The Ramsey Show - If You Want To Be Wealthy, Do What Wealthy People Do!

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

💵 Sign-up for EveryDollar today - The simplest way to budget for your life! Dave Ramsey & George Kamel answer your questions and discuss: "Should I buy a house while paying off student loans?" "My husband refuses to talk about our finances," "Should I take a job that will triple my income?" "Is a Roth conversion a good idea?" "How do I pay bills that are in collections?" Support Our Sponsors: Zander Insurance BetterHelp NetSuite Next Steps 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 🏦 Take Your 3-Minute Money Assessment - Get a personalized money plan! 🍎 Enter the Teacher Appreciation Giveaway 📄 Need help with your taxes? See who we trust. 💼 Find The Work You're Wired To Do  Listen to more from Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

🎵 Five from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Number one best-selling author George Camel is my co-host today. His book is Breaking Free from Broke. He's a Ramsey personality, and we're going to be answering your questions about your life and your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Letitia starts this hour in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Letitia. How are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, George Hi, Leticia. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Hi, George. I'm great. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? All right. Well, I'm in an interesting situation that I kind of feel I already know the answer to, but hearing it from you guys definitely will make it make more sense. So I found you about six months ago and did your entire total money makeover book and started immediately implementing the baby steps. Paid off about $10,000 in consumer debt over the course of credit cards and a car loan. Good for you. Thank you. And what is remaining now are my student loans. And I got my bachelor's as well as my master's, and it amounted to about $160,000.

What's your master's in? I got my MBA. Good. So what do you make? Yes. So I make about $120 make about 120 that's good news yes so big shovel but big big debt um simultaneously and i did what everybody did sort of pre-covid like right before it hit and god offered the opportunity for them to consolidate it. And my mom said, that makes perfect sense because over the course of, you know, seven years between my undergrad and my graduate degree, it was like 14 different loans110,000 of unsubsidized.

And you're single? No, I'm married. You're married. What's your husband make? Like $75,000, $80,000. Oh, so you have a $200,000 household income. Yes. What other debts do you all have?

Like he's got a car for his son, and I am about two months away from paying off my daughters. So we've got 20 and 17-year-old kids. So those will both be paid off here this summer um so then the only thing okay so if you make two hundred thousand dollars a year and you have 160 000 a problem and you paid 80 000 on it that would live have you live household living on 120 not counting taxes and you'd be debt free in two years right numbers sound great when you say that yeah well i mean you make 200 i've got you living on 120 minus taxes and that's that's less than you've been living on ever yes in recent memory

so yeah you know i'm pretty much boiling your lifestyle down to nothing. What's your question, Letitia? Well, so we are currently renting, and I obviously, like the goal is to buy our first home. And we're a little bit older, so I'm 42 and my husband's 45. So it would be like a first-time home buying situation. And what we currently pay in our lease, I feel like we could do in a mortgage and actually, you know, own the home instead of just renting.

But I know like just from listening to the show, the idea of taking out a $200,000 mortgage on top of $160,000 in student loan debt doesn't make much sense. But I worried about trying to prolong getting a house if I fully, fully waited until the student loans were paid off. If you're going to take 20 years to pay them off, that might be a discussion, but you should pay them off in two years. Two years. And then the emergency fund and then the down payment. And so we're saying this is going to delay it,

but you weren't ready to buy a house today anyways. You guys don't have any money. Do you have any money in savings? Yes. How much? don't have any money do you have any money in savings yes how much um so i've got about 10,000 okay have you guys combined bank accounts no how long you've been married two years okay his kid's car your kid's car they're still separate discussions you're still living two separate lives so we're gonna we're gonna always recommend because the data shows us this is data driven that couples that combine their money and work together towards a goal have a huge increase in probability of actually hitting that goal that goal being getting a house building wealth um

having a real solid nest egg, all of those things. Trying to do it as two separate individuals acting as roommates, it very seldom occurs. Statistically, that's a data thing. So we're going to have you guys combine that. And so we have two kids with cars we've got to clean up. And then we have my student loan debt that we need to clean up so we can buy a house. And that's what we would do. So George has got his nose to the ground.

He's figuring out what's really going on over there. I'm Scruff McGruff over here. Yeah. Oh, my God. Just wanted to throw back to that, Dave. This is an 80s throwback there, an 80s reference. Not as young as you thought. I'm telling you, you're getting older every day.

But, yeah, that's what we would do. And I'm going to tell you to really lean in, and both of you, the faster you get this cleaned up, the faster you're on your way to not only home ownership but wealth building in general. And so I'm going to absolutely go crazy for two years and have this done in two years. Because 120 minus taxes, stop your 401k temporarily during that time. Don't do anything.

$1,000 is baby step one. Everything else goes towards this. We're going to attack, attack, attack, attack, attack. And the two of you working together. Right now, you've been kind of working this, and he's been standing over on the side watching you do it. So we're changing the whole discussion, not just simply answering the one question. And as you guys budget $200,000 of income, it changes the numbers. It changes how much margin you have to throw at this debt. And I think largely it's felt like a solo journey,

trying to tackle this debt, making $120,000 it's that's not a fun way to go and so marriage it's we you got to change the pronouns here and start looking at this thing as a singular goal we're attacking together yeah jade says have a vocab rehab oh i like that that's pretty good she's much cooler than you and me yeah i gotta work on my rhymes i'm not there yet we gotta hang around with jade i'm mentioning scruff mcgrruff. Jade's out here with Vocab Rehab. Yeah, well, that's my point exactly. Right there. Well, back to the data, Dave. Back to the data.

It's true. Couples build wealth faster when they combine their life, their goals, their vision, their bank accounts, their budget. It's just a better way to live. Yeah, but I saw on TikTok that women ought to protect themselves. Oh, my goodness. See, but I saw on TikTok that women ought to protect themselves. Oh my goodness. See, there's several problems with that statement. Number one, you were on TikTok. That is right there.

That defines a whole lot. That tells us a whole lot about you right then. This is The Ramsey Show. I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly,

and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of all that grief, it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids, that I'm like, How am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to eat next week? Yeah, in the middle of all that grief. It's just, it is. It's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids, that I'm so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance.

And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You've got to say it out loud. And you've got to say, I'm to say, I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza to get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host open phones a triple eight eight two five five two two five Elizabeth is in Charleston South Carolina hi Elizabeth welcome to the Ramsey show hi how are you today Dave better than I deserve what's up okay well I worked very, very hard to get where I'm at. I met my husband in my early 20s and I had about 20 store credit cards and 6K in debt and she helped me get out of that. didn't go on vacations for decades, put a lot of money towards the mortgages.

Now we live in a great area, our dream house, great location, but I literally have no idea how much money we have and we're still not going on vacation or living life. And I'm just a smart person that's doing really dumb decisions by not finding this information out. And every time I ask, it's not going anywhere. And it's not that I don't trust him because he's very, very good with money. It's just, I think we're going overboard in what we were doing. And I don't know how to kind of get out of this merry-go-round of just my head stuck in the sand.

Why is it that he won't share with his wife the money that you have? I just never in the beginning because I was the one in debt coming into the marriage. How long have you been married? 20 years. I've been married 43. If the stuff I did stupid in the first seven years of marriage was still counted against me I probably wouldn't be alive I know I know so I

don't you know what you did 20 years ago doesn't count why is it that 20 years into your marriage you don't know what's going on with the money why does he not think you're worthy of that probably because I haven't pushed it you know every time I push it he just doesn't want to get into it and I just kind of back off and then I don't fight it and to the point where I have to know this stuff if something happened to him I would have to know how to pay the mortgage. Okay. So how can we help you? How do I get out of this? I don't know if it's a mindset I'm stuck in or if it's just, I'm scared. I just kind of want to get out of this, the hold of just not knowing. Well, I guess, I mean, I don't want to be a smart aleck or anything but the way you get out of the hole of not knowing is you start knowing which means bozo's gonna have to open up his mouth and

tell you what the flip's going on and you're gonna have to demand it as a part of him continuing to live okay hey dude i'm gonna duct tape you to the bed and beat you with a baseball bat. You're going to tell me what the flip's going on here, okay? I'm kidding. Don't do that. But, I mean, you really are – you sound sweet and you sound so apologetic like you've done something wrong for asking about your life, and you don't owe anybody an apology for that. You don't need to be a jerk about it, but you do need to lean in hard enough

that he decides he's going to share with you and say, Listen, I am terrified because I do not know what's going on. It's not okay that I don't know what's going on. And starting right now, I'm going to know what's going on or we're going to have other problems in this house. Okay. Can you find that much roar in your voice? Yes. It's just, I can't, it's like a five-year-old that throws a fit. You know, he goes into that mode. Yeah, you sound like someone who's been, who's the subject of domestic abuse, the way you're verbalizing it.

Like it's all your fault that he's misbehaving. I think it's the way I grew up with money. I'm the youngest of five kids, and there's a huge age difference between me and my siblings. Yeah, how old are you? I am 47. Okay, it's time to grow up then. Yeah. Oh, give a crap what happened when you were a kid.

As of right now, you're like a 47-year-old grown woman. And he needs to grow up too. And, yeah, walk in there and say, Bubba, this ain't going this way anymore. We're not doing this. Not happening. Okay. 47 year old grown woman and he needs to grow up too and yeah walk in there and say bubba this ain't going this way anymore we're not doing this not happening okay you've told us that you trust him but the truth is i don't think he trusts you if he's not willing to share any of this and be transparent with you there's a bigger problem on his side yeah and he he enjoys no one questioning his decisions is he controlling in other areas too?

Just like stupid stuff like restaurants we go to, we don't like the same food. I don't think that's stupid. Eating is something we do a lot of, three times a day if you're normal. Yeah. So I think you don't get a vote in this marriage in every other area, and that's not okay. Yeah, well, I mean, I live where i always dreamed of and um you know there's a difference between having a vote and being a kept woman yeah you're kind of tired of being a kept woman is why you call well i wish i was a

kept woman i make my own money and you know contribute to the household so i mean it'd be nice if you're kind of missing the point darling okay so are you gonna are you gonna sit down with him and deal with your marriage issue or not yes okay good i'm proud of you and if if he absolutely refuses to share with you what's going on in the finances when you point blank demand that as a as a equal share in this marriage then you guys need to go see a marriage counseling to which bozo is not going to go and you get to go by yourself and learn how to how how to speak bozo and that's what the marriage counselor will do they teach you how to speak that

so i know that that's a fun way to put it well i mean they teach you how to come back and do the confrontation and give you you know because basically what we're talking about here is a boundaries violation and the first thing that happens when someone violates your boundaries whoever we are our friend dr henry cloud of course wrote the consummate book on that boundaries but you feel like you did something wrong you feel crazy which is now called gaslighting that's the new term for this when they make you feel like the crazy one and you're the problem yeah and that's typically when the boundaries are being violated that's what's going on and it's an abuse mechanism and it's a manipulation and so you know i feel like i did something wrong but then but what happens is when you get in the presence of

a coach or counselor or you call us you know we're going to come alongside you and go uh by the way you're not crazy so as a matter of fact what they're doing is crazy so you need to step back up on that boundary again and this time you need to step back up on that boundary again and this time you need to stand on it and not get pushed off of it with gaslighting manipulation and whatever it is right and so uh but but this open guys it it this is coming up more and more and more and rachel and uh dr john deloney are doing the money and marriage event in the fall and they're they're going they're they're both have gone down a rabbit hole on

this research that's out there right now there's fresh research in but it's old it's an old subject i saw the research similar research 30 years ago but we used to call it the marriage advantage because the statistics were that a single man did not prosper financially in his career, in his health, his health that wasn't as good as a married man. And the idea being that relationships are good for you, good relationships, not toxic ones. And the idea being that when you have something to work for for your family you're serving someone it changes your demeanor it changes your character you lean in you you you prosper for good reason because you know when you got kids and dogs and stuff you know bills to pay all of a sudden it's different purpose yeah

and so there was a there was what we used to call the marriage advantage. Well now we're seeing it and they're calling it all kinds of different things but we're seeing the exact same data is still there. We found it again when we did all the millionaire research with all the millionaires. We found that that the couple that is married and has a healthy marriage relationship meaning that they both have are speaking into the decisions they're both speaking into the decisions. They're both speaking into the future dreams. They're both speaking into the sacrifices and prices that have to be paid to get to those dreams. They're speaking into major purchases. They're speaking into major giving decisions. And the ones that do that together, who can find a virtuous wife for

her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her, and he will have no lack of gain. Huh. Gentlemen, you want no lack of gain? Virtuous wife, listen to her. Now, wives, Larry Burkett used to remind us that that does not give you permission to become the Holy Spirit. That's his job. So a virtuous wife understands that. And so it's, you know, thoughtful, wise input into life.

You live longer, better, and you prosper more. It's a pretty dumb formula, but it's kind of obvious. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is the season for Halloween. It's October. We're wearing costumes and we're wearing masks. If you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it.

And while you're thinking about it, I want you to be honest. A lot of us hide ourselves. We hide our true selves behind costumes and masks all the time. We do this at work. We do this around our friends. We do this around our families. We even do this when we look at ourselves in the mirror. I know because I've been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding behind masks and costumes all the time, if you find yourself hiding from your true self, I want you to consider talking with a therapist.

Therapy is a place where you can be honest, where you can talk to somebody else and reflect and learn, and you can accept all the parts of yourself over time and start living an authentic life. Masks and costumes should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. And if you're considering therapy, try calling my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere, so it's convenient for you and your

schedule. Just fill out a short online survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist. Plus, you can switch therapist at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash Deloney. You want to break free from broke? Well, you would get the book Breaking Free from Broke then by my co-host today, George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author.

Very cool. And Ken Coleman has been helping people do better at their work and do work in different places so they make more money and have a better quality life. He's been doing that for quite a while. He's one of our Ramsey personalities. He's had a couple of number one bestsellers, and he developed a couple of years back an assessment called the Get Clear Career Assessment. The Get Clear Career Assessment. Now, what it does is it helps you figure out what you're good at, what you love doing, and then it starts molding that into a process and starts pointing you in some possible ways. You have never taken an assessment like this.

It is powerful. I took it, and I'm obviously settled in my career. And it was very interesting how it just completely, we did such a good job with the assessment. It reads your mail. It read my mail. That's exactly what it did. It's pretty wild. Dave, you should be like in talk radio.

I mean, it was, like, crazy. But so the Get Clear Assessment has had about almost 100,000 people take it now. It's on our website at ramseysolutions.com. We are launching a new book with Ken called Find the Work You're Wired to Do. Now, it will have as a part of the book the Get Clear Assessment. As a matter of fact, the book is a quick little read to help you understand and implement the Get Clear Assessment. As a matter of fact, the book is a quick little read to help you understand and implement the Get Clear Assessment. So you get the assessment with the book, and it shows you exactly how to do everything. The book actually comes out in May. It's on pre-sale right now. And again, you'll get the audio book and the e-book with it, which means you're going to end

up with three codes to do three different assessments so you can give it to friends and family. That'll be pretty cool. And it's a great bargain when you do all that together. You can pick this up anywhere books are sold, but you can certainly get it at RamseySolutions.com. April the 16th, the day after dreaded tax day, Rachel Cruz is coming out with her second children's book her first one was i'm glad for what i have about contentment this one is i'm glad for where i am great bedtime stories and

this is about gratitude because we have found that as you teach children gratitude and contentment uh those are the antidotes to entitlement go figure um humility is coming next get ready but yeah the i don't know if it is or not but probably and uh so it kind of all falls in the same bucket right children that know how to say please and thank you and don't think that they are the center of the universe they don't think the axis of the world runs through the top of their sweet little heads. These are children that become prosperous adults. And because everybody wants to be around them as opposed to the guy or gal who at a party is a taker rather than a giver. And so I'm glad for where I am.

The latest in the series by Rachel Cruz comes out. Beautifully illustrated. Both of these are in presale right now. Yeah, you need to steal that for your baby. I do. I got a seven-month-old little girl, and these are the problems I'm having, Dave. How do I not destroy this kid? How do I not raise an entitled brat in this wild digital age?

And so I'm excited to read this to her every now and then, just to remind her what Aunt Rachel said. I got it out. Daniel's Little Boy's Four. I got it out. Papa Dave Reed. Papa Dave Reed. Papa Dave Reed. Oh, that's fun.

Don't get me started. I'll definitely read to you because we know that children that are read to, their intelligence level goes way up. So always be reading to your kids. Especially if it's a good kid's book like this. There you go. Check out all those books. It's exciting times around here. The junior books have been selling very well for decades, but these books by Rachel are just the world-class illustrations as well.

Laura just did an incredible job with that. So, George, changing gears from a sweet little kid's book that you can get pre-sale at RamseySolutions.com to a not-so-sweet story. Something a little more sinister, if you will. Sinister. That was good. It was pretty good. All right.

You've got that villain thing down, Dave. A little scary how good that was. FTX co-founder Sam Brinkman Fried, in so many ways, sentenced to, it's freed probably, but I love fried. Fried is, yeah. Sentenced to 25 years in prison for his misbehavior with the old Bitcoin. So this was the former cryptocurrency billionaire, co-founded and led as CEO FTX,

which famously collapsed back in 2022, 25 years behind bars for his role in perpetrating one of the largest financial crimes in U.S. history. He was convicted of seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering, along with other charges of conspiracy to commit commodities and securities fraud at the ripe age of 32. He went from multi-billionaire.

If you launder Bitcoin, does it rust? Is this like if a tree falls in the forest riddle? This is a thought, yeah. I mean, when I put other coins in the laundry, they rust, you know. It was never really money. It was never really there. Oh, that's right. It was just air.

Who knew? Nothing happened. This is wild. His conviction last fall followed the startling 2022 collapse of FTX. Why was it startling? We predicted it. The cryptocurrency trading platform he had co-founded and led as CEO amid an $8 billion shortfall in funds.

Oops. $8 billion. Oops. That's a lot. Oh, it's a shortfall. Is that what we call it? Oh, yeah. It's called 23 years in jail.

At trial, he was accused of using deposit or money to prop up his struggling hedge fund. No kidding. As well as using the funds to buy luxury properties in the Caribbean and make donations to a range of causes. FTX, which was mainly the Democratic Party. FTX was one of the second largest crypto exchange in the world, allowing users to buy and sell dozens of virtual currencies. His wealth was estimated at more than $30 billion. The collapse of cryptocurrency prices crippled FTX and exposed the shortfall of $8 billion.

So when the tide goes out, you can tell who was skinny dipping. That's what happened right so so he took people's money to invest claiming it was still there but instead he was funneling it into crypto and keeping a little bit on hand in case people wanted to withdraw that when crypto bit the dust everyone frantically tried to withdraw the money's not there and it all collapsed on itself george the advantage of crypto is it's not regulated by the blockchain man it's it's not the government man it's like it's off the grid man there's no regulation on man it's it's the advantage dave you would like crypto because it's like you don't like the government man and right man isn't that how it works man well guess what dumb butt when

you have zero regulations and a guy's supposed to be treating something like a bank and instead he goes and buys his own stuff with your money, there's no regulations on it. There's no guidelines. There's no oversight. Listen, I don't want the government doing checkups on my body parts either but i'll just tell you i this is this is you know it's the exact thing that makes crypto as a stupid idea easy to outline here because it didn't have any government oversight man it's like cool dude it's like you're sticking it to the man and yeah well this is what you get you go to real prison you don't go to prison in the metaverse here, Dave. You actually go to real prison.

It's not an MTF prison cell. I wonder if he could sell NTFs of his prison cell. That would be something else. That might be his way out. It's not a way out, but it's a way to make somebody money while he's in there. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I guess, you know, you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. That's the motto here today.

Oh, my gosh. Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer who set out every morning to hurt people. That's his defense lawyer. Yeah. Oh, boy. He described his client as an awkward math nerd. You're just a sweet kid, Dave. He's just a sweet kid.

He just stole $8 billion. He tried to return the money used eight billion of other people's money to buy him stuff and sweet kid didn't know that wasn't his money he didn't know that he you know he just used eight billion of other people's money to buy him some stuff yeah that's offensive to awkward math nerd i mean all the awkward math nerds in america and around the world ought to rise up and not be put in this category. Because, you know, he, you know, it's amazing how he's actually devoid of ethics is what it amounts to. He's actually has, he's like a psychopath.

I mean, he probably is a sweet kid. I mean, in all honesty, I have no idea. I've never met the guy. But I, you know, I wouldn't doubt it that he is a sweet kid. I mean, in all honesty, I have no idea. I've never met the guy. But I wouldn't doubt it that he's a sweet kid. But he's just completely on a psychopathic on a psychopath level, devoid of ethics. Led to grifting. It probably he's so far astray from normal human function that he probably didn't occur to him. He was stealing people's money.

That's how stupid and sad this is. And here's what's really stupid and sad. Some of you thought it was awesome to put money in there. You remember Matt Damon? Fortune favors the bold. Don't you remember the commercial for F? It was at crypto.com for that one? Crypto, yeah.

Oh, my gosh. Fortune favors the bold. Well, sometimes boldness gets you in prison for 25 years. Sorry. There it is. Ding, ding. This is The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business?

Ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should too. Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities.

With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. George Campbell, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us. James is with us in Chicago.

Hi, James. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, how's it going? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, I recently discovered you guys' show last week, so I've been to watch probably 80 of your episodes on podcasts. Wow!

I went over my... Yeah. Yeah. I went over my debt, and I'm like probably $80,000 in debt. And I don't know, one, where to start because it's just so overwhelming to just pick one and go with it. And then my other second question is I'm up for a new job that will triple the income that I make now. Yay. But I'm scared to take it because I don't want to make poor financial decisions to end me up into where I am now.

Money was never really talked about growing up, so all this is like all the $80,000 is like figuring out on my own type thing, if that makes sense. Wow. So how much do you make now, and what will you make if you take this job? So currently right now, I have a full-time job that I make, it's I think like $35,000 and then I have a PRN like part-time job that I do like on the weekends. I've just finished training for that. I'll bring in an additional $30,000. So I bring in roughly about

$60,000 a year. If I take the new job, it'll increase my income to about between 130 and 150 a year and then I can just go down to one job and I'll have to have two jobs because my one job the main the new job I'm going to I'll be traveling all the time yeah what do you do so I currently not working investments at State Farm and I'm a patient care tech at a hospital that I travel travel do i took a travel job for and then the new job will work in the catastrophe department at state farm oh the catastrophe department so you'll be traveling for state farm going to the disaster areas and helping the folks there issuing checks and so forth right correct okay and you're how old 33. And what's your degree in?

I don't have one. Are you single? Yeah, I'm single. I have a kid, though. Okay. All right. Are you, is the child traveling with you? No, he's 13.

I just had visitation. I see. I see. Okay. All right. So let's reframe this. If I were in your shoes, this is what I would want I see. Okay. All right. So let's reframe this. If I were in your shoes, this is what I would want to do. I'm going to just make up something to, I was offered the opportunity to buy a company that was an engineering firm.

And I could buy it for one-third of what it's worth. Now, I have zero engineering knowledge. I've never run an engineering firm. I don't know squat about that. I could make a real mess with that. Do believe me yeah but if i could buy it for one third then my new job would be to figure out enough about engineering to run the firm and enough about engineers and processes for running an engineer firm to i would have to go to school so to speak not real school but i mean i'd have to i'd have to learn all i could learn about engineering if i wanted to engage in this

bargain that i've got in front of me does that make you see what i'm doing so you've got a bargain that's in front of you but in order for that to be a blessing like buying an engineering firm at for one-third of what it's worth and again it's just a stupid bad metaphor but but if it's a bargain but it's not a bargain if i go screw it up and bankrupt the thing because i don't know what i'm doing and that's kind of your question i i don't know if it's a bargain for me to get a bunch of money since i'm not good at it so that means your job is not to not take the money your job is to go learn how to handle money and you've been binge watching ramsey which is a good start so you have a you know you're getting ready to come

into some money it made you nervous because it made you it made you realize you don't know what you're doing so let's let's get you on a path to knowing what you're doing let's make you competent in this area so that this blessing is a blessing and not a curse which is your fear right i don't think you're going to destroy your life over this and here's why i know you have the wisdom and self-awareness to call us going i might destroy my life over this please help me not destroy my life so part of it is pre-deciding you're going to do wise things with this money that you were going to be managing i don't know and the lack of knowledge scares me that's a better statement than i'm a bad person i'm gonna screw this up because that reflects your character and i don't think you're that guy you don't have made mistakes in the past you know if i was going to give you a nice car and you didn't know how to drive it

would be your job to learn how to drive right but it had nothing to do with i wrecked my dad's car when i was 13 well so what you still can learn how to drive right and that's what this is so you're you're getting a vehicle at a you know money that can take you some places that you couldn't go otherwise and so you need to learn how to drive and we'll help you with that that's what we do every day and you you know that's the reason you've been watching that's why you got really day. And you, you know, that's the reason you've been watched. That's why you got really interested is I don't want to screw this up. I want to get better at it.

I need to put some tools in my belt that aren't in there now for life. Is that, I think you, I'm with George. I don't think you're going to mess it up because you're asking the question. If you were arrogant and, and didn't know what you were doing, then that's a dangerous combination, but you're humble and don't know what you were doing, then that's a dangerous combination. But you're humble and don't know what you're doing. And that's a fabulous combination. That's an opportunity for growth. Right.

And what I love about the baby steps in budgeting is it forces you to make a goal for your money. Because otherwise it disappears into stupid decisions like you're talking about. So the wonderful thing is this new income has a very specific goal. It's going to pay off $80,000 in debt. And so you're going to set an aggressive goal and say, all right, I'm going to make $130,000 after taxes. Let's call that $90,000. That's $7,500 a month.

I want to pay this off in 18 months. Do they pay your travel and housing when you're on the road? So they cover, you get a company vehicle. They pay, they give you the stipend, I think that's what it's called, when they pay for all your food. Is that in addition to the $90? Or in addition to the $130, I'm sorry? Yeah.

Okay, so basically you can almost live free as a single guy and almost put all your income on this debt. Yeah, correct. That's amazing. So what if you could put $6,000 out of the $7,000 towards this debt every month? I don't have – I can do that if I get accepted for the debt. I'm just – previously I've been poor with money, and during COVID, I made like $150,000 during COVID, but I was off in a relationship.

Where did you spend it? And I don't want to tell you. Bad relationship. Where did I spend it? Was it on the relationship? Traveling, yeah. Relationship, traveling. I ended up buying a new car that ended up being like a horrible deal

that I thought I paid it off. So, James, 100% of the people listening to you right now, including George and I have done stupid stuff with money. My only goal is to not do the same stupid thing twice. Exactly. And so you've got some stupid stuff already under your belt. You know what it looks like. New car traveling, trying to, trying to walk around,

be something you're not in a relationship and using money to do that. You got those stupid things in your belt. You what they look like you won't do them again hopefully if you do them again there's no hope for you i mean you got to stop doing stupid stuff but but you're going to do new stupid stuff probably i have done new stupid stuff over the years and it's just but so my my stack of stupid stuff that's in my rearview mirror is just taller than yours dave's innovative like that. He always finds new ways. Genius. So we're going to put you through financial peace university and teach you how to handle

money. And that includes putting you in the world's best budgeting app, the premium version of every dollar, which hooks to your bank and how it allows you to track every year, every one of your expenses. And I want you to treat the next year and a half to two years like a game that if you're 100% debt-free and have $50,000 in the bank, at the end of the game you win. And so you gamify this, and you just watch every penny in this budgeting app, and every penny goes towards your game goal,

and the game is the game of life and it's not the one with the little spinny wheel and it was a fun one and the little get married and have little babies in your car thing the game of remember that oh yeah i love that game and your original show was called the money game that's true that's true and he had nothing to do with the game of life no it didn't it just was catchy but now that's um so james you're gonna be fine and hey as you're going along if you need some help more than that if you got another question you call we'll help you it's what we do man and uh fpu will be that game changer for knowledge though yeah i think i think you if you'll just do what we teach

you to do in there it'll work man it's worked for 10 million people. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. The phone number is 888-825-5225. George Camel, number one best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke, is my co-host today. Ramsey personality extraordinaire.

Again, the phone number 888-825-5225. Eric is in Chicago. Hi, Eric. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hello, Dave. Hello, George. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I had recently got married about a month ago.

Congrats. Appreciate it. So we have been pretty much on the same page financially. We want to combine everything together, and I just want to make sure that I'm following the right steps when doing that. Obviously, this is not something I've done before, and so, yeah. Okay, cool. So what are you combining exactly?

Does she have a checking account? You have a checking account? How simple is this? So, yes, we both have checking accounts. She has considerable more investments than I do. She's been very good with her money. And then we both have houses currently as well that we bought separately when we were single. And then we're essentially right now thinking about renting one of them

while we're living in the other. But we do still have mortgages on both of those houses. You guys have any debt? Outside of the mortgages? We have no debt. Okay. No, only the two mortgages are on the debt,

which is great. So when you're talking about combining finances, it's also how do we combine this real estate situation? We have her name's on one mortgage and deed, your name's on the other mortgage and deed? That's correct. Well, I don't know Illinois law, but in most states, when you get married, your primary residence is automatically shared whether you change the name on the deed or not okay okay and uh the actual the other residence doesn't matter i'm more concerned than the names on the accounts number one i would combine the

operations of the household into one checking account that's what you and what you did when you got married yeah and you actually don't need to shut down your account. You can turn your checking account into a joint checking account, and then she can close hers out and move the money over. Or vice versa. Exactly. And even the name on the investments, I don't worry about the names on the titles of these things.

I'm more worried about the way we start using our pronouns and that we are considering our rental house, our primary residence, instead of like, well, I can't talk about that house over there. That was his house before we got married. No, you get to talk about it. You're now married. And, you know, I can't talk about her investments. She was doing good with investments before we got married.

No, it's now our investments. The preacher said, and now you are one and the old uh the old wedding vows said unto thee all my worldly goods i pledge i mean nobody says that stuff anymore but maybe they should but that's what you should be doing and so i don't care if you go change the names on the deeds that's irrelevant to me unless it just makes somebody feel better the only thing i do care about changing the name on is the checking account. Shut down one, dump everything in the other one. But, you know, we have one mutual fund that is in Sharon's name only

because it's some money that was given to her when a family member passed away, and she said, I want to put that in a mutual fund. So I just put it in a mutual fund in her name. I didn't think anything about it. But there's no question in the Ramsey household that everything that we have is ours in spirit. And so that's the main way I want you guys to start looking at it instead of like, you know, I feel guilty for the debt I brought in. I feel guilty that she brought in more in investments than I did,

so I don't feel like I have the right to speak up into that. Oh, yeah, you're married. Yeah, we're definitely combining our decision-making. So you see what I'm saying? It's more the spirit and the decision-making flow and the way we discuss it and the way we feel about it than the actual names on the deeds that that that propel people forward you follow me yeah absolutely and i i think that we both are on board and we want to get to that point but you know you you definitely tell when we speak about it we still say your

house or my house and and kind of getting out of that mentality you know it takes a little bit of time maybe well i mean we still we still say whose car we take into church your car are you taking your truck to church you know and so but we both understand we both own it and so you know i would never buy a car without my wife present i would never buy her a car for sure without her present and so on you see what i'm saying so it's it's the function more than it is the the label is and the spirit behind the function that i'm looking for that's what causes people to prosper it's not the technical retitling but i think it'll take some time for you to say to start saying ours and we

instead of yours and mine now if the dog goes you know goes pooping the floor it's definitely your dog that's the key it's not our dog i was told that this morning so i'm just telling you that's your dog your dog tore that up that your dog just tore that up and i went my dog why is it my dog i'm gonna tear something up it's your job to clean it up that's it so but i mean so my point is it never quite goes away but you know if you work at it and you say our goal is to be a functioning unit a great partnership not one domineering or one shamed or one whatever toxic version see that's relational stuff as well as financial stuff is that making sense yeah absolutely absolutely um and i i think kind of a follow-up question, too, is that since we both still have our mortgages on our houses,

you know, selling one and pulling the equity and putting it in the other, would it get us closer to not having a mortgage? Obviously, it's not something that we need to pay down like consumer debt or anything. I like it. Would that be something that would probably be the best idea? It will propel you forward in your wealth building more than keeping it. Would that be something that would probably be the best idea? It will propel you forward in your wealth building more than keeping it. Okay. Because everybody thinks owning real estate is the answer to everything.

And I'm a huge advocate of real estate. But we know from the data that we've collected on millionaires that getting their personal residence paid for, becoming 100% debt-free, was one of the huge arcs in the story that caused them to become a millionaire mathematically and we know that okay and so um you know but you've just been married 20 minutes so you know if you guys want to sit in this for a little bit and say okay we're going to visit that uh decision next spring

a year from now we're going to we're going to rent it for a year and we may going to visit that decision next spring, a year from now. We're going to rent it for a year, and we may have to clean it up a little bit after the renter to sell it. It can't just be, well, Dave said I should. Or if you're both just gung-ho and you want to sell it, sell it. I don't care. But if it's uncomfortable for someone to do that, then you can sit on it a little bit. But the point still is moving in the right direction. And having that alignment, that will help you build wealth so fast.

That's a big deal. How long did it take you and Whitney to get aligned? Oh, my goodness. Well, she worked here at the time, so it was a snap of a finger. Okay. We were lucky in that regard. She was smarter than me, better looking, and better with money. So you were lucky in that regard.

Yes. I'm catching on. All right. That's how that works. This is The ramsey show george camel ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us every dollar is our world-class budgeting app that helps you manage money the ramsey way. It simply works wherever you are, iOS, Android, or online. You can start EveryDollar for free and immediately see where you stand with your money. You get organized, personalize your budget, stop overspending, and save more money. New to EveryDollar will show you a long-term

financial roadmap, track your net worth, your debt-free date, your retirement date, your baby step progress, and more. And we're going to proactively coach you to build wealth and reach your goals. This app is taking over. Download the free app for iOS and Android, or if you just want to do it on desktop, go to everydollar.com and get started. It works. George, the number of people, it's like 10,000 a day are joining this.

It's crazy how it's blowing up. The number of people using this and starting to use it, brand new. This app, we've had it around, but we've added a bunch of features in the last 18 months, and the popularity of those features and just the idea right now in America that I need to control my money with the budgeting process has caused this just to explode. That's so true. The financial roadmap is just one. We've got the paycheck planning tool. So for people who need to know, hey, am I going to run out of money before the end of the month? This will help you figure that out. And some people that have the spouse or maybe they're

that person who they are like, I don't want to budget. You're not budgeting just a budget to be a nerd. You're budgeting to accomplish. And you're not budgeting to punish your spouse. We are making a decision with our money like two grownups because we want to go somewhere. That's what this is. It's telling your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. That's all it is.

It's not a it's not. I don't really live on a budget. It's restrictive no it's grown up for you to tell your money what to do and to not not to intentionally go into overdraft every month because you can't do sixth grade math that's just being a grown-up and so uh it's no lot you know a couple years ago the millennials they're not cool anymore but you guys said adulting oh that's right adulting you can't say that it's not cool anymore but you guys said adulting oh that's right adulting you can't say that it's not cool anymore you made you sound cool if you said adulting about two years ago three years ago now it's like you're just a boomer trying too hard now now there's loud budgeting

gen z made that one up loud have you heard about that it's better than quiet quitting exactly it's the opposite and it's just loudly saying i have with my money. I'm going to make a plan for my money. Really? So what you made cool 30 years ago is now cool again, Dave. The trends come back around. It's probably on every dollar. If you want a loud budget, every dollar will do it. We could turn up the volume, I'm saying.

There we go. Rhonda is in Seattle. Hey, Rhonda, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I appreciate it. Sure. What's up? So I wanted to

ask some advice. Over the last few years, my husband and I have really been having a lot of trouble with keeping up with adjusting our withholdings every year. And, you know, we end up paying thousands of dollars come tax season, which is now. And again, this year we owe quite a bit, and I feel like I'm saving all year just in expectation of this huge tax bill. Why are you not calculating your withholding correctly? I don't know. What are you doing incorrectly? Well, I think I just wasn't aware of how much I needed to do that, and I do feel stupid admitting this because of the importance of it.

So the answer to how do I stop doing that is to become aware? Yes. And then go calculate it, right? Yeah, yeah. So technically speaking, here's's your math all right yeah if you knew at the beginning of the year in january what your income is going to be approximately for the year and what your deductions are going to be approximately for the year that you could calculate the exact amount of income tax

you're going to owe in total. Does that make sense? Yes. And if you divide that into each paycheck, we know what should be withheld in the paychecks then. Yes. And so it's a simple, I mean, let's just be real basic. Let's say it's $24,000 is your tax bill every year total then your withholding should be two thousand a month right and i think yeah i think our problem is um it just the withholding doesn't keep up with no it's all screwed up yeah the irs is incompetent they tell you the number of deductions. My daughter, when she first got married, now she's married with kids now, but I don't remember the first job, she came over and said, Dad, how many deductions do I need to do?

And we calculated out what her tax was going to be. She was a single lady out of college, not making a ton of money, and we had to claim seven deductions. She had no deductions, but we had to claim seven deductions she had no deductions but we had to claim seven deductions to create the proper withholding so that the proper amount was withheld so that she didn't owe any tax and didn't end up short like you have and so um or and didn't get a big refund either one so but that's dumb i mean so obviously their tables are screwed up right right so you can't really go on the irs says you should have some no you got to actually say this is the amount of tax io it's almost like you do your tax

return a year early right and that's the that's the most precise way to adjust it now if you if you hadn't had the trouble you've had it may it may be but let's say if you had a steady thing for the last three years you've gotten around three thousand dollars that you've owed every year okay but nothing has really changed then we probably know we just need to adjust it by three thousand dollars a year right 250 bucks a month right easier yeah that's easier than going and doing your whole tax return and figuring out exactly what taxes owed because nothing has changed. But now if you got married, moved states, income went up or down, bought a house. Had a kid.

Had a kid. There's all kinds of stuff that can throw that off, right, in which case you would need to go and run your calculation. So what's your household income, Rhonda? It is this year, well, last year, it was about $200,000 combined. What's your husband do for a living? He's got a federal government job, and then he's also got military retirement. Homeland security. Okay.

What do you do? i work for the state doing what we both have government jobs um i work for the court system okay i'm trying to learn about you guys for a second before i made this suggestion because here's what i would do it sounds to me and you tell me if i'm wrong, okay, but it sounds like this whole thing just makes you want to throw up. All the time. I just don't want to deal with it at all. Right. I'm afraid I'm not doing it right, and it scares the crap out of me,

and I don't want to keep doing it right because I feel ashamed, and that's kind of what I think I'm hearing. And so if that's the case and i'm in your shoes i'm just going to go get some help you make 200 grand a year spend a little bit of money and go see a tax professional go to ramsey solutions and click on elp endorse local provider for some of the tax pros we have have them sit down and calculate this for you and tell you what to do okay okay and make them show you the numbers don't just do it blind right but that way you don't have to go god i don't even know where to start calculating

this crap you know yeah yeah and i don't want to do it wrong again and i kind of hear all that and it's okay now the trick anytime you're hiring somebody to help you because of that feeling is to make sure you lean in enough to where you understand why they're telling you to do what you do right you don't just blindly go well my tax guy told me that's when you get screwed up right yeah so learn enough but that that way you don't have to do it it's worth a couple hundred bucks let somebody else do it for you yeah definitely i think that that's yeah yeah the way to. And I think just moving through the transitions of all the other things you mentioned, this is our first year without a dependent and getting raises. And I had a side job. take hardly any pretty much any federal taxes out so i knew that i was going to have to save them out for that so it but in the end it's like okay still or you could just adjust your withholding

you could just adjust your withholding at the state or homeland by the amount that the side job is generating right yes either way as long as they're getting their money they don't care right right yeah yeah have somebody help you calculate jump on ramsey solutions.com slash tax i just went through this this weekend with my tax pro and they showed me all the math and numbers and it was super helpful to break it all down so worth reaching out to a pro and have the peace of mind there and fully understand what's going on i always see how much i'm paying it just pisses me off i would love to be your tax guy dave that would be fun yeah it's like you're doing taxes for the Grinch.

This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. We're so glad you're here. Hey, thank you, guys. We're seeing our numbers on Spotify and our numbers on Apple Podcast. Our numbers on YouTube are our numbers on Apple podcast. Our numbers on YouTube are all through the roof.

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All this stuff affects the algorithms. It really does. We, you know, honestly don't mean anything. We don't really need the affirmation, but it does affect whether these algorithms push the show forward when someone's searching stuff. So, really, it does help us a ton. And it's a big deal. And also, if they've got a share button on your platform, use it, or just tell people about it, or click a link and send it to your friend and cut it out and cut and paste it and say,

this is a show you need to be watching. This is information that's life-changing. These guys and gals are fun and funny and helpful, and those are the things we are. Sometimes we're mean, but most of the time it's just because we love you. Sometimes all at once. And it takes that to get your freaking attention. You've been funny and mean at the things we are. Sometimes we're mean, but most of the time it's just because we love you. Sometimes all at once. And it takes that to get your freaking attention. You've been funny and mean at the same time.

That's one of your trademark moves. What? Yeah. David is in Phoenix. Hey, David, how are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, George. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. How can we help? Dave had a question about a Roth conversion. Hi, George. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? Dave, I've got a question about a Roth conversion. I'm trying to figure out whether or not that's something that would be right for me. I'm 69, still working full-time. I'll be working for a few more years. I've got a self-directed traditional 401k and then a small um traditional ira and again just trying to figure out whether or not you know tax-wise it makes sense how much is in all of those those two about six hundred and five thousand okay all right and um what will happen what are you going to do with that money,

that $605,000, in the next 20 years? In the next 20 years, well, when I stop working, probably in a few years it will just start supplementing, you know, I've got some retirement pensions, but it will just supplement the money that we're living on. Okay, so here's why I'm asking, all right? There's a couple of things that go into the answer of the math on this. The longer you're going to leave the money alone,

the more sense it's going to make to convert it and go ahead and pay the taxes. It's not going to make any sense to convert it and pay the taxes out of those funds. Let's take the $600,000. It's maybe $200,000 in tax. Do you have $200,000 in addition that you would pay the tax with without messing with this? Yeah, we've got some other mutual funds and things.

Okay. Yeah, so because if you just reduce it by the, let's say you reduce the 600 by the tax amount and then it becomes tax free, it's an exact wash. It doesn't, there's no, there's no benefit to doing that. Well, there's no benefit mathematically. Now the long, if you pay the money outside, number one, then number two, the longer you leave it alone, the more it's going to make sense. Then there's two other factors for you to weave into whether you want to do this or not one is you've got mandatory withdrawals on it now beginning at 72 and a half okay your uh required minimum distributions or rmds you're aware of that probably

correct it used to be 70 and a half they just moved it to 72 and a half okay so with a roth you don't have that gotcha the second thing is when you die and you leave a traditional the taxes will be paid by the person the income tax on that account will be paid by the by the person who inherits it there's no inheritance tax it, but the income tax will still be paid. You will either pay the income tax when you pull it out, or they will pay the income tax when you pull it out. If you leave a Roth to someone, there's no tax, because there's no tax on a Roth.

Okay, I got you. So it's good for estate planning. It's good to not have to screw with the RMD. But if you're going to turn around and be using up the money in the next four or five years, it's probably not good. Right, right. Okay, okay. So what could an idea be then, Dave, is to use, let's say I went ahead and did that. I retire a few years and I start living on the money that are not in those vehicles, that are just in regular mutual funds. Yeah.

And then when those run out, per se, or what have you, 10 years from now or whatever, then start using the other money. You could. You could do that. What's your total net worth? 605 in those that I just mentioned, and then 725,000 in just regular mutual funds. Your house paid for? Yes, sir. What's it worth? 750 or so. Okay. So you got about $2.1 million net worth. Okay, give or take. I mean, you may have some other assets we haven't talked about, but that's about where we are.

So I'm 63. I will never touch my retirement account. I've got plenty of other assets. So I have converted it all to Roth. So I don't have to screw with RMDs, and my kids don't have to pay taxes on it. No RMD, no taxes. Okay. Cause I'm not going to touch it. It's going to go to them. Gotcha. It's probably, you know, cause I've got, I'm going to live off of other stuff. I've got a bunch of real estate. I've got a bunch of other income and so on. Right. So I'll never touch that stuff. So it's a pure estate planning and RMD play for me. So every year, my 401k here at the office, I have to match myself.

But matching a 401k is required to be traditional. It cannot be Roth. And then I flip it to a Roth in December of every year. So I don't own a dime. All 100% of mine has been converted to Roth. But that's the reason, because I'm never going to touch it. Okay. And so it's going to grow tax-free.

If I live, like, into my 90s and I'm 63, it's going to be millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars, just that one account, right, going to the kids completely tax-free. It's awesome. Okay, gotcha. So that's the way I'm looking at it but again if you're going to turn around and pay the taxes by converting it and flip turn and take the money right straight back out it does the math does not work don't do that okay gotcha so that that's the

way i'm that's why i'm trying to go through this um and george you know that's what this is one of those things that has changed with me it's not not the advice has changed, but once I got to this age finally, I started doing this show at 32, right? Wow. So when I got to this age, we talked about Roth like it was some distant thing in the clouds. It was sort of hypothetical at that time. It's out there in the mist somewhere. And now the stinking thing's staring me in the face, and I'm going,

yeah, but I did all this other stuff, right? And I don't even need the money. So I've got to start thinking about it even different yet again. And so we used to say convert it to Roth because it's going to grow tax-free and you'll have all that tax-free money when you get to retirement, which I do. I've got all that tax-free money. I'm 63. I can access it.

Zero penalty, zero tax. I can get a hold of it right now if I want it, right? But why would I? It's growing for the next 20 years with zero tax on that growth nowhere else i can put it that it's going to do that for me or for them and so it's changed my perspective of how important that tax-free thing is when you look at it when you look at it through the lens of the estate tax or the rmd yeah and for people wondering out there should should I be doing this? There's a certain spot in the baby steps.

We tell you that's the right point. It's not in baby steps one, two, three, even four. It's seven. It's once you have a paid for house, then you can take the hit and pay the taxes on that. But before that, you should be focused on the home payoff. That's a very important clarification. Investing 15% before that. We were talking to a multi-millionaire baby

step seven guy and i just assumed everybody knew that so you're just a good clarification i don't want people to go out there just converting left and right exactly hearing that call that man's in a very different place he's got a paid for house he's done the baby steps yeah he's got extra money laying around you got extra money laying around and you're in your 40s 50s or 60s and you're in baby step seven and you want to advance your wealth the way to do it is to get the government's hands off of a big block of it by converting it to roth and the rmds these required minimum distributions the reason they have those on traditional is because the government wants their tax money yeah and they don't get any tax money out of the roth it's done you've've already paid it. So they're going to get their money.

They're going to get it out of your kid's hide or out of your hide with the RMD or when you take it out otherwise. So yeah, or when you convert it, they're going to get their money. So the traditional is going to be taxed. It's just a matter on who and when. And so you can control all of that with this conversion discussion.

So you can talk to one of our SmartVestor pros, and they can help you do the calculations on this. Go to RamseySolutions.com and click on SmartVestor and get somebody that we recommend in your area. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is our co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Kyle is with us in Milwaukee.

Hi, Kyle. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me on. Sure. What's up? So I have a quick question, kind of that my wife and I have been brainstorming.

I took a job about a year ago that makes me commute 50 minutes one way. Um, and this is kind of, you know, um, causing a little conflict in work schedule with her being a teacher and working first shift and me kind of working some days first and second shift, but most days just, you know, second shift. We don't really see each other, um, that much, but,, but we're kind of in a pickle because we do have a good deal in terms of expenses. Our rent is only like $400. It's kind of a deal that we got when we moved in together during college.

What do you make? What do I make? Well, we together make about $120. We bring in about $120. What do i make uh well we together make about 120 we bring in about 120 what do you make um i make about 7 000 a month she's a teacher she makes about three so about 10 10 10 and if you were to move close to your work how far is she from hers well the thing is she could get a different job since she's a teacher she could get a job, you know, kind of in any city, you know, the market for. Yeah, because she's not making much. No, she's not.

So that's kind of the other thing. It's like she can be flexible with her job and we can move closer here for time's sake. What's the difference in rent from where you are now to where work is? Yeah, that's actually a great question. The closer you get to Milwaukee, the more expensive it gets in terms of taxes and whatnot at the end of the year. So the difference would probably be going from $400,000 to $1,500,000 plus, $2,000,000 plus. You guys make $10,000,000. Mortgage.

That's $1,000 a month. Yes. $1,000 a month. Yeah. This doesn't seem like a big conundrum financially for you guys. No, I don't think it would be, but, you know, I watch your show and whatnot, too, and I'm like, you know, we're calculating everything. And we're like, in five years, if we just kept doing this, we could have like $300,000 in cash saved up. We could purchase a home straight up in cash.

You know, we wouldn't have that. In five years, you would have $300,000, which is $60,000 a year. If you reduce that by $12,000 a year, that would be $48,000, which is $60,000 a year. If you reduce that by $12,000 a year, that'd be $48,000 a year you're saving. So in five years you'd have $250,000. Okay. And that's not including if you get a raise in the next five years, or if she gets a better paying job. So those are other factors that play into this. So the fact that you have cheap, my point is the fact that you have cheap rent is not what's causing you to buy a house in five years. It's your incredible savings rate.

Yeah, we're pretty, we're pretty frugal. I mean, we watch you, we watch, you know, grand step at Stefan. Yeah, that's what, that's what did. I mean, not Graham Stefan. He's great, but I'm, but he didn't do it. You did it, but you're, you're frugal. That's my point. I mean, not Graham Stephan. He's great, but he didn't do it. You did it, but you're frugal. My point is 50,000, 48,000 of the 60 a year you're talking about saving has nothing to do with the rent. You understood what I did? Yeah.

300 divided by 5 is 60 minus 12,000 for increasing $1,000 a month is 48. Yeah. Okay. So 48 times 5, basically $250,000, you're going to have instead of 300,000. It makes a dent. And that's the difference in the rent deal. So moving does not keep you from accomplishing that exact same goal, except that you're not going to buy $300,000 house for cash. You're going to buy $250,000 house.

But I'm saying you're right on track for all that. That's what I'm thinking. So I don't know. I don't know what I know what we would do, but we were weird in so many ways. Sharon and I, I have never in my life had a long commute and so i mean this morning i drove eight minutes to the office oh and he lives 15 minutes away you do the math how fast he was going down the interstate but anyway that that's also true but the but that aside from my driving habits the the the chance I'm burning up two hours of my life a day is pretty close to zero.

Yeah, that's the thing. You get your life back. My dad did this growing up, Kyle. He drove an hour each way to work outside of Boston, and it took a toll on him. I just talked to him the other day, and he said, man, you don't know what that did to me for 20 years doing that. And I don't think it's worth it. Yeah.

You can avoid it. I would change something. Now, I can do it for a short period of time. I can do anything for a short period of time. We can embrace pain to have a greater outcome. That's an amazing thing. What you're talking about doing is we can put up with this if it gets us to our goal of paying cash for a house i like your your mindset with that

um and so that but there's a lot of different things that could change you could change jobs you could change locations you could change entire cities you could change a lot of things but uh but i'm doing some number of those variables to get my life back as a newly married guy that never sees his wife. That's just, that's hard. Yeah. I'm a short commute guy. That's tough. I wouldn't be able to do that. And the rent's not $5,000. I am a complete wuss. I have to have my home time. Well, I think you'd have more road rage if you had a longer commute. America doesn't need that right now, Dave. We need healing. Longer days on the road. Why are you saying I have road rage?

I do not have road rage. I've driven behind you and in front of you. That has nothing to do with rage. It has to do with you being in the way. My little Tesla car. Get out of the way. You and your little battery car. Move over.

Get out of the way. And then you won't have a problem. You've seen that Mad Max Fury Road? There's a sign that says don't drive in the left lane if you're slow. Dang. There's a sign that says that, George. It can only go so fast it's not a matter of time.

Get in the right lane, and then you don't have these problems. It's not a problem for me. I don't have any road rage at all. Mad Max Fury Road is a documentary about your driving. That's not even a fictional movie. Fury Road. Fury Road. They just filmed dave driving and

then cgi'd it with some actors that's all i have never flipped a soul off and it's been 20 years since i flipped somebody off i'm turning from i never to it was 20 years yeah well i had to i had to be honest but i don't have road i don't get mad i drive fast but i don't get mad thank you frustrated with people like you in the wrong lane but other than that move your little battery car over. That's it. Oh, man. Those little battery cars are supposed to go fast.

You could just push on that thing and make it go. I could take you in a race. I know you could. You probably could. You're too competitive. Yeah, you run fast. I've seen you run. So you're quick.

You're quick on your feet. You're that guy. That's funny. If we don't laugh, we cry. The deal is this, okay? There's always, it's a good discussion with kyle in milwaukee because there's always a trade-off in personal finance some of you are listening and going i live in la everything's an hour commute just get on the 405 now you're

talking an hour right there i mean periods i get it So I get it. I get it. I live in Nashville. So I'm spoiled as long as I don't try to go to Nashville, which now takes three times as much time because all you people from LA moved here. So, uh, and the stinking place is now crowded, but anyway, the, uh, but, but, you know, I understand some of you, a commute's a normal thing. That's okay. So I i was saying i know what i would do but that's not a a financial principle it's not a moral imperative that that if he wants to do that and and it's fine with him and it's fine with his wife but he called because it wasn't fine and so but you get to make choices and when you're making choices there's always a trade-off

the choice is i'm going to drive a i'm going to not-so-great car so later in my life I've got so stinking much money I can drive whatever I want to drive. I'm going to live like no one else so that later I can live and give like no one else. When you say that, you're saying I'm making choices. And what we want you to do, more than just follow us blindly, is learn that principle of intentionality. Because no one wins the Super Bowl on accident. No one has a great marriage accidentally. No one accidentally builds wealth.

And so be very intentional and look at it and go, I'm going to make that trade for that result. And so we're saying, are we going to make a $1,000 a month trade to not have a two-hour commute? We're both saying we personally would. As long as it's a quarter of your take-home pay, no more than that on the rent. Exactly. And it was. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book breaking free from broke is my co-host today. Thanks for joining us. Alicia is with us in Chicago. Hi, Alicia. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hi,

Dave. Thank you so much for having me on my question. I've got about $3,000 in collections that me and my husband owe. We have it negotiated down to about $1,500 roughly. Most of that is in writing. Some of it is not. The question is I was going through some of that today, and while I was reading it, they were saying that they were going to report it on my credit report as paid in full with partial payment if I decide to do that, and then I'm going to owe taxes on

some of it. So I have the money to pay the full $3,000. The question is, is that which route would really honestly be better at the end of the day? Is to pay the full amount or to pay the partial payment? Pay the amount you've negotiated down to pay them out may ask why sure sure because technically they will say they're supposed to send and they don't always do it a 1099 for the difference okay so let's say that um so you have a fifteen1,500 you've negotiated the $3,000 down to, so you've had $1,500 in debt forgiveness. Does that make sense? And debt forgiveness on 1099 is taxable,

and you would report it on your tax return when you get a 1099 from them. And they're supposed to send a 1099 to you and to the others. They don't usually do it they usually just use that as a thing to mess with you um uh now taxes on 1500 if you're in a 30 tax bracket or 500 bucks so do we pay them an extra 1500 to keep from paying $500. No. No, right. That's why I said that. So that's the math on it.

Now, I will add to it, there's a different component, and that is a moral or a spiritual component where you're looking at it and you feel like, you know what, I owe that money. I should pay it. I've got the money. If that's the case, then you should pay the money on that basis, but not because of the threat of taxes. Okay.

Now, so my dilemma is the fact of I'm trying to clean up my credit out of a bad situation that me and my husband got ourselves into. Yeah. And as far as a credit position, which it doesn't even matter because it's all going to be considered a pay-in-full or a charge-off anyways. Yeah, both are a collection item, and both damage your credit. One damages it more because you didn't pay the bill in full. But it's certainly not the end of the world.

Besides that, you don't need to be borrowing a bunch of dadgum money anyway, so you don't need credit. Okay, okay, perfect. Is't need credit. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Is that? Yeah. What would you need the credit for? Do you guys have any other debt?

No, we don't have any. Well, I shouldn't say no. We do have a student loan debt of $17,000 that needs to be paid off, and we've started budgeting, and we should have that cleared up by the end of the year this year. Good. That's the year this year. Good. That's the way it's looking at. And we would like to, in two years, be able to buy a home. You will be. You will be.

Two years from now, none of this will. It'll be on there, but it won't count sufficiently against you to keep you from getting a home. Okay. Yeah, it's not going to do enough damage to keep you from getting home. Because I'm also guessing that if you're in this situation, you've got other bills that are already paid that were paid late. Yeah, yeah. And most of those I've been able to work with them,

and I've gotten them to take our late payment off of our record except like one late payment. The rest of them, they have all absolutely agreed and said not a problem and have taken those all off of our history. You better check and make sure that actually happened because they, again, don't follow through very well. That stuff is usually done by downloaded computer files, and honestly, the people keying in the stuff are not that bright usually.

So you better check it. You better keep a constant watch on your credit bureau and see if all that's really happening or not, which is good news for everybody. You ought to check your credit anyway, even if you're not going to be using it. You ought to know what's on it and make sure. You can pull that once a year for free. Mine's been at zero and frozen for decades now.

As soon as they allowed you to freeze it, I froze it, and of course it was zero because I hadn't borrowed money in 30-plus years. So I just don't have any credit. And if you go to annualcreditreport.com, you can pull that for free once a year from all three credit bureaus. And I think it's wise to do that just to make sure there's no fraud. Especially in your situation like she's in. Making sure there's no fraud and making sure there's nothing going on. Everything's accurate. Even the stuff that you did borrow. In my case, I'm so far removed from that, that it's not necessary for me to check it, but it is a good, it is a good exercise to check it,

or, you know, once a year, all three of them too, because the different ones come up with, there's 52% of the credit bureaus reports have errors. Oh, wow. 36% have errors that are so egregious that they would keep you from getting a loan for the wrong reason or keep you from getting a home for the wrong reason, a home loan, which is, yeah, that's a big deal. All right. Jeanette is in Kenton, Ohio. Hi, Jeanette. How are you?

Hi, I'm good. I'm so excited to ask this question to this duo. Dave, you're awesome. You've got it started all in George Camel. I love Smart Money Happy Hour, and you're just a human version of an exclamation point. Oh, wow. Thank you. Quite the compliment. Wow. So my question today really sort of changed my mind.

I'm curious as to why I would need a financial advisor. My husband and I are in Baby Steps 4, 5, and 6. We're working to pay off our house in the next three years. And I just, I have a hard time justifying an expense for somebody to tell me to do what I'm already doing. So I'm curious to know what you think about that. Well, why do you think George and I use one? I honestly don't know. I don't understand what they would tell me that's different than what I'm already doing. I found that when I have a third party looking, a bird's eye view at my entire financial

picture, they see a lot of things I don't, and they live and breathe this stuff. So they're thinking about tax strategy, estate planning, giving strategy, ways to minimize taxes, ways to maximize my investments. And so they're looking at things from a very different viewpoint than I have. It's not just, hey, can you help me pick a fund? And I can go pick a fund out of the $8,000 and do a pretty dadgum good job. I've been licensed in that. I've done that. I used to do that for a living.

And so I'm very competent and capable of doing it. I'm certainly responsible enough to do it. But what I don't have is I don't spend every day looking at mutual funds. Like the number of hours I spend looking at mutual funds in a given year is very small because I just buy stuff and keep it. I don't think that much about it. I look at my statements and I keep moving, but they're out there moving around in that forest all the time. And sometimes my guy will call me up and go hey there's this thing happening you may or may not want to do it but i just want you to know about

it and he teaches me something i didn't know before about a particular fund or fund class or whatever again it's and what we pay them is a very small amount to manage the existing account it's there's not that much to it. I'm not paying somebody a big, huge annual fee. This is just, you know, I pay them when I purchase. George pays them on the balance of his account. Rachel pays them on the balance of her account. She runs that managed funds process just like George does.

So we think it's worth it. That's why we endorse SmartVestor Pros and why we use them personally. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Our live event season is in full swing. We've got three events coming up where you can go and be with us and experience the different Ramsey teachings live and in person. The big dog is the Total Money Makeover weekend coming May 10th and 11th.

It is almost sold out. You can still get tickets if you go ahead and do it. This two-day event is the ultimate motivator to get you fired up and get your friend, your spouse fired up, get everybody on the same page, get out of debt, become wealthy, be outrageously generous, have a total money makeover. George will be speaking, Jade, Rachel, of course, Ken Coleman about how to get your income up, Dr. John Deloney about the effects of this on relationships and stress and how to win in these areas. We're going to give you the tools to win. We're going to walk you through these time-honored processes, and it's a full-on experience. Lots of Q&A, lots of stuff happening over the whole weekend. It's here on the Ramsey campus,

and it's a Friday evening, all day Saturday. Come in a little early on Friday, watch this show happen on the glass. Smart Money Happy Hour that night. Smart Money Happy Hour is one of the things we do to kick it off that night. And it's one of the things, so you definitely want to come to this. May 10th and 11th, go to ramseysolutions.com slash events and get your tickets. George and I will be doing Dave Ramsey's Investing Essentials, a two-night virtual event, May 21st and 22nd, where we're going to go through material. We were working on some of it today, polishing it up, uh, that I've really never taught. It is, um, my personal playbook on investing, including my real estate and what I do. I'm these days, my friends that I run with are typically, you know, 10, 20, 30, $100 million net worth people and what do they do? And, you know,

what are real people that are real investors do, not some character on TikTok trying to sell you something. 17-year-old on TikTok showing you how to do it. In your mother's basement, yeah. Yeah, the calculations you were walking us through in the meeting, Dave, I think is worth the price of admission alone. So if you want to really do this the right way, Dave's going to really show some stuff you've never talked about before on stage or on air. Yeah. Well, I mean, even our content people are going, I've never even heard that. Well, I don't teach it. I just do it. You know, so anyways, Dave Ramsey's investing essentials, May 21st, 22nd tickets at Ramsey solutions.com. And then this fall, October 24th and 26th through the 26th, the Money and Marriage Getaway with Dr. John Deloney and Rachel Cruz.

But those two together, this is fun. No question. This is a barrel of monkeys right there. I'm just telling you. You have a blast laughing about your marriage, learning about your marriage. They get into stuff. This is adults only. I mean, they teach you what you need to know

to win in marriage and dr john is not ashamed to go there so if they don't invite me to speak i will pay to be there that's how much i love this event oh it's really good it's really good and we can we probably get you a ticket i know a guy yes that was my way in ramsey solutions.com slash events check it out and watch and see what we're doing probably more coming soon lee is in buffalo new york hi lee how are you hi dave it's leah asking it's leah leah i'm sorry i said wrong how can i help okay um okay my husband just got terminated about two weeks ago and we're oddly we're oddly too calm about this I think I'm a little thankful okay what did he used to make okay my husband was about 60,000 uh-huh and what do you make um I am a full-time student right now, finishing my associate's degree.

So how are you eating? Pretty well, actually. Where's the money coming from for pretty well? Well, like I said, he just got terminated. He is on a stipend until the end of May. Okay, a severance package? Yes, very generous. Okay, through the end of May. Okay, a severance package? Yes, very generous. Okay, through the end of May.

So we've got two months almost from today. What did he do? What did he do for a living, I mean? He was a warehouse supervisor. Why was he terminated suddenly? Okay, very odd. They were told that they were going down different paths and that the job was going in a different direction. We were blindsided, completely out of the blue.

So it's more of a layoff than termination. It's permanent. I know it's permanent, but a layoff is permanent. It doesn't sound like he did anything wrong. I believe he didn't. Was there a lot of conflict and toxicity leading up to this? There was a lot of toxicity with a new boss who's been there about just over a year. Okay, who doesn't have the chops to actually say why you fired your husband.

Okay. Correct. So that's what it was. It was not we're going in a different direction. It's I don't like you, you're fired, and I don't have the guts to tell you why. Yes. Okay. All right.

So how long had your husband been there? Three years. Okay. Cool. All right. And so why are you so calm? Because you got this thing till May? I think that's the reason. We're both very oddly calm at this time. I don't know. I feel at peace with it, but I just, we've been following your program for 19 months, paid off the majority of the debt. Thank goodness. That helps. We do have one credit card.

It's at 13, and we have one car, which is about 11. Okay. Besides the mortgage. So I would do what you're suggesting and say we're going to put full stop on any total money makeover debt snowballing and just push pause and pile up cash because we're right square in the middle of a storm right and then here's what i don't want here's what you've already done and i don't like it and i want i want to encourage you to stop it and that is he came home and has grieved this and is angry and hurt and wounded and betrayed and doesn't know what he did and all

this for two weeks i want to go get a job now because if he gets a job like this week making as much or more money this severance is a signing bonus it ends up being a blessing that he got fired. Go get a job making 70K this week. Okay. Go after it like your hair's on fire. Okay. Because you could every day between now and the end of May that he gets a job, the sooner he gets it, the more your signing bonus is called severance that you didn't need. And the faster

you're out of debt completely and the faster you have all of that money could be used to accelerate your debt snowball you follow me i do yeah so don't be calm don't be panicked don't be panicked but be very fired up and wired up about yay i'm away from that twerp i don't have to work there anymore let's go make more money and let's do it right now okay yeah don't wait till june now i have one more question we have about 15,000 in liquid assets but we might be forced to take a to like withdraw from the 401k to cash it out why um should we why they've been very pushy about it um the company is based out of a different country well just take your 401k and roll it to an ira you don't take it out don't withdraw you want a direct rollover direct rollover yeah okay you don't ever want to see

the money. Yeah. Get with one of the SmartVestor pros and just roll it. They can fill out the paperwork. They'll deal with the weird company stuff. And, you know, you can get some basic information. But, yeah, just roll that. You don't need to withdraw it.

And leave your liquid cash sitting there and pile up as much liquid cash as you can. And your husband ought to be working like six jobs, side gigs right now while he's looking for work, and then go get work immediately. Let's create so much income in this 60-day period of time and a new job in the midst of it that this whole thing ends up being a blessing. And you look back and go, thank God he got fired by that toxic twerp. You know, that's a big deal. That's big. But mindset is when I get fired, the first thing I do is nothing.

It's normal because you get knocked flat on your back. And I'm just saying, get up, get up, shake it off, get up, get up, go, go, go, go, go. Instead of like, don't put me back in, coach. That hurt. You know? And that's true. That's the way you feel. You get in this foggy haze.

Yep. You got to snap out of it. Exactly. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Today's question comes from Mike in Washington. Here it is. We got, should I reduce the amount of car insurance coverage on an aging car? My car is eight years

old and worth six to seven thousand. Should I keep all the, quote, bells and whistles or move towards a liability only type of plan? Well, what you would do if i were in your shoes is price it um sometimes the bells and whistles really aren't that expensive bells and whistles in your case you're calling collision which replaces your car so if you have a seven thousand dollar car do you have fifty thousand dollars in cash if you don't you need to keep collision because you need to be able to write a check and not touch your emergency phone and replace this car to self-insure. Now, I'm in a position financially I could self-insure through all of my vehicles easily. I choose not to because I looked at what it costs me to insure a car that's worth X, I spend Y, and I'm basically buying insurance, and

it's worth it to me to do that. To transfer the risk. Yeah, exactly. The car is 50 grand. It costs you a grand for that coverage. It's worth the peace of mind for you to just pay the grand. It's a risk transfer, and it removes, in my case, some of the liability as well because it puts an attorney with the insurance company between me and an accident. And I imagine when the attorney sees the name Dave Ramsey,

they get a little excited. Yeah. On the other side. Yeah. That's that's they get really excited because they, they, they sometimes mistakenly think that means they're going to get something. And what they didn't really grasp was that really means they're in for the fight of their life but anyway so but that's the insurance company's problem right so um yeah that's uh in other words i had the one i remember the most mike like this is i had an old jeep we had down at the lake house and it was about three thousand bucks and i got i thought why do i keep collision on that that's dumb i got teenagers is one reason but at that time but um and i looked up and i got i thought why do i keep collision on that that's dumb i got teenagers is one reason but at that time but um and i looked up and i so i asked the insurance guy i said hey why don't i drop collision he goes it's gonna save you 150 a year when they want to ensure this worse than

i don't want them to so for 150 sold to the man in the green jacket yeah i was just checking my numbers to see what my collision is out of my policy. It's about 50% of my premium is going toward collision. Okay. And on a $6,000 or $7,000 car, it's not a lot of money. So you probably, unless you've got a big pile of money to self-insure, you need to keep the collision in place, most likely. And look at the trade-off, the dollar spent versus having the coverage.

It usually is a good buy. It might be $100, and you go, all right, I'm willing to keep paying. Now, if you've got a super bad driving record or I don't know what you're driving, you're driving some weird car that gets stolen all the time or something like that, like a Hyundai or something like that, but, yeah, can't get a Hyundai covered right now. It's awful. And so, sorry, Hyundai, I didn't do it. You guys did when you built them where they could be stolen so easy.

I've heard about it. And I think Kia's as well are very easily stolen. Same mess, yeah. So, anyway, there's a theft problem on them for some reason. Well, I know the reason. I'm not going to go into it. I'm not going to go into it. I'm not going to help with it. So anyway, the, yeah, look at, unless you've got some kind of weird car situation,

it's not going to cost you much to cover this. And when you actually look at the actual savings, you're going to go, it's not that much money. That's what I think you're going to do. That's what I did in most of the cases I've looked at. Catherine is in San Diego. Hi, Catherine. How are you? going to do. That's what I did in most of the cases I've looked at. Catherine is in San Diego. Hi, Catherine, how are you? I'm good, thank you.

Thank you for taking my question. Okay, so I'm waiting for my final tax returns. I hired a company to negotiate and get all my taxes caught up. I ended up becoming self-employed um back in 2015 however um it was i've been learning a lot unfortunately the hard way and my bookkeeping is a mess and now i owe a lot of money and't know. You haven't paid taxes since 2015? No, I paid some, but not all of it. How much do you think you're going to owe?

It's probably going to come out to about $50,000. $50,000. Do you have any money? No. I mean, I just got the $1,000. I just started listening to you guys. What's your income? It fluctuates, and it goes from $30 to $50. You're still self-employed? This is a business you run?

Yeah. This is a business that I run, and just for the last three years, it has has stayed at 50 um and I'm working a part-time job what other debt do you have I just uh when my debt I back in 2022 everything I didn't make much money. So I ended up accruing, I paid everything off and then I started using credit cards again. So I'm back up at 10,000 in credit cards. So you have IRS debt of probably 50, credit cards of 10, anything else? Yeah, that's it. And then my regular rent and those are my, you know, the necessities of rent and food. so you make 50 on a good year you owe 60 let's put it that way so we need to get her in is your credit trashed i beg your pardon is your credit trashed no i've been i've been keeping up with the payment do you

own a home no okay and like i just had an accident um two ago. It was a brand new car that I was already like two payments away from paying it off. And then it got totaled. That was the bad year where I only made, I think it was about, I made like 22,000 that year. So when my car got totaled, that was it. And I luckily had bought another car that was cash. It's an old car. It's a good car. It's a Toyota. And for some reason, I just saw this person selling it.

And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to buy it because you never know. And sure enough, the new car got totaled. So I've been driving my Toyota and of course I'm not buying a new car until I can pay something cash. But you don't have any money? No. So the money from the insurance from the total car is gone? It's gone because it was paying the bills after, because like I said, that was the bad year. I had used that money to keep up with the rent and to keep up with paying my...

Okay, the IRS is going to be penalizing you and taxing you until you get this 50K cleared. You can put it, your guys that are working with you, your tax folks, can probably fairly easily negotiate a payment plan. It's going to be a substantial payment until you get the 50 cleared. But that 50's going to be a substantial payment until you get the 50 cleared but that 50 is going to be with you a while if all if you only make 50 so what i would

love to see you do is i i doubt you can do it but if your credit union will loan you the money to pay the irs i'd rather you owe the credit union than the irs it's less interest and they're um much easier to work with. They're more human. And so I want to get the IRS out of your life as fast as you possibly can. But if you're going to be fooling with this for three or four years, and you may be if you don't change your income, then we're just going to work a dead snowball. We're going to clear these credit cards. But I want you to fight to get your income up and try to add some more because i mean even five or ten thousand dollars more than you're making now a side hustle or whatever uh thrown at this 50 you can start chunking it and

getting it away and getting it done and of course no more bleeding you got to get your books in order and you got to stay current from this point forward so that you don't just trade old tax debt for new tax debt by not taking care of business again. So you really, really, really have to go in and have a healing in this area. And you might need to go, should I be running this business right now? Should I go get a full time job working for someone else making even 25, 30 bucks an hour would give you a raise compared to what you're making now so that's an option to consider this becomes too much or both yeah i don't know what the business is but if you can do the business and keep the 50k plus a full-time make a 50k then then you can change something like a year you know that kind of thing so i'm gonna be fighting and scratching and clawing to try to

get my income up and try to get the irs out of my life as fast as I can. If I'm in your shoes, this is the Ramsey show. Our scripture of the day, dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. First John 3.18. C.S. Lewis said, One of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is shut their eyes to facts. Ooh. Deb is in San Antonio. Hi, Deb.

Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hello. Hi. What's up? Yes. We have recently found out that our daughter is in need of prosthetic jawbone joint replacement on both sides of her face. Wow.

And although she's in a tremendous amount of pain, our insurance company considers this a cosmetic procedure and they do not want to cover it. The part they will not cover is in the ballpark area of $65,000. Wow. And we're wondering, what is your advice to people in this situation? We do not have an extra $65,000 hanging around. This is a serious need. If we do not do it. How old is your daughter?

She's 22. How long has this been going on? She started having a lot of pain about a year ago. So we went to an orthodontist and they said, oh, there's a serious problem here. We're going to send you to a specialist. The specialist said, we think we can help you. We need to put you in braces for a year. That year came and went recently and they re-evaluated and

said, oh, sweetheart, we can't help you. We need to send you to a different specialist. And so we recently saw that specialist who said, oh dear, your choice is prosthetic jawbone joint replacement. Okay. And you've seen only one person. We saw the orthodontist here. The one specialist. You haven't gone and gotten a second, third opinion on this issue. The specialist we saw locally was very good. He said, you know, we can possibly fix this by splitting the upper jaw.

It's $65,000, and you're going to take my jawbone off. I'm getting second, third, and fourth opinions. This is our third opinion. No, it's the first opinion, and you liked it because you liked him, is what you just told me. Then you changed your story. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to explain it that way.

We feel very good that we're in good hands. We've talked with our orthodontist, our dentist, the specialist in our town, the specialist in the other town. I don't know who else to go to. You went to a specialist in the same field in a different town and took her there and he looked at her, she looked at her, and gave you the exact same diagnosis. Well, we have an MRI. her jawbone right there is gone wow what a horrible thing i'm so sorry well i just the only thing i know

the only thing that we've had experience with is in the medical community is to always get lots of different people looking at a problem that is severe, not just simply one that I like. And you've got one plus one looked at it out of town when you sent the MRI over. If I were in your shoes, Tantra, you ask what we would do. What we would do is we would keep working the problem because there may be another solution that is insurable. I don't know. I don't know anything about this from a medical perspective. Zero. I have no knowledge of it, but I'm just working a problem. I'm working a project here and an issue and my baby's hurting and I can hear her pain in your voice. And so, um, and I don't blame you for, for, you know, wanting that pain to go away.

That's a good mom. So, but I'm going to, I'm going to try to figure out that. Then the second thing I'm going to do is let's say that you talk to maybe two or three more people in, um, you're in San Antonio. So you're, you know, you're in Dallas and you're in Houston talking to people and, um, in personal visits and they're looking at it and saying, oh, and then you ask around that community and you find I'm going to become a dadgum expert if I'm in this situation over the next two months, if my baby's hurting in this situation. I am way too old and ornery to trust one doc on something that's this unusual. This is not a simple thing that happens every day to somebody. I've lived my whole life. I've never heard of it happening before today.

So it's very unusual. Would you agree with that? Yes. Okay. So for that reason, I'm going to just keep researching. Then the second thing I'm going to do is once I have established for sure in my mind, and you may already have, you may not want to take that piece of advice. That's fine. That's okay. You, you ask what we would do. We're here to help you. We'll tell you what we would do. Um, once I've established that, that it is a absolute necessary situation,

that it is not cosmetic, it's the, it's a dadgum medical problem, then we're going to start talking more sternly immediately to the insurance company. As a matter of fact, I may go ahead and start that conversation now to the point I might hire an attorney to make them provide the insurance money. So you might spend $3,000 or $4,000 or $5,000 on an attorney instead of spending $65,000 on the procedure and make the insurance company insure it. Because I don't know.

I have no knowledge, but I'm going to. I don't accept the first answer from the doctor, and I don't accept the first answer from the insurance company. I am cynical. I'm suspect of all of these people until I get this problem solved, okay? I don't mean that in a mean way. I'm just saying until the problem is solved, they're part of the problem. Okay.

And that's the way I'm fighting it because I'm a warrior-style person. Think about it this way, Deb. If I were to pay you $65,000 in order to fight this as your full-time job, would you do it? This is your full-time job. And so that's how I look at it. And I was just doing some quick research online, and someone went through the same thing. And they said it was 50K for all this.

It was a huge battle with insurance. But eventually most of that was covered. And they, again, had to fight. They said these surgeries are medical, not dental. So as long as you're in network. Where'd you find that? I just did some Googling, Dave. I'm very sleuth-like like that.

So there's stories out there. I would connect with people who have been through this and ask them how they did it, how they fought it, just to give you some hope that it can be done, but it's going to be a journey. Fighting insurance companies is not fun. Yeah. done but it's going to be a journey fighting insurance companies is not fun yeah and so you got a i guess yeah so that the reason for my cynicism is let's be real blunt you got a bad

diagnosis or a bad um treatment plan the first time you go the orthodontist, spend a lot of money. Braces, honey. We spent a year in pain. And, oh, nothing. Zero. So why do I, you know. And then he's going to recommend. Well, I don't care what he recommends. Because the last thing he recommended sucked. So, I mean, I'm pretty much firing this guy. You know, I mean, you don't get like three choices on this stuff.

So. Yeah, figure out what is, if it's the only way. And then what is the best way then is if it's the only way and then what is the best way then if it is when i was a younger and less nice version of dave um my wife was diagnosed before we had children uh with uh being pregnant oh we went and told everybody a baby's on the way we go in for the first thing the ob goes oh i messed that up and i went dude you got one job how do you mess babies and you mess up the baby job you're fired and he goes what do you mean i said we'll be transferring her files somewhere else your whole thing you do is to find out if

babies are coming and make them come and you didn't make that hat and you screwed that up and i and now i gotta go tell all my relatives no babies on the way yeah dude you are so fired and my wife's like and i and i wasn't even that nice um insurance like you embarrassed me and i said yeah yeah he embarrassed you what he did he won't be seeing him again it's fine so yeah oops till you run into him at a grocery store 30 years later that's why they call it practicing medicine. That is scary. So we're just giving it our best shot. So anyway, we obviously had three wonderful children later and had a wonderful OB experience.

One guy took care of all of those. And he was right every time. He was a lifelong family friend, so I'm not a perpetual jerk to all doctors. That's not the point. But if you've got one job, dude, dude one job and you mess that one up so that's two dreams today i wanted to be your tax guy just to see you irate and i want to see i want to be your your ob your failed ob doc yep epic fail dave never mind i did not see i thought i saw something epic failure epic failure golly yeah i read the test panel wrong

yeah you flunked when i happened in college they got that's called an f yeah out of there done that puts uh this hour in the books we'll be back with you before you know it in the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. If you're a leader, your personal growth matters for your organization, because whatever you lead can only grow as much as you do. I know from experience. I've been CEO of Ramsey Solutions for over 30 years, and now I'm sharing that leadership and business coaching experience with you on the Entree Leadership Podcast.

I'm taking your calls and helping you figure out how to overcome challenges within your organization. One episode could change your business. Check it out on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or on the Ramsey Network app.