The Ramsey Show - Stop Hoping Someone Else Will Fix Your Money

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

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Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Ramsey Personality, George Camel, joined by my good friend, Dr. John Deloney, and we're taking your calls at AAA 825-5-225. That's how you join the conversation.

Jesse is kicking us off in Minneapolis. us. Jesse, how can we help today? Hi. See, I am calling because I have a freshman daughter new to college, and my husband and I recently found out that she opened a credit card. She knows we're against that. My husband tossed around the idea of kind of giving her an ultimatum, excuse me, an ultimatum that if she doesn't close it.

we will not provide her the funds from her 529. And I'm just curious your thoughts on that. We haven't talked to her about that yet, but we're just trying to figure out how to navigate it. How did you find out about the credit card? Well, when she was home on Thanksgiving break, she goes to a college fairly close to home. I saw it in her wallet.

How do you see it in a wallet? without opening said wallet. She has like a little, it's like a thing attached to her lanyard. Okay. She has a student ID in it and then her debit card and then I... And then you have... She doesn't know that you know at this point. She does know because I asked her about it.

Okay. Did she get defensive? Was she like, well, here's why I did this? Not really. I mean, she didn't get defensive. She was kind of open at first, but then didn't really want to tell me what the balance was on it. Oh.

Was there an agreement? Hey, we're going to pay for school, but you have to go completely debt-free. You're not going to go into debt. You're not going to open a credit card. What was the conversation like? I don't feel like we ever had a specific conversation, but as she turned 18, I do recall, like, seeing, you know, credit card offers come in the mail and just told her kind of like, please don't ever open one. please don't open one. I mean, I just, she knows we're against it.

So I just want to call out, George, the joy of this show is sometimes people call them and they're like, I found cocaine in my son's room. And then I found my daughter has three husbands. And then occasionally it's like, she has the Delta Sky Miles card. I found a Discover car. It's so great. Okay, so in George, jump in here. Like, Jesse, my rule of thumb is always.

A, I expect my kids to explore and press boundaries and see if they hold. Okay? So it's a feature, not a buck. The second thing is, is there's tons of things that I like and I regularly bad mouth to my son, like country music. He loves it. And by the way, I love it. I just like to harass him. How short young teenager shorts are.

I think short should go past the knee to mid shin like they did in the late 90s. He disagreed, right? So he also knows that me and my wife don't borrow money. That's number one. So I expect him to roll his eyes to say, oh, dad's into that, but I'm not. And mom and dad have a reason for X, Y, or Z. And I'm becoming, he's growing into a late teenager, right? But your daughter's 18.

She's a young adult, right? She's turning into her own woman. And so I would say, as someone who's worked with college students, my whole career, hearing you say I don't like something is far different than you sitting down and saying, here is an expectation that we have. If you want to accept this, here's the bargain that you're going to make with us. But you getting upset because you all have this firm belief about a thing. So take debt off the table.

That's too easy. This is the Ramsey show. Let's say you told her you can drive this car. But in order to drive this car, you have to go to this church. Then she has a choice to make. Do I want this car or do I want this? But it feels to me awfully caustic to circle back and say, hey, we did not give you a firm boundary or a firm set of responsibilities if you're going to take our money. You know how we feel about things.

That's fine. That goes into a bucket of a whole bunch of stuff mom and dad like and don't like. but this is if you're going to take our money, here's what our expectations are. You need to make these grades. You got to go to class this much. If you take out debt, then you are choosing to not accept our money. And so I think if I'm going to sit on a jury here, I'm going to side with an 18-year-old and say, I know mom and dad hate this.

Mom-dad hate a bunch of stuff. They weren't. And then to pull out my college funding feels caustic without sitting. down and saying, hey, we weren't clear. This is that big of a deal to us. And that's our fault. We weren't super clear on our expectations for you. But if you pull college fund, you take the 529, and by the way, even your language, it's y'all's money. It's y'all's account. But you called it your, her, 529, her college fund. And that's the language she's going to hear is mom and dad got mad and through a temper tantrum at a thing I did. And they took away all of my college fund as a way to force

me as a young adult to do something. She's going to either, A, do it at a spite, or she's going to not do it and you're going to cash out your relationship with your kid. You get what I'm saying? So it's your money. You can do it ever you want to with this. But, man, I think it's the right honorable thing is to sit down and say, we mess this up on the front end. We gave you this huge blessing called paying for your college. And we didn't set our expectations for you choosing to accept this money or not. And so we're going to reset that. Okay.

If you think it's worth losing, I mean, if, I mean, that feels like, play it out. I'm a future thinking person. That feels like a big. She's going to probably go into crippling student loan debt now and we're going to lose the relationship. I'm like, this is going to harm you guys more than it's going to harm her. I mean, she'll be suffering financially, but you guys are going to go, why did we, was it worth it to teach her the lesson?

Instead, I would dig in and say, hey, why did you open the? a card. Like, what's behind that? What were you hoping to accomplish? Because if it's trying to save up, but we can help you do that. If you're trying to get a credit score, we can show you why you don't need that for this stage of your life. And I think getting to the root of it and owning it, like John said, hey, we didn't do a good job setting this up. There was no contract in place that said you lose your 529 if you open a credit card. So it does feel caustic and a little bit reactive. So I would try to just calm yourselves emotionally, have the conversation with her, and then go from there.

But I personally wouldn't pull it. And this is the Ramsey guy. If my daughter opened a credit card, I would be heartbroken. Absolutely. But would I pull two decades of savings away from her as punishment? I don't think I could do that.

I would rather see her stay debt-free on the student loan side and figure out this whole credit card debacle separately. And here's just sitting with college student parents over the years. I would do everything I could to, A, be clear, and B, continue to be a place my daughter will call when, not if, but when something happens, whatever that something is. A bad grade, a bad event, a scary thing. Shame eats secrets for breakfast. And so the fact that when you said, what's the balance on that card? She said,

I'm not going to tell you. That means that that 18-year-old didn't feel safe enough to tell her mom. So this might be a great place for you to go out to take her to breakfast one day and say, I haven't fully told you my experience with Dad. Here's what happened. Here's what I did when I was 22. Here's how long it took us to pay it off. And this is why it's such a big deal. We love you.

We love you. And then if y'all want to say, you want this money, you do this, you can do that. I love entrepreneurs. Don't forget, guys, I started my company on a card table myself. So I know what it's like to have people counting on you, your team, your family, not to mention your customers. And when you're the one signing the paychecks, you can't afford to afford to fly blind. But I'll be honest, early on, one thing that nearly sunk us was wasting time with spreadsheets that didn't add up because business units didn't talk to each other. I finally told my team

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take a free product tour today at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. That's netsuite.com slash Ramsey. John is in Boston up next. What's going on, John? Hey, good afternoon. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm a big fan of you guys. I just had a quick question in regards to, you know, how should I approach my student loans? I have $94,000 in student loans and I make a salary of $75,000 a year. The reason I ask how should I approach it is because I work for my local government and I'm eligible for the public service loan forgiveness program.

And I'm also reading the Baby Steps Millionaire's book and Step 2 obviously talks about attacking your loans and going gung ho. And so I'm just questioning, should I attack my loans and go gung ho and just go crazy on them? Or should I, you know, take advantage of the loan forgiveness program by working for my local government and making small and monthly payments and then some of it. saving and investing the rest. So just wanted your advice on how to approach that. Let me ask you this as a guy who's, how long have you been working in local government? I've been working in local government.

It'll be six years in March. Very cool. So when you see what happens at the local level and at the state level and at the federal level, is there anything about your experience, both like your lived experience and what you see going on, that makes you think in any shape, form or fashion, you can predict what any member of any government is going to do in four years? I don't think there's, yeah, no, I can predict that.

If you did, I would connect you with our friends at better help because you'd need a therapist. All I know is my lived experiences was working as a dean of students at a law school. And I had some of the most amazing young men and women who had incredible minds. and they chose to not go into private law because they wanted to serve the least of these in their communities. And they chose public service. And they chose public service because of the do this for 10 years and we'll pay off your loans. And the amount of them that got denied over and over and over again made me so sour on this deal. And it comes down to who do you trust?

And in this situation, like based on what you're saying, I trust you way more, way more than any. making some promise just to get themselves elected or reelected. Do you have any other debt, John? No, that's just about it. Okay. Have you actually signed up for the program yet? Like, how far into it are you? So that's the thing.

I'm currently in the master's program. So while I have been working for the state government, I'll be graduating, God willing, in May of 2026. So I wouldn't start until May of 2026. Okay. And then it's 10 years from that? It's 10 years from that, yes. So how old are you now?

I'm currently 28. All right. So let's say by your 40th birthday, maybe this shakes out. Or another way to say that three presidential elections from now. And here's the thing people don't think about, John, because they get starry-eyed that their hundred grand is going to disappear. Number one, your balance will likely grow until that number gets forgiven. And you're going to be making payments that entire time for 10 years. So you need to add up what that's actually cost.

you. And by the way, the amount that's forgiven is taxable. So you're going to owe taxes on top of that while the balloon has grown, while you've made payments for a decade, and let's hope that it all shakes out perfectly. And so that's my fear. I'm not like angry against the program. Like I love to see someone working for their community, you know, have a benefit like that. I just don't think it's worth it. I love that idea. Yeah. But for your personal life, John, because I'm rooting for John versus like the system, I think you could get out of this debt realistically. within two to three years max if your income doesn't go up. And so the question is,

could I put a little umphin to it and be done in two years and have the next eight be free? Or do I want this living in my head rent free for a decade going, oh gosh, I hope it works out. I'm making that payment again. I hope it works out. And that's my heart for this. I'm rooting, I just believe in John more than PSLF.

I hear that. Yeah, I mean, again, I've been using the loan simulation calculator that my loan provider has and, you know, it's not the most, it might not be the most accurate, but it's the closest thing I have using that calculator. And I'm, you know, thinking about maybe throwing, you know, two grand a month out my loans and, you know, the calculator states that, you know, you'll be paid off in, you know, four and a half, five years if you just do that. And that's if you do nothing differently. That's if your income doesn't go up, you don't try to, you know, ratchet the expenses down. And I just think when you won't, when you have that

goal to become debt free, all of a sudden, you go, I'm willing to make more. I'm willing to spend less. versus kind of sitting on the sidelines hoping that an exterior force changes your life, that's the part that worries me. Because then that's how you operate through life is you go, well, it's not up to me. I got to find out if there's a program that can fix this instead of John being able to fix this. And here's another thing that people don't take into that calculation. If you're really good at your job, you know what you're going to have, tons of opportunities. You're going to meet somebody.

They're going to want to move across the country to be by their parents. when you have twins accidentally. And part of the calculation will not be freedom and not what do we want to do and what cool opportunities do we have in another local government, in the state government, in another state, or in a new for-profit entity, it will be, but I got to stay here for four more years. And so there's a never, this never gets taken into the calculation is a decade of sleepless nights because you are owned by somebody else. because now you need that job

I have to have that job I'm already this far into it so I'm going to not do something that could be a good opportunity not do something that's going to be best for me and my family not go whatever because I'm stuck in this thing

because they have a hundred grand set of golden handcuffs around my wrist and I just don't I just saw my students deal with it and I don't have George you may have it I don't have any of the data. When I left, it was like 98 or something,

some crazy percentage were getting denied. Yeah. And so I don't, it might be 96 now, like it slowly. It might be better now. And let me reiterate, as a taxpayer,

I love the idea that my tax dollars go to getting some of the best and brightest minds and hardest working people into serving people in local communities. I love that idea. Right. But I don't get to make that choice. and so that that's I mean or to put it this way I went and paid my student loans off as fast as I could

and I was working at universities was a nonprofit I qualified for the same program I worked as hard as I could and got those stupid things done so it's not just me I got some skin in the game too I did that because I just didn't want to be beholden to whatever person in office holding that over whatever thing they wanted to do 10 years from now

that's a fair point I appreciate that perspective and that is something I don't think I ever took into consideration, just the future landscape of it. Yeah. And can I throw one more thing at you while you're on the phone? If you don't have the cash to pay for a master's program, I would tell you, postpone it. Hold off because that's yet another set of shackles. I hate to disappoint you that.

I'll be finishing that master's program in May of next year. So you're not disappointing me. I don't, I don't, I don't owe, I don't all those student loans anymore. But I do know I had six figures of student loans and I didn't sleep for years. It made me insane. I had to say no to opportunities. I had to do different things, live in a different house, drive a different car because of that choice I made. So even if you had to submit a letter of, I need to take a semester off and so I can earn some more money and they may want you as a student and they're going to give you a scholarship or they say, great, we'll pick you up next semester.

Whatever you need to do, I just want you to. to know you're not stuck in a track where you have no options. I want you to reclaim your freedom, reclaim your freedom. Right. What's the master's in? The master's in urban planning. Okay. And that's the exact field you're in. Does it come with a pay bump immediately? I'm not in the current field at the moment. However, the jobs that I'm looking at do come with a significant pay bump once, you know, obviously once I'm done with a program and, and get selected for the position that I apply to, yeah. So let's say by next fall, could you be making six figures?

Definitely low six figures. There are, but most likely probably mid the high 90s. Because I'm just wondering, you've got two grand, you can throw out the debt now. What if you had another two grand because of the pay bump and you kept living how you're living? And now we're debt free in two years. Yeah, I mean, again, that is something I'm taking into consideration. If I do, my intent is, you know, within the next few years or a few months to get a significant pay rise. Or what if you have six or seven years of working in local government and you have this graduate degree in urban planning?

And a construction firm hires you to help them navigate government contracts and they're going to pay you a quarter million dollars. Right? So not attaching yourself to this government program 10 years from now allows you to keep all of your options open. There's no better time to start protecting your home than right now. This month only, my listeners can take 50% off any new SimpliSafe home security system during their last chance Black Friday sale. Do not miss this deal. I've recommended SimpliSafe for over 10 years, and it's simply the best security system

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That's SimplySafDirect.com. There's no safe like SimplySafe. Christmas is almost here and our deals are still going strong. So grab gifts while you can. These prices won't last much longer. Rachel Cruz's kids' books are on sale for just $13. They're a meaningful gift for little ones, fun, easy way to teach them about contentment, gratitude, and generosity.

and I'm biased. My toddler's a big fan. And if you're shopping for everyone else too, there's other deals. $13 bestselling hard covers, including books for myself and Dr. John Maloney, $13 career assessments, $12 for questions for humans decks, and $799 audiobooks and ebooks. Get it all. Ramsey Solutions.com slash store, or if you're watching on YouTube or podcast, you can click the link in the description. Annie is in San Francisco up next. What's going on, Annie?

Hi, guys. How are you doing? We're good. How are you? Okay. I was bad. I'm okay. What's going on? So we recently had our daughter, our 19-year-old daughter, she moved out of the house with her boyfriend. She dropped out of school. And in one of the many, well, no one,

but a few of the many heated conversations, there were, I would say, arguments that we would have, Um, we will be very clear about what would be removed if she would go out of the house. Um, and among those, it was, um, removing or not being responsible for her health insurance. Now, she was born with the heart condition. She's been having a few. surgeries over the years. And now that open enrollment, it's going on.

I told her that she needed to find a way to be responsible for her own health insurance. The last conversation I had with her and I told her, you know, you need to look into this. It's almost, it's almost 15 and open enrollment. It's going to come to it. then we need to see what she's going to do with insurance. She gets mad at me. She said, well, why are you doing this? You know, you can't take me out of insurance.

And I know I can. What are you trying to accomplish by taking her off, taking away her health insurance? So she thinks that living with her boyfriend and her boyfriend's house is just being, she pretty much went out of the house to be free of responsibility. Is it to be free of responsibility or to be free of you? Well, I guess free of everything because being at home, she had to bring me good grace. She had to be at home at a third time. Okay.

You know. So I don't know that it's free of responsibility. It sounds like she wants to, because she's going to have rent and she's going to have to do stuff at this new place, right? Well, that's my thing. I don't think she's being responsible of anything. So do you think cutting her off health insurance will make her more responsible somehow?

Especially with a heart condition that you know she's going to need surgery for? Because here's what it sounds like. It sounds like you're even more than punishing. It sounds like you are trying to control what an adult does. Mm-hmm.

Right? Well, in mind, but I'm a, On the other hand, I've warned her to know that being an adult has a lot with it. I got that. If you were like funding her drug addiction, I'd say, yeah, no, this is enabling. Let's cut her off. But access to medical care, I don't think, is directly connected to this relationship decision she made.

We can agree on that, right? Well, yeah. Because I read the prodigal son. I don't know that the dad kicked his son off health care when he left the house with the inheritance. I assume he kept him on the plan, the family plan, and went, all right, hopefully he comes back one day. I can't control him. And lo and behold, he came back. And so I just think there's a piece of this that you might need to let go and then let her test these boundaries.

Let her figure this out for herself a little bit. But I don't think the health care should be a condition. It feels, tell me if I'm wrong, my guess is this conversation escalated. You're going to have to get your own cell phone. You're going to have to pay for your own car insurance. you're going to have to pay for your own gas and she's like fine fine fine and then you went with the nuclear option which is I know you've got a heart problem I'm going to pull that funding off the table too and now it's hard to walk that back is that fair or did you go come out of the gate with

that not really because we uh since she was young we were teaching her and how to be responsible in many ways I know I know but what you're telling me is you taught her all of these things and she still doesn't have that message You what I'm saying? My mom, my mom hard, it's telling me that I should keep covering her health insurance, but at the same time, I want her to know that at a whole and have all of this within. I got you. So all I can tell you is in this situation what I would do in my house.

And I have a young daughter. If my daughter had a medical condition and she was making a, but what I thought was a boneheaded, idiotic, 19-year-old decision. I'm not going to put her life on the line to prove a point. I will sit down with her and say, I love you. This door will always be open for you. You know what I think about the decision or decisions you're making is, and I can't contribute to that.

So you're going to be on your own with your car insurance. You're going to be on your own with yourself. Like, I would put those things out there. And I would always have it tethered with you can always come home. This door is always open for you, and I'll meet you in the driveway with my arms wide open. And I would look at my daughter and say, you've got me as your dad. You got me pinned up on this one because you know I'm not going to let you die on an operating table because you don't have any money. Yeah.

But I need you to hear me say my heart's broken. Not I'm going to keep control you and control you and send you off because she's 19 making a 19-year-old decision. And does she need to learn that adulthood has responsibilities? of course she does. No question about it. But I spent my whole career working with 19-year-olds and they do 19-year-old things. And I'm not going to put my kid in a position. This is me personally. You do what you want. And you are well entitled. Say, you're off. You made a choice. You'd go do it. I'm telling you, in my house, I wouldn't put that on the block. But that's just me. I'd be very clear about my boundaries. The question I want you to ask yourself is, what is the

ultimate goal. I mean, we had this conversation with Sarah already, and she knows she can come back home whenever she feels like she can't be on herself. Like, whenever she needs to, she can come home anytime. But she also knows that rules and restrictions may apply. Yes, but she also knows the home she would be coming to is so cruel that my mom would rather may not have health insurance and prove a point. Right?

And so what kind of home are we coming home to? Not a boundary-free home, not a rule-free home. They're just, again, if you call and said, I feel like cutting off her college funding and cutting off her cell phone, if you've sat down and been clear, I'd be, I'd support you. Go get it. It's your money.

Do what you want. Because of the precarious nature of this situation. Let me put it this way. It feels like y'all are playing blackjack and you know you have an ace. And I want to challenge you not to play blackjack with your kid. Okay. But that's just me. George, what do you think?

I don't think her prefrontal cortex is fully baked yet, so it feels like a lot to put this on her. And I simply would, right now it's opposing magnets, and you're just driving her further and further away. I would try to flip that magnet around and go, how can I draw her in and show with her that I'm truly a safe place for her? And then I truly want the best for her. And that might be a year or two before she has to figure that out.

And the breakup happens. And she goes, Mom, I need a place to crash. I messed up. I'm sorry. And maybe that's the thing you tell her is. I love you enough that when this thing goes south, when it goes sideways, we'll be here. And I'm not going to, when you walk in the door, you're not going to be met with a lecture. You're going to be met with open arms. We know how this ends and we'll be here.

But as for me in my house, I wouldn't put my kids life on the line at 19 years old. Hey, it's Rachel Cruz. The holidays are here, which means family time and giving back and remembering what the season is all about. And let's be real. It also means shopping. Y'all, if you're anything like me, December gets really busy and really expensive. It's harder to stay intentional with your spending. And that's why I love shopping on Amazon, especially this time of year.

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the holiday season a little brighter, and helps me keep my budget in check. That allows me to get back to enjoying the season. What more could a busy mom ask for? So for more information about Amazon's low prices and easy, affordable holiday shopping, head to Amazon today. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.

Open phones at AAA-25-25-2-2-25. Ezekiel's in D.C. up next. What's going on, man? Good afternoon. How are you guys doing today? Doing great. How can we help? So I owe over $50,000 worth of debt. Most of it is loans, and loans have monthly payments, some for 330, some for 500, some for 200. So mixing all the monthly bills for these loans, try to keep up with my credit and my everyday expenses, rent, food and stuff like that, is kind of killing me.

I'm really going in a circle. And my goal here is just to, you know, pay off my debt. Because I make a decent amount of money, but I'm not enjoying it because all my money mostly goes towards paying this debt. Yeah, you work for your lenders right now because every paycheck disappears to them. Say that again? You're basically working for your lenders right now. You're working to provide them a paycheck.

Pretty much. So how much do you make? I made $38 an hour on one job. I bring home about $4,400 a month. And I just got a second job making about $34 an hour. And I'm bringing about $2,600 a month. So somewhere under $7,000 a month. Is one full-time, one part-time?

How are you juggling those? Yeah, one-full. They're all 12-hour shifts, so it's 3-12s at one job. the one paying 38 and it's two 12s at the other job it's not really good for my health it's not really good for my health that's another problem so I'm just doing five straight 12s what kind of work are you in Monday through Friday I'm an armed security guard can I just say this George is going to listen you're at the right place and George is going to walk you through a step by step how to do this all right but can I just shout you out like just guy to got man to man here do you have kids you married No, sir.

Okay. I just want to just shout you out because the word on the street is men don't know how to work and men are all lazy and they're just a bunch of bums and on and on and I hear a guy that probably did exactly what he was told to do on everything. You got to get a new car. You got to get this. You got to get this. And you're not afraid to go work and get after it.

And I want to tell you, man, I applaud you. And George is going to give you a path to freedom. Is that cool? Cool, man. I got to say, I really appreciate that. I've worked my tail long. I know you do, man. I can hear it. That's what gives me hope that you're going to get out of us. This show is for guys just like you. I'm proud of you, man. Because you're not scared to put... George's going to give you a hard path. It's not going to be easy, but he's going to give you a path out of this mess. And I just want to say I'm proud of you, dude. It's awesome.

Appreciate it, man. So number one, Ezekiel, you need to focus on your four walls first before you pay anything. And that's your rent, your food, utilities, transportation. You can cover all. of that, right, with no problem? I'm taking notes. Good. I love it. So rent, utilities, food, transportation. Just cover the basics first. Before you pay any lender, before you do anything else, you can throw insurance in there, too. Make sure you're on track for your insurance payments. And you're bringing in $7,000 right now.

That's what I heard. That's your take-home pay. Right. Are you doing any investing right now? Not at all. I have a lot of ideas and a lot of dreams, but I have this thought process that I have to clean my plate first. Amen. Yes. Yes. Good. Because I was going to tell you to stop investing. Because right now, my thought was he might be doing a lot at once. He's trying to save some. He's trying to invest some. He's trying to pay off some debt. He's trying to live. And so you want to focus on debt payoff. Anything above and beyond those expenses we mentioned is focused on debt payoff. And right now you've got a bunch of debts, don't you? How many separate debts would you say you have? I would have to say at least six. I have this silly thing where I think taking out more loans is going to help me take care of the loans that I have already. That just makes you normal, man.

That makes you normal. You ain't crazy. When people get desperate, they'll go to desperate solutions. Yeah, you get sold that all day long, so you're not crazy. Yeah, and all the marketing is going to be like, oh, Zika, we can help you get out of debt. Take out this consolidation loan, right? So what are the debts? Like you said there's a bunch of loans.

What type of loans are they? Car loans, credit cards, personal loans? I have one credit card for $3,300. It's $86 a month. I have a personal loan for $13,000. That's $3.30. I have a car note that's almost paid off from where it starts. It's down to about $7,000 from $2,500 and over five years.

But it wants $4.65 a month, and that's killing me. insurance. So I'm paying about $800 for my car. I have another personal loan for $8,000, and that's about $2.50 a month. What are all these personal loans for? All these personal loans literally just to keep me above ground and try to catch up with all the other loans and damages to my car. But what started this whole process? Because you make good money. So what caused a guy making six figures to go, I can't pay? pay the bills because it wasn't the these debts as it stands. Man, just bad money management.

I'm really bad at managing money. I've been trying to do this for so long. I had an idea to move somewhere and stay cheap, but decided to help out some family members, so I moved into our house where we're moving into our house where we're renting the house for $3,600 a month. And you're paying the rent? I'm not paying it all by myself.

but I'm paying... What's your portion? I'm paying $1,500. Okay. That's reasonable for a guy taking home $7,000. But do they expect you to pay all the light bill and all the water because you're the rich one now? No, I'm literally just paying the $1,500,

but I came from a place where I was paying $5 and really doing well. And then I came here, and now I'm paying $15. Well, you weren't doing well. You were just able to shuffle stuff around on the Titanic a little bit more. But $1,500 is not bad if you make the kind of money. Here's the hard truth. You're not in a position to help anybody right now. The week can't help the week. And I hope and I know that once you're out of this mess, you're going to be a real generous guy because you have a heart to serve and a heart to help. And you do security for a living. And yet your life is so insecure right now. Your finances are out of control. And the good news is, look, the napkin math says you put two grand a month towards your debts. You're done in two years. You see how that works? And you're not just scared of hard work. So put $2,500 and you're done in three years. And then you get exciting. What if I did three grand a month?

Well, that's 36 grand a year. I'm done in 18 months. Do you see how this starts to roll? And then what will cause you to feel the progress and momentum is using the debt snowball method. And I'm going to gift you every dollar. It's our budgeting app. It's really more than that now because it's going to coach you through this whole process. So you're going to lay out all of your debts in the app and you're going to focus on the smallest balance.

So what's your next smallest debt? What's the balance on it? I would say the smallest one would be. credit card of $1,100. That would be the absolute smallest. Done. That one's done by New Year's. Within the next 30 days, that $1,100 is going to pass through your hands,

and you can throw it and knock out the credit card debt, can't you? Yes. Done. Great. So that's one debt freed up, and remember, you freed up the payment on that. So now we can apply that to the next smallest debt. What's the next smallest one? The next smallest one, I have it all written down here,

would have to be something I left out. I left out. I took $5,600 out from my 401K as a loan. So that would be the second smallest one. Okay, and that one will get knocked out within, what, three months? We'll be done by March on that one. Sweet. And so now you can start to see the progress.

You go, okay, I'm actually making progress instead of trying to not, you know, play whack-a-mole here with my debts. And every dollar will lay all of this out very clearly for you. But here's the fact of the matter. You're going to have to keep this income up for a little while longer. But I don't want you doing this. I don't want you working, you know, five, 12-hour shifts for the next four years. We can agree on that, right?

Right. But could you do this for a year? My lady does not like it at all. Oh, I bet. Well, she doesn't see you. You're a ghost to her. And even when you are around, you're probably not super fun to be around right now. And you're going to have to tell her, hey, for 24 months, we can't go out to eat.

Date night looks different. For 24 months, we're going to go on walks and hikes. And free movies at the local whatever. Because I'm going to get a, I'm going to be, listen to this word, I'm going to be free. We're going to be splitting a Costco hot dog, 75 cents apiece. That's the life you're going to live for a very short time, Ezekiel, so that the next 20, 30, 40 years of your life is truly free, is truly secure. So hang on the line.

Christian's going to pick up. We're going to gift you every dollar to help coach you through this. Exactly what we did on air. It's going to do that 24-7 in your pocket, giving you recommendations, personalized plan to help you out of this mess. You call us back if we can help once more. Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any at all.

I don't understand this, John. Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're going to die or something? Well, I used to be one of those guys. I didn't even think about it. And one of my buddies said, hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids. And I immediately went and got term life insurance.

That's a gut punch. And you're telling me, for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse. They've lost somebody important to them. Me too. They don't know what to do next. Me too. I mean, you're going to have a crisis here. And, you know, you've got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow.

She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up, or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow. That's exactly right. These are the two options. Take care of your dadgum family, man. Term life insurance can replace income, pay of dads, cover funeral expenses so your family can actually have the opportunity to just be sad, to just miss you. That's exactly what it's supposed to be.

It's saying, I love you to your family, term life insurance. Jeff Zander and the team of Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years. They're the only people I trust. Go to Zander.com or call 8003564282. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm George Camel, joined by bestselling author Dr. John Deloney, and it's open phones at AAA 825-5-225. Give us a call.

We'll do our best to help you take the right next step for your money, your relationships, and your life. Kate is in Charlotte, North Carolina. What's going on, Kate? Hey, how are you all today? We're doing great. What's your question? Good, good. I have a question about paying for potential funeral expenses for an estranged father.

So we haven't really... Is he still with us? Yes, he is. He's 65 in not great health. So I would expect, obviously, sometime in the future. Well, even if he was in great health, you could expect sometime into the future, right? For all of us. It's coming for all of us.

Exactly, exactly. I'd just like to get ahead of the curve before anything catches me by surprise. he's really not of the means to have pay for anything himself won't have any kind of a state or anything like that my siblings won't really have any means either and so I feel like it's going to fall on me but with not really having a relationship more than an occasional phone call that kind of thing I'm just kind of curious what my obligations are and then also what I need to do because I'm working through Baby Step 2. I've got about 20,000 more in debt to go.

But do I pause baby steps to throw a little bit in savings? Or what do I need to do? Do you struggle, and this is the pot asking the kettle here, do you struggle with anxiety? Of course. Yeah. So you've created a future potential problem and you've dragged it back to today

and you're trying to solve it today. As one amazing young man at my church once said, this is a problem for future you right now. Okay. Like financially, okay? Like the financial, like if he drops dead tomorrow, God forbid, I hope he doesn't. If he does, then we'll solve that problem tomorrow. But right now, you're in your own emergency, which is I got to get the stuff paid off.

The second thing I would ask you is, where does the word obligation come from? Because that can be a legal question. like who pays for the burial here for a guy that I don't want anything to do with but I hear you asking more of a character slash spiritual slash moral question yeah it's definitely more of a moral side I don't wish me ill will toward him sure but so ask yourself this question and this is a haunting question who do you want to be and you get to answer that however you want okay and what I mean by that is I want to be a person who even if somebody treats me like crap or whatever I'm going to go do that you this, I'm going to call this the next right thing, which is I'm going to pay for as inexpensive of burial as I can, but I'm going to show dignity and respect and I'm going to go on about my life.

Or I want to be a person who holds people accountable to how they treated me. And so you don't want anything to do with me. I'm not going to have anything to do with you. Or I want to be a kind of person that lets them have it. I mean, I can go on for days, but you have to ask yourself that question and then reverse engineer the actions. They're going to get you to the identity that you. want to see you when you look in the mirror.

Okay. Okay. And I wish it was more complicated than that. And I know it's heavy. Yeah. It's simple, but it's really hard, right? If this funeral happened, who would show up? There might be a handful of people.

Okay. So we can limit this. This isn't going to be a big thing. We can limit the cost of this. Keep it as simple as possible. And whoever signs the funeral agreement is going to be liable to pay. And so I would try to get some. some agreement on that before that day comes so that it doesn't add stress to the grief.

Are you can cremate him? I mean, there's any number of paths you can take here. Okay. I'm just, I'm almost hesitant that if I bring it up now, then everything would fall on me and there would be no cooperation from at all. If you're asking that right now, then you know that's what's going to happen now, five years, 10 years, 15 years from now. You know that. Yeah. And so worrying about trying to solve that in the present is not a good use of your time or energy because you can't solve it. What's your timeline to get out of debt? I should be out of debt in the next 12, 18 months.

It's amazing. Congratulations. Thank you. And then beyond that, you've got an emergency fund and I would start saving up knowing that there might be three, four, five grand on the line that I might need to pay to cover this expense if no one else chips in. Or I'm going to be a person that's not going to cover other people's stuff. And so I'm going to go on about my life. But you're going to have to look yourself in the mirror long after he's gone. Yeah.

Right. And in the grand scheme of life, going, man, I hate that I spent three grand. Or you go, you know what? I don't regret it. Yeah, it wasn't a fun thing to pay for. It didn't solve any family dysfunction. But I did the next right thing for me. Exactly.

And so either way, I would make peace with the decision and not role play this in your head, letting it live rent free. That will just consume you. Because you have a bunch of imaginary conversations with people, don't you? Of course. Yeah. And then she said, and then I said this, and then you always get like the mic drop moment, right? And you might be right. It might play out exactly like that. But 99% chance, no way. It feels like, I remember Bray Brown said this and I loved it. She said, we spend a lot of time dress rehearsing tragedy.

We spend a lot of time imagining what would happen if the worst case thing happens and how we're going to respond. and how we're going to be the hero and how nobody's going to cut. And what that does is it serves as a Xanax to us dealing with the problems that we have in our life right this minute. And it's just a way to distract yourself. It's like TikTok except in your own mind. scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. And so just knowing that rumination never solves a problem. And as a ruminator, I know that's easier said than done, right?

I'm like, just don't eat the cookies. And I'm like, but I have to, right? right so i get that um but yeah george is right if if you're asking what we would do in our personal life george i would just save up and pay i put three grand or five grand aside and i would say i want to be the kind of guy that buried his father and i want to be that guy but that's just that's for me right and i don't know your it's not like a oh i'm better than someone because i'm doing this it's just this is the simplest route to get through this is for me just to deal with it versus getting angry at everyone in my life and say, why aren't they chipping in? I knew they wouldn't chip in.

Well, then you just drank the poison. Yeah, and hope they suffer for it, and they're not going to. So you might decide it's easier for me to just suck it up and pay three grand than it is for me to make seven phone calls that are going to ruin my month. Yeah. And then ruin nine Christmases from now. I'm guessing you don't have a great relationship with many people in your family. Not my biological family, no. Okay. There tends to be a ripple effect there. And I'm sorry, You're dealing with that. And that's at the root of all of this is you're frustrated. You're sad.

You need to grieve the fact that you should have a relationship with your family. Like that's crazy to not be able to have a healthy relationship with your biological family. And yet that was taken away from you for things that were out of your control, right? Yeah, be heartbroken. And this is just a reminder of that. Do the scary, impossible right next hard thing. So if George and I would probably get. through that 20,000 bucks as fast as we possibly could, and we would save up an emergency fund for

three to six months. I am an anxious guy, so I like the six to seven month emergency fund, and inside of that would be the money I needed to bury somebody that I'm estranged with, but that I think is the next right thing to do. That's the path out. And if it happens before you're debt free, just pause the debt snowball, save up as much as you can, as fast as you can, and get through this. So sorry, Kate. Hey guys, it's open enrollment time for health insurance. And if you have ever felt overwhelmed trying to figure out your health care costs, you are not alone. For a lot of families, health care is one of the biggest line items in the budget. And it gets more confusing every year.

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That's CHministries.org slash budget. Megan is in Tulsa up next. How can we help today, Megan? Hey, all right, so my husband and I are completely debt-free, except for our house. We still owe about 133,000 on this primary mortgage, but we have purchased land and are planning to build a new home. And in discussions with a lender, they have informed us that after we provided all of our documentation and all of that, that in the cost breakdown for the build, they said, that they were going to require us to take out a second mortgage on our home to ensure that when we sold this primary residence to move into our new home, that we would do a lump sum buy down or pay down on that new construction loan mortgage, permanent mortgage.

Okay. So it's risk management on their side. They're trying to protect themselves. I guess so. Yes, which I understand that, but I would not do that. Yeah, I don't, I have no interest in doing that. I'm trying to, you know. Is this the lender that you currently have a mortgage with? So, no, but they have looked at our finances. And one of the things that they told us, when we first started having this conversation about this new loan, they said they would love our business for our, so my husband and I

own our own business. And when we provided our financials and how much we, our income and what our business is doing, they said that they wanted to court us to bring our business over to them. Like our, like we use a different bank for our business. Run your business through their market. Yes. And so part of that, I was like, well, that's flattering, but I don't really care what a bank thinks.

But then in this new conversation yesterday, they said they want a second mortgage and they're going to require us to do banking with them. Walk away. Walk away. Yeah. walk away. Yeah, they're not the only dog in the fight here. Why don't you just shop around?

Or can you put pause on this? Because my guess is they're saying this is risky on our part for some reason. Well, here's my real guess. Where is that real guess is that y'all talk to a loan officer at some stature in that bank and they made you a bunch of promises because they get paid on how many accounts they open. And then when your loan went to loan committee, they said, we think the small business is a risk. We don't think these people have enough cash for this. we've had too many people sell their house on a new build and they get there all the equity,

but then they go to Paris for two months with that money, like whatever the thing is. Right. And so I just want to let's pretend everybody's in good faith. The salesman was trying and the loan committee was like, there's no way I'm putting this through without a whole bunch of risk management. Underwriting just got their, you know, spidey senses. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to do business with somebody that is going to force me to take out a loan and like I'm just not going to do that.

They're trying to tell you. I mean, I understand mitigating their risk, but I feel like you're going to make money off of my money that I deposit with my business. It's not about that. It's about they're trying to do business at the expense of you and your husband's value set. And I'm not going to do that. Right.

Right. Well, my other question with that is, is that an indication that we have over budgeted what we should be? That was why I was trying to get at. That's my thought. is if they're spooked by this, it tells me there's something with these numbers that gives them pause. So that's what I want to ask you. Is the land fully paid off?

Did you guys pay cash for that? Yeah. So, yes. But, like, here's my, here's my, and here's what, why this was kind of like a frustrating thing. You know, we have a lot of friends who have done this, right, done the same thing. And they have had to sell their current home. And they, like, during the construction, you know, a lot of people, like, live in a rent house while the home is being built. because they need that money, that equity, that it is in their current home,

or they, like, you know, put a camper on the land and live there or build a shop and live in the shop while the home is being built. Or, you know, all these different creative options. We were just under the impression that we had enough income and we have enough equity that we weren't going to have to do that. Sounds like your impression was incorrect. You know what I mean? Well, now I'm wondering, like, I guess I need to shop around one.

What's this new build going to cost? So that's the other part. My husband is in the construction industry. He's actually a construction owner's rep. He's done mostly commercial work, so he does this for a living. So he has very kind of pride themselves on coming in under budget, which is kind of unusual in the construction world. So he has conservatively estimated our build to be $750 with a 7% contingency. and so I'm wondering if we need to just like nail down a more accurate, less conservative and more just like real hard numbers for our budget?

That doesn't matter. I mean, they're going to come through and say, well, that's cool that y'all think that's what that's going to be, but we're going to budget for a million. What matters to a bank is how much money are you asking them to loan you? How long are they out for it? Because this construction process, who knows how long it could take, things fall through all the time with these new builds. And so there's just a lot more risk with construction loans. And that's why the terms are more stringent, higher rates, all of that, until you convert it to a traditional loan. And so that might mean, hey, we need to pause in this build.

We need to stack up more cash. We need more equity in our home. I'm not sure what that is for you that would make a construction lender feel more comfortable with this scenario. But I would shop around. And you can always call our friends at Churchill. They'll give you an unbiased third party opinion and go, hey, here's what we'd think. Here's what we would do. here's what our current rates are

and that'll at least give you a better picture of what you're dealing with versus this one lender that you talk to. And can I tell you something crazy? It's not going to be apples to apples but I think I might be close. I have a PhD in counseling. People from all over the planet seek and ask my opinion on what they should do next

in their marriages and their mental health and whatever. My wife does not. She pays a therapist in Nashville that she sees. And why do I tell you? tell you that. Your husband may do this for a living for other people. It may be worth a handshake and a 5% deal to get another G.C. Yeah, we've talked about that. Yeah. And it may not be the 10% that GCs normally do and he may owe somebody a favor and they can high five or whatever,

but there's something about being so close to him trying to make his wife's dream home come true on the land and the chickens and the goats and all the stuff you'll have planned, that it's going to cloud the reality. And so the greatest gift I can give my wife in our house is not to counsel her ever, ever. Actually, that's funny you say that because that was one of our conversations about a month ago, was we either need to hire an employee for our business or we need to hire a builder because we've just had these dreams and plans and we've had the blueprints and the, you know, the drawings ready. And we just keep having so much business, which is fantastic.

but he's concerned about having the time to build it. But actually, he's the one coming to me saying, I have a lot of peace about just hiring someone to do this. That is a man that rarely exists in the 21st century. Hug him, don't ever let him go and hire somebody. That's called self-awareness and humility. Yes, that's amazing. Oh, totally.

He's all of that. I'm actually the cheap skate trying to save us a buck and trying to feel like, I think we could do this. Listen, you have married well. hire the right subcontractor. It's worth the 10%. I have. What was like, what's going to be your taxable income for the year from this business for 2025? So last year it was around 395 and this year we're looking to do about 420. Incredible. Is that top line or does that take home? That's, well, that's top. That's top line. But we have a very low overhead business. I mean,

we basically use gas and computer software stuff. Yeah, but you're depreciating out all of your trucks and your computers and all your equipment, right? No, I mean, well, yeah, we have two laptops and What would you, what would you pay taxes on last year? The amount? $3.95. Okay. They'd give you a million dollars. What's your current house worth? $350. Okay. So you have a decent amount of equity here, but this money, I feel like is newer to you guys. And so therefore the banks are still like, hey, there's not like, you don't have a half million dollars in equity.

So to go $750 is a big number. We only owe $133 left on our primary, and our plan was to just pay this off while we were building. But if you're going to meet with a bank and your husband's a surgeon and you're a surgeon, they're going to say, cool, we see a projection here. If y'all are a small business that does construction, you may do $400 top line one year and $75 top line next year because that's more like a farming. It's like great years, tough years, great years, tough years,

they're going to be possibly more conservative about what they loan you out. Yeah, but I would call our friends at Churchill Mortgage and get a third party opinion from them. I think you'll have a lot more clarity after that. The holidays are supposed to be joyful, but they can also be expensive. Between gifts, travel, and about 1,000 limited time offers,

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old, and I just got engaged about two weeks ago. Congratulations. Right on. Yeah, so this This is more of a emotional, spiritual question, I guess, than the financial one. But so my parents, they're divorced, and I think they're very smart people, but they're kind of against me getting married. And I like to, you know, talk to them, take their advice on a lot of things. But I just don't know about this one. They kind of don't want me to get married with the person I am with. And it's not necessarily... What's at the root of this?

Is it your age or is it the person that you are engaged to? They don't see them as a long-term quality person. Or they just both went through hell during their divorce, and they don't want anyone to ever do that ever again. So it's my age and what Dr. John O'Lillard just said. You know, it's partly they think I'm too young and partly because they've been through their own experiences. They think it's a riskier bet to get married this young to this person.

Yes. Okay. How old are you? I am 20 years old. I turned 20 this October. Okay. And so tell me, man, tell me and George, why do you want to get married? Why is this person the person you're going to be right or die with for the rest of your life?

Well, we've been living together already for about six months. And I know it goes against your guys' advice, but, yeah, that's what we've been doing. Yeah, but that's like six months. You didn't answer my question. You just told me a thing. you're doing. Why do you want this person to be your ride or die for the rest of your life till death do you part? Well, she's just a great person. She takes care of me well. She's, you know, very, you know, even though we're not married, she's been acting like a really great wife and

it's just a person I see in my future. How long guys have been together? About two years. It's been a little bit over two years. And how old is she? She's about a turn 21. Okay. And do you guys haven't you just got engaged. When do you plan on getting married? How long is this engagement going to be? Not too long. We wanted to get married before the end of the year, actually. What's the rush?

What's the rush? Not necessarily any rush. It's just we've already been together. Like, we've been living together and we kind of wanted to already, like, you know, be together. And we kind of, it seems to me that we've already kind of been engaged, but not really. but So here's several things I'll throw at you, okay?

And I'm in the middle of working on a multi-year project on this question is marriage still worth it? Okay? And here's what I'll tell you. The data is pretty clear. And I know there's some conversations about causal versus correlation and yadaada

couples who are in good or great marriages every facet of their life is better. Financially, health-wise, emotionally, they're kids, kids who grow up in the home of married parents who's, and they've actually broken the data down from married to cohabitate, all of it. Everything in your life, you'll have more sex, everything in your life will be better.

And if you are married not well or poorly, every part of your life is worse. Okay. So it's one of those things that I feel myself screaming from the rooftops. Everyone needs to do this thing and do it well. And we have a culture that has sold us that the worst thing we can do is limit our options. And I would say the freedom that most people are chasing when it comes to getting money, getting fame, getting seen, having quote unquote a bunch of options is found in commitment, but only in commitment done well. Why am I telling you all that? Your parents' lived experience is real. their health was ripped apart their psychology was ripped apart their money was ripped apart they watched their kids get splintered up their experience is real and so when they tell you you shouldn't do this thing because we tried it and it blew up our home that's a real experience and I want to honor that and I want to tell you that I hope for your sake for your kids' sake for your wife's sake for the world my kids are growing in I wish more people like you would have a mind towards being married

okay and figuring out how to do this thing well okay okay sure I will tell you this you have a very limited toolkit right now and if you think being married is well we just kind of feels that way and we've been six months you are going to get smacked right in the nose by reality if you go into this thing saying we're going to need help from every loving adult in our life on how to do this thing well and I'm going to have to learn new skills. I'm going to have to learn how to say I'm sorry. I'm going to understand that five years from now, I'll be married to a totally different woman and she'll be married to a different man because we're going to grow. If you can go into it that way and seek intensive premarital counseling to have conversations

about budgets, etc., then I would say if my 21, if my son was 21, he came home and said, that I met the person. Five years ago, I would have said, bro, don't do this. Wait until you're 25. Live a little. I would change my tune now after looking at all the data. I would say, this is the greatest, most important decision you're going to make. I will support you every step of the way, but you have to go into it very humbly.

Mm-hmm. Okay? So I think your parents are right. And I want you to do this thing. Mm-hmm. You know what I'm saying? Both are true. Yes.

Okay. Yeah. So tell me, I think it's, I would tell you, just as a guy who just met you, I think this is too fast to try to cram this in before the beginning of the year. Only because you're telling me, well, it just feels like we've already been doing it, so we might as well. That's a terrible reason to enter into a lifelong till death do as part right at eye commitment. Yeah. What I'd like to add to that is I was thinking about it already for a longer time, you know, even before we moved in together. but I was, you know, I had, I've lived with my parents and my whole life.

They've been telling me, you know, that marriage is a scary thing. So I was scared of it for a long time. And, you know, I just kept listening to your guys. I know, but listen to me. Listen to me. Sorry. Just because your dad was a boxer and he got knocked out and told you to be scared of boxing, just because you suddenly think, I'm not scared of boxing anymore, does not mean you should get in the ring without.

a bunch of skills. Okay. I would love to see you. I'm glad that you're interested in getting in the fight. I need more men getting in the fight, but I also need more men to get in the fight with skills. I would much rather see you say, I want to formally propose to you, and we're going to get married in June, and we're going to start premarital counseling January 2. Okay. So that we're on the same page with our money, with our values, with our whatever.

We begin having those hard conversations because here's what you're going to have to do. you're going to have to do marriage totally different than your parents did. Mm-hmm. And that's going to be a challenge because when you open, when you get the first fight, when you get the first lost job, you get the first car that breaks down in the middle of, you know, of the Beltway there in Houston, you're going to open your toolkit and the tools in there are going to be the ones your parents put in there by their marriage. Okay. You get what I'm saying?

Yes, sir. So, Isaac, it's less about a specific age. It's about alignment on values. truth is at from 18 to 22 i didn't know my values i didn't know myself and so that's the part that we're encouraging you to dig into for yourself and for her to make sure that you're aligned on family kids in-laws you know whatever it is politics how are we going to raise family what are all the decisions and the filters we're going to use to do this because that's the part where it's going to bite you in the butt down the line to go oops she i just like the pb and j she made me i never

thought to ask about xyz over here and in the early stages of any relationship, man, it is just gum drops and rainbows. I remember I didn't fight with my wife for like the first year and a half. We were together and I was like, this is a match. Oh, my wife and I barely made it two and a half weeks before we're like, yeah, we screwed this up. Like so every couple's different. But as George said, I think even beneath, are we aligned on politics or whatever? My wife and I aren't.

We're not aligned. We go to the same church, but we have different beliefs about stuff. I think that's awesome. It took me 15 years to learn how to share a home with somebody. that we had the same values, but we had different beliefs. So I want you to get in and you start learning some of those skills and go into this thing humbly. So, yeah, I hope you get married, dude. I really hope you do.

And I hope you go change your whole family tree. And before you do that, I hope you get a bunch of skills along the way. And a lot of premarital counseling. I'm going to gift you at Financial Peace University to help you with the money side. That's some of the best premarital counseling you can get when it comes to finances. So hang a line. That's our gift to you. The last thing you need this holiday season is more stuff collecting,

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Today's question comes from Marissa in Illinois. Marissa writes, I'm a stay-at-home. mom and love having that role in our home. But in our marriage, the root of all of our arguments and problems is money. I'll admit it. I like nice clothes, makeup, shoes, and purses. I love going out and getting coffee. We own our home, but want to make some renovations and my spending has gotten in the way of making that a reality. I've always been a spender. And before I got married, my dad would put money in my account when I didn't have any. My husband would like to keep my personal expenses under... Geez. My husband would like me to keep my personal expenses.

is under $2,500 a month, and I know it's doable, but why is this so hard for me? I see two things here. One is an addiction, and the second is enabling from dad, and now she's putting that on the husband. This is your role now to put the money in my bank. I don't see it as much as her, she's saying, like, my husband's giving me a reasonable allowance of $2,500. He seems like he's very level. He's going, well, can you do it under $2,500? and she's like, well, see. Yeah, I think so. That's some people's entire budget.

All of their expenses, they fit under that. Yeah. So, Marissa, my tune has changed on this the last few years. I, four years ago, if you'd ask me this question, I would have thought it very important to dig into the root of your spending addiction, the root of your why you can't keep a budget, why you are struggling financially and you're having disagreements except you keep spending money on purses and shoes and things like that.

I'm changing my tune on that. I think if you want to make a behavior change like this, the best way right now for you is to act your way into changing your life. What do I mean by that? Before you get an answer to quote unquote, why is this so hard for me? stop spending money. And what do I mean by that? Get rid of your debit card.

Hide it. Put it in a safe. Give it to your husband. Tell them take it to the office. But stop spending money. And when you feel that discomfort, feel it. And have one or two things that you promise yourself make a commitment that you're going to go do when you feel that discomfort.

When you begin to say, I need to go buy some shoes, you don't. You got all the shoes you need. I'm going to go for a walk. I'm going to go call a walk. friend. I'm going to have a set of actions that I go do because I'm finding people, George, who spend all of their time, why, why, why. I need to go see another therapist for five years. I need to go do another personality exam. I need to go to another silent retreat and all that. All this stuff's good. But it's one year, two year, five years, seven years, and the same

behaviors are just hanging around. And I'm becoming more and more convinced both through the data and just walking with people the last four or five years. The greatest gift you can give your body is the lived expense of, A, I didn't spend any money last month and I didn't die. B, I didn't spend any money the last six months. I say any money. You know what I mean. I didn't buy any new shoes, any new purses, any new guns, any new whatever. And I've had to deal with the root of that issue. And that's worth spending the money on for various things. So if you have a chemical addiction, obviously you've got to go to rehab or whatever. But Marissa, I want you to put up some insanely high hurdles that make it borderline impossible for you to spend money right now.

Have that level of discipline. Which means deleting the apps off your phone or moving the card info from everywhere you can find it. Or take the phone and get rid of the phone. Get a flip phone. I'm talking about being costing. Yeah, I'm guessing a lot of this is happening while scrolling. Yes. And so that's, that could solve a whole lot of problems. Create some rhythms and routines where you go hang out with other stay-at-home moms throughout the week. So you're not just sitting at home in a box by yourself, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. But yeah, if it means getting a flip phone, get a flip phone.

And if you find yourself like, oh, if I don't have social media, I got no human or AI interaction at all, great. Then that's the tension's that doorway. Go into that tension and go find some friends. But you have to put some serious hurdles in front of you so that it purifies what the real problem is it distills it down and now I've got to go solve that. My guess here is she's like you mentioned, dad always solved it. and she's probably incredibly lonely

would be my experience would be my guess and I think there's a root cause of all another thing out there is going to make me okay of like why another outfit because on my wife stays at home she wishes that she could even have the time or energy to put on clothes and go somewhere like nice clothes full makeup

that purse the shoes so this is impressive enough that she can accomplish this but the budget is going to be the key here because you guys clearly don't have one because you're saying hey, my spending is stopping us from saving up for renovations. Well, the makeup money should not be renovation money. We need to separate all this out in a budget.

You can download every dollar and make a line item for Marissa that says $2,000 $2,000, Marissa fund money. Whatever. If you guys make $20,000 and that's how you want to spend your money, go for it. But then we need another line item for renovation sinking fund, and we put $2,000 a month into that account. So there's $24,000. I would say the first three months, make that $200.

really scale it down. Like it's for a cup of coffee. Yeah. Right. And really challenge yourself on what is this drive that I have to fix this momentary feeling of I'm not enough or I'm bored or I'm scared. And I'm going to go buy something. Click, buy, click, buy, click, buy click. Because she's already moved on before the shoes even arrive.

Oh, yeah. Right? Because it's not about, she didn't actually want that pair of shoes. It was a dopamine hit. It's that build up the build, the build, and then boom. If a box doesn't show up at the door, I can't feel anything. anything that day. Well, I don't even think this is about the box showing up. I think it's about hitting the button. All of it. The whole experience. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Put some really high

hurdles in front of yourself. Yeah. And for anyone working the baby steps who wants to hit their money goals, every dollar is the best tool to do it. You can track your progress, get personalized recommendations, and coaching for your situation that will help you free up more money to work the plan even faster. You can start every dollar for free by downloading it in the app store or Google play. Danielle is in Vancouver up next. What's going on, Danielle? How can we help today? Hi, I'm super nervous, but my question is, are we foolish to consider moving provinces for what we would consider a good financial gain and freedom to do the things as a family now? That's a pretty good pitch. Why is it involved? Sounds awesome. What are we missing?

Okay, so my family is here, most of them. And so we would be leaving my family and actually my husband's family here for a province where we have friends, but no family. For some people, that would be the greatest, healthiest thing to do. And for some people, that would be a nightmare. So you have to ask yourself that. Yes. And I feel like we're, my husband's good to go. It's me.

I come from a really big family. and we've had How far away is this? So at BC to Alberta. Okay, what's the driving distance? Oh, like, if you were to visit. 10 to 12 hours. Okay, not reasonable.

That's how far it is. Two or three times a year. Yeah, and when we moved from my whole family and my wife's whole family live in Texas, all of them. And so when we moved across the country to Nashville, across the U.S. to Nashville, we built into our life. For this to work for us, we've got to have this many trips back a year, and we have to save that amount of money.

Right. And that is something that I have put in there with my husband that we would want to do. Okay. What's your question? So, do we pull a trigger? You've got to be a big kid on this one. What are the implications here? I mean, are jobs, housing, like what's going to change?

So it's cheaper. So job-wise, my husband's a nurse, and I'm currently not working. We just had a baby last year, but I'm currently not working, and I would not be able to do my job full-time. I'd have to drop down to casual or part-time. Okay. Do you need the family support around your new baby? Well, in order for me to work full-time, yes, or we would have to have a nanny. Okay, can I throw this at you?

Yeah. Anytime I'm faced between an either or decision, I always force myself to put three or four new options on the table just for fun. Can I throw a third option for you? Okay. What if y'all just made a 24-month agreement? We're going to try this. A 12-month agreement. He's a nurse.

He could easily get a job back in the old province. Y'all could get another place back in the old province. You'll be fine. You're making this into a forever move and that the weight of that decision is daunting. What if you just said, all right, let's go do it for 12 months. Let's try that. And that's just a thought. It's reversible.

It's not fatal. So go for it. And if you hate it, you can always come back home. And so I would sit down, make the budget, make sure the numbers make sense. And every decision comes at a cost. You're going to lose some stuff. You're going to gain some stuff. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio.

I'm George Camel, joined by my co-host, Dr. John Deloney. The number to call is AAA 825-2-2-25 if you want to join the show. Kenna is in Denver up next. What's going on, Kenna? Hi there. I just have a question looking for some advice. Should I prioritize going to school now if I ultimately want to be a stay-at-home mom? How old is, how old are you now? What does now mean? I am 24. I just got married a couple months ago. I do have a bachelor. Thank you. I do have a bachelor's degree already, and I was planning on going

to physician assistant school, but now after just talking in the expense of that versus something else, like nursing is kind of where I'm going down, with the route I'm going down now. So let me ask you a crazy question. Can you afford nursing school right now? Yeah. I think so. Afford as in you could cash flow the whole thing without delaying or derailing other financial goals. Yeah, that's, it's, I guess that's kind of where I'm like stuck because my husband does, have some student loan debt as well from undergraduate he has about 40,000 because we have about 40,000 but I could go to nursing for about 20,000 I would this is me and George made

disagree so this is just me I would do that yeah okay and what is the upside for you what got you thinking man I really want to go back to school pursue this yeah just I always imagine myself doing something more. I wish I would have gotten a nursing degree before, but that's neither here nor there. I just want to do more. I'm a medical assistant now. I just want to be more involved with patient care.

And, of course, I do want to be a stay-at-home mom, but then eventually the kids are going to be gone, and that part of our life is going to be over in terms of them being in the house. But I have to tell you, I've spent my career working with some of the most amazing, brilliant women in the world. Yeah.

And I have been stunned by women who I figured I would be working for, or I was working for, right? Or about to, and suddenly they're like, no, dude, I had a baby. I'm out of here. And I'm like, what? Really? And I've been stunned by the people who are lifelong dedicated. I mean, stay at home mom, stay at home, six months.

And they're like, no, not for me. Right. That's what I worry about for sure, too, because of course I don't know that life yet. Can I give you one other ugly, like just reality, just because you called me? Is that cool? Definitely. My wife and I had some very clear plans on having a family. And my son took three and a half years, followed by miscarriage one, two, three, and then my daughter came. And so we had very clear plans. We got our doctorate degrees. We had our careers. And then we were going to start doing this next thing. And it did not work on a lot.

our timeline. Right. I worry about that too. And I would love for you to do the next right thing for you right now in this season and keep your amazing options and plans open. And if you want to be a stay-at-home mom, you need to get your student loans paid off. You got a cash flow nursing school. You got to do that stuff in the right way so you can prepare for a life with one income because that's your values. And also at the same time, be honest about it may not happen on our timeline. Right. Or it may happen tomorrow, right? But I don't want you to wake up in 10 years and say, we've been waiting for this thing to happen. Right? Yeah, totally. And I guess, yeah, that waiting, it's like either wait to have a family or wait to go to school. And that's, that's

kind of where I'm at. Like, what's your current total debt load right now? Total debt load is 40,000. That's all student loans. Is that including his, though? That is, yeah, that's only his, I don't have any student loans. Okay. I'm just wondering, if you cleaned up your, if you almost plan like, hey, we want to plan to have a family in the next year or two, we're going to plan to just kind of get a clean slate financially. We're going to work on knocking out his debt. I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing versus going further, you know, in the hole or trying to cash flow this while keeping the debt around. And then you get down the path and you go, okay, now I want to stay at home, but now we're too deep in this. So I just don't want to get to. to a point where at this weird crossroads and you have to give one thing up for the other. Right. Yeah, yeah.

And I guess the other part to it is that we did get some wedding money and we are able to save my entire paycheck. We do have enough money to pay off the loans cash right now. Do it today. Today. Okay. Because what you're calling about is I want options and becoming debt free faster is going to give you more options.

Okay. Not holding onto the money for when some random day comes. Right. Not doing anything now. Because if you free up that debt, well, now we can cash flow and save up 20 grand to cover this program pretty quickly, couldn't we? Right. Yeah, yeah. We, yeah, it would. And then how long is the program? It's 24 months. Yeah, it'd be two years. And this is one of those crazy, like, things that people don't think about.

if you have a nursing degree and you choose to stay home, you know who the greatest beneficiary of that degree in the world would be? That new baby? Right. You don't know drama until you saw me see a rash for the first time. And I was like, oh, this is it. Right. And I was the one calling my buddies who are doctors and nurses in the middle of the night being like, my kid.

And they're like, oh, God, go to bed. You're an idiot. Right? Yeah. So that's a skill set that won't be wasted if you use it for your friends and family or if you use it professionally. It's an amazing skill set to have. Right. Right.

And it just seems, I don't know, I'm convincing myself more and more every day that it's better over, you know, PA you can make more money eventually. But the debt load is so huge and I just don't think it's right for where we're at right now. Yeah, I love that thinking. And it's not like you can't go pursue this two years from now. It's not going to disappear as an option. Yeah. And I think you'll have a lot more clarity two years from now. So there's nothing wrong with delaying it.

I'm sort of team, let's delay it if you're gun ho on, hey, we want to try to have a family now. Right. And I have a lived experience of, let's do a, like George had a baby. I don't want to be weird. They got pregnant fast. We did not, right? And so my plan just wasn't in the cars for a while. Yeah.

Right. And also you can get a year, you can get a semester of nursing school in that you've paid. for in cash and then take a leave of absence to have a baby. That's no big deal. That's true. I hadn't thought about that either. So here's the crux of it. Whether you delay it, whether you do it now, I would get out of debt completely and only do this if you're going to cash flow it. Put yourselves in a good financial position to where you have options and you have less risk, less stress, because that's always going to help you think more clearly and make the right decision for your family versus, well, we can't do this because we owe people money or we don't

have the savings. Yeah, that's like my ultimate fear is like everything's open right now. And as soon as you have so much debt, it's like, oh, I actually can't do the things I want to do. Yes. Right. Well, we can't make the decision for you, but I have full faith that Kenna's going to make the right one for her and her family when that time comes. And John, this is, I mean, it's just so, it's never been more clear to me that debt reduces your options. Yeah, and there's, I've sat with sobbing moms who are pregnant who have to go back to work and they didn't want to but they owe somebody money.

And I've also sat with people who are like, we can kind do whatever we want. So we can do this for a while. I'm going to try that. I'm going to try this. And that just felt like freedom. Oh, yeah. Well, people made fun of us.

They're like, why would you pay off your low interest mortgage early? And then my wife decided to stay home and went, that's why. It wasn't a financial decision. It was just an emotional one. Yeah. And that's one of the most beautiful things in life when you can take the financial burden off the table.

And then you can kind of do what you want for a while. That's invincibility right there. It's one of the best times of the year, but it's also the time of year when people let their money get totally out of control. Everywhere you look, it's just buy, by, bye. So you start swiping the credit card and suddenly it's January and you've got a mess on your hands.

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you'll already be winning. Start every dollar for free by downloading the app today. John is in Minneapolis up next. John, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, how are you guys doing, man? Doing great. How can we help today? Good. So I am a 20-year-old, like you said, I'm in Minnesota.

I need some advice. I've got a good amount of money saved up in a Roth IRA that I'm looking to invest. and I saved up in a Roth IRA you're looking to invest. It's invested. Is it in like on the money market side, like in a cash equivalent? Or is it actually invested in something? Mostly it's just cash. There's a few thousand invested into it.

My mom has been helping me do that because she's very knowledgeable about the stock market. So she's invested a few thousand. I'm not exactly sure where. but my plan that I'm wondering is, is it wise to invest the majority or all of it just into the S&P 500, since that's a historically great return, or is it wiser to, you know, go more diverse with it? I mean, that diversity is pretty strong. You got 500 of the top companies that you're diversified across. it's weighted, so it's not like there's one in each. You know, Apple's going to have more than

a smaller company, but yeah, the S&P 500 historically has delivered about a 10 to 12% average rate of return over the last several decades. And so do you need to diversify more than that? You know, our recommendation is across four mutual fund types, and this is largely what you'll find in an S&P 500 fund is you want growth, aggressive growth, growth, and income, and international. And that basically means conservative, midway, more aggressive, and then we've got the international companies out there. And you're going to find a lot of that already in the S&P 500. So you could do a whole lot worse than doing that. If you just did that, you're going to be a multimillionaire if you consistently invest in that at the age of 20.

Exactly what I want to do, you know, because I do max it out every year. I have been since I was 15, I think. Wow. What's your income? Well, you know, it varies. I'm a business owner and I, you know, currently I don't work a regular job. So the income can vary, but it's always been enough for me to contribute that. At 15, how did you max out a Roth IRA? I worked at a restaurant. Like a custodial Roth that your parents had set up?

It was, yeah, my mom is very helpful with helping me get my money, you know, as it should be. She was very adamant about that from a young age for me. So do you make over, do you make $100,000? Give me a ballpark here of what you think you'll make 2025. What will your taxable income be? If I had to guess, I mean, I am aiming for it to be around $100,000. There's no, there's no guarantee yet. I run a landscaping business.

Do you invest outside of the Roth IRA, or do you just, my goal is to max that out, and then I'm done investing for the year? Well, I don't like to over-complicate things. So personally, I would prefer to just have one source, so have the Roth be my investment, and then the rest of my money is money I can spend or whatever, put back into the business, et cetera. Okay. Do you have any debt right now?

No, sir. Okay, wonderful. And how much do you have in savings? How much do you have that's more liquid that's not invested? I have just over 30,000. Way to go. Dude, you're crushing it. Thank you. So you would be in what we call Baby Step 4. You're completely debt-free. You have a fully funded emergency fund, and now you're able to invest 15% of your income. So let's say you made $100,000 for easy numbers. We would say invest 15% of that into tax-advantaged retirement account. So, 7,000 is the contribution limit for the year.

So what happens after that? What you're telling me is I just sort of do what I want with the rest. Exactly. I mean, you know, I don't like to be a big spender. I'm not buying things I don't need. I mean, I do spend a decent amount of money a month on a credit card, which I pay off every month. But most of this is gas and it's business-related or it's food. know, basic things.

Do you live with your family right now? Fortunately, yes, I live with my dad, and that allows me to be able to save this money. What's the long-term game plan? Are you going to continue running the landscape business into your 20s, 30s? Yeah, exactly. So, ideally, yes, I haven't written out a specific plan, which I should, but in the next couple years, I'm looking to grow it like I have been and eventually get my own place. But I'm kind of, it's like with the investing, I'm willing to invest all of that money

in the Roth IRA, you know, because that's, right now, it's not. You can't, there's contribution limits. So what I'm telling you is once you go above and beyond that, you can find, there's other avenues to invest in a tax advantage retirement account. One would be something like a solo 401K. you could open that as a business owner if you're the only employee. And so there's other options I want to encourage you to invest in so that you can build more wealth versus just going well, I'm going to do the Roth and that's it.

And so I'm going to get you an investing guide. It's completely free. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash guide and download that because right now I see a guy who works really hard, who has a great savings muscle, but doesn't have a lot of clarity on what he's doing and why he's doing it. And I don't want you to invest in things. you don't understand. And while I love that your mom has this knowledge, you need to build this knowledge for yourself. And so that would be my next step for you as a guy who has a bunch of money and wants to put it somewhere that it's going to work for him.

Okay, I will do that. Yeah. Keep it up, man. If you keep living debt-free and you keep maxing out or off-I-R-A, even just doing that, go pop it into our investment calculator on our website. Your mind will be boggled by that. Mike is in Chicago up next. What's going on, Mike? Hey, yeah, I was wondering I work 116 hours a week And I was wondering if there's that many hours in a week What?

Yes No for real I'm a machine operator Okay Is that safe to run the machine that long? Like aren't there like legal boundaries around that? We're not on the road or any CDL so Okay

We're in a private property. All right, so what's your question, dude? Yeah, private profit. We can do what we want. It's America, George. Geez, let Mike. All right, so what's the question, Mike? My question is I want to make more money than I'm making now,

but I don't really have time for side hustles. What are you making? This year, so far, I'm at roughly $273,000. Okay, and what was the impetus for you saying, I need more money? I'm a collector. So, like, I mean, I collect a lot of stuff. comic books, trading cards, cars, autographs stuff, historic antiques.

Here's what you have to do. Like, you know the answer to this because you're smart. You have to do a different job that you think's going to make you more than $273,000. Like, there's not a secret here. And also, is this sustainable to be working over $100 a week? Because if so, your income is going to drastically go down while your lifestyle is going to stay high. So I think we need to reset the picture here and go, what can I do for 40 or 50 hours a week that's sustainable that pays me enough to live the life I want to live? And by the way, if your life is going to be judged on, if you judge your life on how many trinkets you have surrounding you, it's going to be a miserable life.

Yeah. I mean, it's just. So what do you make, do you get paid hourly right now or is it salary? Hourly. Okay, what do you make per hour? Was it 34, 32? but I mean this means you're getting what are you getting

80 hours a week of of overtime just roughly I think it's what 75 and a half yeah so instead of making 32 I'm going what what kind of job in the field that I'm in pays 60 an hour

or 90 an hour that way I can work 40 hours a week and live to tell the tale to actually enjoy all these trinkets I've collected Or here's another crazy idea. What if, and this is going to be a struggle, you somehow survived on $200,000 a year, and you just stopped buying so many Pokemon cards?

I don't think we need more money, Mike. I think we need to reevaluate our lifestyle. Do you want to keep more money in your pocket and not Uncle Sam's? Then listen up. There are tax deductions and credits you could maximize before the end of the year by connecting with an experienced tax professional like a Ramsey trusted tax pro. They know the tax code inside and out, so you don't have to. And they can help you file when tax season rolls around.

Get a trusted tax pro by going to ramsysolutions.com slash tax pro. Ramsey Solutions.com slash tax pro. Everyone needs insurance, but it can be hard trying to find pros who aren't just looking to make a buck and agents who know their stuff. Well, good news. Ramsey trusted insurance pros are vetted and coached to make sure they're market experts who have your best interests at home. heart. So go to ramsysolutions.com slash coverage to find the type of insurance you're looking for and connect with a Ramsey trusted agent. All right. Let's go out to Maine. Karen joins us there. What's

going on, Karen? This call will be recorded. Oh, good. Karen, thanks for recording. We put this on YouTube. Yeah, we're recording it too. You can check this out for eternity. Hi. Hi. We're also recording for quality assurance purpose. That's right. Yeah, well, and honestly, I use this to a reference back to. You got it. What's up? If that's okay with you. Oh, absolutely. All right.

Wonderful. I am just shy of 62 years old. I am legally separated from my husband with no chance of it changing. I do not have a retirement. I do not have a pension or anything like that. I make roughly $42,000 a year. The only thing that I am in debt for is a mortgage. And I have not invested in my work for a 1K plan because, to be honest with you, I'm scared to death about doing it because I know nothing about it.

And they will match up to 3% of what I put in. So this is open enrollment time and I'm going to invest in 3% so I can get their 3% because I think that's free money to go towards that. But I also want to get my mortgage down in about 12 years, if at all possible. What's left on the mortgage? Oh, almost all of it. How much is that? It started at 80, and I am down to 7075.

Okay, and a current rate. I've only been paying on it since July. Okay. And was this a 30 year or a 15? A 30. Okay. So at the current rate you're paying, it'll take 30 years to pay this off. Well, no, not that rate I'm going because I'm paying extra on it at every chance I get.

Okay. So I've paid an extra $2,000 on it so far. in the six months that I've had it. Let me ask you this question before George digs into your numbers. Do you have any sort of financial reconciliation as a part of the separation? No. Why not? Because he ruined his business, there was nothing there.

Nothing there. We'd only been married at the time for nine and a half years. So when I went into the relationship, I walked in with him, his home that he prior owned. Okay. What I did get when I left was two mobile homes that I lived in one for a short time and I rented out the other one. Okay. But with the way people are nowadays, I ended up selling both of those.

Good. So I have $25,000 in my high yield savings account. Wonderful. Right now. Okay. So, and I don't touch that at all. Okay. George will tell you what to do with that money, but this is good.

That's good. Okay. So how can we specifically help you today? What's the main question? I don't know what to invest in with this 401K or if I should take that money and just put it onto my mortgage to get it down sooner. Well, you would be in what we call babysept four. So you're out of debt.

You have money in savings for emergency. so you're ready to invest 15% of your income into retirement. So 15% of your $42,000 salary, correct? Yeah, I don't know if I can afford 15%. Well, you're putting extra on the mortgage right now. Could we divert some of that towards investing? I could, but then that's going to slow me down to get my mortgage paid off. Okay. Well, here's the thing. If you invest nothing, you're going to have nothing. So we're trying to get you to a spot where you at least have a little nest egg growing for you with some compound growth. Now, we don't have a lot of time on our side anymore. But we're going to try to get this mortgage paid off with anything above and beyond that 15%. But I would not tell you to just

put everything on the mortgage you can and don't invest a dime. Because at the end of the day, then you're going to have no nest egg and no mortgage payment. You're going to be 75 in selling your house. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. But even though I've got it into a high yield savings, which I only earn. You'll keep up with inflation if you're lucky. And so your, your buying power is getting lost every day. So the high yield savings at least keeps up with that. But you need to rise above and beyond that in order to actually have wealth, to order to have some extra money, to have your money make money. And so that 401K, it's, it's going to be time to learn what funds are in that 401k and which ones are right for you. And for that, I would get connected

with a smart vester pro who can sit down with you and walk you through those options and guide you towards doing something that you've never done before, which is understand what you're investing into. I don't want you blindly picking something because someone told you to. I want you to fully understand, oh, this is what this fund is for. Here's why I'm investing in it. Okay. And as a primer on that, you can get our free investing guide at ramsysolutions.com slash guide. And that will at least give you some basic information about our retirement investing strategy. But here's a bummer. Your picture of retirement's going to look different.

Yeah, and here's a bummer of, this is just us being honest with you because we love you, okay? Okay. It may be that at 62 while you're still in good health and your mobility is still okay, $42,000 isn't going to cut it. It may be that I'm working this full. What do you mean $42,000 isn't going to cut it? That means that if you look at the math problem that is your life,

and this is taking feelings. off the table. This is taking heartbreak off the table. This is just looking at the math problem. Yeah. If you need $500,000 to retire when you're 75, it may be that you have... Yeah, well, I doubt that's going to happen. Well, you'll surprise yourself. I'm probably going to work until the day I die. Well, but it may be that why you can still fly around a little bit at a young Sprightly 62, it may be that you make 42 grand and you work another side job on the weekends. Well, and actually, you're I am working on a side hustle right now to get that started. Okay, but side hustle might mean you're investing money into a thing,

you're spending money and it becomes a hobby, and you're going to look up in two years. Like, you don't have that luxury right now at 62. Right. You know what I'm saying? Well, no, the goal for that side hustle was for me to put it all towards my mortgage to get out from underneath it because my mortgage interest rate is 6.625. Yeah, that's a high interest rate, but historically it's not.

and that's just a lot of like social media drama. Like I want you to focus on the things you can control. Like what's your side hustle? Like what? What's your side hustle? It's going to be selling things on eBay for my former boss and I get 40% of whatever I sell. Okay, I want you to try that for three or four months and see how it works out. Yeah, he's made really good money at it.

But I don't want you to put a dime into it. I want him to give you the items and you. You take pictures of them and you deal with the stuff for the 40%. That's what I'm doing. And track it against your time and what money you actually made from that. Because if it's taking you, you know, if you might do the math and go, I'm making $6 an hour by the time I'm done with this. You can go to Arby's and double that. Exactly.

So just make sure that whatever you're doing is worth your time and try to get your core income up. Can we make 50 or 60 or 70,000 with the skills and experience you have? And I think you just, you stop betting on yourself at some point in life. George, can you run through your calculator there, like the Ramsey investment calculator? Can you run through if she puts 15% of her money? What does that look like at what age? So, Karen, here's the thing. I know you said you don't think you have enough.

You need to make this a priority to invest. If you invest 15%, it's about 500 bucks a month, 525. From the age of 62 to age 80, let's just admit we're going to have to work a lot longer than we planned on. With the actual rate of return of the stock market, you would have about $350,000 in that. nest egg. Now, if you go to 75, it becomes 180,000. So you can see that the power of compound growth needs time. So those last five years really matter. Because that 80, guess what? You contributed about 113,000. 240,000 was just the growth. That was your money making you more money. So the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. We all know that. The next best time is today. So don't delay it. Don't say,

well, investing's not for me because I haven't done it. And I'm 62. If you can fog up a mirror, there is hope for you yet, Karen. So hang on the line. We'll make sure you get connected to a smart vester pro who can walk you through all of this and make sure you get that guide. Listen back to this and let it be a reminder that it's not too late to have a retirement with some dignity. When you're tired of feeling stuck with money, there's just one solution.

To get different results, you have to do something different. No one accidentally wins with money. You have to have a game plan. and that begins with our get started assessment. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash start, answer some questions, and we'll show you what steps to take next. Don't stay stuck. Take control of your money starting today. Go with ramsysolutions.com slash start. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 1320, walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm. John Bon Jovi said, don't get too comfortable with who you are

at any given time. You may miss the opportunity to become who you want to be. Yeah, George. There's your inspiration, John. A little bon Jovi. That's shot right through my heart. And you're too late. All right. Danielle is in Miami, Florida. That was some great. That was impressive. I mean, I don't want to say that we're stand-up comics, but that was pretty good stuff right there. Oh, Danielle, save us. How are you doing? I'm doing well, thanks. What's up, lady? So I'm facing a metastatic cancer. Oh, no.

How recently were you diagnosed? About three weeks ago. Holy smokes. How old are you? 59. Jeez. And my husband is 65 and we have an eight-year-old. Oh, no.

I mean, oh, yay, but oh, no. What's the time horizon they gave you? I'm a planner. I just, like I said, we're hoping for the bus. but preparing for the worst. And my husband and I are thinking that he is the beneficiary of my 403B from my work that I had. And we are thinking he should pay off our mortgage with that. And that will leave him with Social Security and from the insurance.

a rental property that we own free and clear to live off of. Can I challenge you on something? I think this is, if this is a, if this is a way to manage just the sudden chaos inside your own chest, I totally get it. But I don't want him making any plans on how he's going to spend money after his wife or if his wife passes. And here's why. who knows what that world looks like.

I've met people that can't walk back into the home that they were married in because their spouse doesn't live there anymore. And I don't want to tie anybody down to, I promised her, I said I would, we've moved this money already. I want, if you say, hey, you're a goofball and I want to have a plan down just so I can say I check that off my list of things I need to go through because I'm struggling with this diagnosis. I totally get that. But I also want you to look him in the eye and say, I'm going to hold this with a very loose fist because who knows how you're going to feel after this thing's over. My rule of thumb is nobody do anything for six months to a year

after their loved one passes. Okay. That's my rule. And do we continue paying tithes during this time? Continue paying what? Our tithe. Your tithe, like to your church? Yeah.

I mean, the giving is a matter of the heart. it doesn't, you know, stop unless there is a, if there is a storm in your life or you go, we can't afford this right now and something takes priority so we can provide for our family, no one would shame you for that. Yeah. But if giving is a part of you and that's what you want to do, go for it. Don't stop the tithe. What's the terminal nature of this illness?

What stage are you in? How much time did they give you all that? Well, we've got some more testing to do. Okay. It's a melanoma that we know has spread to my lung. and our next step is a PET scan to see if it's anywhere else like the brain. Okay. So that's a tough, that's a tough diagnosis you got.

And I could, I mean, you know, I could potentially, if the treatment goes well, I could, you know, I could have a long time. Sure. That's right. So I would recommend you make a list of things that I'm worrying about and things I can control right now. Okay. And the things that you're worrying about, write them on a separate list. keep them in your phone, write them on a yellow pad, whatever. And once every few weeks, you and your husband sit down and have him smile at you and get you a cup of coffee.

And he says, go, let him rip. And you just start piling him out. What if an asteroid hits us? What if the dinosaurs come back? What if Jurassic Park is real? What if the moon landing was fake? All that stuff. And what happens?

What are you going to do with this fund on this date when I pass away and then this, like get all, just do that? And then go back to, okay, what can we control the day? We can go for a walk outside. We can go play with our eight-year-old. We can take some pictures. We can go to an arcade. We can have some fun. We can go get treatment, whatever.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. Do you currently have a will in place? We do, but it needs updating because at the time we did it. Our son was our foster son, and he wasn't legally adopted yet. Please do that. ASAP.

Yes. So there are some practical things you can do, like John said. There's some things you can. and making sure that your will is up to date, making sure that every account has the correct beneficiary on there, health care power of attorney, durable power of attorney for your financial decisions. All of that stuff is important, and you can knock that out this week. My wife has a folder that has every account, every password, every email account, every everything. And once or twice a year, she reminds me where it is. And I remind her where mine is.

and it's like all the phone pass codes, the Netflix code, all the stuff. And that might be a good thing to start putting that together, just for peace of mind for yourself, right? Right. And it sounds sooner rather than later, but it's not imminent, right? Right. Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's okay.

I feel, you know, in a lot of ways, the last 30 years have been a blessing because when I was 29 years old, I went through a bone marrow transplant for leukemia. Oh, good gravy. Not your first battle. These last 30 years have been a bonus, you know. You've been playing on house money. So how have you did? Have you had a good run?

I have. It's been wonderful. And, you know, this little boy came into our lives, you know, seven and a half years ago, and it's just been the joy of our lives. You're amazing. My prayer for you is that they, They come back with some positive news after the PET scan, and they put you on a good treatment, and you get the right surgery, and you've got another long road.

We're rooting for you, Daniel. Thank you for calling us and trusting us with this. All right. Let's go out to Linda in Cincinnati. What's going on, Linda? Hey, thanks so much for taking my call. So my father passed away earlier this year, and I've been working through the state. We're almost done.

my mom called me last week and said hey in the 1990s your dad raised up my credit cards he wasn't providing blah blah blah 10,000 dollars he ran it up and he always said he would pay it back do you think can you give me that out of the estate because he always said he would pay it back this is a real debt are they divorced? And I just don't

they never got married okay how much how big is this estate um medium probably our take home will be about 95,000. So she's wanting a 10% cut to make good on... Yes. Wow. That is so wild.

I mean, I don't think she has any legal claim to this. I doubt there was a contract. This feels like a handshake. He said she said agreement from the 90s. It sounds like drama. So it would never hold up. But do you like your mom? Yeah.

Well, not even that. You know your mom. If you give her this money, will she do? just, I don't mean to be rude, but she just shut up? Or, well, then there's something else come next month and something else come to the month after that. Well, with interest, it's really 15, so I need another five now. Like, is she that type of person? Yes.

Okay, then just say no. My mom is very manipulative. Just say no. Nuff said. All right. Just say no. Say, I hate that he did that. And she's probably going to raise some help.

She might, will she come after you with, like, legal, like, sue you for this money? She has already threatened a little bit of that. She's like, I could put a lien on his property. She seems like the type. That's what I was getting at. I'm trying to, here's what I'm grappling with. You could try to pay her off and she goes away, but I think she's going to continue to knock on the door

because you give her an inch she takes a mile. She's not going to put a lien on the property. Are you selling this property? Yeah, put it on the market tomorrow and just be done. It's already in contract. We're supposed to close in like a week. Oh, great. Then just go on about your life.

Well, my question is, as a Christian, I don't know. Is there any kind of middle road? Should I be like, Mom, I don't really owe you anything. But as a kind of... This is between her and a deceased husband. Yeah, she never actually married. So... You don't have a spiritual moral obligation because you don't know if this actually happened

and she's made up crap to you about him your whole life. This is not a what would Jesus do scenario. No. This is just, if I give her 10 grand, will this stop all the madness, or will it just spark a new fire? Open a door, and I think you know it will open the door.