals in terms of how much we earn. Why? Right. I don't, wait, that's the footing we got off on. He divided up the bills based on the percentage of what we make. So based on how my child made, I covered the bills according to that. Okay. And so on.

And, you know, slowly I've increased what I contribute, you know, household repairs and all that. Right, right. So this is really, really, really unhealthy. I'm sorry, but it is. And I think you're right. you guys got off, you got off on the wrong foot and it just set the tone for the next 12 years. And it started to, you started to believe that, that you are your percentage and you're worth whatever percentage you're contributing and vice versa. And that is going to take a lot of time to

tear down. Honestly, it sounds like kind of in both of you. Because I think you're starting to see, yeah, I need to, we probably should do this, but it's also like you're fighting that old mentality. So when you bring it to him and you say, this is, this is. I feel like this is destroying our marriage and here's how. And it's making me feel less than. And I'm just scared that this is going to drive us further and further apart. What's his response? It gets defensive.

And are you saying it's on him or are you saying we both did this thing? Thinking back, I'm probably putting a little too much on him. Like, hey, we, because it feels like everything belongs to him, the house belongs to. him. But you also participated in that. So I think approaching it, you know, approaching it in the way of we set out, and this is honestly probably exactly along the lines of what I would say if I were in your shoes, 12 years ago we got married, we decided that this is how we were going to do finances. And I agreed to that. It made sense to me. And I've participated in that for 12 years. And in the past couple of years, I've really started seeing that it's not, it feels like it's driving

us apart. And you may not be aware of it on your end, but it's something I'm sensing. And I just feel like it's, if we don't address it, it's going to get worse and worse. And I would love for us to talk about ways that we can change the way we're viewing money to where there's complete transparency. We're both equal and we're both, you know, a part of it. And maybe that will open him up to go, okay, she's trying to, she's trying to come towards me. She's not trying to say this at me and tell me that it's my fault. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, yeah, probably without meaning to making it sound like it's all on him. Yeah. That can go a long way. Listen, even if it was all on him, it still can go a long way. There's things that he is not telling you. And I don't know if this is coming out of, you know, baggage he had growing up with money, why he wants control, why he wants to protect himself.

Did he have a previous marriage? What do you think is behind this? Well, I honestly don't know entirely. I know his parents went through a bad marriage. And I don't know if that's part of it, but it does feel like he's very guarded with his money and he wants to protect it. And he's got businesses and he buys cars,

whatever and how often he wants. And I don't have a say in it, Because it's his money and he, you know. Yeah, you have a roommate that you signed a contract with essentially. And I'm sorry. That's not fun. It's not healthy. And I don't know if I'm not here to define someone as a narcissist,

but it's giving narcissists. It's giving emotional abuse. And he's making you feel less than you own nothing. And you should be lucky you get to live in my house. That's not good. Do you have kids? No, we don't we? I became nervous early on in different.

did not to and he went right along with it. So we agreed together. But I guess we didn't agree. It was more like I was apprehensive and he was like whatever you want. Okay. Okay. So no children to speak of. Yeah, this is beyond money.

He would never agree to go to counseling with you, would he? No. No, I've asked. Can you go on your own or what do you have to ask him for permission for allowance money to go? I've been going. I go on my own and I haven't brought the situation up, though. Why not? I talk about everything else.

This would be the number one situation I would bring up. Right. This is the main thing in your life right now. I mean, you're calling us for advice on this. I don't know how to convince your husband because I don't know that he can be convinced at this point. Because he has convinced himself that he is the king of the house and you should be lucky to live in his castle. And honestly, there seems like there hasn't been any, um, consequence for his action, for lack of a better word.

It's kind of like he gets to do whatever he wants, and there's no, nothing comes back on him as a reason to change. Nope. I guess I felt like it was just a money issue. No, it's not. It's a respect issue. He's not seeing you as a person, a full person who's contributing and valuable and all the things that he should see you as. Think about it. This marriage, any relationship is built on two things.

Thanks. Trust and respect. And you don't have either of those from him. And I don't know that you ever did. I don't know how this marriage started and how we got here. But you need a reset conversation with him and use eye statements and make it about you and say, listen, I want better for us. I want unity in this marriage. I didn't sign up to be a roommate here. I want transparency. Not because I don't trust you, but because I think I deserve a vote. And for too long, I felt like I didn't. What would he say to that? Would he get defensive shut down? Yes. I think that's very telling, Barbara, of what your next step should be. How are you doing? Let's talk about it the way you guys talk about it, which is your finances are separate. How are you doing financially? I'm doing much better. I've worked hard to increase my own income, and I have money set aside, and I, you know, I listen to you guys and I set up my savings and, you know, like six months and all that, and I invest in my 401k and all that. Good. But just talking about that, like, just thinking about it, I'm like, just listening to you guys,

I do kind of just feel like a house sitter. Yeah. You know, rightfully so. I mean, for all intents and purposes, that's kind of the placement you guys have put you in. Yeah. And it's totally fine that you are saying, this is not okay. And I'm not going to do this anymore. And if I were in your shoes, you know, I'm no counselor, that's for sure.

But if I were in your shoes, I'd be making some pretty strong statements about what I am and not going to do and what I am and not going to put up with. Right. You know what I'm saying? I'm not sure he's seen Barbara's backbone and I think he's about to see it. For someone who's been offered counseling, for someone who's been offered the opportunity to sit down and talk for compromise and they've turned away all of that. Now I'm going to tell you what I'm about to do. and what my terms are. And that's what I would do.

I'd be like, okay, enough is enough. And you're about to see the smoke. And Barbara, great exercise for you is think about if this was your friend. And she called you and said, hey, this is my situation. What would you honestly tell that friend? Maybe you write down in a journal tonight as if you're writing a letter to that friend and then read it back to yourself and go, oh, this is for me. These are the steps I need to go take because I deserve that.

You deserve to live a life. You don't deserve to be in a prison. with this guy. Right. And so I don't know that we can change him, but I do know that you can make some changes for yourself, and that might be the healthiest move for what's next. I'm so sorry you're going through this. Most people just drift through life with their money. No plan, no budget, stuck on autopilot, but winning with money is intentional. That's why I love Fair Wins Credit Union. They've built tools for people who don't want gimmicks or games. Their smart bun, includes a high-yield savings account to help your emergency fund grow,

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If you have a simple tax situation like you haven't had any major life changes or big investments, check out Ramsey Smart Tax. It's affordable. It keeps filing simple, and it has built-in support in case you need a little help. And filing early means getting the best deals, and you get that tax stress off your shoulders. So as soon as you get all your tax documents, go to ramsysolutions.com slash smart tax and start filing. And guess what, Jade? What's up? Guess what I'm doing on Valentine's Day.

I don't want to know, George. Getting my taxes done with my tax pro. That's not what I expected. We're going on a date after. I'm mad at you for this. All the restaurants are booked up, but my tax guy was free. And I said, all right, let's make it a date. I need to text Whitney.

I know. Say she deserves better. Don't worry. We're going to get some chips and margaritas after. All right, there you go. All right. Lisa is in Hartford, Connecticut up next. What's going on, Lisa?

Hi. How can we help today? I am 58 years old. I have $60,000 worth of state tax debt. I have $60,000 worth of credit card debt. I'm a single mom with two college-age kids. and I am trying to figure out if I should file for bankruptcy. I have another $10,000 that I owe the IRS.

I came to a settlement with them, so I guess it's about now $70,000 in total tax debt. How did that happen? Well, I'm a single mom, and when I got divorced, I didn't make smart decisions with my alimony. I tried to keep my kids like in the same, you know, like I didn't make any changes. I wanted them to feel like the divorce. And so I lived way beyond my means. I also went into recovery. So I was, you know, kind of white knuckling, raising them.

And I did a lot of spending out of, like, parental guilt trying to, like, make up for time that I'd lost. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Understood. So what's the case now? What are you doing for work?

What are you earning? I have a great job. I make about $105,000 as an administrative assistant. Great. I have a site, like, I also work for the same family at a farm. the weekends. So I have a little potential to make extra income, but I'm drowning because I can't, you know, like my, you know, I just just got the dollars app to figure out what's going wrong when I'm spending more than I can afford, you know, in rent and even the basic things. How much is your rent?

It's $3,500. Oh, girlfriend. And you're bringing home like six or seven? What's the take home pay? My take home is $66, yeah, $6,600. And then another. thousand approximately when I do my other job. Okay. Okay. Okay. So yeah, this is the problem. The rent is, have you looked into things that, I mean, you're in Hartford, that's an expensive area. Have you looked into other options? I mean, what are you living in right now? What is the nature of your house? Is it two-bedroom? What is it? Right now, I am in a two-bedroom apartment. I moved out of, like, the town I raised my kids in and I moved into a less expensive area, but it's still very expensive. I'm currently looking like I was trying to keep, you know, one of my kids has graduated, but one of my kids still comes home and I still had that need to like have a bedroom for her.

Can't hold on. Yeah. You got to stop that. It's an air mattress in the living room. Yeah, you got to stop this mess because that feeling of having to make everything all right for them is what got you in $130,000 of debt. So you got to stop today. They're grown. They love you.

You don't have to prove it. It's inherent. Okay. Because here's the truth. You being a burden because they have to cover mom's expenses for the rest of her life because she's broke is so much worse. Come on, George. And them sleeping on an air mattress because mom can't afford $3,500 in rent, which is totally. reasonable. What's your commute right now and how how far can we get you out of town to get this

this in the rightful spot? Yeah, I'm right now is great like I'm I'm 10 minutes for my job. Then this is the problem. Yeah. We got to get you out into the country where where rent is $1,000 a month for a one bedroom. Yes. Okay? And I'm laughing, but I'm being serious. Your rent is going to keep you from freedom here. So your first order of business while everybody else is going out for Valentine's Day, you're going to be on the computer searching for a new place. When's your lease up? It's up in June. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. That gives you time to find the spot. It gives you time to tell your kids, hey, we're moving. And that's wonderful. Think about it. You went down to 1,500 instead of 3,500. That's two grand a month you could be throwing at your debt.

I've been looking for an apartment. I have been looking, I've downsized my look to one bedroom apartment. Good. And I think they're right. I think I have to expand my commute distance because I'm still hitting a wall with prices. You have to. It's a must. If it's this or bankruptcy, I'll take a 20-minute commute, a 25-minute commute. Because that bankruptcy will destroy your financial life at least for the next seven years, which puts you into your mid-60s by the time you can even recover. Now, what about your car? Do you have a car payment? I have a, I have, I have, I have, I have, I have, I have, I have, I have, I have, I have, I have, I have, Lisa. I know, I know, what is he just graduated. I know, he just graduated.

Is your name on it? Yes. What? Why? Why, why, why? Okay. So, here's what's going to happen. Hey, son, I got to sell this car.

Yes. Hope you enjoy driving it. Yes. Tell him it was basically a rental. Hope you enjoy driving the rental. George has never been more right. But you have to do it. Right.

How much is the car worth? It's $17,000 maybe. And how much do you owe on it? It's leased, though. The car that he has is lease. Oh, no. That's even worse because you can't get out of this thing unless you have the lump sum to do a full buyout.

Right. When's the lease up? Or he could take the payments over. He could. When is it up? I have to look. I'm not sure. I think it's another year.

Is he working? He just started a job. He just started an internship. So yes. Okay. So I would have that conversation. I'd say, son, I made a mistake. And I'm really sorry because it's going to affect both of us.

I agreed to pay this lease. I can't afford it. I'm over here struggling. This lease is good for one more year. You either need to take this on completely. If you can't afford it, I'll pay whatever little bitty portion that you can't afford to pay. But this is going to, and put it in George's words, if I don't fix it. myself now, I will end up being a burden to you later on in a greater way and I don't want

that. And hopefully he can understand that. But yeah, the tables, the way we've been doing life with money and kids has to change today. And I'm glad that you called in because I think that you're starting to understand that. But I can't stress that these are not going to be, they're easy to understand, not easy to do. Right. You know? Yeah. So here's the math on this. If you say, You said you make about $7,500 a month if you keep the side job, right? Yes. Are you doing any investing right now? No, a little bit to my 401K, but I stopped that.

Good. Let's pause all investing to clean this mess up so that we can actually retire one day. That's the goal. And right now, investing is not helping us get rid of the mess. So let's say you could, you know, you make $7,500 and you lived on $4,000. That's fair. Right. If you switch your renting situation.

That frees up $3,500 a month to throw it down. right? With 130 grand in debt, you're done in about 37 months, three years. Right. And that's if you do no other changes. If you can just cut your rent down and throw that amount of the debt, we're done in three years. I think you can do even better with this. You're very talented. You have a lot of high-skilled, you know, you have a lot of high skills. I would use that to your advantage, live on as little as you can for two years. Let's say your 60th birthday. Let's celebrate you becoming debt-free. How cool would that be? That would be amazing, really amazing. It's possible. I mean, you can crunch the numbers and go, all right, this is the margin I need.

I need $4,000 a month come hell or high water to be throwing at this debt. And then do the debt snowball. Knock out the smallest balance first for you. The IRS debt goes to the top because they can really screw up your life and garnish your wages. So I would attack that first. But once you're done with that, just debt snowball it. Whatever the smallest card balances, attack that first, minimum payments on the rest. Okay.

You can do this. Keep making my minimum payments. Yes. Don't get behind on anything if you can help. it. Yeah, I'm already a little bit behind on a lot of the payments. Is anything in collections credit card wise? No, not one credit card is actually, yes. Okay, so go ahead and settle that one. Just try to get current on everything and then attack the IRS debt, then debt snowball the rest. That's your goal. So we're going to cover four walls, basic food, utilities, housing, transportation,

insurance, and then beyond that, we are living like broke college kids. Because right now your kids are living more lavishly than you are. That's pretty wild. Like, I think college kids should be broke. That's the stage of life, not a 58-year-old woman who's trying to provide for them. So you have done more than enough. You don't need to earn your kids' love by going deeper and deeper into debt. Right. Okay. You got this, Lisa. We're cheering you on. I'm going to gift you every dollar, a premium version to connect your bank accounts, have all the transactions come through, because you make great money. It's time to put every dollar to work cleaning up this mess. Well, Dave, you know, on the show all the time we get calls about cars, used cars.

What's one thing you want folks to know? Well, really, a couple things. Number one is always buy used unless you've got a million dollars. We don't buy new cars. And if you're going to buy used, number two, you want it to last. And that means regular, proper maintenance. Yeah, that's a big deal. I know when Sam and I moved from South Florida up to Tennessee, that's the first thing you're looking for.

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on track with the Baby Steps Trust Christian Brothers. Go to CBAC.com slash Ramsey to find your local shop, schedule service, and get an exclusive Ramsey discount, 10% off your visit, up to $250. Yeah, that's CBAC.com slash Ramsey. See store for details. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is sponsored by YREFI. If your private student loans are in default and other lenders said no, YREFI could be your next step.

Why Refi was built for this situation, helping borrowers refinance with a low, fixed rate and an affordable payment so you can get back to winning with money. Check out Y-refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey may not be available in all states. All righty. Today's question comes from Kyle in Florida. He says, I'm going to be a new dad soon and want to do everything I can to set my son up for success. We plan on opening a Trump account for him and contribute $5,000 a year. How can we avoid a mindset of entitlement in our son if this account has hundreds of thousands of dollars in it when he turns 18.

We'd like to reinforce the idea that we did not set up this account to squander the money away on ridiculous material purchases every 18-year-old dreams about. What's the best way to set up boundaries on how this money can be used? That's a great question. It's a really great question. And there's kind of two sides of it, George. The first side I'm seeing is just raising a child in the way that he should go. Right?

Like there's what you're teaching him about money in the next 18 years is really huge. And then there's the side of, is this really the best option for you? Do you want to have control over that money or do you want him to receive this money at 18? So there's kind of the strategy side of how is it smart for him to receive that kind of money at 18. So let's talk about both. I'll kind of start with the raising side. I think whatever you show your kids the most is what they're going to pick up on and they're going to learn. And so if you've created a lifestyle where we don't squander things in our home and we're very thoughtful about our purchases and we don't buy things to impress other people, your child is going to pick up on that.

So a lot of that is due diligence on your part. Now, when it comes to the Trump accounts, you know, if you want to participate, I suppose you can. It's not what I do. I do 529s for my kids and we also have a brokerage account that we know we're going to give money to them out of when we're ready to help with things like down payments and things like that. So that's how we do it. What do you do, George? So I actually looked into this and I realized there's not a whole lot of advantages outside of the

$3,000 if your child is born in 25 through 28. So I had a kid in 2025, I will happily take $1,000 from the government because I've given much more to them. Yeah, that's right. I'll take that free thousand for my little guy and it'll grow. I will not be contributing more than that. Because to your point, at 18, they get control if it's a Trump account. Yeah, and they don't need hundreds of thousands of dollars at age 18. And you hope they're going to go, I'm going to use this for a down payment.

But you don't know. Yeah. And we don't know exactly how they're going to guard against you using it for other things. They haven't been super clear about what you can use it for outside of education and a down payment. That's actually a major difference that I want to talk about. You know, you look at things like Roth IRAs or custodial accounts or 520, they're established. Like what it is is what it is with these Trump accounts because it's tied to, it has the ability to change over time. It's not locked in and what it will be and what it can change into.

And I think that's something worth noting. But yeah, I'm the type of parent. I want control. I don't want you ending up with $100,000 or $500,000 at age 18. I want to have the control. Because you remember us at 18. No 18-year-old, their prefrontal cortex isn't baked yet. I was an idiot. Yes, I was not it.

These are the same kids taking out $250,000 for degrees that they don't need. That's right. That's right. Good point. Let's not give them that control. So I do exactly what Jade says. I got a 529 plan for education. I'm funding that. And then for other needs outside of education, I go with the taxable brokerage account in my name that I control. That's right. And then I can gift that money when I believe they are ready to handle it. That's right. So if it's, I want to cover the wedding, great, I can take that money out and I can pay for the wedding. If it's their first car, I have control over that of what car I choose to buy for them.

Yeah, that's right. And same thing with a down payment. Or if you want to gift them a house, I want to be able to control that. And so I think that's very wise to do. And I'm not mad at the Trump accounts. I just don't think it's all it's cracked up to be. But I love that it's starting the conversation about investing for your kids at an earlier age. It is.

And you have up to $18,000 per parent, per child per year that you can give without really any. Without having to fill out the gift tax form. And so that's a great way to go as well. And the exemption is now, if you're a married couple, it's like $30 million. Yeah, it's high for a lifetime. Your gift, your estate exemption. So not something most people have to worry about hitting. So great question, Kyle. If you want to do this, I would contribute to the taxable brokerage account. And if your child can get the free thousand bucks, I would absolutely take that and let it ride. Because even a thousand bucks from zero to 60. Don't even tell them it exists. I mean, they'll know it exist when they turn 18. And they're like, sweet, free money. Yeah. Maybe that's for the first car.

That's right. Perfect. All right. Let's go to Quentin in Lincoln, Nebraska. What's going on? Hey, guys. I appreciate y'all taking my call. Sure. So, just to keep it short, I have just found out that my girlfriend, who I've been planning to propose to, is pregnant, and we're expecting twins. Whoa. So, yeah, you know, blessing, absolutely. But I'm concerned about I'm on baby step two, doing the debt snowball. I'm financially concerned that, you know, with these two coming,

that we're going to be in a bad spot if I continue to put everything into the debt snowball. I'm wondering if maybe I should put a little bit more into savings instead and what your guys' thoughts are on that. I mean, yes, I would probably pause all getting out of debt behavior because this is a storm and a stork. This is storm mode and storm mode. What's the plan going forward? Was this somebody that you were thinking could be the one? Or was this really just like, uh-oh? Yeah, this was a very big surprise.

It's funny because for months I've been planning, we're taking the trip to Florida next week and I have a ring. Okay. So we're going to do, yeah. So, you know, I wanted to do marriage and everything before kids and then come to find out. So, well, the good news is this was someone that you were thinking about that you knew you wanted to spend your life with. It wasn't just like I was dating this girl and, uh-oh, and we knew she wasn't the one. Okay, so this is. So you're still going to propose next week? Yes, that's the plan. Good. All right. Okay. So it just kind of expedites things. If I was in your shoes, let's propose. Let's hope she says yes. I assume she. you will. And then let's get married. Let's do a courthouse wedding and then we'll do a big party to celebrate later because right now we're broke with a baby on the way. The party can wait. But I think

it is wise. If you were already planning on getting married, let's go ahead and speed that process up because we've been doing some things backwards now, as you said. You didn't want it to happen in this order, but here we are, right? So let's move forward with a pile of savings. And when babies and mom are home safe, then we can hit play on the debt snowball, and hopefully you don't have to touch that pile of money, and you'll have a bunch to throw at those debts. What do you both do for work? I'm a union plumber, and she works in a daycare right now, but she will be staying home when we have the kids. And that was kind of a second part of the question is, you know, with her being in debt and her staying home, marriage was obviously going to be an option. And as

you guys are saying it, do it sooner than later. But then I'll be taking on her debts as well. And so that's where, you know. So it's going to take like a decade to pay this off if it's all on you? Well, I mean, kind of feels like it. You know, I make decent money. And I think that's the total debts? I'm at 110 last year on my W-2s.

And total debt combined is about 26, 27. Oh, great. Okay, we can do that. You can knock that out fast within a year, maybe even less. even with just your income. Right. And that's where, and so I just downloaded the every dollar and it looked like, you know,

I was going to get one of the big ones off right before a due date. Good. But then, you know, that's where I'm, now I'm like, I don't know if I should. Right, but no, no, no. But knowing that you're stacking up that money and knowing that the day these babies come home and they're safe and they're healthy,

knowing that you can take that money and then knock out that debt is fabulous. So it's just peace of mind sitting there, waiting for you. Are your expenses pretty low? I think I need that now. Yeah, I mean, mortgage, you know, we're looking at 1,400 and after that, you know, cars are paid off. Great. What about insurance? Health insurance. Health insurance is all union, so that comes out before my take home. Okay. And do you know what the out-of-pocket maxes or like what the deductible is? Because you're going to need that possibly. I want to say it's a 5,000 deductible, but if we add her on, I'm not going to 100%. I haven't looked into that. I check into that. I always like to advise people to have that number saved up going in,

because, again, you never know what could happen, and it could be very easy in certain situations to hit that deductible and have to shell out that money or even worse, you know, out-of-pocket max for the year. But if your expenses are pretty low, you can throw $4,000 a month into savings. Seven months from now, you have all the money to pay off the debt, and as soon as they're home and healthy, throw it at the debt, and we're debt-free, man. Best of luck. Finally, mortgage rates have dropped, and you know what that means? People who've been sitting on the sidelines are about to jump back in to the housing market. So if you've been waiting to buy, this could be your window, but you've got to be prepared and do it the Ramsey Way.

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So don't let this moment pass you by. Get ready now. Go to Churchillmortgage.com to get started today. That's churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. Homebuyer edge and seller guarantee are available for qualifying borrowers and select loan types only and not available in all states or locations. NMLSID 1591, NMLS ConsumerExist.org, Eagle Housing Lender. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show and the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. I'm George Camel, joined by Jade Warshaw, and we're taking your calls at AAA 8-8-25-2-2-25. Jason is with us in Indianapolis. What's going on, Jason? Hey, thanks for taking my call.

So the most basic level of this question is for about a 10-year period. My wife and I need to live in separate cities. I'll be snowboarding and coming back seasonally. She'll come out to where I want to be as she's able. So the most basic, how do we pull this off? Why is it necessary? Tell us about what you're trying to accomplish. Sure.

We're from the Indianapolis area. We spent about three years in Arizona during the COVID years. And when we moved back to Indianapolis for some elder care and family responsibilities, COVID has had a serious impact on my health. All the specialists I've been treating with, not very effective. What has worked for me is the climate back in Arizona. my conditions continue to worsen. And so I need to be out there for relief.

My wife has a once in a lifetime career with a large Indianapolis employer and has a pension that we're really going to need come retirement. And the family reasons still exist for her. Okay. So how much is how much do you guys earn? Combined. we make about 160. And she doesn't have some potential for bonus, but we don't really think about that.

What makes her job a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Because when you said that, I'm thinking that you're going to hit me with the fact that she's making crazy money. Well, she's making crazy money for the way we grew up. But she works for a big pharma here, has a phenomenal job with, her position was eliminated. They allowed her to come back as though she had no lost time and resume her pension where she left off.

Okay. Finding employers in this area with pension, not great. We're beyond the part about where I think she should go with me and we should have one home. That's a focus on the family discussion that we continue to have. When you say family, are we talking kids, like parents? Um, her father-in-law, I'm sorry, my father-in-law, her father has dementia. Okay. We're here to help her brother and his wife with elder care. And then there are children having babies. And so we've got grandchildren too. And, you know, it's a difficult situation because the, the crux of this is my health.

And it's not improving. And, you know, there's something to be said for, I'm not living and contributing positively to the family dynamic until I get better. Where would the majority of the time be spent? Would you be, or let me ask this in a better way, would you be living in Arizona basically indefinitely and you're just making trips to Indianapolis to visit her where she's living in Indianapolis, then making trips to visit you? Like it's to, you're spending the majority of time in your separate cities or is it kind of

like we go over here, then we go over there. Right. So my employer, I work remotely and have the flexibility to be back in Indiana during the lowest migraine season, which would typically be the summer. So you'd only be their summer. Oh, boy. Typically, yeah. She would come out to see me when she can. I would come back here when I can. It doesn't preclude that I wouldn't come out other times, but in terms of the biggest amount of time, it would be summertime. And this would be for a 10-year period when she plans to fully retire.

And the way I'm wired, I'll always have to work to keep my brain busy. Let me tell you, let me tell you what I'm thinking right here. And again, this is a decision you guys are going to make. But the two things that pop up to me is 10 years is a very, very long time. And a lot of times what I'm hearing here is several variables that are very important and that you're trying to hang on to every single variable, but they're not all serving you in the right way. Okay, there's the aging kids,

or I'm sorry, the aging parents, there's the grandkids, there's the dream job, there's the health issue. So there's all these things. I really truly think that you're going to have to force rank the top two most important things and make the decisions around that. If everything is important, your marriage goes down the drain.

I just don't see how you can do this financially because I would never hang on to a job simply for a pension, number one, especially at the detriment of you having to spend 10 years like, you know, back and forth. Then there's the part of there's the elder care, but you said the, it sounded like you said, the sister-in-law and her husband were there. There's some other siblings involved? And so why wouldn't we use our flights? Why wouldn't we? And this is just an option. I'm not saying you have to do this. Why wouldn't we, everybody moved to A-Z, and she gets a job there in Arizona, and then you take flights back to visit the grandkids or you take flights back to visit the aging parents.

That feels more balanced than the solution that you're presenting. There may be more to it that I know nothing about, but I think the number one priorities here have to be you staying alive and healthy and you being, keeping your marriage in a state where it can be healthy. And I think that has to go, as painful as that is, I think that has to go above the aging parents and the dementia and the grandkids. Completely agree. That's been my preference all along. I'm up against some resistance and some different interpretations of rank and responsibility than forms of obedience. And so this is kind of the desperation throwdown of we have. had this discussion multiple times, and I'm finally at a point physically and mentally where I have to start making a decision about my help. Understood.

Long term. And so that's the rest of the dynamic. Okay. So you're just saying, yeah, I got to live. I'm going to do this. Hopefully there's a way we can work it out to where this works. Do you guys combine finances right now? Yes.

Okay. So the answer to your question, just to make sure we leave. hit that is how do you afford it? You're going to find affordable housing in Arizona, and that might just mean renting for now. I don't know that I'd go buy a house just for you. I would just rent affordably in the area, and then do you guys have a mortgage in Indianapolis currently? We do. The other piece to this is it's a larger house than we needed. We did get a good deal because of some family connection, so it's going to be a bigger asset at retirement, but we are taking in a renter that will help reduce the mortgage.

And we've done that before sporadically. My intent was to start renting and then see later if I would end up in the condo that we would ultimately retire in. Because renting for 10 years doesn't seem to be terribly wise. What happens at the end of 10 years? Is that kind of the time where you think aging parents might not be part of the picture? What denotes 10 years? 10 years is when we're both 55, she plans to stay with this employer and retire at 65 and then we spend the rest of our life out there.

So really it's... Out there has been the plan all along at retirement. But it really is then now we're seeing where the real priority is. It really is with the job, not the aging and parents with dementia. Those just other factors. Yeah, those were things to sell it. If you took the pension out of the picture, what would you do? Because I think she can get a great job in pharma making six figures and you guys can build

your own wealth over a decade instead of hanging on to all of this just for a pension while your marriage is down the drain. Yes. And so those are some real hard things to consider. I know your health is paramount. You got to take care of yourself, but I don't like the options that we have thus far. You already know the power of generosity and the best gifts make an impact now and eternally. That's what pre-born does. And you can trust them to do it well. They don't just offer free ultrasounds. They support pregnancy clinics across the country with ultrasound machines, training, grants, and evangelism tools. They're faithful with each dollar so moms in crisis can see the life in their wombs. And here's the truth that brings eternal life. Because here's the thing.

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is more than a life preserved. It's a life changed. That's preborn.com slash Ramsey. Sarah is in Boston, Massachusetts. What's going on, Sarah? Hey, you guys. Thank you for taking my call. I really appreciate it. What's going on? Well, my question is, is it unwise for me to move out of my mom's home while paying off my debt? Oh, how old are you? Well, I'm 41. How long you've been living there? I've been back home since November of 2024. Okay.

What happened that got you back into her house? My dad was sick and had passed away, so I wanted to go home and be able to be there for him while he was alive and be able to help where I could. And then he had passed away in February 2025. Oh, so sorry. Thank you. Did you move your whole life? there, like job and everything, kind of relocate? Yeah, pretty much.

I was in Colorado. I had an apartment. I had a full-time job. I was a part-time job as well. I was doing okay. This happened. I just really felt lead to come home. So I literally sold everything I could,

get what I could in my car, and went back home to Massachusetts. How much debt do you have? Actually, it's about $52,000. What kind is that? Break it down for us. Yep. So I have student loan debt. It's around $33,000. I have a vehicle that I own. It's a little over $14,000. And then I have credit card debt around $4,000. Okay. And what do you make? Currently, I make at my full time, I make about $70,000. And then I have a part-time job.

Roughly, I don't know what I make annually there. It does change since part-time. So hopefully I would say I take home about $4,500 a month between jobs. $4,500? Yeah. Okay. So, you know, if you were, so it's been about a year since your loss, how's your mom doing?

She's doing okay. It's a different situation. It's actually, they were, they're actually divorced. They've been divorced for years. Okay. But she was where I came home. I couldn't stay with my stepmom and my dad. So I stayed with her.

I see, I see, I see. But she's doing okay, but it is a different circumstance. Okay. So the purpose of you moving in with your mom was to be there for your dad. It didn't seem like the purpose of that was to pay off debt because you had the same debt when you were in Colorado with the apartment. Yes? Yes. What caused you to not get ahead on the debt?

Was it you just didn't have a mind to pay it off yet or you didn't have the margin? Do you mean when I was in Colorado? Uh-huh. When I was in Colorado, I just didn't have the margin. I mean, I just paid as best I could. Okay. But I just didn't have the margin. So do you think that if you moved out and got yourself in something nice, you know, a fine one-bedroom apartment somewhere around $1,100, you know, $1,100 a month, you would have the margin to do it at that point?

I don't think I have the margins in this area. It's hard to even find a room sometimes. Are you in the city proper or are you in a suburb? I'm a suburb. Okay. And do you work remotely or is it in person? In person. Okay. So I'm wondering, you know, how far of a commute could we handle to get somewhere that's a little less expensive? Can you tell me the area? I'm from that area. I'm just curious. What kind of area are we talking about where it's super expensive in the suburbs?

Because it can range. Metro West. Okay. Metro West area. I would look and see how, what kind of place could I get for just a one bedroom on my own? And here's why. I think it's hard to not stunt your growth and progress while living in mom's house. I would say 90% of the time someone tells me the living at home, they're usually not making the progress they should be based on how little their expenses are. I'd rather you have an outside roommate than live with mom. or dad. Because I think you can get out of this debt in even renting your own place, you can be out of this debt in two years if you got serious. About two grand a month, your debt's cleared.

Yeah. So the question is, how do we create that margin of two grand a month, even if we were renting somewhere? And if you're bringing home four or five grand a month, all right, now we know we need to live on three grand max to make this goal happen. Right. Right. I think that's what I have been. I know those things you guys, I have Benka Zella tents. I know I haven't. I know I'm just trying to kind of manage life right now and still have fun, but they have debt too. So I think I know I can do better. Like I know I can go full force.

I just find that when I do that, it's like it's just, I just think it's all stress, you know, but at the same time, it is. Yeah. I mean, it is hard to, the things that we're talking about, again, they are simple to say, but when it comes time to do them, they do. It takes a lot of mental energy to stick to a plan. It takes a lot of mental fortitude to do the things that you say you're going to do on your budget. And it really does become a full-time job, you know, to pay off your debt. It's like, all right, every day I'm thinking about it. I wake up. I check my every dollar

budget. I'm tracking my transactions. I'm having to pack my lunch. You know, I'm having to make sure I take the food out, you know, of the freezer for dinner so I'm not ordering takeout. It is a lot. but you kind of have to reframe in your brain what's more stressful. Is it more stressful to be 41 years old and, you know, not really able to, not feeling confident to do life on your own? Or is it more stressful to for how long was it, Georgia? Two years. Two years, two grand a month. Yeah.

You'd clear this. I'm ready to do it. You got to. So here's the question mark. Can I ask you this? How much progress have you made while living at mom's house rent free with no expenses? Have you thrown all the extra at the debt? No, I haven't thrown all the extra.

But I have paid off debts. I have paid off several lines of credit. I mean, I am doing it, but I have not put every, you know, every extra. You got to feel, you got to feel the boiling water. It's like a lobster. You got to feel the boiling water. It's going to make you want to jump out of the pot. And that's not a knock on you. I think if I ask most people, they would say the same thing. In fact, I talked to one couple who went further into debt while living with their parents under the guise of, well, we moved in so we could pay off debt faster. But instead, what happened. is you get kind of comfortable. You don't really feel the fire when you have a place to sleep and you're not even paying the rent. And so you go, well, I need a little cushion. I deserve to go out tonight. I deserve to do DoorDash. I think when you're on your own, you're going to feel it in a good way where you go, these are my bills to pay now. And I'm a grown woman.

I'm going to knock out this day. I miss some of the things happening at home where it's definitely pushing the button where I'm like, okay, I think. Your own space. I want you. I didn't want it to. And there's the social. component too. There's a social component of you being able to live your life and meet someone and all those things that go along with this. So just remember, money touches every area of your life. And for you to be really that full, complete person, you want to get those areas healthy and put them in a place where you can really grow to your fullest potential. And living on your own at 41, it's just, it's got to be part of the deal. Yeah, this is a choose your hard situation. Either way, it's going to be hard. But I think the independence that you'll feel actually. actually will cause you to make more progress.

Well, yeah. And then there's the time limit to because if you say, well, it's just harder for me to get out of debt, then you're going to be struggling indefinitely. But if you say, well, it may be hard to get out of debt, but it's only for a two-year period, then you get to shorten the length of the hard season. And that, to me, is a no-brainer. Yeah, that's true. We got time for a quick social question.

Oh, my fave. You ready on this? Yeah, which one? This is from Tracy and the Ramsey Baby Steps community. What are your thoughts on credit cards that offer zero percent interest? If someone budgets, wouldn't these be a helpful financial tool? Okay, so I'll be honest with you. And George, this is where I stand on this.

I know plenty of people who will say, oh, yeah, I'll just take it and I'll pay it off every month. And they never will. They just, they think one thing and another thing happens. The promo period ends and now it's 29% APR all the way back to their start. Or you fall on hard times and what you intended on doing just doesn't happen. there's so many variables that can keep somebody from paying off a zero interest credit card. And then there's a whole thing of like, okay, maybe there's no interest, but it's still something that you owe if you allow it to accumulate just a little bit. You lose your job. It's just another added stressor. So for me, it's kind of like, what's the problem with making an income and just spending the income?

It's kind of like, it's kind of an insult to yourself to go to your job and work hard every day and give your time and your money. money and your effort. And then you look at your paycheck and you go, eh, that's not enough. Toss it to the side. I'm just going to take this credit card instead. I like that. Just become your line of credit with money you actually have. And that's zero percent interest, money all day long in my checking account, and I don't have to pay it back. And you make more intentional decisions when it's your money and you're using it now. So that would be my retort to our friend Tracy. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Sometimes it seems like everyone else's love life is this perfect little hallmark movie. Here's the truth. Married.

dating or single and trying to figure it out, everyone is wrestling with what it means to be in a relationship. I've been married for 23 and a half years. I've got a PhD. My wife has a PhD and we have all the answers and we're still trying to figure out how to keep our marriage on track. Both of us have benefited greatly from time with a good therapist. No matter if you've just met someone or if you've been married forever like I have, therapy can help you find your way in a relationship. identify what you want, what feels heavy, and how you can take some pressure off yourself and build a strong relationship.

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everyone is still finding their way. Find yours with my friends at BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Ramsey to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, h-elp.com slash Ramsey. Well, our team has been working hard behind the scenes to bring you guys a brand new tool. It's called Ask Ramsey, and it's our free AI tool that is built and trained on proven Ramsey principles. And today we're going to break down some of the most asked questions from the week. And there was a lot of themes here, Jade.

Yeah, people are asking, of course we're in tax season, so they're asking a lot of questions about taxes. and mortgages are always a hot topic. And so refinancing, should I pay the mortgage off early? All of that. And then cars, George, cars seems to be a very popular topic as well. A lot of drama and emotion around cars. And here's the number one question we've been seeing. How do I know when it's time to stop putting money toward repairs and decide to sell it and buy something else?

Very common riddle. So let's go over just some basic things to consider here. One is how much is the car worth versus the repair costs? If the car is worth three grand, the repair costs is four grand, well, this is a bad idea. Yeah. And, you know, here we're always telling people to get a cash car, a beater. And so they're thinking, okay, I'm doing a lot of repairs to this car. You know, is it too many repairs?

Have I hit that point where I've just, you know. Is it in the shop more than I'm actually driving it? Exactly. Exactly. Probably time to replace it. And then are the repairs around crucial safety items or is it like a, this would be nice to have or it's cosmetic or just it's an annoyance. Yeah. And then your personal budget matters too.

Do you have the money? Can you even afford a different car? Right. You might not have a choice. So I thought it'll be fun to actually pull up Ask Ramsey Live. Our folks in the booth have it running back there. And let's use a real-life example. Because what's cool about Ask Ramsey is it'll personalize the advice and ask you questions to dig in, just like we would on the show.

So let's try it out. Let's assume I have, this is a real car that I owned not too long ago, a 2009 Honda Civic. And it's worth about $2,500, which hurts my heart. And there's a transmission repair needed for about $1,500. $1,500. All right? So those are our numbers. The car's worth $2,500 repair is $1,500. So they're going to input that, and it's going to be asking them some follow-up questions. Here it is, what's the estimated repair cost? It's $1,500. And it says, how does it compare to your car's value? Well, the value is currently $2,500. So the goal here is ask Ramsey will kind of help us make a recommendation on what we

should do next based on our situation. And it does an incredible job. Our team has been walking us through this, I am so impressed with how on-brand it is. It's the advice you would get right here on the show, but you don't have to call in and hope that you can get through the phone line. So this is something you guys can jump on at Ramsey Solutions.com and do for yourself right now. So here's what it says. If it's $1,500 gets your car running reliably for another year or two, and there aren't any other big repairs coming, fixing it is likely the best move. I couldn't have said it better myself. Yes, but you should experience the full potential by signing in. Yes, because it can save your chats, which that's a good point. If you sign in,

it can actually save your chats and histories. You can go back and reference it and continue the conversation. So here's my challenge to you guys. I know you've got questions. So jump on to ramsysolutions.com. Try it out for yourself. Give Ask Ramsey a test bin. It's right there on the homepage.

You go to Ramsey Solutions.com. You'll see a big open kind of search bar there as you scroll. And that is Ask Ramsey. You'll see our faces next to it. Or click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or YouTube to check it out. Again, that's Ramsey Solutions.com. The tool is Ask Ramsey. we are very excited to see how it helps so many people that we can't get to.

The inbox is full for the Ramsey Show. True that. People that we just simply don't have the time to get to. So think about this. It's like Google, but a thousand times more powerful because it's not giving you a bunch of random answers that you don't have to sort through it. Exactly. So check it out. It's great.

Lori is in Memphis, Tennessee up next. What's going on, Lori? Hey, thanks for taking my call today. Sure. My husband and I have always been on the same page financially. We've been very blessed, and we are debt-free. We have $2.8 million invested. We take out just a minimal each year to live on.

But we do have some fun. We like to travel. We've purchased a new car with cash, different things like that. But we have a little bit of hard time letting go and just living, you know, afraid of what might come around the corner, how long is that going to last us? We retired early at 55. I'm 58. He was 60, so we do have a ways to go, you know, with health care concerns and everything coming up. Sure.

You guys could go another 35 plus years. Yes, exactly. So it's wise to be thinking about that. And you said you have 2.8 in your nest egg? How much are you pulling off it every year? Every year together, we're pulling out 79,500. Okay, let me give you the numbers on that. That's 2.8% of your portfolio you're pulling out every year.

Yes. And if you talk to any financial advisor in America, they would tell you that you would never run out of money if you were taken out four or even 5%. You know, with health care costs the way they are today, we're trying to take our insurance down. And it's just difficult for us to let go. Sure. Well, what you can do is you can kind of estimate, hey, if we have long-term care insurance,

here's how much we're going to pay for that versus paying. it out of pocket. Most people are not in a nursing home or private care for 10 years. They're two to three years. Yeah. And so now you know, all right, it's going to be 100 grand a year for that. So we should set aside 200 to 400 grand to cover us for those things down the line. That's kind of the worst case scenario, right? Yes. And so now you know, hey, if you, you have 2.8 million. If you just live off of the growth and leave the principal, you'll be just fine. Because I know what the stock market has been doing. I don't know what you're invested in. I hope it's not just totally in bonds and cash, and you've actually got some equities in there.

We're the financial advisor, and we do make a good return. I think we got 17% this past year. Yeah, 17%. So think about that. On 2.8 million, that's enough for you guys to spend for like five years, just off of that. And so I think part of it is looking at the math and the reality of it, and then part of it is flexing the muscle. I've gone, man, we work so hard to flex our savings muscle, and it is looking good.

And then this other muscle, the spending muscle, is atrophied in the meantime. And so it takes time. It takes time to let go. You wrote a check for that new car. How much was it? Well, we had a trade-in, and then we spent $47,000 cash. Did that shock you? Did that, like, hurt your soul a little bit to write that check?

It did. And then the next time you do it, it's going to hurt a little less, isn't it? Because you're like, oh, I've been here before. We're spending 50 this time, and it's kind of like, all right, our life didn't change. We're not broke. I know. We've always paid cash for cars. Our home is paid for. We put our daughter through college. She's graduating with a four-year degree and her master's degree just May. Amazing. So, and she's going to be, you know, debt-free from college.

So we've done the right things. It's just at this point, we're still young to be retired. And, you know, we're just afraid of taking that next step and kind of let go a little bit. I mean, even to the point of, you know, we thought about putting a swimming pool, for example, and that's $70,000. And we said, we can do without the swimming pool. I think what George says is a really good exercise. When you feel fear about something, you've got to decide, is this something I can solve? Like usually the ones that are kind of vague and kind of ambiguous, oh, if I spend this money on the pool, I'm going to ruin everything.

Well, what's that mean? Like, drill that down and try to make it a more realistic fear so that you can actually solve for it. What are you going to afraid? What are you afraid is going to happen? Are you, and one of the things you mentioned is health care. Are you afraid that a $70,000 pool is going to keep you from having health care in your later years? Well, then you just, you have to ask your scope, is that actually true? And when you say, no, it's not, because I ran the math.

that's not true. Now we're talking about true versus false. It's not even, you know, a thing of fear anymore. Is that even true? Can I give you something that's true? If you made 17% on $2.8 million, that's $476,000. Oh, I know. That's multiple swimming pools, and that's not even touching the principle. And so again, looking at the facts and going, we're going to be okay. The pool thing comes into play because when you resell your house, can you get the money back out? Who cares about resale? You're not even thinking about reselling your house because you're thinking about putting in a pool. That's a question for your kids to have if this is where you want to stay long term.

And the resale value, it's likely not going to tank. It may not go up significantly enough to cover the cost of the pool and the maintenance. But you're not doing it for that. You're doing it to enjoy. That's why you work so hard and retired early and busted your butts investing over the long haul so that you can enjoy it. So remember this part, live like no one else so that you can live and give like no one else. and part of that is literally forcing yourself to enjoy the money in a budget. And so I would up your fund money, Lori, and up his fund money to an amount that kind of

you're like, this is uncomfortable to spend this much on myself. Because you go, I don't deserve this. I'm not worth it. What if I run out of money? And instead, start going, I deserve this and we're not going to run out of money. We set ourselves up for a life of abundance, not scarcity. And doing that budget and forcing yourself to spend over time, I think you'll get there. And a good exercise, go do the people.

pool and realize you're okay. We're down to 2.73 million now. Oh, no. Yeah. What are we going to do? You got this. Maria is in Albuquerque up next. What's going on, Gloria? What's going on? Thank you for taking my call. So my question is, we are on baby step six, and my husband and I are both teachers. Our son is 28. He's been married for five years. This last year, he has stopped working. working to do full-time Christian recordings. He's a musician. He's a Christian recording artist. It is not paying him at the time. He's trying to build up an album. He has about 47,000 monthly listeners. Great. And so, yeah, we're excited. 47,000? Is that like Spotify listeners? Yes. So you probably made $4 this month from Spotify. That's exciting. Absolutely. Love it. Absolutely. He's also

the music minister at church, that does pay him about 600 monthly. His wife is a teacher also, and so right now she is providing financially. We're hoping that this ministry helps him provide financially, but he is living, they are living in our rental. The rental has not been making any profit. They pretty much just pay the taxes, maintenance. And so even though we're baby step six, my husband and I are contemplating on just gifting him the home or gifting them the home. And that's my question. Am I, are we doing this wrong? Are we supposed, yeah, financially.

I feel like God is just providing in every way possible. We don't even feel not getting that passive income. We don't feel it. He's just, we're blessed right now. And so that's my question. The rental is paid for in cash? You don't owe anything on it? The rental, yeah, the rental has been paid.

We paid that off quite a long time ago. And in our home, we owe about $86,000. We are set free, thank God. When will you be done? When will you be done with yours? Well, I'm hoping in five years or sooner. Because we can put about 2,000, extra a month and I will be graduating with my PhD in December and so I feel everything is in place

What's your home worth? It's worth maybe about 300,000. Our neighbors have sold for about 500,000, but ours is three bedroom. What's the rental worth? I'd say about 150, but it would probably sell for less. Okay. So why gift it to them? Why not just say you guys don't have to pay the costs right now for a season? Good question. Because there's also tax implications you've got to think about. Because if they inherit the house, they'll have a step up and basis versus what you paid for it. And now they're paying the capital gains if this house continues to appreciate.

So that's one piece. And the other part is I don't like artificially propping up their life because I want them to have a sense of independence and be able to cover their bills on their own. And I also know he's pursuing a dream right now. And he's on the way. Like he's doing great. And I also know that Jade and I are musicians, and there was a time I was working full-time and doing albums and playing gigs at night. And that's just the path of being a musician and being in that world. And so I would encourage him to figure out a way to cover his own family's bills while pursuing this dream, if that's possible.

I hear you. That's kind of how I started this journey, too, is I hustled quite a lot to start these steps. And my husband and him were like, no, I don't want to do that. And then when they saw me like getting stuff paid, they're like, all right, talk to me. And then we all hopped on the Dave Ramsey, the baby steps. And yes, everything you're saying actually makes a lot of sense. I guess being emotionally invested, you know, he's our son. And two, the most important thing is that it's a ministry that he's, you know, doing to try and bring others to Christ.

and that's where it gets really tricky. Yeah. I mean, you can support, you know, if you want to support the ministry in that regard, that's fine to do that and say, hey, we want to gift you $1,000 a month for the next year so that you're less worried about your bills and to support you as you pursue this album. Who's paying for the album? Because that's not cheap. They have money saved up. Like before he got married, I made sure he had a fully funded emergency fund and, you know, that he, yeah. Okay, so they're not struggling.

They didn't do this out of a place of desperation. They're still doing fine, even with teacher's salary and his $600 a month from minister at church. They're doing okay. They don't actually need your money. I just, see, I don't see those things because I'm, yes, I need it. And that's why I called because I'm like, I need to see someone who's not emotionally involved. Is it just you or is it your husband too? Both of us, my husband and I think he's our son.

And he is 100% on board with this, or does he have any qualms? No, he has no qualms. We just feel, I don't know, I just, we're trying to stay faithful to God. And I don't put this feel that he's just telling us to do it. I'm not going to tell me, if you tell me, God told me to do something, I'm not going to be the one to tell you know. I'm not going to get struck by lightning getting in between that. Right. But if you want to know just practical or logistic thoughts, I'm with George in the way that I think

they're at a critical point of deciding what they're going to do and having the motivation to work for it. For most of us, the motivation is I got to take care of my family. I got to make, do you know what I'm saying? I have to hit certain standards in order to live and survive and provide a life. And that creates great motivation. And when that's kind of taken out from under you in the form of a gift, it can actually end up taking away, right? It's like it can do the opposite. You feel like you didn't really earn it in a sense. Yeah.

We've talked about can this move hurt him? Is it removing part of his contribution? Because they're so young. They're so young. They're just getting started. They're 26. You said he's 28? He's been married five years?

Okay. Oh, 28. Here's what I would do as a parent. I would not cover his bills. I would help fund the dream. I think that helps you separate this in your mind. If I'm not helping prop him artificially, I'm just going, hey, I believe in this mission,

I believe in this music, I'm going to help pay for the publicity for the album, or I'm going to pay for the recording studio time for the album. And you could still have... That is a great blessing. And you could still have the goal, like knowing in your hearts you are going to gift him this home, you know, initially, or I'm sorry, eventually,

but just not yet. I just feel like, if you're asking my opinion, it feels very early in his growth and in his career to do that. Okay. And our journey too financially, I just, you know, we're trying to see, should we skip this step? Because we are not in step seven.

And that's where like the rule, I mean, we tithe, but we don't give like we want to. So hopefully we will get there. What do you mean by should we skip this step? Well, because we're on baby step six. And then when we really give, that's what comes at baby step seven. When you are just, yeah, when you're just like ready to, okay, where am I going to help? And that's the other part of this. That's the other part of this is you still have a mortgage that you need to pay off.

And I'm not suggesting that you need to sell this house and pay off or mortgage or anything like that. But I am saying that you, to get yourself in the proper position to really be able to be that outrageously generous is going to make you feel even better about the gift, I think, when the time does come. Okay, good, very good advice. I had not thought of a lot of angles that you all brought up. There's some big implications. It's a big financial decision. And so I would just start small, and you can always ramp it up later. And so if you want to let them not pay for living in the rental right now, that's a nice thing to do. If you want to give money towards, you know, whatever pieces are left for him to fund the dream that he wants to do, that's all so wonderful. But I wouldn't just gift him a house right now. I think it's too big of them. There's just a lot of dignity and going out and being able to provide for yourself and hit those milestones that I think we all want to hit. Now, I'm sure there's a lot of people listening right now going,

you're stopping him, you know, you're stopping him, you know, you're stopping him, you know, but it's true, you know, there's something to be said for that. Well, the thing is, he doesn't need a house right now. He needs a successful music career. Yeah, true. And so anything you can do to actually help that part, I would aim my financial guns there versus just helping cover the bills. Because that's not really where they're struggling.

What he needs right now is get the word out. You know, let's get more listeners. Let's get maybe it's, I don't know if it's a record deal, a songwriting, publishing deal. There's a lot of other moving pieces of this, and I wish him the best. 47,000 listeners is about 47,000 more than I have. So keep it up, my man.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. I'm George Campbell, joined by bestselling author, Jade Warshaw, and we're taking your calls at AAA, 825 5225. Elijah is in Boston up next. What's going on, Elijah?

Hello, how you doing? We're doing great. What's your question today? So my fiancé and I, we currently have $130,000 saved up. We have an additional $100 into, like, stocks and stuff, but we really just want to leave that. And we're looking to use $130 to buy a house. First, initially, we got pre-approved for, like, $300,000. We put an offer on the house, had an inspection done, and found out all these things were wrong with it.

So we backed out of the deal. And we're like, well, maybe we should just build a house. We have no experience doing that, though. And it's the wintertime where we live. We're actually living in a camper right now. We did that. We sold our house, bought a camper this way we can downsize and save some money. So you had a house previously that you owned?

Yeah, this was about five years ago that we sold it. And, you know, we kind of downsized. We wanted to just kind of, you know, have less debt. We really didn't need that much space anymore. But now we're finding ourselves in a position where do we buy or do we build? What's your budget for the house? What is our budget to? So we were looking to spend if we build $130,000 is pretty much our budget.

Not including the land. We figured we financed the land and just, you know, pay everything else out of pocket. Okay, well, all in then, how much do you plan to spend? So $130,000 on the actual home, how much would you spend on the land? So, for example, we found a piece of property in the area where we live. It's $40,000. We put down 25%. That's 10.

But, you know, we still got to do a septic, a well, you know, all these utilities. And it's just added enough. So is the goal to live, like, off, you know, off property, off the land somewhere, not in a society? Is that your goal? Well, no, not like a. off grid, that would be great, but it's just, in our area, it's really not an option. You know, most of the land that we find is like we have to be on utilities to some degree in this area.

So, you know, I'm excuse me, our goal is just to be debt-free. We have all this money. We're like, why do we need to go be in debt right now? Well, it almost sounds like you had one bad experience and it's kind of turned you off to the whole thing, and now you're kind of gone, not to say that building a house is an extreme, but it's kind of like you went to the extreme of, well, if this didn't work out, we just have to go build our own thing and start from scratch. Right.

If you want to build a house and start from scratch, I think that's great. But if you just had a bad experience and maybe you just need to spend a little bit more time with another realtor or, you know, looking at some different properties, why not just do that? So I think you guys have to decide what it is that you actually want. Yeah. What do you want? Well, I guess what it is, yeah, that's the thing is that we just don't want debt. in our area, the houses are just selling for, like, well above, you know, what we're willing to pay, you know, $400,000, and these houses are still, like, fix their uppers, you know?

And it just doesn't justify putting ourselves in debt. Right, I see. How much do you guys make? So we make together over, like, about $120,000 a year. Great. Are those remote jobs or do you have to be there in office? Well, I'm a school bus driver, and she's a nurse. So we have to be in office.

Okay, because I'm just thinking you don't want to be 45 minutes out somewhere with septic and trying to do all that. First of all, it's going to be a full-time job if you're going to build from scratch and deal with all these contractors. And so I would start for now to avoid the headache of what you guys can afford in your area. And even if you had a small mortgage that was very reasonable as far as your take-home pay is concerned, that's okay. It's not a sin to have a mortgage and you can knock it out fast and get aggressive with it. and if you're going, hey, I cannot find anything for $130,000. Welcome to 2026 in America, especially in Boston, Massachusetts, which is where I'm from. So I can tell you, it's not cheap over there.

And if you guys live there, you're going to have to decide, do we want to rent? And for a while, until we can have more money so that this is less of a burden or we can pay cash. Or do we just want to go, we're going to put as much down as we can, sell the stocks, put $200 grand down, and get a $50,000 or $100,000 mortgage. How long did it take to save the $130? Well, honestly, it took us about a year or so, and a lot of it had to do it when we sold the house. Yeah, how much of it came from that? Well, honestly, we have in total 230, but I don't know what we have in stocks, like what we've gained. I mean, you know, like what it's valued at.

So you have 230. Hold on. Let's sort through this money. Yeah. How much is in stocks? A hundred of it is in stocks, and then we put 130 away for like, It's called our house fund. Okay, so you have, if you were to sell off the stocks somewhere around 230 total. Okay. Yeah. I'm asking.

Is there any money anywhere else we should know about? Okay. Does that, go ahead. No, no, no, no, nothing else. Okay. So you would definitely want to have some sort of an emergency fund set aside. So some of that money needs to be set aside. You keep it liquid, keep it in a high yield savings account.

But I'm with George. I think that if you can, I hate debt too. I do, but I think with this real estate market, there is something to be said for getting in when you can get in and when you can actually afford to do so. And I think that if you guys can find something that's no more than 25% of your take home when it's all said and done on a 15-year fixed rate, I would do that in two seconds. And that's exactly what I did, Elijah. We, on our first townhome, my wife and I, we put down 40% because we're crazy people and then we paid it off in 26 months because again, we're crazy people. That's what I suggested. I'm like, well, what if we just put down more money, at least then we'll have, you know, our mortgage won't be so high.

Yeah. We'll have less debt. And then we can work on paying it off faster. And even if we ever decide to sell it, we have more equity in the house. Exactly. And so that's what I would do. Put down as much as possible, which lowers your mortgage and your payment, which allows you to have more margin to throw at the mortgage to knock it out fast. Because here's the other thing you got to think about.

If it takes you five more years to save up and pay cash, well, guess what happened to the housing market in the next five years? it went up. It's getting worse. Yeah. The goal post keeps moving. And so do it when you're financially ready, when you can get that payment to 25% or less of your take-home pay on a 15-year-fixed and you find a house that you guys go, this is great. Yeah, I mean, if you sold off those stocks, let's say you kept $30,000 aside for a three-to-six-month expenses.

And let's say you found something that was worth $350,000, you put $200 down. That's great. 15-year fixed-rate mortgage. You're right in the parameter that you need to be. Yeah. What you're going to get for $3. $350,000 may not be what you're picturing in your mind, but you've got to start somewhere and you got to get in where you fit in. Yeah, and two years from now that house is paid off and now it's worth $400,000.

Exactly. Now you can roll all of that into another house and do the same thing or even pay cash with the money you can say all the time. I really hope that there's a way that I can get this call and play it for my fiancee because I've been trying to say this and she's like very skeptical. Understandably so, but she actually introduced. me to you guys at show. Oh, great. Listen, she will listen to Jade Warshaw. Yeah. I'll tell you that much. And you're lucky for you. Everything we say is on the internet forever. So you can tune in on YouTube and catch this call. And we can have our team send you a link as well so that you don't miss it.

I like that. Yeah, get into that. If you haven't already, go to Ramsey Solutions.com and look at the mortgage calculator. And that's all I used to figure that out for you. You can use it to. And you can calculate it at an interest rate, 15-year fixed rate. And that's how I did it. And while you're on the website, you can reach out to a real estate pro in your area. And this is a crew that we have vetted. Real estate pros that do it the Ramsey Way, who aren't going to let you buy a house that you can't afford, who want you to become debt-free as fast as possible. And so, man, I think you just need some tools.

You need some tools, some math, some reset expectations, and maybe let go of the baggage of the past of how we feel about home ownership. Either way, it's going to be hard. But I love your dream of becoming debt-free as soon as possible. Okay, picture this. You sit down to do your taxes, but instead of stressing out, you're actually ahead of the game and filing with an affordable software that makes your computer shoot confetti when you're done. Okay, not that last part. But Ramsey Smart Tax does make filing easy and doesn't make your bank account cry.

Ramsey Smart Tax is a 100% accurate software that's honest about its pricing and is backed by a company who's been in the business for over 50 years. So go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash smart tax to take advantage of early bird pricing and stress-free filing. That's ramesysolutions.com slash smart tax. Guys, the VIP package is officially sold out on the Live Like No One Else Cruise, but there's still a chance to lock in the preferred package, which gives you extra access, better seating for all the events, and more time with Dave and us Ramsey personalities on board. We're so excited for this.

If you're debt-free, this is your chance to celebrate with us. You can secure your cabin with a $600 deposit today and join us in the Western Caribbean in March of 2027. Click the link in the show notes, or you can go to ramsesolutions.com slash events to book your cabin and get the preferred package before it's gone. It's going to be a good time. David is in New York up next. David, welcome to the show.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. I love the show. Thank you. So my wife, yeah, I appreciate it. My wife and I are in baby Step 6, and about a year and a half ago I was laid off from a tech executive leadership role that I had. I was making really good money. We were plowing through to paying off a mortgage and saving for a mortgage.

retirement. And then for the following year, I just really hunkered down and was applying as a full-time job, and I applied to 1,500 jobs, and I stopped counting. But about six months ago, I took some various jobs that I could find in my network here, but my income is going down from like $250 plus bonus down to like $50K. And my life works, but what I'm trying to decide now is do I keep looking for tech jobs in this greater New York City area, which hasn't really connected yet. Or do we take the equity out of our home here and move to a lower cost area that we've already been talking about doing, like North Carolina or the greater Atlanta area? Well, there is a tech economy, and the hard part there is the grandkids, so that's the hard part

we're wrestling with. Are the grandkids in New York City? Yeah, I have three of my four adult children live in the area, and they are all now married and have little ones. Oh, that's fun. Well, taking the job out of it. Yeah, take the job and income out of it. What would you guys do? Stay in New York City or move? We would move, and we've already had two of our adult children say that they would follow us

because they can't afford to live either. So it's like, hey, we could all use some lower cost of living. You'll just be the first to go. Okay. Totally. Well, have you applied to jobs out there? Do you have any connections out there? I have.

I have applied up and down the East Coast. some of those tech areas. I think what happens, though, is they don't take you seriously. If it's a hybrid job and you don't live in the area, it's really hard to break through. So I wonder if I position myself there if they would take me more seriously as a candidate. It would be easier for women if you're local. Exactly. Yeah. And I've had a lot of interviews. It seems like the whole remote tech thing has gone now the hybrid thing. Yeah, that's died out. And people are going, nope, I want you in office at least some of the time, if not. the whole time. And so that's, I think, going to be their foreseeable future. I would try out

some of Ken's tools and resources before you make any of these decisions, because he's got a great book called The Proximity Principle, and it'll help you figure out how to not just be another digital, you know, resume application in a stack. Because applying for 1,500 jobs, you can pretty much do with a click of a button. And so you and everyone else and AI is now applying, and bots are applying for jobs. And so you've got to stand out in the crowd. You've got to know somebody. You need to have some kind of connection referral. And even here at Ramsey, the ones that gets to the top of the pile are the referrals from team members going, hey, my buddy, he's sharp, he's applying for the job, can you guys take a look at it? And straight to the top of the stack. That's what you need.

What would it mean for your wife's job if you guys were to move? Yeah, she has a job. Thankfully, her company is national and she can do her same job anywhere. Okay, good. And the news is that she has the health insurance right now. So that's good news. Great. What's she earn? She's making about 50K. Okay. So you guys are making it work in New York City right now on 100K? Yeah, it's tight. We have about $200 to rub together at the end of the month, but as long as we don't have a major expense, here's the part that scares me, though, is our emergency fund went down from 50K to 5K. Ooh. Yeah, it's precarious for you. Yeah. So you're partially sort of artificially funding this from the emergency fund?

Yeah, I mean, most months we were treading water, and if there's a big expense, it does a deal. get back into it, which is scary, obviously. Yeah, this is becoming more and more of a, it would be nice to, we have to do this. Yeah, I think so too. I agree. You're on the cusp of going into debt. We have every weekend. If you didn't do tech, what would you do?

I mean, I know I have transferable skills, so I could, I could lead, like, a client services organization. I'm helping my friend right now with, like, you know, revops and building out his construction business. I have a, yeah, go ahead. Have you applied for like adjacent type roles? I have about five versions of my resume, and I've been applying to a variety of them. But I tell you, the best interviews that I get are the ones that are like, you know, executive recruiters that reach out to me.

That tends to go further. Sure. I've been a finalist more times when I can count. Yeah, it might be worth kind of using a headhunter to help you get in the door if you have that level of experience and people are looking for top talent. So there's a lot of things you can do. and I just don't want you kind of spin in your wheels while running out of money in the meantime. And so that might mean finding extra jobs right now just to float you to not dip into that emergency fund until you guys decide to move or you get a different job.

And it might be on her too. I think she needs to find a better paying job if you guys are going to stay in New York City. Yeah, I know. It's tough here. It's very expensive. Thankfully, we have a ton of equity in the house. So we're going to, if and when we do move, we'll make out really well. Imagine being able to buy something in cash in North Carolina and make the move and make more money than you're making. You're going to feel like a bagillion. It's fabulous.

Well, I'm wishing to the best, man. That's a tough job market. It's not on you. It just really is tough out there, and it's going to take getting a little more creative and a little more personal to get that gig. Tori is in Dayton, Ohio up next. Tori, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for taking our call. We have a 30-year mortgage and are wanting to pay additional.

on the principal so we can afford the 15 year. If we dropped our investing from 15% to company match for only two years, in addition to what else we can squeeze from our budget, we could get the principal low enough to afford the 15 year. Would that be wise or debt-free except the mortgage, make $175K annually, and already have $350K in retirement? Cool, cool, cool. So you're saying you want to lower investing in order to afford the 15-year payment

as far as if you refinanced? Yes, yeah. And just lowering the retirement, so it gives us an extra grand a month to put towards the principal on top of everything else we're going to be throwing at the principal. Why do you feel the need to refinance?

Why not just throw any and all extra money at the principal when it comes time to do so? So we are doing that. I think just sometimes when we look like on your all's calculators and things, it's just like so much interest we're paying. And so we would like to get to the 15-year. But the faster you pay it, the less interest you'll pay. We can't technically afford it with the principle that we still owe.

Yeah. The principle still applies, though, I mean, principle PLE, that if you put extra on the 30-year, you're going to save interest as well. Right. And so I wouldn't do it. I mean, I'm a big fan of the 15-year mortgage, but there's a time and a place to refinance. And that is, you're debt-free, except the house, you're investing 15 percent and can keep it there. Right.

You can comfortably afford the 15-year-old. 15-year payment, and you've got to think about the break-even point. It's going to cost you two to five percent of your loan to refinance. So if it costs you $8,000 and it saves you 400 a month, well, you've got to stay there 20 months just to break even. And so that's the part that worries me. I don't know that you're going to see significant savings instantly to the point where this is a no-brainer. Now, if you had an 8% mortgage and you can go down to a 3%, well, the numbers might make sense. But if you're going to go down 1%, and it's going to take five years to break even, just so you can feel better about it, I wouldn't do it. I would just pay aggressively on that 30

and pretend like it's a 15. Okay. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. Absolutely. You can crunch the numbers on our mortgage payoff calculator. Just use your 30 year and say, if we put two grand extra a month, we would save $100,000 in interest and pay it off in the next seven years. And so just you can still be aggressive about the goal. And maybe there is a time in place you refinance and it make sense, but I don't know based on what you told me of having to lower investing to make this happen. That's the part that I was like, eh, that doesn't feel right. If you can go back in time, we'd probably realize you shouldn't have bought this house with this level of mortgage. Right. But here we are. It's okay. You guys are doing great. You're crushing it. You got money in retirement.

You make great money. I would just aggressively attack it and knock it out. And a great reminder, if you guys want to check that calculator out. It's completely free. Ramsey Solutions.com. It's our mortgage payoff calculator. It will light a fire under you to see that. that amortization schedule. Indeed. And how much you're giving your lender as a gift for them giving you this loan. It's generally in the six-figure range is what you're going to see is what you gave them on top of the loan. That hurts your soul. Hey guys, what's up? It's Jade. And I'm pumped for the new year. And I hope you are too. But the problem is most people start the new year with a lot of promises and no real plan. You know how it is. I'm going to save money or I'm going to get my

financial act together. But without a plan, you just wing it and hope it works. out. Listen, don't play yourself. I want you to win. And our every dollar app is the game changer you need. In 15 minutes, every dollar helps you build a plan based on where you're at with money right now. And every day, the app coaches you with ways to find extra money so you can beat debt and build wealth faster. It's like having me in your pocket, helping you stay on track all year long. So don't just wish your money works out. You can be the one to actually make it happen this year. the every dollar budget app and get started right now for free. In the lobby of Ramsey's Solutions on the debt-free stage, we have Brian and Tara with us.

Welcome, guys. Hi. Where are you guys from? We are from Clarksville, Tennessee. Right down the road. Wonderful. Well, thanks for being with us to celebrate. Congratulations.

How much debt did you guys pay off? Thank you. We paid off $411,000, $500. It's a lot of dollars. It is. How long did that take? It took eight years and seven months. Wow.

Awesome. And what was the range of income during that time? $70,000, up to $250,000 now. Wow. What was the raise due to? Was it just you guys working harder? Someone got a job, got promoted? Yeah, promotions. I mean, we took on some side jobs. Started a couple small companies as well throughout the way. So a couple different things. That's incredible. Okay, what do you guys do for a living? I'm the chief operating officer for a ready-mix concrete company. Okay. And I'm a teacher slash stay-at-home.

mom. Awesome. That's a fun slash. Yeah. Okay. And what kind of debt was the 411? So it was student loans, two cars, lots of credit cards, and then our mortgage. Wow. Way to go. You just busted through. We did. Okay. Did you even stop to breathe or did you just go right through two, three, into four, five, six? So we had a little bit of a lull after we paid off all the consumer debt. And then we just jumped right back in. Wow. That's a little. That's exciting. And I got to ask, what was the mortgage comparatively to the consumer debt? So the mortgage was about $298,000.

Wow. Okay. The consumer debt was $113. So what was the spark that lit the flame to start all of this eight years back? I'd say family. Her sister was following the plan with her husband, and they kind of talked to us about financial peace, and we started along the way. Yeah, when we got married, she gave us the CDs, the Total Money Makeover.

We listened to those together, skeptically. Yeah, I was going to ask, how do you get someone on the Ramsey plan? Because you must have taken it as a diss when she's like, hey, you need this. Listen to these CDs. You guys are broke. Yeah, well, she gave them to us, and we listened, and we were kind of like, we like, eh, we like it, good ideas. So we kind of started paying off a little bit of extra debt here and there,

but we did like the Davish for about a year. It wasn't until we took a job in Texas, and we started making us a financially larger amount of money. And then we looked at our bank account one day, and we were like, hold on a second. We're still living paycheck to paycheck. Where is this raise going? And we looked at all of our budget items and kind of figured out where all the money was going. And we were like, whoa, we're spending that much money going out to eat. That is crazy.

So we got on the every dollar budget and we started to just cut everything out that we didn't need to have. And that's when we really started going gazelle against all the debt. Wow. You just were like, we need to be doing better. This is insane. Like we were making so much more money. And did lifestyle creep hit you where you were just kind of spent everything extra that you were making? Yeah, for sure.

I mean, we were going out to eat a lot. I mean, you never realized how much money you're spending in restaurants. Do you actually look at it? So, yeah, it definitely hit us. I mean, we made more money, but we spent it as well. So how long did it take to do the first portion? So the first portion of this is like $11,000. That's like the consumer debt.

How long did that part take? So that took us 22 months. Okay. Fast. And so then you decided, you know what? That feels really good. We're going to start working on the house. And it sounds like you really were just intentional about it,

not nearly as intense maybe as the other debt, or was it just as intense? It was definitely more intentional, I think. We made a lot of sacrifices and took on some extra jobs. Like he said, we opened two businesses, and that brought in a lot of income on the weekends. And, yeah, that's really cool. I'm curious, what was your, like, life hack to paying off this mortgage early? Because people, and you see TikToks about how to do it, and I go, just pay extra on the principal. So were you guys paying an exact amount of an intentional goal, or was it, hey, depending on how much we have extra this month, we're going to just chunk it at the mortgage?

We just chunked it at the mortgage every month. I mean, whatever we didn't spend on the budget, we put towards the mortgage. What was, like, the lowest amount you put on the mortgage in a month and what's the highest? Do you remember? So we get a yearly bonus. Oh, nice. And so we pretty much threw everything extra during the year. And then when we got the bonuses, we would throw it at it.

That's incredible. I think one of the largest was $80,000. Oh, that's got to feel good. That's juicy. Yeah, that's nice. That is incredible. Well, you guys have worked your tails off. Have you done anything to celebrate?

Yes. We went on a cruise. We went on a cruise. Yes. Just one? Just one. Just one so far. So what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is house and everything?

I think you've just got to start chipping away. I mean, you look at the number and it seems like a really big number. You seem like you'll never get there. But I think every little bit counts and you just got to work your way towards it. Yeah. And sticking with a budget, also, if we hadn't got on the budget, we would have never been able to do it. So figuring out how much you're spending. and cutting that down as much as you can.

I love it. And you had some cheerleaders along the way, of course, family, giving you the CDs, sing, listen to this. Anyone else? That was a part of the journey? That was pretty much it. My sister, they actually paid off all of theirs about two years ago. So we came and celebrated with them a couple years ago.

That little extra fire under you. Like, all right, we're next. Yeah. Buckle up. Wow, that's great. So how do you explain the feeling to someone of being completely debt-free? Yeah, it's hard to explain. I don't even know.

Like it just feels like freedom. You almost wonder what to do with your money the next month. It's an odd feeling. Yeah. That's a good problem to have. Yeah, what did you do with it the next month? We still save it. Yeah, we still save it.

We're hoping to invest in some real estate here pretty soon. I love that. Maybe a little bit going towards the kids one day. I see some off to the side. Yeah. Getting antsy. You want to bring them up? Yeah.

Okay, let's get their names and ages as they come up on stage with you. Was that a big why for you guys? having the kiddos along the way? Because are any of them, like, they weren't even born yet when you guys started the journey, it looks like. Yeah, this is Elliot. She is five. Cooper is two, and then we have an eight-month-old walking around somewhere with an aunt. That's fun.

But, yeah, actually, none of them were born when we started. Wow. So a lot of life happened along the way, and you guys stayed intentional. It may have slowed down in seasons here and there, but you guys had your eye on the prize. Yes. Oh, beautiful. So cute. Oh, my God.

All right, we'll make it quick, buddy. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Oh, it's okay. Let's get to it. Here it is. We've got Brian and Tara from Clarksville, Tennessee. $411,000 paid off in eight years and seven months, making $70, $2.50. House and everything paid off.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Ready? Three, two, one. We're a debt-free. Cry for joy. That's why I'm saying an actual debt-free scream. Oh, my goodness.

I love it. We're screaming for all kinds of things. He's probably screaming for some, I don't know, milk right now. He's hungry. Oh, my goodness. That's exciting. That is exciting. Whenever someone pays off their mortgage, ooh. Especially when they have so much time on their side. Oh, gosh. They're not even close to retirement. They're going to be a billionaires. Like, think about it, how much wealth they can build just investing that mortgage payment every month. That's right. You know, two grand from 40 to 65 with compound growth. You're like, well, that's an extra couple million right there. Yeah. These are people who understood that if you just decide, The time is going to pass anyway, and you can just build little by little, and you look up,

and you're exactly where you want it to be, but it takes time. Yeah, and he's so right. You see that big mortgage balance, and you're like, well, we can't pay it off early. It's $300,000. What's the point? We'll just make the minimum payment. We're going to move eventually anyways. Who cares?

That's just so passive. That's normal in America. And instead, he went, you know what? We're going to knock out a little bit and a little bit, and soon it's going to be $250, and next thing you know, it's $200. Yes. And now it's $150. Yes.

Now we're under 100,000 or like, we can see the finish line. And it's so funny because people are afraid of the sacrifice, but I look at them and I'm like, they're intact. They live their life. Their clothes don't have holes in it. They look like they eat just fine. You know what I mean? Like they're here and they're fine.

And so everybody who's afraid of the struggle or afraid of the timeline, man, just embrace it. It's going to happen. And you'll look up and you can be just like them. We have villainized sacrifice in today's world. You know, George, you said it, and I got to go on that because it's so true. And I think the world, you know, the way the world is, it has set us up to not embrace the things that take boredom, patience, sacrifice. You know, our brains, they just want everything right now. And that's not the way money works.

Everything we teach requires boredom, patience, and sacrifice. Yes. If you can learn to be a crockpot and a world full of microwaves, you're going to build so much wealth and be the weirdest person on the planet. and people will go, must be nice. Well, they must have got lucky. Must have had an inheritance. They went, yeah, they worked their butts off to get some luck. Maybe you should too.

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. Our scripture of the day, Joshua 1-9, have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Amen.

Anne Rand said, the question isn't who is going to let me, it's who is going to stop me. Ooh. You guys say it with your chest. Jay just bowed up a little bit. All right. Duane is in Jacksonville, Florida up next. What's going on, Dwayne? Hi.

Thank you. Sure. How can we help? All right. So I'm wondering how much to spend on a replacement for my wife's car. So she right now has a SUV. We need a little more room next year. Three kids.

carpool. So we're looking to trade up for a minivan. So this one I could probably get 5, 6, maybe 7,000. And I'm looking for probably a good quality minivan that'll last a while, basically. So trying to figure out how much to spend. Cool. What do you guys make here? About 55 after taxes. All right. And what other vehicles do you have? So I have a used Accura and I just sold my Nissan for that. Okay. So you got the used Accura plus this SUV right now? Mm-hmm. What is the used Accura worth?

17 and a half. Okay. And do you guys have any debt? No, just for the house. Awesome. That's good. How much do you have saved for the car so far that's outside of your emergency fund? So I basically have like 85 or so thousand in investments A fair amount of that is set aside for Upcoming construction on a house

But I'm feeling like we could push that off a little And take a little more of that for a car if that makes sense What kind of investments is it in Is it just in a brokerage account? Wrong to be conservative in what's it called With an investing company I forget the name But it's just a normal tax

brokerage account, it's not anything for retirement, right? There is a rough IRA in there, too. Okay. But you wouldn't touch that to use for any of these goals, construction or the car? Definitely not. Okay. How much do you want to spend on this thing? I'm thinking around 15, but I'm wondering if I might make sense to go a little better and get something that'll be a little more reliable for a longer time without spending too much of maintenance.

Okay. Well, I'll give you the parameters. Number one, you've done it the right way so far. You're debt-free, you've got an emergency fund, you're going to pay cash for this thing. And the other parameter is that you don't want anything with wheels and motors to add up to more than half your annual income. So take your gross household income. What does that add up to? Is it closer to 70, 75? Well, my parents are actually really nice and still help out with me, very willingly. So I don't really have to feel too much pressure to earn more quickly. I have more of a long-term plan with earning more with a job trajectory that have taken. Okay. So, what's a really? your current household income, though. You said 55 is the take home. What's the gross?

68. Okay. So if we take, you know, you're 68, right, and where you divide that by two, that means the max for all the cars in your life is 34. You own an ACRA that's worth 17, so let's take that out. That leaves you with 17 to spend on the car. That would be kind of my top limit for the car, is that 17 grand. I'd be very comfortable with that if you guys have the cash and you want to buy a $17,000 used minivan. I think you can get a great one. And if you have folks, focus on, you know, reliable makes and models in years, do your research and go, all right, we're going to get a, I don't know, I'm making this up, a 2016 Toyota Sienna.

Yeah, something like that. That, you know, so just kind of start to figure out what's in the range, figure out when the biggest repairs happen and what they are and how much they'll cost. And then you'll kind of go into it knowing what you're getting into, get a pre-purchase inspection on whatever car you get so that you don't have to wonder if it's going to have issues later on down the road. And I would think you're going to be in great shape. All right. Thank you very much.

Congratulations. I can't believe I got to give someone good news today, Jay. Yeah, I love that. So there we go. Let's get to Victoria before we wrap here in Newark, New Jersey. What's going on, Victoria? Hi, thank you so much for having me. Sure. So essentially, me and my husband are looking to start a family, but we're feeling kind of like it's not going to be possible anytime soon with like the financial situation.

Not that our financial situation is bad, we just would prefer. verbally like me to be a stay-at-home mother. Ah, okay. So going to one income feels tight. Right. Okay. Yeah, tell us the situation. Do you guys have any debt? We do. We have a mortgage and a car loan. The car loan is about $25,000, and the mortgage is about $500,000. Okay. And then what do you both bring home every month? My husband brings in about 165,000 for the year, so about 12,000 gross for the month.

And I'm bringing in 90,000 a year, so just a little bit over 4,000 net for the month. Got it. So the question is, would you be able to just live off the 8,000 and maintain the lifestyle that you have? Right. I'm leaning towards no, because we're essentially. saving all of my income. So without my income, we would have no savings. We do have a good amount saves and we do have a lot of equity in the house. So we're not opposed to, you know, relocating, but the Northeast is just so expensive. Sure. We're in that relocating won't even do it for us.

What's the mortgage payment every month? With taxes, we're looking about $5,000 a month. Oh, there's your issue. There's your issue right there, my friend. Now, you said he takes home 8,000? That feels too low. If he makes 165 gross, well, after, you know, 401K contribution benefits, he's walking away with 8. Okay. Is he investing 15% right now? Do you know the amount? He's only investing about half, like 8%. It just doesn't track. I know taxes in New Jersey can't be that high because he's walking away with less than 100,000 out of 165.

Yeah. Somehow we still owe taxes every single year as well. So I really don't, you know, I see the paycheck that comes into our joint account and it's pretty much $4,000 even. You guys got to take a look at that tonight and just say, hey, let's see where this money is going because to George is exactly right. I'd be looking at that and saying, are we investing in an HSA? Are we investing it? Like, how many different places are we putting investments? How much are we paying for health insurance out of this? Is there any else? anything else coming out of this that we don't realize, is the withholding right on, all of those things I'd take a steeper look at. A little magnifying glass to that. Yeah. What's the car payment?

Okay. The car payment's about $500 a month. Okay. Well, I think there's going to be sacrifices made here either way. If you definitely, like I'm going to be a stay-at-home mom, then it's going to look like downsizing, not doing anything fancy, and selling this car. Okay.

Do you guys have enough in savings to just pay off the car today? We do. We have about $120,000 in cash and saving. Great. What are you saving that for? We don't know. So that's also my next question. Like, what can we be investing in?

Can we get into real estate? Should we just throw everything into the stock market? Like, how can we start making some passive income on this to kind of make the situation better? Here's what you do. This next house you buy and downsize, you'll use that money to then lower your mortgage. mortgage payment to where it's two grand a month and you get to be a stay-at-home mom. Right. So I would not go like, you have 19 goals right now.

If I want to be a real estate guru and be a stay-at-home mom and I want to invest in the stock market, I would focus on the one thing that you said you want to do, just stay at home. So I would pay off the car today if you love the car. It's not too much of your income, but we got to free up that $500 a month so we can breathe when you become a state-at-home mom. And so it's sort of pre-planning for this new life and then live on his income for a month. See how it feels. Put your income completely aside and go, what would life be like if we had to live just on this?

And when you relocate, it's going to make it a whole lot easier to go from $5,000 to $2,500 even. Right. So that's the thing to solve for, is how do we get our mortgager rent to be closer to $2,000 out of this eight, so that we have enough to still live our life, to still invest, to still go on trips, to still save for our kids' college, to still knock out the mortgage early? and that's going to mean a different lifestyle than you guys are leading right now. But I think it's a worthy and noble goal, and I would definitely do it if I was in your shoes. We definitely want to.

Awesome. Well, once you sell the house, you get some equity, use whatever's left, you know, that 75 or 100K, put it down on that next one. And you get that mortgage down to like 200 grand instead of 500 grand. Excellent. Now we're cooking. Now we can actually have a reasonable payment, and you can stay at home forever and not be stretched thin. It's a great goal to have, and it's a great reason to do the baby steps. It's always found in the mortgage.

The answers always lie in the mortgage parents. That'll get you. That'll get you. Wow, well, that puts this hour of the show in the books. Remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.