The Ramsey Show - When Money Gets Complicated, Clarity and Wisdom Matter Most

Episode Date: January 30, 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 and the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw next to me. George Campbell taking your calls.

Going to the phone lines where we have Heather in Indianapolis, Indiana. Heather, what's up? Hi, how are you guys? Doing good. How can we help? Long story short. I got married in August, and once we combined it some finances, I found out that my husband had a lot of gambling debt. I had a baby in October, and my husband tore his Achilles in May.

So he's currently not working, and I just went back to work from having my baby. Basically, I found out in December that he's got 150K in debt. most of it is from gambling and he didn't think he was going to be alive to face the consequences that led up to this debt, unfortunately, but he met me and we got married and had a baby and things have changed. Wow. So you quite literally saved his life? Correct. Yeah. We kind of both saved each other and, you know, that's why I fell in love with him, I guess. Wow. So do you know about this gambling issue before you got married? I knew he gambled, right? Like when he, And we won 25,000 in Vegas, it's great.

Sure. But when he lost 16,000 in one day, it's not. So I knew about it. I just didn't know how bad it was until after the fact, right? I started asking more questions once I knew. Yeah, how long of a process was this that he went into all this debt? Before you were married and during? No.

It stopped as soon as we got together, but he gambled like seven years maybe. So over the course of seven years, it's accumulated at $150,000. Correct. He's got two payday loans. He's got some 401K, and then just whatever on the app you can take money. I'm not a big gambler.

Is he currently, because you just said he's not accumulated since you got married? So he hasn't continued to gamble since we got married, but he hasn't paid any of his debt. Are you sure that he's not? How do you know? If he's stuck at home all day since May and he hasn't opened a gambling app or went to a website, I would be shocked if he's not going to Gambler's anonymous. Well, we did get into therapy and did some couples counseling, but I control all the finances. So, I mean, unless he's doing something behind my back and taking out additional loans, there's nothing to my knowledge.

I would be pulling his credit report to get a full picture and freeze his credit. Have you done that? I haven't freeze his credit, but I did pull up and find out. found out like all the creditors that he has. So he was withholding this information. This wasn't just like, well, he did let me know. You found this out. Correct.

It kind of got like breadcrummed along, right? And then once I knew my spot, I was like, what's happening? Where's all your money going? What's, how do we get in a situation? Okay. Then he was open and honest, right? That's how I got help and took control. Okay.

So you guys, it sounds like you've turned the corner. This is no longer happening. You've got control of the money. You've done all the due diligence there. So how can we help today? Is it how do I pay this off? Is that just the biggest question? Yeah.

I want to know how we approach a judgment this large. Is this snowball method realistic in this situation? Should we consider bankruptcy or are there other options? Is this the only debt of all? The 150? Yeah. 153. The house is in my name.

The cars are in my name. I don't really, I only have like 4,000 maybe credit card debt. It's all his debt. Okay, the cards are paid off? No. Okay. So tell me all the debt. I owe $127,000 on my house.

We have about $4,000 left on my car to pay. He might have $11,000 left in his truck to pay. Okay. We got a $53,000 judgment on the one creditor, $19. thousand on the other one and then he took all of his 401k out okay okay so what's you guys is income is I mean is I guess he's not working yet will he go back to work tell me more about that so we toured the key lease and he's currently healing I hope and pray he can go back to work he's got a physical job at UPS so he does have a good job and makes good money but right now he's not

working. Only I am, and I make $68,000 a year. Okay. And what did he make when he was working? Each year is a little different depending on overtime, but at least six figures. If he's not like 95 to 110, depending on the bonuses and how many hours we get. Is there any disability income coming in or workers' comp, anything like that? He was on workman's comp, but they cut him off. They only gave him six months and then they stopped. So it's all in limbo right now. We're waiting for his IME and what to do. Yes, he's able to walk on it. What is his current status? He's in physical therapy. So he just got into a shoe in December and like he can't really do a lot of steps. He cannot drive like going from the gas pedal to the brake. So he still has some healing to do and it's kind of all on me.

Yeah, well, that's really stopping you guys from being able to crush through this debt. Right now, you're just in survival mode until we get his income back in place. Is there anything else he can do that isn't physical to bring in some income? No, like he can't walk or drive. So like, I don't know what else. I'm saying any other job. If he can't work right now, he needs to do something, even if it's from home. Can he do customer service for UPS?

His mind is not broken. His Achilles is broken. Correct. But he's watching the baby. So then we'd have to figure out child care right now. And I just picked up a second job. Is there any family around that could help with that? Do you have a local church?

Is there anybody that you can reach out to? Even if it's part-time, right? Because the baby sleeps at night. So even if he's doing some sort of night customer service, right? Yeah, like we can look into that. But with workman's comp, it would definitely, like, I don't want to commit fraud on He's not getting hated anymore. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know how any of this works. I've never been in a situation like that before. So here's what I want. I want you to be open to solutions because I think that you're kind of camped out on, we'll just file bankruptcy, but I want you to be open to the solutions that George and I give. And I just want to be up front and saying they're going to all suck. Like none of them are going to be fun and none of them are going to be things that you want to do with your time. They're going to be things that feel like impositions because.

they are. They're going to be very uncomfortable. It's going to require him to do jobs and work that he doesn't want to do at times that he doesn't want to do it, like at night when most of us are watching Netflix. It's going to cause you to be doing things that are uncomfortable, like calling workman's comp, whoever that is, and figuring out what does it mean? Are we getting any more money? Will there be any repercussions if we go ahead and work since the payments stopped, right? These are all the things that you guys are going to have to do. And the challenge for you, beyond the finance of this, Heather is going to be not feeling resentful towards him for having piled up all this debt and now you're having to sort through it. You're having to have this

discomfort in your lives because of it. I would not file bankruptcy, you know, just yet, George. I would work through this. You're going to have a timeline on your horizon. But he hurt his Achilles. He's not, he didn't have heart surgery. So he's going to recover. He's going to go back to work. It's just really hard right now. Correct. I'm sorry. I had to get you off for the clock, but I really, I really, really want you to understand that this is something you can work through. I would do the debt snowball, which is what you asked, smallest to largest, minimum payments. And right now, if all you can do is the four walls, that's okay until he gets back and working. 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 customer. And when you're the one signing the paychecks, you can't 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.

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We've got Maggie, who's in Atlanta, Georgia. Hey, Maggie. Hi, yes. I'm trying to find out if the way my husband is treating me financially is considered abusive or if it's acceptable and what I should do. Oh, boy. Tell us more. I'm in my mid-40s, so is he.

and we have six kids and I have been financially dependent on him for 20 years, well, more than that, our entire marriage. I don't work and I've never worked. Last year, he artificially reduced the amount of money in our family income so that it was below how much we needed to have just sufficient funds. And so over the course of the year, we basically blew through all of the extra savings that were in that account. and then towards the end of the year there were some medical problems with our family and we really tipped the budget over the top. We did not go into debt

because he's putting aside money somewhere else also. Where do you know? He's putting it into savings accounts. I used to be able to see them, but I can't see them anymore because he hid them. Because I'm dependent and I'm not really that into the finances stuff, Like I could see them through a budgeting app, but now I can't.

So yes. And that was all intentional. Yes. And he's doing this to punish you? Yes. So he sent me a text saying that since I wasn't ready to talk to him, he just went ahead and made decisions himself. And so he cut me off from the family credit card, which was in his name, right?

It was a card for him. And he told me that he had reduced the amount in our family budget more substantially. and that he told me to use a credit card that two months before then he had asked me to open in my own name. And I didn't know that that was going to be a problem. But now he wants me to use that. And obviously that makes me financially responsible. But he said he threatened to ruin my credit and not to pay anything that went over. So now I feel really nervous to use that credit card at all because I'm not the only one drawing from this account.

Like he draws from the account. And he's controlling what amount is even in the account for you to spend on the family. Yes. So can you use a debit card attached to that bank account? I don't yet have a debit card, but if that's a good option, then I could go get one. So your name isn't even on the bank account? It is. My name is on the bank account.

So you should be able to get access to a card tied to that account. You can go down to the bank and ask for one. Okay. I would do that today. And that way you don't need to use this credit card. need to even have the chance of racking up any debt. And then it becomes an issue of, hey, we don't have enough to cover the bills. And I don't even know what we need to cover because you have access to everything and won't let me even see it. And so you guys have some deep

marriage issues and the financial part is just a symptom. Yeah, this is, for me, it's a major problem. For me, this has nothing to do with finances. I mean, obviously what George said is important just for the here and now, but this guy is 100% controlling, and that's 100% a financially abusive situation. So tell me, I guarantee you, this is not the only place that he's asserting control, guaranteed. Well, I've recently been walking out of that with a therapist because I've just started to assert my own autonomy. Okay. And what does that mean? I stopped presenting things to him as a can I do this or whatever and just doing what I need to do. Like I'm not doing anything stupid.

I'm running a house. And what does that work? Well, sort of. He's not happy about it. But yeah, he's not like, like the only escalation is him, I don't know, I guess you could call it like berating or that kind of thing. He's not like physical or anything. And you're okay with that? Well, I do believe that he will get better.

What makes you believe that? The Lord told me. How long have you been married? Over 20 years. And how long has he been asserting this berating behavior? Since before we got married. But I was also a part of that. Can I ask you a question?

Can I ask you just a, you went there, so I'm going to go there with you. do you think that you have to be in the house for him to get better? Or do you think you could be somewhere safe and he could get better? You think you have to be there for him to berate you? Or do you think that you could be somewhere safe, him not berate you and get better? So that's kind of like what caused this whole thing is that I basically refused to sit there and listen to him berate me. And I told him that I wanted to have conversations by email. So that's why he said that I wasn't talking to him.

Understood. But you're still living in the house, no? Yes. Okay. And most of the days are peaceful. It's just, yeah, he has some growing to do for sure. Understood. Okay.

Well. I have one other question about money. He, we got Christmas gifts that were like a check. I got one in my name. He got one in his name. and I mentioned putting mine in my own private account. He didn't like that. He said that that needed a lot more conversation.

So I was really wanting to know if it's wise or foolish of me to put this large cash sum into a personal account. At this point, you're protecting yourself because I don't know if this marriage is going to survive. And so at this point, you have to then go, I need to create my own bubble over here because this person isn't safe. Yeah. I would 100% say that. Okay. So that is actually wise to do in this moment. moment, and I know God told you, but it doesn't mean that this marriage survives. Sometimes

he, maybe it takes this marriage not working for him to get better. I don't know. I hope this marriage survives, but I'm also not, I'm not a betting man, but I'm betting he's not going to change tomorrow and just go, well, I had a revelation. I've decided to give you full access to the accounts and be transparent for the rest of my life. Right. I'm also thinking about your safety and security. You're just not in a financially safe or secure environment. Therefore, your kids are not either. So there's part of me that is, I'm way more concerned with that. Obviously, you called this show than I am with his comfort at this point at all. Because there's kids involved. And if you can't have, if you can't have access, if you're home taking care of the kids, but you're not allowed access to

money that it takes to do such work, then what are we even, what are we? doing here. Right. So I'm concerned about that. I'm with George. I have a concern. There's also something more nefarious happening, some financial infidelity on his part of why he's hiding this. If you are correct in that there is no wild overspending happening, then he's hiding this for a different reason that may be beyond just control because he doesn't trust you. And so that is also something to consider here. And so I would demand transparency. I would demand that you have equal access to the money and that you have an equal vote in this marriage. Yeah. And if that doesn't happen, then you guys need to go to counseling. And if he's unwilling

to go to counseling, you go alone and then you'll have to make your own decisions on whether this is safe and healthy. Does he go to counseling or is he willing to go? We've tried in the past, but yeah, he left it, didn't want to do it anymore. Uh-huh. Yeah, Maggie. Do you think that and that it's wrong if he made the decision unilaterally not to put his entire income into the account in the first place. Yeah, I think that's wrong. Yes. I think that's very wrong. Listen, Maggie, my wife stays at home.

She has full access and transparency into everything that we do. There are no hidden accounts. There's no mine in hers. She sees the budget. I see the budget. She can check the savings account at any moment. That is a healthy marriage. And any other picture is going to lead to unhealthy behaviors and an unhealthy marriage.

And so we can't continue on this way and pretend like it's all going to work out. Yeah. There has to be a come-to-Jesus moment, and that means him going to counseling as a last-ditch effort to go, hey, if this is going to work, you're coming with me and we're going to figure this out. Yeah, I think, Maggie, from where you sit, you called about a financial issue, but, you know, George and I both know money touches everything, and it's never just compartmentalized. It's never just money. These characteristics float into all the other areas of our life, and I know, based on what you said,

what you're experiencing is not just happening with the bank account. There's a control issue here. and the fact that this other person is not interested in bettering themselves, whether it be through counseling or through changes of behavior, that's a big red flag. And I know you've devoted 20 years to this thing. But man, oh man, please, please, please keep yourself and your kids safe and do what you need to do to do that. With interest rates finally dropping, now could be the window you've been waiting for to buy a home or refinance. But don't just rush in blind. Sit down with someone at Churchill Mortgage who will

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tell you when you're ready to buy or refinance a home. You can decide that with guidance from a team who actually cares about your future. Go to Churchillmortgage.com today and start your plan. This is a paid advertisement. NMLSID 1591 and MLSConsumerexists.org, Eagle Housing Lender. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. We've got Lily, who's in New York City, New York. York. What's up, Lily? Hi, to reference days, are you better than you deserve? I think so. How about you? I hope so.

Sister loans myself. I'm in Baby Step 2. I have a $1,000 emergency saving fund. And then my dad and mom collectively have about $150,000 of parent plus loans in my name. or not in my name. They're legally theirs, but they took them out for me to go to college. And as Georgia City is kind of like a spit-shake agreement that I'd pay them back. That was about 10 years ago. So the expectation is that I pay for them. And they recently changed it, changed the payment so that I am technically able to afford it.

But that would almost cut what I'm paying my loans off in half. and drastically increase the amount of time that it takes for me to pay my loans back. And also they're making, they've chronically made poor financial decisions. And I don't want to be enabling them. Like, for example, they just bought a car that's going to cost them $60,000 by the time they pay it back. So I don't want to make a lot of sacrifices in my life if they're not willing to change their lifestyle. And these laws are legally in their name. are you, when you pay it, are you logging on and making the payment yourself or are you giving them the money?

I'm logging on. I'm able to log on and pay the money myself from my bank account. Okay. Help me understand. Help me understand the last part of your argument, which is the agreement was, yeah, you pay these things off. You know that. You're not arguing that point. If you pay off the 150, what's the problem with that? What's that got to do with them? And, their lifestyle basically? Because so right now if I were to not pay the loans at all, like it wouldn't, no one's going to come after me. They're legally in my parents' names. Right, but you did agree to pay them back. Yeah.

But so I just, my thought was if I am like more fine, like worry about myself first and focus on paying off my things first and then helping them. But you did, well, you're not helping them. Hold up. You're not helping them. You told us that 10 years ago, it was from the beginning that it was, we'll take these loans, you'll pay them back. They were not, it wasn't a bait and switch.

You knew that going in. So you, at that point, you signing up for these loans is no different from you signing up for a credit card or a car note in my mind because you agreed. Okay. And this is my debt. Morally and relationally. Legally, you're right. It's in their name.

This is just as much their problem if you decide to not pay, it's on them. But at this point, the relationship is soured because you're not, you know, Thanksgiving looks different now when they're like, you're looking at their car in the driveway going, you shouldn't have bought that. You could have paid off a bunch of my student loans with that kind of money. And they're looking at you going, Homegirl took out 200 grand in loans and isn't paying back after she said she would. Right? Okay. What is your degree in? Mechanical engineering.

Great. I make 91,500 a year. Great. And how much debt do you have in your name? I have just under 20,000. That's your all student loans? 13,000 are federal loans, and then the other $7,000 is a private loan. And that's it, no other debt to your name? No other debt. I paid off all my credit cards, and I'm not going to use credit. credit card. And no car loan? No, I own my car. Great. So the parent plus loans, I'm assuming those are

also broken up into probably at least four by semester, right? Um, I actually, there's three, but yeah. Okay. So what I would do is I take all, all the loans, all the individual loans, the three parent plus loans, the federal loans, however, they're broken up and the, the private loan, however, it's broken up. And I would, that snowball it, smallest to largest, minimum payments, and knock out the smallest one first and put these $150,000 a parent plus loans right in there, wherever they fall, smallest to largest, and just knock it out. This has gone on for 10 years. The longer you let this hang, those parent plus loans have a higher interest rate.

And so the longer you wait on this, it's going to balloon to 175,000 if we just fight over this for the next few years. Okay, so the debt snowball is you make minimum payments. So my loans are lower than theirs. So I would be paying off my loans first, but at the same time making minimum payments on there. Is that what you're saying? You make minimum payments on all of your debt, regardless of what the minimum payment is. And then whatever the smallest loan is, maybe it's one of the federal loans or maybe it's one of the Parent Plus loans, whatever the smallest balance is, not by monthly payment, by balance.

Whatever the smallest balance is, that's the one you put all the extra money on. and that's the one that you're going to knock out first. And then the idea is you start feeling the momentum off of this, and then you feel good, and you put all the money on the next smallest debt. Then that one's paid off. You have all that freed up money, and then you put it on the next smallest debt. And that's how this works. That's a good clarifier.

When you're doing the debt snowball, it is by balance, not by monthly payment. So that's a good thing to remember going forward. Thank you for the call. We've got Janay, who's a good thing. who's in Baltimore, Maryland. Jeney, you're on the line, my friend. Hi. So I'm 22 years old, and I'm currently back in college.

I took around like a break for a bid. However, the college that I go to right now is like a private Christian college, and I owed them around like $36,000. They've been allowed me to push the balance off for the past three semesters, but they're saying that I need to get that balance down to $1,000 by the next semester. So essentially, I would have to be able to pay $35,000 by closer to the end of August. What is it? Is it because it's a Christian school?

Is it because it's like, are you borrowing directly from the school or something that not allowing you to wait until you've graduated to pay these things back? No. So when I first went to college, I kind of messed up with my grades and things like that. And so when it came down to me doing my financial aid, again, when I finally decided to get serious about school, Fast food just didn't cover the full amount. Okay. So is this a payment plan directly with the school?

Yeah. It's not technically a loan. It's just a balance that you haven't paid yet? Yes. Okay. So it's just a balance. Are you currently going to that school? Yes, I am.

Okay, so what's likely going to happen is they're not going to let you continue going to the school after the six months if you don't pay it. Did you get clarity on what happens then? Because at this point, it may be moot for you to even go to class right now. You might need to take a gap and solve this. So they essentially told me that if I can't get it down to the $1,000 on its own, then I just won't be able to register for my next year. And so you can't afford $6,000 a month right now. Are you working?

Yes, I am. How much do you make a month? I have two jobs, one through the school and one. throughout the outside of school the job that I work outside of school I maybe can bring like 3,000, possibly

4,000 sorry, possibly 2,000 2,500 a month and my school maybe maybe like 500 65 to 600 a month. So you got 3,000 a month total. Do you have any money saved anywhere?

No. Okay. My family went through a bus patch, so I've been given them pretty much any spare money. Here's a thing, Janay. You need to work with their office and just be clear with them. I don't have this money. I can't pay. I don't make $6,000 a month.

I got to cover my own bills. And so that might mean you can't go to school right now. You need to get to work full-time, overtime, pay what you owe, and then maybe go to a different school that you can actually afford, because clearly this private Christian one is costing, a lot of money that you don't have. You know, every year I hear the same excuses for why people don't get the life insurance they need to protect their families.

So this year, let's clear the air and look at the facts. Having 10 to 12 times your income on a 15 or 20 year plan is, in many cases, just plain cheap. That amount of coverage lets your family keep the lights on and keep food on the table while they're grieving. Second, life insurance through your work is not a number. enough, especially since these plans go away if you change jobs. You need to have your own policy so you're not without protection when your family really needs it. Third, stay at home parents

need life insurance, especially those with young kids. People don't realize how quickly the call sat up without someone at home taking care of things. So no more excuses, folks. Get the protection your family needs. Go to zander.com or call 800-356.com. 4282. They've been my choice for all my insurance for over 25 years and are the only people I trust. All right, you guys ask for it and we listened. The Live Like No One Else Cruise is back by popular demand. This is your moment to celebrate your debt freedom with Dave and the Ramsey personalities and the Western Caribbean. You can share your story with Dave, swap jokes with George, or sing karaoke with me apparently, and more. So if you're on Baby Step 4 or higher, this is your chance to join us.

Cruz is going to be March 14th through the 21st, 2027. And if you register and book by February 1st, you can save up to $300 this week only. Okay. So save up to $300 this week only when you book by February 1st. So guys, remember cabins are limited. Lock in your spot. You only need a $600 deposit, a $600 deposit to lock in your spot. So do that. All you have to do is click the link in the show notes or go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash events in order to learn more. I hope I see you guys out there. It was a fun time. Just seeing that ship brought me back. Good memories. Brought you back to the Caribbean. All right. Jessica, who was far from the Caribbean, is in Phoenix, Arizona. Hey, Jessica. Hi. What's up? How can we help? So I'm sure you'll ask

questions on more specifics, but my essential question is, I'm 44, married, no kids, and completely debt-free with a paid-off home. Unfortunately, my dad did pass away about a year ago. He did own his home free and clear. I have two additional sisters. The home is worth about 700,000. My mom, who is not married to my father and is financially set with about a million in retirement and owns her home free and clear is considering selling it and moving it to Arizona. And our question is, should we gift this house to my mom? Obviously, I can get into specifics about our finances, so see if that's a good idea, but I just kind of want to know the pros and cons of that and any potential pitfalls of that decision.

So let me just make sure you said all that very quickly. So you're doing fine. Mom is doing fine. And then you have this home with your other three sisters. Other two sisters. Yeah. Other two sisters. Do they want to sell it or do they want to gift it to her to your mom? Do they both agree? So my older sister and I are both very financially well off. We sold a business. We each have about $8 million invested in the market and homes that are over $1.5 million. in debt-free and earn about $250 a year. Okay. My younger sister does well, but she's not in the exact same position. So our thought was my mom pays her $250,000 for the house. Molesa and I forgo receiving that money from my mom. That way she can upgrade the house and do anything she wants and still be within her budget.

And then she finally gets to live out, hopefully, the next 30 years actually living, because she's worked her butt off her entire life and provided for us and is an incredible mom. And she's never done anything for her. So we would like to do it, but I don't know. know if there's good that's what I wanted to hear that was my hope but I didn't know if you were like huge red flag take that money I mean relationally if everyone's good with this if everyone's happy with the decision and mom does mom actually want this house if she can redo it how she wants then yes can she and she can afford to redo it how she wants you're not going to fund that as well

absolutely because we're not having her pay us each the 200 that X or 400 will allow her to do exactly what she wants okay so she's getting a free house plus 400 grand Correct. That's a pretty sweet deal. Well, the one thing to think about is the step up and basis. So when you inherited the home, you get a step up in value. But when you gift it, you know, that's a different situation. And so what is the house worth today?

About 700. And my dad passed away about a year ago. So I think the basis, you know, step up is limited. But obviously when we go to sell the house eventually, when my mom passes, if it remains in the trust or even not with her will, then we would have that amount to pay. I mean, I would definitely work with an estate attorney on this and a CPA to make sure that you, you know, dot the eyes and cross the T's here. But there's no big red flags other than understanding the financial components. Obviously, your dad let this, you know, let you guys inherit the home. I don't know what the relationship was with your mom.

And if there's any bad blood there, and if that's odd or awkward for her, but as far as the money part, relational part. Okay. Everyone's happy. I love the idea. I don't see why there's any problem in it. I think that you guys are good daughters, especially the $400,000 cash part. That's a good place.

These are good problems to have. Very good. I already have $10 million. I don't need this extra house sitting around. We needed the win. Thank you, Jessica, for the call. We needed that one. We got Jimmy, who's in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Hey, Jimmy. How can we help today? Hey, can you hear me? I can. Awesome. So I just wanted to say, I'm a great fan of what you guys do for people and everything. So I unexpectedly received the largest bonus of my life this week,

and I wanted to tell that where to go before my wife decided on how to burn through it. How much is the bonus? We have to know. Well, before taxes, we're talking like $7,300 as all. So probably after we're like $3,000 or something. Okay. Well, way to go. It's your largest bonus to date. Congratulations.

Yes. And so I had a couple of places that I itemized that it should possibly go, and I needed help with making the right decision. One, we have about an emergency fund that would last me until about Tuesday of next week. So I'm wondering if we should do that to create our non-existent emergency fund. Two, we got married over a decade ago at the time. You know, we had a lot of young kids and stuff, and we decided to, you know, go cheap. And we haven't gone on our honeymoon yet. I promised her we would go at 10 years.

Ten years has come and went this year. And we're still not, you know, we still don't have the money saved up for that. So the possibility to spend that to take her on a honeymoon or my third option was to use it to buy the IPO of SpaceX when it releases. Oh, boy. Do you guys have any debt? Yes, yes, we do. What kind of debt to have? We've been working through it.

It's just home loans. Multiple? No, it's one. We do have a helic we use to purchase another property, but we'll be all the way through paying that off within the next two years. Okay. We'll be down to our mortgage only, which right now we're sitting at like a $220,000 balance. I think it's worth about six.

How much is the heli-law? that you took out? Well, it ended up getting out of hand, and I think it got all the way up to 80, but I think we're down to owing, like, 40 on it now. Oh, and how much is your income? Which is our income? Oh, that's a loaded question. Is it?

Probably about 90,000 a piece, maybe. Okay, do you guys make 180? Yep. So this he lock, we would put in baby step two, which means bad news, bud, the vacation's going to wait. Yeah, you need to do what you said, which is stock up that emergency fund to $1,000 because getting you to Tuesday isn't going to work.

And then, yeah, the other two or $3,000 needs to go towards baby step two, my guy. Okay. And I would let the honeymoon. I'd let the honeymoon be the Y to kick it into gear to get this heat lock paid off this $40,000, if that's all the debt you have to your name. And then let that be the way you celebrate.

is we're doing an amazing honeymoon once we pay this debt off because we owe it to ourselves. Okay. I like that plan a lot. Thank you. I do too. I do too. You guys work really hard. You have a great income. And so the fact that it's been a decade and we have almost nothing in the emergency fund. We're taking out the HELOC. It just tells me there are some other behavior things we got to fix. And you guys can fix it really fast with this income. That's the good news. You'll knock out the HELOC real fast if you put all of your attention toward it. You'll get the emergency fund done real fast if you really focus on it. And then the vacation will be really fun instead of a sinking feeling like, oh, why are we here? We have a he lock on our back. We don't have anything in savings. Why did we do this? Yeah, that's right.

So, George, why don't you explain how you arrived at putting their helock in Baby Step 6 versus Baby Step 2? Yes. So when it comes to helocks, if the helock balance is more than half of your annual income, we would make it a Baby Step 6 item. Yes. It's large enough that it feels like another mortgage in your world. And if it's less than half your annual income, put it in Baby Step 2 inside of the debt snowball and knock it out. Because that tells me it can get rolled up in there and it'll get knocked out fast. It's not going to take seven years.

That's right. Yeah, they were right at the line with the 80,000 just under the line to put it at Baby Step 2. I'm sure they're excited about that. That stinks. But, you know, you throw $4,000 a month at it's done in 10 months. If you can throw more than that, it's done even faster. And so 12 months from now, I think you guys could be in a place where you go, let's book this trip. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. And that's the thing, guys. When you set out to do Baby Step 2, you set out to pay off your debt, you have to have a really great why, almost like that carrot dangling in front of you so that you know why you're going after this. In their case, having a honeymoon after 10 years, that's a pretty good reason why. Maybe yours is a trip that you want to take. Maybe it's to pay for your kids college. Maybe it's to have your dream house. Whatever it is, your why should be so strong because that's going to be your ultimate motivator. reliable used car, you want that thing to last. And the best way to keep it running for the long haul is to take care of it with people you trust. That's why I'm proud to welcome Christian Brothers automotive is the official auto repair partner of the Ramsey show. At Christian Brothers, they treat you like family. You'll get digital vehicle inspections so you can see exactly what your technician sees, a complimentary shuttle to keep you moving, and every repair is backed by their nationwide nice difference warranty. They've even been ranked number one by J.D. Power for customer satisfaction among aftermarket, full service maintenance and repair providers six years in a row.

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Okay, I'll tell you my question first, and then I'll give you all the particulars if you want them. Okay. I'm looking at retiring at the end of the year. And I'm looking at all the indicators, golds, high, dollars down, one bucket's moved to bunch of cash, has the biggest cash position ever. Should I take part of my 401K and move it into money? my cash mutual fund for now. How much money do you have? What's your total nest egg?

Okay, total nest egg. My wife and I have 400K and a 401k in Roth. We have $100,000 in a high-yield savings account. We plan on using that interest draw off it yearly for part of our retirement living. My annual rate of return of my mutual funds is 10.89% over the last 23 years. Way to go. That's exactly what we tell people. should be. So you've been doing it right. So you're heavy in equities. You don't have a lot of bonds

right now? What's the split? It's probably, I've been very aggressive because I found Dave later in life. Okay. I've been very aggressive. Good. It's worked out. I'm probably 93% in stocks right now. Dave Ramsey would like that. So here's the deal. Dave is not a fan of the asset allocation theory of let's move you to 60% bonds because we're spooked. Because the truth is, is you're missing out on a whole lot of returns because you could live another 30 years, right? How old are you? Well, I'm 70.

My wife plans will live to be 100, but I'm going to die first. Well, she'll outlive you out of sheer will. That's how the women are. She spikes me, yes. So you're saying you want to pull it into cash? No, no. I have a money market fund within my raw and within my portfolio. Yeah, you want to pull it out of the market.

It would be basically a high- a savings account at that point? Yes. I would not do that. And is it because you're spooked by the indicators? I'm spooked by the indicators. You know, I've lived through these corrections before. But now I'm 11 months from retirement.

Yeah. Well, here's the goodness. You guys have some cash. And so if the market was way down, what would you do? You would cut way down on your spending for a little bit and maybe dip into your high yield savings and try to not touch retirement, right? Correct. Which means you can weather the storm.

Because here's the truth. If you ignored headlines for the rest of your life, I guarantee you you would be twice as wealthy. Then the person who goes, well, I'm spooked. Let me jump out. Let me jump back in. I always say time in the market beats timing the market.

And right now, you think you have the crystal ball and so does everyone else. But I'm telling you, put away the crystal ball and just keep it riding. But Robert, you also have the gift of time, which means you have the gift of time. of knowledge and think back, because you said you've survived at all, think back on those times where there was a dip, and think how quickly the market corrected itself. What was it? A year, two years? Yeah, that's true, because I jumped out when COVID hit. And what happened? It spiked

back up, didn't it? And do you regret that? I did because I missed a big part of that roller coaster. You're living proof. Most of the best days happen right after the worst days. And nobody knows how long worst days are going to be. But usually you stick around in cash sitting on the sidelines way longer than you should. And then you jump back in way later when the market's already back up. And so if I'm you, I'm just going to let it sit there and let it grow. And again, if there is a market correction, not a crash, if there's a dip, you'll be able to ride it out. Okay. Well, I just need somebody to talk me off the cliff. Yeah, we're happy to. I hope I did. And you're right. There are indicators that are freaking people.

out right now and a lot of people are taking advantage of that and it gets clicks, it gets views, it gets you to buy their crypto and their course and their gold and silver. But man, I would not adjust anything you're doing right now. I wouldn't either. And like I said, somebody like Robert who's had 70 years to watch this all play out, he knows better than you and I, you know, me and my 30s and you and your 40s, you know, that was a joke, George. Thank you. I am an old soul. I'm a 70-year-old. I'm in my 40s. But the point is, he's seen this happen and he knows better than all of us that the recovery is real. And usually in a couple of years, you're right back actually in a better position than you were before the negative downturn. So remember that,

Robert. Whether you're 25 or 75, heed that advice. Time in the market beats timing the market. Yes. All right. We've got time to take Josh, who's in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What up, Josh? Hi, how are you? Good. How can we help today? Yeah, so I'm 26 with a net worth of about 800,000. Nice. Thank you. And I'm just trying, I quit my job two years ago. I'm deciding whether or not I should return to that high-paying job, which I do not like or use my savings of the runway to transition into a different career more aligned with my interest. Why would you go back to a job that you quit that you don't like when you have an $800,000 net worth and you can use it as a runway to get to the job that you want? Yeah, this is like running back to the toxic X. Yeah. I think it's because, I mean, to be more specific, I want to build a career as a musician, and I understand that the odds of that pain off are low.

It depends on what you mean by that. If you want to be the next Bruno Mars, maybe the odds are low. but if you want to make a career in the many, many, many ways that people work in the music industry, I'm sure there's plenty of opportunity. Jay, it has lived it. Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to, like, make music and, like, spend time developing, markable skills, like content creation, advertising, and running campaigns where if it doesn't work out as an artist,

I'd be able to find a job more aligned in that industry. I'm just trying to make sure I'm making our financially, you know, responsible decision and have enough runway, you know, knowing. I wouldn't drain your savings just because you're trying to pursue music. You can go do marketing for a full-time job, and you got plenty of time nights and weekends at 26 to do the music and try to get that off the ground. What kind of artist are you trying to be? It was like pop or rap a little bit.

Okay. How old are you? 26. 26. How long have you been pursuing music, or you're just getting started at 26? I've been making music for maybe about 10 years, but I haven't I haven't put effort into like, yeah, I've been releasing.

I just haven't been putting any effort really into content creation or advertising or, you know, ad management or anything like that. Interesting. What's all that? Talk about ad management. This feels very separate. Are you wanting to be in marketing and you're sort of like, well, I have these skills I can fall back on in case the music doesn't work out? Or are you using that to get discovered? to have the skills like to fall back on in case the music doesn't work out.

Okay. Well, I can tell you this, you know, and this is an unpopular opinion, but when it comes to wanting to be an artist, those folks who really make it, they don't have a fallback plan. They go hard. All in. It's all they think about. It's all they think about. And so I'm just going to level with you right here.

I'm not trying to shoot a dream down. But the way you're talking doesn't sound like the person who's going to go all in on this and really go get it. I mean, haven't you had two years on the sidelines to be working on it? What happened? I was traveling and learning Spanish in Argentina. Listen, listen. Down the duo lingo, bro.

Don't tell me you have this dream of being a musician and you didn't do it with this two-year gap you've just had. You might be a free spirit, and I do hear that. And for that reason alone, I would not go back to this old job. But I don't hear the go-get-it factor of sacrificing it all to be the next Bruno Mars. I mean, otherwise. send us in your tape and we'll tell you the real truth. I used to be that guy who bragged about running on no sleep.

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That's casper.com slash Ramsey, Code Ramsey. All right, to the phone lines, we've got Kevin who's in Tallahassee, Florida. Kevin, you're up. All righty. Hey, guys. I just had a quick question. I really want to be able to get my finances in order to help my new wife be able to transition as a stay-at-home mom, but I'm not really sure how to go about that. Well, I love that you're thinking about that and thinking ahead.

The first place to start is, is it an affordable thing for you today to move that direction? So, George and I can help you with that. What are you making with her working and what would you be making if she stayed home? So right now with the both of us working, we make, it's about $8,000 a month. Okay. That would put without her working, that brings us to about... That's okay. I hear the papers that one.

It's about $4,000. Okay, so about half. It'll half the income. Ooh, that's a big jump. The question is, can you afford to do this? So obviously the first questions that I have are do you guys have debt? So when we got married, she came in with no debt and I came in with all the debt. We just have, at this point, I just have a $4,000 auto loan.

I do have some credit cards that were taken to collection about two or three years ago, along with a lease car that went into repo. How much are the credit cards? It was two of them. One was $1,000 and one was $3,000. Okay. So about a $4,000 balance on that? Or are there more penalties and fees?

As far as I've seen, it was just a $4,000. Okay, and what's the deficit on this repo that you still owe? So they said that when they took the car, that I would just be free and clear and it would just take the seven years for it to fall off my credit. Really? They didn't come after you for the difference? No.

Positive. So far they haven't. How long ago did that happen? About in February in 2025. I would just look into that. I would hate for that to come back as like a zombie debt that you thought was gone and next thing you know you owe like a $10,000 deficit or something. You get served a lawsuit over the.

this thing because you didn't pay. And one guy on the phone told you, no, you good, man. Yeah, I'd want whatever it is in writing that I owe nothing and I would keep that paper laminated and like under glass for life. Frame it. Okay, so that will be your homework getting off of this call. So you got $8,000 in debt. Nothing else to speak of. No student loans. Nothing else? No student loans. Nothing currently, no, no. Okay. Do you have any money in savings? I currently have $1,000 in an emergency Fund. I just got that in there. Congrats. Is she pregnant right now or are you guys looking to start a family? No. We're looking to start a family. Great. Okay. You got lots of runway.

We're expecting to start trying within a year to be able to make this transition happen. I love it. So I mean, it looks like you're familiar with the baby steps. You've already got the $1,000 saved. So next on the list is let's pay off this $8,000. And here's a fun experiment. Let's pretend like we only live on the $4,000. Oh, I like that. And that way we can take 4,000 this month and 4,000 next month throw it towards the debt. Debt's gone and in the meantime we got to

experience running our household on $4,000 a month to see how does that feel. Do you like that experiment? And then continue putting the $4,000 and savings and five, six months later you've got a fully funded emergency fund. Now we're investing for the future and we've experimented

for months living off of your one income. I like that. That's really the barometer. It's Can we cover all of our expenses from my one income and still accomplish our financial goals, which means we got to be investing 15% of our income. And for that baby, we have to have a little left over to put towards college and pay off the house eventually. Are you guys renting right now? We are currently.

Okay. Great. So the next step after that might be we want to save up a down payment. Once babies here, once we're investing, and that might be a longer term goal. But that's really the math on it. And I hope your income continues to go up. I found that once, you know, mom's staying at home, the husband's like, all right, I've got to go grind a little bit. And maybe that means you're going to get a promotion and kind of move up in your career as well. What do you do for work?

So right now I'm a correctional officer for the state. Okay. What's the sort of ladder in your field to move up? Well, right now, we're actually looking at getting a pay raise from $23 an hour to $28. Nice. Excellent. That's like $10,000 a year. Yeah, that's, it would be super excited.

Yeah, that's wonderful. If we get it. And then we can always promote up and make a little bit more. But I'm actually looking at doing a career change for a possible and even higher. Yeah, what do you want to get into? I kind of want to get into being a paramedic firefighter. Oh, nice. That's cool.

Yeah, the main thing to be thinking about, thinking about, I love these career-changing discussions. I love the fact that you're thinking about the wife being a stay-at-home. home mom. Number one thing is just to make sure whatever you do, you have savings built up because that's a bridge that you're coming up against and to have money saved is going to help you be able to do that. And then also, yeah, just making sure you're thinking ahead, especially with things like home buying, making sure that on the $4,000 you guys feel good about it. You don't bite off more than you can chew, especially knowing that you might have a career change coming up. I'm not sure which is going to come first if you're thinking about the career

change or if you're thinking about, you know, maybe one day buying a house and getting that down payment ready. But as much money as you can have set aside on hand, ready to make this transition and the most research that you can do ahead of time, kind of like what you're doing now, getting all the answers, as many answers as you can anyway, is really going to set you up for success. Yeah. And you may want to make that career change before babies here, because it's harder. If there's a gap in income and babies here and it's so low income, that's going to be a lot harder. And so I would really work your way through these baby steps fast knowing I want to make this career change. Yeah, that's good.

But I like that advice, Jade. You want to make sure that any money move you make is from a place of stability and strength, not from desperation and weakness. Well, yeah, then you know you're really doing what it is that you want to do, and you can kind of take your time in the way that is appropriate in order to do that. So a very, very good question. Thank you for the question. George, let's do one of these social questions.

We haven't done one of these in a while, and I like them. Hit it. All right. This is Keith from the Ramsey Baby Steps community. He says, how do you get through years? of the boring gazelle intensity grind. Wow. Listen, if it's boring, you're doing it wrong.

You're not sitting on the couch. Yes. Like, you don't have time to be bored. That's true. But I think he's saying it just feels like a slog. Yeah, I mean, if you've got the average person when they do baby step two, it's really a two-year deal, right? That's what we're seeing on average.

18 to 24 months is the average. Yeah. And so, but there, I mean, there's plenty of you who call in and it took you three years or four years. It took my husband and I seven and a half years. What was your time? Mine was, I mean, my was. pretty fast. I had a smaller amount of debt, 18 months to pay a 40K. Right on. Right on. And so no matter

where you are, there is going to be some moment, even if you're one of the 18 monthers who is like, I don't feel like going to my side hustle today. Or I don't, for the love of God, can I just order a pizza? You know, whatever it is that it is that you want to do, that's going to pop up. And I think it's so important, George, to have that reason why, number one, because that's kind of like the North Star on this whole thing is, why do I want to do this? the reason why can't just be because I want to get out of debt or because I want more money. Dave said it's a good idea. Yeah.

Don't let Dave be your why. He's going to be proud of you, but don't let that be your why. You need something more. Maybe Baby Step 3 is also, I mean, that one is boring. Baby Step 3 is way less exciting than two when you're paying off debt because three, you're just like, all right, I've got to stack some cash over here. I'm not seeing much progress as far as paying off debt and freeing up the payment. You're just sort of building your little acorns for the winter.

Baby Step 3 is a sleeper, I will say in many ways, and I know it's hard to believe, but I actually think that that might be the hardest of the baby steps, the toughest. Yeah. Because you thought after two, like the hard part was over. You ran a marathon and you're like, wait, there's a 5K after this. I got to run. Oh, man, you got to start warming up again. Can't catch a break. You know, I think the big thing as far as answering the question and how to stay intense through years of the grind, for me, the unlock has been finding ways to reward myself.

throughout the journey, whether you're on two, whether you're on three, whether you're on four, five, and six. And Baby Step two, it's little things like, after I pay off this amount of debt, I am ordering the pizza. In Baby Step three, it might be a small thing that, another, but then as you move on, it's, okay, I'm going to buy the new couch. Okay, we're going to take the vacation. Okay, we're going to upgrade the cars.

So make sure that you're rewarding yourself throughout the process. Nothing that could throw you off track, but just enough to keep you going until the next step. Hey guys, George here. Listen, just because it's 2026 now doesn't mean 2025's ideas all go away. Some things are timeless. Like, if you want to win with money, it's still the same playbook. Budget like your money depends on it. Avoid debt like $10 lattes and build wealth on purpose.

But here's the truth almost nobody tells you. Most banks make money when you lose yours. They want you swiping, overdrafting, and racking up fees because that's how they stay rich while you stay broke. And that's why I tell people to go with fair, credit union instead. They actually want you to win with money and become debt-free. And their smart bundle gives you a no-fee checking account, a high-yield savings account, and my favorite, the new Ramsey-branded debit card that says debt is normal, be weird, right on the front. It's not just a piece of plastic

with your money attached. It is a declaration. It says you're not buying the lie anymore. You're taking control of your money for real. So this year, forget the gimmicks from the big banks, forget so-called rewards that keep you broke, and instead partner with a credit union that actually backs you working the baby steps. Go to fairwins.org slash Ramsey to get started. That's fairwins. org slash Ramsey, insured by the NCUA. All right, tax time is just around the corner. 26 taxes. Don't worry, George and I have you covered with everything that you need to know. George, this feels like a talk nerdy to me segment. We had to brand it so that people would listen in.

Yeah. So talk dirty to me about tax day, which this year is going to be April 15th. It's always April 15, 2026. Extension deadline, October 15, 2026. Tell us everything we need to know. Okay. This is the important parts. These are the changes for 2026. And the big highlights are tax brackets have been adjusted for inflation. Ooh. Ooh. Ah. And tax rates stay the same. That's 10% to 37%. So those tax rates for the bracket stay the same. the income thresholds have increased. Yeah, get nerdyer. Tell me more. If you're watching on YouTube or Spotify, we have the visuals up so you can see the table

because this is one of the most confusing things about taxes. People get it twisted. People say, well, Jade, I don't want to make a dollar more because it'll push me into the next bracket. Yeah, they're assuming the wrong thing. Only that new dollar is taxed at the new rate. So you've got to understand that. So let me go over the numbers. So 10% bracket is up to 12,400 if you're single, 24,000.

thousand eight hundred if you're married filing jointly. Then from that number up to 50,400 if you're single, 12% bracket. And for married filing jointly, $100,800. And then we move to the 22% bracket, which is from that 50 grand up to 105,700 if you're single and up to 211,400 if you're married filing jointly. If you're doing the math at home, it doubles for those married filing jointly. Keeps it simple. and then 37%, which is the highest bracket, any money you make over $640,600 if you're single will be taxed at the 37%. And married filing jointly, any dollar you make over $768,700 will be taxed at 37%. Have you fallen asleep yet?

I wanted to, but I forced myself to stay awake in order to say the words, yes, paying taxes sucks, but making money is always going to feel nicer. Yes. So you need to think about what the marginal tax rate is versus effective. There you go. So effective meaning, yes, you got up into that 22% tax rate, but when you average it all out, it was really 15% is what you paid on your total income. So there you go.

That's the federal brackets with the adjusted thresholds. What about standard deduction increases, George? Don't get me started on the standard deduction. Wind it up. Let's go. So this is, most people will benefit from taking the standard deduction. And so this is probably you, if you're listening, the standard deduction lowers your taxable income.

and is now higher again for 2026, which is good news. So standard deduction if you're single is $16,100. So the IRS basically says, we didn't see that money. It's a freebie. The rest we're going to touch, but that part we won't. Married filing jointly, $32,200. That ain't bad. And head of household, $24,150.

So for all of you saving up every single receipt thinking that maybe you can outdo it, you're probably not going to. Yeah. So unless you're a business owner, you've got a very complex. Schedule C situation or yourself employed. Some people are 1099. Sometimes it makes sense to itemize and you can check with a CPA or tax pro on that. Now there's a lot surrounding the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. What a name. I know people. I know one big beautiful bill. There's a lot of questions around that. How's like going to affect us this tax term? George, what do you have to say about that?

So for anyone that makes tips, you're happy about this. No tax on most tips, which is a first for many I love that. I have to say, I think that's great. They're hustling out there. Yeah. Let them have it. And then you've got overtime pay deduction for hourly workers. So that's nice as well if you do overtime. And then senior, shout out to the AARP members out there.

You get a deduction, a new $6,000 deduction, available whether you go standard or itemized for taxpayers age 65 plus subject to income limits. Okay. Do we know what those are? Dave Ramsey, sorry. Yeah, you ain't getting it. He hits the age, but not the income. Not the income.

Okay, he'll be fine. He will survive. All right, I love that. So just a couple of smart tax tips going forward. Make sure that you're gathering up your documents early, guys. Don't wait till the last minute. You're going to need your W-2s, your 1099s, any receipts. Start gathering that stuff now.

Put it in a folder because they're going to need it. Also, you need to decide whether you're going to do this thing yourself or whether you're going to hire a tax pro. Again, if it's simple, just your basic W-2, you probably could handle it yourself. But if it's a little bit more complex, you're probably going to need a pro. If needed, make sure to file your extension, okay? File the extension, but you still got to pay April 15th. Don't get it twisted.

It's illegal to not pay in time. It's not illegal to file the extension. So it's okay if you don't file in time, file the extension, but you got to pay what you owe. And you can use tax planning to reduce surprises next year. I always ask my tax guy, hey, what can I do better next year? That's right. That's good. I want to always improve and pay the government a little bit less if I can.

And so the bottom line for 2026 higher deductions and inflation adjusted brackets may lower your tax burden, but deadlines and planning still matter. So be proactive to keep more of your income and avoid stress. That's right. And George, good tax planning isn't about the loopholes, although we might confine you some of those. It's about being intentional. You work really hard. Don't give more than you need to to the IRS. That's the moral of the story.

By the way. If you get a refund this year, just know you overpaid the government as a blessing to them. and they said, no, we can't take that legally. You can have it back. That's right. That's money that you could be putting towards whatever baby step you're on. So take a closer look at that. But for any questions around how to file taxes or if you need to work with one of our pros,

go ahead and head to ramsysolutions.com slash taxes. That's ramsysolutions.com slash taxes. All right, George. We did it. I feel good. That was very, very nerdy. That might be the nerdiest we've ever gotten. No insults, no injuries.

We all learned something. I love it. Use that at your next trivia night. Woo! All right. Let's go back to the phone lines. Taylor and Chattanooga, take us back down to Earth. What's up? Yeah, so me and my wife have accumulated about $92,000 in consumer debt. And we have a plan to get out in the next 24 months. But I just want to make sure it's the right plan. Yeah. Tell us, is it the Ramsey plan? Tell us what your plan is. Well, so it's actually kind of complicated. So, We owe in bills about $3,000 a month that we're just trying to survive on at the moment.

But we also want to take anything extra and throw it at bills, and we don't have a $1,000 emergency fund. We just can't afford to do that. And I'm 100% commission-based real estate agent. So checks don't always come. You're saying you can afford to pay off $92,000 and 24 months, but you can't afford a $1,000 emergency fund? Not at this moment. Why? What does that mean?

Explain why you feel that way? So basically my wife is a full-time student and she's a full-time worker and she makes just enough to cover the bills. My checks are kind of foreign, they have a lot of space in between them at times. So when we do make the money, we just started this plan. Got it. This is the first month. So the money that we just had, we wanted to make sure we were good for the next couple months because this debt really weighs on me. What kind of debt is this? Can you break down the 92,000?

Yeah, so about $45,000 is her car, and we're upside down on that one. It's probably worth about 33, so we're upside down about 13. 17 is my car. 17 is a personal loan, and then the rest is credit cards. Okay. How much is the credit cards, so I don't have to do the math? I'd probably say about 8,000 to 9,000. Okay. Maybe 10. So my first order of business, I really would be trying to get out of this $45,000 car. It's worth it to get the $13,000 loan and figure out a way to just get a cash beater, spend $4,000 or $5,000.

I think that's going to be worth it to you. And at the end of the day, you're more like $18,000 in on a car versus $45,000 in on a car. Have you tried that? We have not. looked into a lot of options into getting out of the car, but at this point, we just kind of gave up on trying to get out and just more trying to pay it off. What did you look into? Selling it and trying to get something super cheap, but we don't have cash saved up.

We're actually like, you know, at times or $100. So what you would need to do, what you'd need to do is you'd have to get a loan for the difference since you don't have it. You wouldn't be able to sell this car for $45,000 because it's not worth that. what you would need to do is go down to a credit union, go to a bank, I don't care how you get the loan. Anything's going to be better than this $45,000. And then from there, you having a regular income. It doesn't mean you can't contribute.

It just means that you need a Peks and Dallies Fund over to the side and use your income to build that up. So you always have a month's worth of income there. That way you feel the freedom to actually use your monthly cash flow towards the debt and towards an active budget. And I'd get two jobs in between these checks coming in to keep some stability to get you guys moving. on this plan. If you missed open enrollment, don't panic. Most health plans lock you out for the year if you didn't sign up by December. But Christian Healthcare Ministries lets you join anytime. CHM offers a simple, flexible, and budget-friendly alternative to health insurance. And you can join anytime. That's right. No open enrollment deadlines. CHM is perfect if you're self-employed,

starting a business, or in between jobs, because it gives you options without those. out of control, COBRA costs. And CHM is an insurance. It's a community of believers coming together to share medical bills and pray for one another. That's real peace of mind. You're not just sharing costs, you are sharing community. And families have trusted CHM since 1981 with billions of dollars and medical bills shared. You can see any doctor or hospital you want with no network restrictions and members say that they often save hundreds of dollars a month compared to traditional insurance. So make a change that fits your budget and your values. Check out CHministries.org slash budget to learn more. That's CHministries.org slash budget. Back to the phone lines.

We've got Sabre in Atlanta, Georgia. That's a strong name. I like it. What's up, Saber? Hi, Jaden, George. I have a quick question. My husband and I are just a agreeing on to buy or not to buy a house. To buy or not to buy? That is the question. Tell us, tell us both sides of the equation. So he is 68 and I am 57 and I feel like I don't want to take on that risk because he's older. Okay. So I don't know. So I have a fear factor of doing that. Now, the fear factor of him being older is it, we'll get this house, we won't pay it off in time, there's not enough money there, and I'll be left if he passes with this huge mortgage. Is that what you're saying? Yes. Okay. Tell us about you guys' net worth. So we have our baby step three. We have our fully funded emergency fund. We have about $20,000 in savings.

and we have about $100,000 in investment. Okay, $100,000 in retirement investments? Correct. And that's all you've got? Yes. Okay. Now, when you said the $20,000 saved, that's the emergency fund, or was that above the emergency fund?

Above the emergency fund. Above, okay. Are you both working full-time? Yes. Okay. What do you guys make as a household? We bring home about $120-ish. Okay. And what's the plan for the house purchase and the down payment and the price, all of that?

Well, that's where we're kind of having an issue because I want to put all the extra money into retirement funds. And he wants to not do that and get a chunk for a down payment. Yeah, I do think at this age, you're going to want to do that simultaneously because with no debt, you're going to want to take advantage of that 15% as much as you can at age 57 and 68. How much of the $120,000 income is his and how much of it is yours? And how long does he plan to continue working? We make about the same right now. He plans on working at least until 75 probably.

Yeah, because I don't think he has a choice. Okay, good. Do you guys have any debt? No. Okay. That's good news. So if you look at the baby steps, you guys are square, baby step four, which means you're investing 15% of your household income. So that's step number one.

We want to at least be doing that. So for you guys at 120, that's 18,000 a year going into retirement accounts. Then anything above and beyond that, we can now put in a separate account for a down payment. So based on that, how long will it take you to have a solid down payment and then have a mortgage payment that you guys can actually afford based on your take home pay? That's the big question mark. What is a house cost that you guys are looking at? Probably about $3.50. Okay.

And we're starting from zero here where they're down payment. So what is your down payment goal? Have you guys crunched any of those numbers to go, hey, we'd like to have $50,000 to put down? Well, I hear Dave all the time say 20%. I would like to have a little more. I'd like to have $60,000 to $75,000 to put down. Yeah, I think for you guys.

equation. The way you have to look at it these days is what you have to put down to get it to where it's no more than 25% of your take home. And at this point, it usually is going to be more than that 20% rule that kind of got squeezed out with the housing market. So I would be looking in a calculator and say, okay, what do we need to put down? What do we need to solve for in order to have that take home pay where it's no more than, I'm sorry, to have that mortgage where it's no more than 25% of our take home pay after taxes. And so that's what I'd be looking for. What's your monthly take-home pay? In my every dollar, we do about $6,000 average a month.

Okay, and that's just after-taxas? That feels real low. Well, we've already had money taken out for the investments at that point. Okay, so what you want to do is find out the number that's just the after-tax number. It's probably closer to $8,000. We put $2,800 a month into retirement. Oh, you guys are really socking it away. Oh, wow, okay.

So you may want to ratchet that down, otherwise it's going to take you seven years to save up a down payment. Do you see how we need to split the difference here? Ratchet it down to 15%. Now it's 1,500 going into retirement, which just freed up 1,300 to go into savings. Do you see what we did there? Yes. And now we can start saving, you know, more measurably to go, hey, we can have 20 grand a year. So in three years, we'll have the down payment to put down.

And, you know, that might get you close. Right now on my calculator, I'm seeing about $2,500 a month. for that mortgage with the numbers you just gave me on a 15 year. Okay. Which means we either need to save a little more, rates need to come down a little more, the home value. We need to maybe look in a $300,000 home. So there's going to be some compromises here. Or we go make more and we speed up this whole process and we can increase the amount of mortgage we can take on.

But we need to also understand seven years from now he's not going to be working anymore. Well, now you need to be able to cover that mortgage off of whatever income you have. Social Security. you continuing to work, all of that. Right. So I think those are the problems, or they're not problems, their equations that you need to solve for in order to go into this with a peaceful state. I'm all for you guys having a place of your own and going into retirement with something

that you can call yours as opposed to in a renter's position. I think that the mortgage is the biggest line item on your budget and you want to go into retirement having control over that. So what George said is just right. It's going to take some time for you to sit down and think of this. But the advice that I want you to take away from us and that I want you to share with your husband so you guys can discuss is you got to do the investing and the saving for the down payment simultaneously. And it's really going to help you do that by keeping the investment at its proper amount at 15%. If you try to do more than that, it's really going to make this thing lopsided and it's going to be harder for you guys to do the things that you need to do to put you in the safest position in the right amount of time.

So that's me final word on that. Yeah, I'm going, if you could do 1,500 to retirement and throw 3,000 into the down payment fund, that's $36,000 a year. You got your down payment in two years while investing. I like that plan, too. And let's kind of zoom out on this a little bit because I do think that this is something that people ask us a lot. Even if it's somebody who was in Baby Step 2, maybe it took them a really long time to do Baby Step 2. Maybe they're already in their 40s or something like that and they're thinking about buying a house. Once you get into Baby Steps 4, 5, and 6, you really guys don't want to delay, you don't want to delay the down payment, really any more than two to three years delay it by your investing, if that makes sense. So if you think that it's going to take you more than two to three years to save your down payment, you should probably go ahead and start investing beyond that two years because we really don't want you to miss out on any more time in the market is basically what that boils down to. And that's why I suggested what I suggested with them is because they're already 57 and 68 years old. Like they, they don't have the

time to waste to be honest. I will be projecting, hey, based on the real numbers of our social security, what I'll be making, can we afford to cover this mortgage payment without his current income? Yeah, that's the big, that's the big number that you're going to want to know because the truth is they're probably not going to have time to pay off a mortgage before he retires. Yeah, I mean, that's seven years from now. Yeah. And if they get the house in two years, we've got five years to knock out this entire mortgage. With that income, it's not going to happen. So we need to look at reality. Yes. And another good reason for a 15-year mortgage versus a 30-year mortgage, because that's going to give her a lot more security. She'll pay it off in her lifetime. Exactly. Exactly. So there's a lot of

reasons. There's a lot of methods to the madness of what we teach, George, and a lot of it has to do with setting you up to really be in the most secure position that you could possibly be in. It's very conservative, but at the end of the day, you're not going to be worried about your house. Yeah. 15-year mortgage, you're not going to be worried about if you have enough in retirement if you do the things that we teach in the order that we teach it. So it's super duper important. And remember this. Retirement is not an age. It's a financial number. So I don't care if you go, well, I'm 67. It's time to retire. Not if you're broke. That's right. So you don't just get to because it's time for everyone to go live in their 55 plus community. You get to retire when you can afford to cover all of your expenses from the investments you have and maybe Social Security. is gravy on top, but never rely on that, especially the younger generations. We all see the writing on the wall. Oh, we know. Social Security, I mean, it has the ability. I've been reading articles that say that it could be depleted as early as 2034. Uncle Sam is not doing great financially. They're like $38 trillion in debt. They're running out of money left and right. And so

we got to look at the cards and go, we got to invest for ourselves. We can't rely on any government program to save us in retirement. You've got to create your own ship here, build your own arc. course, you'd want to do that anyway because the way they're investing that money, obviously, there's not enough of it to go around anymore. It was never meant to replace 100% of your income. That's right. Yeah, exactly. So let this be a word to the wise.

Do your own investing. Think ahead and be proactive, guys. Work these baby steps. All right, welcome back to the Ramsey Show. We're here in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. George Campbell, Jade Warshaw, you ready to get to these phones? I'm your hype man. Let's go.

I'm ready. Kegan's ready. He's in Cincinnati, Ohio. What's up, Keegan? Hi. I was calling in because we live in a hotel, and we just totaled our car that we used for Insta car. How do we recover?

From what part? The hotel are all three? All three, yeah. Okay, so you want to get out of the hotel? We want to get out of it. First, we need to get a new car. Second, we want to get out of this hotel because she's pregnant. How long have you been in the hotel?

And why? Why? Because some family things with her family. And we've lived up in Columbus. and she had some stuff going on with her family and we decided to move. Okay. Did you, so you did not have your own place prior to this? You were living with family?

No. I was living with my parents. How old are you guys? I'm 21, she's 24. Okay. So you're in the hotel? How long have you been in the hotel? Since about July. Oh, boy.

Goodness. What's the rate to stay there? It's like, it's expensive. It's like $1,400 a month or something. Okay, $1,400 a month. And what's your income? I mean, I know the car got totaled, but what are you earning? So we were earning about like $800 a week.

Was that both of you doing Instacard or what? No, was both of us doing it together? In one car? Yeah. Okay. Can I ask why? Why? Why is one of you not working outside of the car?

basically. So we, I was. But then I just had to quit my job because I wasn't getting paid well enough for us to like kind of survive off of it. And Instagram was just better for both of us because situations we really couldn't control. But I wasn't getting paid overtime and I was working so much but they didn't pay me overtime for it. So. And what kind of job were you working? I was working for a marketing firm. Okay. And so you would get a marketing job today if you could. Yeah, I would Okay, and how about her? She would probably do something

server related. Okay, and can you do that as we speak? Can you work at this hotel? That would probably be a better bet right now. Like, what do you mean? No, I've tried, but they said they don't have anything. What about cleaning rooms? They have someone who does that.

Okay, and did you not have insurance? I did, but we only had liability. Okay. So it's on you. Okay. So what must happen? I mean, this is as quickly as you can. Instacart's not an option, you know, clearly.

So both of you have got to, I don't care if it's walking down to the nearest fast food place or walking over to Walmart or Target, you've got to get something somewhere that's within walking distance or bus riding distance. Yeah, we can Uber some places, but that just gets expensive. How much money do you guys have left? That's why I said bus riding. Not enough to keep us afloat for like another week maybe. Do you have like a few hundred bucks? Yeah.

Okay. And do you have any debt? Yeah, we both personally do. I have like five, six grand in credit card debt, and she has like four. So all credit cards? About ten grand total? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. And there was no car loan to speak of? No, no. We paid the car in cash. Okay. That's good at least. Yeah, that's good. Do you guys have any friends or family that you can lean on right now?

A church community? Anything? Not. I mean, honestly, no. Okay. Well, you're going to need to find something because this hotel is about to kick you out. Yeah. Yeah, I've talked to them before and we kind of talked to them.

So, like, I was hoping maybe they could help us out just by a little bit of time, but I don't know if that really is realistic or not. How often are they having you pay? Is it every week? Is it how often do you have to make? I know usually weekly, but sometimes they let me get a little behind and pay it back if I need to. Okay. Yeah, I'd be requesting, I'd let them know what happened, number one, and say, I know I've been paying you weekly. Can I pay you, you know, at the end of the month?

Can we make this more of a monthly deal? Because right now you guys are kind of like our- This is desperate. Can you get a bicycle off Facebook marketplace for $40? And make it somewhere and work? What is the closest retail options by the hotel? Like Kroger. Great.

Perfect. There's like a Kroger. How close? Is it walkable? Within like a mile. Yeah, within like a mile. Okay, that's what I want you to do. That's your homework. Both of you are getting a job at Kroger today.

Yeah, make after this call literally right after, talk to your girlfriend and you guys sit down and make a list of everything that's in a two to three mile radius, a waffle house, Kroger, McDonald's, everything. And I want you guys, that's your field trip this afternoon and tomorrow. you're going to apply at every one of those locations until you get a job. This is the gap between you guys and homelessness. You understand how on fire this is? Yeah, exactly. Incenture. Like, you don't even have a car to sleep in at this point.

Yeah, no, exactly. I certainly, like, scary today is because, like, we've at least had options, like, okay, this, this. And I'm sure if I, like, it's just scary because, like, I don't, we don't know where, what the next plan is, essentially, like, I was hoping they can help. I'm sure they, I know the owner and the manager pretty well here, and we're pretty, like, close to each other. That's good, but that's not going to last you long.

Until you stop paying. So do that. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to say, like, don't only last me, maybe two weeks. Yeah, do that homework that I just gave you. And then the second piece of homework is I want you to find a local church. And I want you to walk up in there after you've applied at all these places. And I want you to walk up in there and say, here's the deal.

And I want you to tell them exactly what you just told George. We're scared. We're borderline homelessness. We're just, we're good people. We just want to find some honest work. And ask them, say, can we serve? and get a wage? Is there something that we can do to earn some money? We really need help, and we're willing to work in order to have it. Okay, so those are the two things that I want you to do.

Okay, I said, there's like, because we've gone to the church over here a couple of times, and there was a Catholic church that kind of helped us out with rent, like not the past month. So, like, there's people that I think may help, but I just don't know if we should ask the church, the same Catholic church again and be like, hey. If you're willing to work, I would say I'm not just asking for, like, benevolence, can I work? Is there something I can do? Can I, you know, help with parking in the morning? Can I help with this or that? Do you need something out of store? Like, whatever it is, I would be willing to work. And whatever, I mean, go to a couple and say, we're just trying to get back

on our feet and we're willing to work and serve to do that. And I think this is, you guys can pull yourself out of this. At one point, you were making $3,200 a month, right? So I want you to remember that. And you worked at a marketing firm. And so I would be looking for that next gig so that you can afford to get a car. And that might mean we start with the bicycle and then we upgrade to the moped and then we upgrade to the beater car and then we go from there. But you just need the next right thing to get you to survive another day right now. And then long term, we need to figure out a life plan because whatever got us here ain't it. And I heard a lot of, well, we had to and then this thing happened and the family.

At some point we have to just look in the mirror and go, dude, I can only control the guy in the mirror. and everything can't just happen to us. You have to start happening to your life. Otherwise, you're going to be right back here next week. True. Yeah, so that's current order of business, just to recap. You're making a top 10 list of everything in a three-mile radius, and you're going there.

You guys are literally hitting the pavement and going to apply everywhere. Then you're hitting up these churches. Then you're circling back. I would wait after you've done those three, those two things. Then I'd circle back to the hotel and say, here's what's happened to us, and here's what I did today to correct.

it. But just so you know, it's probably going to take a couple of weeks for this to pan out. Can I pay you the rent at the end of the month instead of at the end of this week? And that's, you know, hopefully going to be your savings grace here, guys. I, best of luck to you, truly, truly. Stay warm, stay fed. Four walls, man. That's all you need to cover right now. Don't worry about the credit cards right now. We'll get there. 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. So if you're working the baby steps, the best and the fastest way to do it is by using every dollar. It's more than just a budgeting app. Now it's a plan that's built right in. The Ramsey plan is built and baked into the app people. You can track your progress, get personalized recommendations, and coaching specifically for your situation that's going to help you free up more money and work the plan even faster.

It's like having one of us walking with you every single day in your pocket, showing you the next right step and holding you accountable. So start every dollar for free by downloading it in the app store or Google Play. today. All righty then. Let's go to Gwen, who's in Lynchburg, Virginia. Gwen, you're up. So my question is about medical debt and who I can contact to potentially get this taken care of. What kind of medical debt? Like, how long is, how old is it? So our son turned to in October. He was born premature. What's the total medical debt?

Sorry, you're breaking up on us, Gwen. Can you speak clearly into your phone? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, so we have two different totals from the same hospital. Okay. The first one is almost $6,000, and the second one is right at $17,000. Okay, wow, my goodness.

Do you guys have insurance? We do. And we had it ever since he was born, which is my confusion. Okay, so you're saying it didn't get run through insurance properly, or what happened? Yes, and the hospital won't meet with us to figure out where the confusion happened, and it's been over a year, so this technically isn't they're responsible. They've sent it to collections?

Yes. Have you tried resubmitting the claims through your insurance? I have, but we're running into the issue of it being over a year old. At what point did you try resubmitting the claims? Because they come in pretty soon after the fact. Well, we were in the EQU for over three months. Okay. So they didn't bill any of it until after we were out of the NICU,

and we didn't start receiving the itemized bills until probably, probably October, which was close to that year mark already. Okay. From all the hospital bills, because it took them a while to run everything. Well, even if it's in collections, you can still dispute it. It's not stuck at that charge. And so you have the right to dispute it. You can send a certified dispute letter to the collection agency, not just a hospital.

And when it's formally disputed, you actually write them a letter. They have to stop collection activity until they can verify it. Okay. So that's your next piece of homework, is you write this, dispute letter sent it to the collection agency and after verification then you can negotiate and you can ask for the patient advocate or the billing supervisor those are the people you want to get in touch with the front desk people cannot help you and so you need to keep pushing to get in touch with them you don't need to physically sit down with them but you need to get in touch with them pester them

until they go i got to get gwen off my back they're calling she's calling me four times a day trying to get in touch yeah because it sounds like it it truly sounds like some of these didn't even run through insurance or be submitted. And maybe you didn't realize that, but if that kind of statute of limitations is run out, then that's what I'd be trying to make right is say, I didn't even receive these in time to dispute them to resubmit the claim. And at that point, you can go, hey, I need an itemized bill, let's rerun that through insurance, and then you'll get a final total. And then you can dispute that with collections and they can adjust the charge and you can then settle and pay it off. Yeah. Which is, I'm sorry that you're going through that.

That's probably the last thing that you want to be going through. You know, you've got a preemie to take care of. That's tough. Yeah. And that whole world is just filled with incompetence and errors. And some of them are malicious and some of them are just people not paying attention. Yeah. Super frustrated.

Sorry you're going through that, Gwen, but thank you for the call. Mark is in San Diego, California. Hey, Mark. How can we help today? Hi. How are you doing? I'm just trying to figure out if me and my wife are able to buy a house out here in San Diego. for some background information.

We've already been here three years. We're both military, so we'll be here another three years. But the past three years, we've been staying in apartments. Okay. And paying about $3,000 a month in rent. Mm-hmm. And together we make monthly about $13,000 together. Okay.

What kind of money do you have saved? Yeah, so that's the thing. We only have like $8,000 saved right now. Okay. I'm not sure where all of our money is going. I mean, we do a budget, but I feel like our lifestyle is maybe like increased or something. Sounds like a good. It's called lifestyle creep.

The more you make, the more you spend. Yeah, you got $10,000 going somewhere. Do you have any kids? We don't. It's just me here. Oh, man, y'all are living. And when you say we do a budget, what? What does that actually mean?

We actually sit down and, you know, we go over together. I think maybe most of our money is going like to sinking funds. You know, maybe I'm paranoid about that, like for cart maintenance and registration over time. But it's just one example. And then maybe like savings, like as in like trips or I don't know, something. Okay. Do you guys have any debt right now? We have zero debt.

Okay. So your next order of business is stocking up the savings account. you can keep the sinking funds that make sense. You don't need 17 of them, but if you want to have a car maintenance and repair fund with a reasonable amount in there, that's fine. But I suspect if I took a look at your bank statement, it would tell a different story of a lot of eating out,

a lot of shopping, a lot of just kind of sloppiness around, all around. Probably, yeah. But if you got control of this, you guys could stack up cash so fast. I mean, what would it cost? What do you, the properties or the condos that you're looking at? What do they cost? Yeah, so our lease actually ends in May, which is why I'm kind of like looking at this now,

because I'm trying to figure out whether to, you know, for another year seeing as apartment or move out. I'm looking about $750,000 is about average house out here. Yeah, okay. Move out of our apartments. So here's... Into a house. Here's a tough part with that. With your timeline, you told me you've got three more years in this location.

It's hard, and then a year of that's going to be spent saving for this down payment, which puts you kind of at a two-year horizon. I'm not sure that I would get into that situation that you're going to have to turn around and move right back out and try to sell that place. Is it guaranteed that in three years you're moving? Or you'll be relocated? It's not guaranteed because, like I said,

we can get another three years here probably if we really work to get it, we could probably honestly get it. And I feel like the past three years I've been throwing my life away. I was just paying rent. And I feel like I'm having gone anywhere. You're not throwing anything away.

You're buying patience here, Mark, because here's the truth. How are you going to afford a $750,000 home four months from now? I see on the screen, it says VA loan. Well, is that your question? Were you going to try to put nothing down? Correct, exactly. Okay, let's play that out. Nothing down.

Oh, boy. I'll put, let's say, $5,000 down. your payment would be about $7,300 a month. Now rent looks like a deal, doesn't it? That's true. So you're not throwing away money on rent. It's actually a better deal for you right now because of where you're living

and how much money you guys have to just stay put and renew that lease and keep getting the income up, keep stacking cash away. The truth is, for your first home to buy an $800,000 home, it doesn't make sense. No, that's your level jumping. And you would need like four.

$400,000 down to make it make sense, even with your incredible incomes. Now, let me ask you this, because in many ways, the idea of being relocating could be a blessing for you guys. You could get to a less expensive area. Would your pay remain the same? Let's pretend you got stationed elsewhere, maybe somewhere up north, maybe a little less expensive cost of living. Would your pay remain the same? No, it would probably decrease drastically. And then that's where we would like bring out the house or sell it because everyone down here is all about, you know, buying your estate. You're going to lose money on that deal. If I were you, I would spend this time. You've got three years with a great

income. You've got an extra $10,000 a month after you've paid rent. If you guys really get on a true budget, we'll make sure you get on an every dollar budget. This could be the time that you guys are stacking up so that if and when you do get relocated, then you'll be ready to actually put down some roots and buy something that makes sense. That's within your price range. If you've been paying off debt working the plan and have reached baby step four or beyond, you've done the hardest part. Now it's time to celebrate. The Live Like No One Else Cruise is back. March 14 through 21, 27. Join all the Ramsey personalities and me as we sail to Half Moon Key, Cozumel, Jamaica, and Grand Cayman. Cabins sold out last time and they will again. Lock in yours with a $600 deposit

at Ramsey Solutions.com slash events. That's Ramsey Solutions. com slash events. All right, the Ramsey show Question of the Day is brought to you by Y-R-R-R-Fi. If your private student loans are in default, it's time for a plan. Y-R-R-R-E-F-E-F-E-Lones into a low, fixed-rate payment, so you can get back on the baby steps and start making progress. So go to Y-R-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey.

That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Remember, it may not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Bobby in New Mexico. My wife and I are in our 70s, and we are retired. We have no debt. We have a little over 300,000 in retirement funds, and our home is worth about $450,000. Between Social Security and investment income, we make about $70,000 per year. I'm trying to eliminate as many expenses as possible from our budget, and my question is regarding our term life policies. We are paying $225,000 per month for two policies, with $250,000 and $500,000 payouts. I want to cancel them, but my wife wants

to keep them. Our kids are all doing well and don't need any financial help. What should we do? I wonder how much is left on the term. That's a good question. Is it like one year left or is there 10 years left? But $225 a month, I mean, that's sizable and term life. It's going to get more expensive as you get older. If you take out a policy at 60, it's a lot more expensive than if you did it at 30. So the point of term life insurance is to replace your income if something were to happen to you, to cover those that are dependent on you. And so the fact that you guys have Social Security and investment income that covers you without needing to work, that gives me a little bit of peace if you wanted to cancel them.

That's true. Now, is this thing burning a hole in your pocket at $200 bucks a month? It's not the thing that's tanking you. I don't think so, yeah. If it's not a big part of your budget and it helps your wife sleep better at night knowing that, you know, she's covered, I hope you have the bigger policy and she would get a $500,000 payout. And you're in your 70s.

And so it's no joke that, you know, there's not a whole lot of time left. Hopefully you live to be in your 90s, but Lord, Lord only knows when you could go. And so if it gives your peace, keep it. I think the crux is how much time is left. That's the big crux on this. Yeah. Because I'd be, I'd be inclined to keep it because at $70,000 a year with no payments, I can't see $2.25 breaking you.

Yeah, $2,000 out of that to cover these policies is not a huge deal breaker. So I would personally hold off on canceling them. it's a good deal right now for you as far as the payout versus what you're paying per year. And in your 70s, I would also look at your health and go, hey, realistically, how long do you think will live barring any kind of crazy accident, God forbid? And so I'm glad you guys have term life. That's awesome. And I would definitely pause on this because your wife wants to keep it and because of your

age and because of how small a portion it is of your life as it stands. Yeah. And I could see with only 300,000 in retirement, her wanting the extra 500,000 if something should happen to him, I could see that being a safety valve for sure. Yeah. You know, I'd probably say the same thing. Keep it. Yeah. I actually was just looking at, I was on a Zander's website, getting quotes today to add another policy. And it was shocking how affordable it is, especially as why you're younger.

I'm 36. Yeah. And I was looking, I was just clicking around and I went, okay, let's say you wanted a million dollar policy. Well, for a 10-year million-dollar policy, it was like $26. You bump it up to $15, and it goes up a little bit. And the longer you go, the more expensive, obviously, because they average it out. Over the course of those 30 years, obviously it would be more expensive later on. So they just take the average and go, your payment is this.

That's a level term life policy. And we always recommend if anyone depends on your income, you need a term life policy that's worth 10 to 12 times your annual income. So you make $100,000. You need a million to $1.2 million in term life. And a 15 to 20-year term is what you're looking at, especially because you're following the baby steps. That's right. So your house is going to be paid off by then.

You've been investing for years. So if you need a policy, you probably do. Go to zander.com or you can call 800356-4282. Yeah. And to be sure, the point is to get to the point where you're self-insured and you don't need these anymore. Like I said in their case, they're on the line. They're on the line with the $300,000 nest egg. I would love if they had...

Three million. Yeah. Listen, if they had 700. I'd feel a lot better about them canceling that. So that's the whole picture of this, guys. All right, let's go to the next thing. We've got Patricia. She's in Jacksonville, Florida.

Hi, Patricia. Patricia. Are you there? It was a good effort. It was a good effort. Was she on mute, maybe? I always wonder. I'll come back to you later, Patricia.

Okay, we'll get there. All right. Instead, let's go to John. He's in Los Angeles, California. John, are you there? Yep, I'm here. What's up, John? How can we help?

Hi. I'm looking to get a new car. My car is getting older and I'm having a lot of issues with, you know, the engine and stuff. So I've been spending a lot of money to keep it running. I drive a lot for work and I'm trying to rationalize getting a car for $30,000 versus getting one for $15. But I feel like I'm in my car a lot so I want to love what I drive. and financially I've been preparing for this moment for a long time, so I think I can. So you have the cash for $30,000?

You have $30,000 cash? Yeah, I can put $30,000 up. Interesting. What do you earn? What's your income? I make $85,000 a year, but I'm, like, very meticulous with how I spend my money, where it's going. And I have my emergency funds, investments. So I think if I can get to that number, that would be okay.

Yeah. But I wanted to. And you have no debt? No debt. Man, way to go. How old are you? 26. Goodness gracious.

Good job. Way to go. I'm very impressed. I tell you what, we have some folks calling in at 26, and I'm praying for him. Very rarely have I greenlit a 26-year-old buying a $30,000 car. And you, sir, I have checked all my boxes. You're paying cash. It's no more than half your annual income. and you've got no debt and an emergency fund in place.

You're investing for the future. And so here's what you need to know about buying a $30,000 car that you use for work. You are going to drive this thing into the ground and depreciation is going to hit it so hard. This car is going to be worth $15,000 two years from now. That's what you need to be prepared for. And that's okay because you're paying cash. You can't be underwater on a car you paid cash for. Just know that you need to ride this thing out.

The longer you drive it, the better of a deal it is. Yeah, that's the plan. I mean, it's a Honda Civic hybrid, so I mean. Yes. My man. That is a fiscally responsible 26-year-old. Yeah, it is. Good for you, my guy.

I love it. I have nothing more to add. I mean, I would go drop that cash today. Maybe an upgrade to the Accord, a little rumorier. Who knows? Get crazy. I don't know. There's a Honda Accord person.

It's not me. I'm not a car person. I don't feel this is controversial. You can drop it in the comment. I don't feel safe in a car. I think I've always been in an SUV. And so when I get in a car, I'm like, number one, I feel so close to the ground. And it feels so small.

I just feel like if somebody hits me, it's curtains for me. Oh, wow. That's dark. I will say my dream car, this is during COVID, and I wanted to upgrade from my 09 Civic. And I was looking at an accord hybrid that was like a 2018. This is during COVID. So I think two years old, three years old. I could not find one for under $30,000.

Because remember how expensive cars were? That's right. Used cars particularly. And so I gave up. I gave up on car shopping for a little bit. And then I fell into a very old Tesla that I still have on my person. It gets the job done. It gets the job done.

Oh, my goodness gracious. He's thinking hybrid fuel efficiency, no issues. That's a smart man. I love that. Okay. Going back to our questions from social media, I like this. It says, let's see, let's go to Michael. Let's do that.

Let's go to Sarah from Facebook. Our 16-year-old son just graduated college and has his first job. He's too young for their 401K. So what would be some good options for him to invest in other than high-yield savings? Wow. What an impressive man. He's so young he can't even contribute to the 401K. Well, the fact that a 16-year-old has a job at a place with a 401K tells me this is big boy stuff.

Here's the good news. You can always invest into a Roth IRA as long as he has earned income. He can put up to that much in a Roth IRA, and the limits this year, I believe, are $7,500. That's a lot of money, yeah. And so if he makes at least $7,500 this year, he can put $7,500 into a Roth IRA, which means after tax money, he's not going to get a deduction for it, but then it grows tax-free for the rest of his life. And let me tell you, you can pop this into an investment calculator. 16 years old, $7,500 one time at 66, it would blow your mind how many hundreds of thousands of dollars that turns into without you lifting a finger. That's right.

Man, this kid's a genius. 16 years old graduating from college with his first job in a 401k. You raised him right. Tell you that much. Gosh, I'm feeling behind in life. Hey, George Camel here. So you're thinking about buying or selling your home. It's exciting, but there's a lot to think about.

And all those decisions can feel overwhelming. Well, here's the good news. You don't have to tackle the process alone. Ramsey's real estate home base is the place to find all of your free tools and resources for help to get prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence. You'll find calculators, start to finish guides, a podcast, and even an in-depth video course hosted by yours truly. What's not to love?

So if you're ready to take the next steps toward your home goals, go to ramsysolutions.com slash real estate. That's ramesysolutions.com slash real estate. Our scripture and quote of the day, Ecclesiastes 4, 9 through 10, two are better than one because they have a good return for their work. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help. them.

Henry Ford said, obstacles are those things you see when you take your eyes off the goal. Interesting. Man, I was on that ecclesiastes. I pity somebody who foster up. I pity the fool. I pity the fool. That's Mr. T reference for anybody who doesn't know about that.

Throwback. All right. Stephen in Los Angeles, California. I bet he knows who Mr. T is. What's up, Stephen? Hey, good afternoon, guys. What's going on? How can we help today?

Yeah, my question is, you know, I'm in the process of selling my business, and just at the same time, my wife got a, well, the company that she worked for pulled out of California, and he's trying to get us to relocate to Texas. I own my business here for a couple of years, and I support my parents here. I owe both the house with my parents and our primary resident in California. So my main question is, you know, I watch a show and I advise you guys of opinion. and should we stay and take the severance or should we just pursue, you know, fulfillment of life and pursue her career, which seems to be in a pretty good upward trajectory. Interesting.

Is you excited about it? Well, we just don't know what to do. It's a big dilemma for us because, you know, we have all our roots and family here in California. It will be pretty hard to, you know, to leave everything and just move to another state. Is there a big, is there anything financially that would make it a really great move? You know, I don't think so. I've invested since I was young.

I'm about to turn 40. So I have pretty healthy savings account. It's more of whether you want to just, because I have no plans after I sell my business. And I don't want to say like I want to think I'm funny because of the weather. Do you plan on selling it soon? Yeah, it's already It's already in process Oh, okay

And what are you going to make from that? Probably like 1.5 million Okay, and what do you already have saved? I, you know, I guess I started Young investing, so I probably have about $4 million in my

savings account. Dude, way to go. Yeah, excellent. This gives you flexibility. Stock 4MK, IRA, Roth, you name it. But yeah, And you're not sure what you'll do after this? Like you haven't, you don't have your eye on the next thing. I have no plans.

Okay. So. Like I said, I'm not even 40. And I, and I don't want to just like quit and do nothing. Sure. You have too much to contribute to society with a guy sharper as you. So I hope you, I'm sure you will move on to something awesome next. But the big question is, you know, the family part.

You know, is she going to make more, there's going to be more stability, long-term opportunity, lower cost of living, all of that, better quality. better quality of life? Is that going to be true in Texas? I don't know. That's the part that we're trying to figure out. She's a very, very career-oriented person. Like, you know, the fulfillment of life comes with having a good career. Well, I'm sure they're going to cover relocation costs, right? Oh, absolutely, yeah. And what's her pay raise going to be? She makes about 150 right now, and she's probably going to make around 170. Awesome. With no state income tax in Texas. Have you ever been to Texas? Just, you know, passing through, not really living there.

I would before, I mean, have you lived your whole life in California? No, I moved around all the place. Georgia, Florida. Oh, okay, good, good, good. Okay, that's good, because I was going to say part of moving is just new culture, just everything feels different. So if you have the opportunity to spend more time in the place that you're thinking of moving, I would just to see, do we like this place? Do we get a feel for it?

Maybe take a vacation to the area that part of town where she might be working that you might be moving to and just see, do we like it here? Do we get a good vibe? It seems like you have the money and the flexibility to do something like that and just get a sense of where it might be. Financially, you can afford to do pretty much anything. You're not going to be spooked by, oh, the property taxes are higher. You guys can stomach anything financially.

And I'm guessing it's actually going to lower. your expenses while raising your income. Absolutely. And so that part I'm not concerned about. It's more of the lifestyle and quality of life. So I would go there, visit, look at the houses, look at where you would likely live, and get a sense of what life would be like there. Are there kids in the mix? Yeah, we've got two kids. How old are they?

They're three and seven. Okay, so they're portable. They're not locked in anywhere. What did you mean before when you said you're supporting your family, like extended family? My parents. my parents, they're older. The house that they live in is I pay for it. Basically just pay for their living expenses until, you know, their server security kicks in. Okay.

And do you foresee needing to be close by, or is it literally you're just writing checks? Well, they express that if we move, they want to move with us. Okay. Not the same house, but like, you know, they probably are probably going to sell. their house and you know, okay. So now the whole family thing, they're portable too.

Yeah, that's the thing. Interesting. It's just, it's so much they'll have to deal with by moving, you know,

operating the whole family there. Yeah. I just don't know if it's worth it. Your money's going to go so much further, though, in Texas. I mean,

that's why the company's moving out there. Yeah. So, yeah. They're leaving in droves. Yeah. I'm just wondering,

what is the alternative here? Let's say she takes the severance and then what? Mm-hmm. And then, She just looks for a new gig. I'm trying to find a job here. Locally.

Okay. Well, here's the truth. She could do that, and you guys would also be fine. There's no wrong answer. And so I would really rely on her own excitement because everyone can be moved and there's nothing that can't be reversed. Let's say she hates it with a burning undying passion and you guys all go, with this is terrible. Well, you could pack up and move back.

And yeah, there's going to be a little cost and, like, emotionally it's going to be a little exhausting. You could go back to California three years from now and it'll still be there. Just keep back. It's just more expensive. Yeah, I mean, if you want to keep it with your finances, I don't love the idea of being a long-term landlord, but if you're like, hey, let's try it out before we sell the house. It's just a trial.

You can pay cash for the house in Texas, leave yours there and still be okay. And long-term, if Texas is it, sell the house in California. So personally, I'm on team, do the adventure. Yeah, yeah. Because you can't do it later. The kids are in high school and other management. Sorry, sorry, talking over here. but it can't be the fact that it's like 75 here while the rest of the country is freezing, you know, right now.

True that. Now, that's why I said about visiting. And maybe it's like when you go look at a house, you see it in the sunlight, but you also want to look at it on a rainy day. You want to go to the neighborhood when it's dark outside. You want to see it at its worst. So if I were you, I love George's idea of kind of doing a trial run, go down there for a period of time first off just to even see. And then if you're like, maybe we could do this. Maybe she accepts the job.

You guys go down there. you rent a place, you keep the place in California, you keep the parents in California for now. Yeah, just rent a sweet house in Texas for six months or a year. And that way it gives you some buying time instead of going, oh my gosh, we just got into this house. Yeah, I really like that idea. So if that doesn't, if that doesn't fire you up, then that would kind of make me think maybe we don't want to do this. Because to be able to try something and that still not be like, ooh. Well, I'd rather, here's my thing. I'd rather regret doing it and saying we tried than not doing it. and heard going, man, what would that have been like?

Yeah, that's true. I just stayed with the company. I have all of this, you know, built up in this company. I get to move. I get this upgrade and pay. We get this new adventure for the kids. Yeah. Kids are very resilient.

Kids are very resilient. I would have before when I, it sounded like he had been rooted in California for longer. And I was like, oh, man, this could be tough. But after he said he traveled around a lot, that does create kind of just a feeling of, oh, I can go anywhere. I can make friends. Like home is where the heart is. But if you're a person who's lived in the same place for maybe 15 or 20 years, moving can actually be very tough because it's communities, it's creature comforts, all that stuff.

With their level of net worth and income, I mean, they could charter a private jet to go visit California five times here and still be okay. That's right. They totally could. And living in Texas, like I said before, that money is going to like duplicate itself. Their cost of living is going to allow them to have way more for their money, which is definitely something to think about. to California and wife can work for a week or two and he can just take the kids and take a little trip? I don't know. She might be like, hello out there. You left me. Come back and get me. That's so fun. Oh gosh, when Sam and I moved from South Florida here to Tennessee, it was like, it's not easy. It's a, it's an adventure for sure. You have to have a spirit of adventure, which I think is a good thing because that's where opportunity is. Amen. It's out there in the adventure, people. All right, thanks for

hanging out with us. George and I, hey, remember, there's ultimately one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.