The Ramsey Show - Your Life Will Suck if You Wait on Washington To Fix It

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author of the book Money's Not a Math Problem. It's one of our quick reads, a whole 74 pages long, so you can take care of it in one setting, and you will change your life if you read that kind of stuff. She's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225 jennifer's in pittsburgh to start this hour hi jennifer welcome to the ramsey show oh hey dave it's wonderful to speak to you you too what's up in

your world well um we are recent graduates of fpu, and we have a debate in our household. We have $42,000 worth of consumer debt, and our mortgage is $69,000. So the whole $42,000 is all my student left. Right now, I am waiting on a public service loan forgiveness application. All of this documentation is temporarily paused while the government changes the servicer from Mojila to U.S. Department of Education. But when I applied, the website says that I have $24,641 eligible for forgiveness. So, as you know, if I die first the student loans forgiven also if we pay towards this 24,000 that's eligible for forgiveness that money is gone and could

have been used to pay down the mortgage so that's my husband's case so in our case is it okay to go out of order and start tackling this mortgage while we're waiting on the application to be processed so you owe 40 but 24 is possibly forgiven what would be wrong with paying it down to 24 well there there's nothing wrong with that idea i'm i'm on board with that oh but he wants to pay the mortgage instead he wants to pay the mortgage instead. He wants to pay the mortgage instead because he's planning your death. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I hope not. Well, it's what you said.

How old are you guys? 51. How old is this debt? It is about 10 years old. And what is your household income? 168. Okay. How long are you willing to wait for the government to tell you that they're not going to forgive this?

I mean, they're going to forgive this. I think you're right the first time, Dave. Correct. I mean, so, right, historically speaking, yes. But every day on the news, we have the Biden administration forgiving more debt. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Did you just tell me you believe the news? Worse than that, did you tell me you believe the Biden administration? So let's move on. Let's go back to the original argument. Okay. Now, what's your household income? $168,000.

Okay. So you only have $100,000 in debt. You make $168,000. So you should be, both of these should be gone very quickly. Agreed? Agreed. So we're really not arguing about anything but four months? Right.

It's just kind of like the order of operations. Four months? It doesn't matter. We need to stay on board. It doesn't matter. Four months. So how long are you going to wait before you say, I give up on student loan forgiveness and I'm going to pay it off?

Okay. I'm asking, how many months are you willing to wait? Here's my honest answer. The website is saying it's going to take until July of this year, so I can hold off until July of this year. Okay, so let's give you until September, because it doesn't matter, okay? Because you could go and pay down the loan first from 40 to 24, and then you could reach over and pay off the mortgage if you wanted to let the 24 sit there for a couple of months but don't let it sit there one day longer than when you're ready to actually get to it so i want you to plow through all of this 100 000 out of 168 you should be done in 18 months okay

and so if we put the 24 at the back of the 18 months and plow through down to 24 first and then through the mortgage we're really not having a discussion here about the some it's a theoretical concept because it's all going to be gone by the time you blink so your husband's it's ridiculous to even have this conversation do it in the correct order pay it down to the 24 and then pay off the mortgage. And then when the mortgage is gone, if you've not gotten the forgiveness, pay it off. Okay. And do it in 18 months.

And do it in 18 months. So really, when you couch it in that order, whether we put the 24, the 40, whatever, in front of the 69, we're arguing about four or five months difference is all so it's a non-issue hey do you have a chunk of money saved somewhere no we don't we have our thousand dollar emergency we're just maybe step two and then yeah so you're doing everything else on the on the plan till you got to this correct okay good all All right. I mean, I'll give you a shot at getting the forgiveness. I don't think it's going to happen because the numbers are horrendous. It's like

3% of the people that apply for forgiveness actually get it. So when Biden comes out and says he forgave $7.7 billion, it's absolute statistical hogwash. It's a political move because he didn't. He made it available to them, but then when they go to the education department to get the forgiveness, it's a political move because he didn't he made it available to them but then

when they go to the education department to get the forgiveness it's not actually happening i mean it's like you have a three percent chance of getting student loan forgiveness not to mention what it has you know under under those programs it's just the actual facts and it's not a political thing you can make it a political thing but because it's stupid politicians but but they're they're they're promising you crap they're not going to give you that's the oldest game in the business right so anyway put it at the end of the thing give it a shot maybe i'm wrong maybe you're maybe you did it just right maybe you're one of the ones that sneaks through and gets free 24 grand i'm i'm not i'm not opposed to you getting the money

so go get it but don't sit around five years from now and go i'm still waiting on a promise of a politician yeah a lot of what's been forgiven is really old you've been paying you did your payment plan it's long since been finished and you never got your payout yeah so that's how i would handle your situation and you're you're you guys are thinking about it don't uh but but sometimes it helps me folks when i'm looking at this stuff that the argument we're actually having is very theoretical when you actually break it down by the dollar differences or the time differences it's an irrelevant amount of time or an irrelevant amount of dollars just do it yeah yeah you know it's not it's not a big deal okay

so if you want to do it his way it's it's or you want to do it your way in 18 months you're done you're done either way and so the you know which one we put in front whoopty doopty as long as you freaking do it now moving on the other thing folks when these articles come out from the Trump administration or the Biden administration or somebody that claims to be an administration, and they tell you that they are responsible for the last 7.7 billion of debt forgiveness, you need to read the article. Because actually, that particular, this latest PR push in an election year if you actually read the article he it wasn't a new program all he did was take credit for what was already in place

it was the program is already there that they're not executing already yeah and the act he held it up look what i did you didn't do anything it was already there yeah you just you just put it out in the spotlight and acted like you did it and it's not and that's not a political thing it's just how these twerps in Washington DC do stuff so don't let Trump or Biden take credit for your life and don't wait around on either one of them to fix your life because your life's going to suck if you do this is the Ramsey show what does the future hold for business ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down.

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Ramsey. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Well, it's graduation season. Lots of people coming out of high school, coming out of college, coming out of whatever. So before you stick a crisp $100 bill, which is always welcome, by the way, inside a graduation card, why not give somebody the tools you wish you had? You know, you could get uh george camels breaking free from broke this is the millennial and gen z snarky well-researched version of what we teach and it's really really good and uh it's selling like crazy especially

among the age group of newly graduated folk. Breaking Free from Broke, The Ultimate Guide to More Money, Less Stress, and George is the king of snark. That's one of the reasons I just love reading his stuff and hanging out with him. Ken Coleman just hit the bestseller list with this, the Get Clear Assessment. Find the work you're wired to do. Wouldn't you think it'd be cool to get an assessment on what you're wired to do? Absolutely. Especially if you're coming out of college or out of high school, that would be a cool thing. The assessment is included in here. About 100,000 folks have taken the assessment by just buying it off of our website. So that's why we put out the book on how to actually read

and analyze the answers and the results of the assessment. And it's not a super lengthy thing, but it's very engaging and really, really helpful. Helps you figure out, you know, what you're good at, what you enjoy, narrow your job search down, all that kind of stuff. And we are now celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Total Money Makeover. And so the Total Money Makeover has had yet another makeover. There you go. There we go. And, of course, number one best- gosh over a thousand weeks it's been on the bestseller list now pretty crazy 10 million of these puppies sold not a bad graduation gift there uh you could add

jade's book in there money's not a math problem somebody doesn't want to read a bunch of 74 pages it'll get right to the point and have a little jade attitude in there and that'll help you too so just put all of that in the pile go to ramsey solutions.com and that'll be a whole lot better than uh well it'd be the kind of stuff you wish you had read when you graduated boys and girls that's how that works andy is in el paso hi andy welcome to the ramsey show hi dave and jade how are you guys today? Better than we deserve. What's up in your world? So honored to be speaking to both of you.

I'm a huge fan of the show. Thank you. So, no, well, thank you guys. So I'll get straight to my question and I can provide more detail as needed. So my overall question is, should I remain with the company that I currently work for as a remote employee, or should I start looking for a new position?

So currently, I am a CPA, and the CEO of the company that I work for recently announced that they want to shift to more in-office positions, but they have not yet mentioned what they plan on doing to the several employees that are 100% remote scattered throughout the country. And the company I work for is in Iowa, while I am located here in Texas. Okay, so if you don't move, you're going to lose that job if he pulls everybody in. Is that what you're saying? Yes, correct. Yeah, at the moment moment my wife and i

we don't have any intentions of of leaving el paso wouldn't blame me on that for sure to go to a pretty cool place yeah so um all right so i guess you're looking for a job to the extent that you think you're going to lose that one agreed yeah yeah exactly i believe so but i guess i'm just kind of you know i don't want to jump jump ship too soon when no they haven't provided much more detail but then i also kind of don't want to how long have you been doing this remote uh for almost two years now so the job since you took it has been remote yes correct yes i was hired they don't have any offices in El Paso, never did. No, correct. Okay, so they hired you remote, and the only question you've got is,

are they going to keep the people that aren't? So we don't know. Could he be talking about the people that are in proximity to an office, need to come back to the office, and the rest of you stay remote? That wouldn't be that unusual today. Correct, yeah, and that's kind of what i'm hoping for but again you know they've been kind of just tiptoeing around the topic and what would happen if you asked what would happen if you just asked your your you know who do you report your leader

right yes i have not had the opportunity to ask my my direct uh boss yet, just because this was pretty recently, and we'll probably have that conversation pretty soon. And my boss is over there in the headquarters, so I know they'll have their ear more closer to the ground to kind of sniff out any news. So I haven't had that conversation yet, but I do. Yeah, if I were your boss, I would not be offended at all if you called me in the next 20 minutes as soon as you hang up from us, which is what you should do.

And you said, hey, I saw this thing. I really like what I'm doing, and I want to know if this means you guys are going to fire me. Right, correct. I wouldn't be offended. I wouldn't be offended. You're asking for clarification on a vague corporate communication crappy announcement and i might even like what dave said is pretty

direct like are y'all going to fire me i might just ask hey what's the expectation going to be is the expectation that all of us uh at some point come to office here in iowa is that going to be the expectation i'm just just so i can plan i mean you don't necessarily have to say what exactly you're planning on doing but yeah just you should be on the phone in the next 30 minutes and get some clarification and if you can't get clarification that would worry me greatly non-clarification from corporate goobers means they're getting ready to screw you right that's what that means I guess right so but if you talk to it if you talk to him and he does a politician's dance go get a job because it's coming okay but if you talk to him and he goes

hey man we're just talking about the people in the neighborhood here they don't need to be living 20 minutes from the office and not coming in but you're in el paso we don't have an office in el paso we're gonna be leaving you alone okay cool worry over you need instead of sitting and stewing over this make a phone call man yeah but yeah that that's you know and then figure out what your situation is and uh but to the extent that your probability of losing the job means you need to look for a job yeah the more i become convinced i'm going to be on the street the faster and more intense my job search i'm going to be on the street the faster and more intense my job search. I'm going to be reading everything Ken Coleman writes and getting out the proximity principle and paycheck to purpose.

And I'm going to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. And it's not going to be these goobs. Yeah. And for me, there was just a little something that I read into that going. If you don't feel comfortable talking to your leader, there's something else there. Well, it's because he's remote. That's kind of strange. It's the problem with remote.

You don't have good connection. You don't don't have you don't have high quality relationships you got a zoom call you know or worse than that a freaking email for real you know and so you it's hard to communicate with people when you're not in you know 80 of communication is body language and tone none of that happens in um in in an email or a text and it happens poorly in a zoom call and this is the problem with remoting so but it's not doesn't it doesn't mean you have to stop doing it but you just need to dig to push through the problem you know get let's let's meet the challenge head on and find out what the flip is going on here jake is in fort myers florida hey j, what's up? Hey there. Thank you for

taking my call. I appreciate it. Sure. How can I help? So I have a question for you. Um, my wife and I, you know, we didn't have a 28 to three comeback story like yours. Um, but we're definitely in the midst of one. Um, we got married last year, um, in 2023, in 2022, we were living together and we had a cash flow problem. We could barely afford, we could pay for our rent and pay for living expenses, but we had relatively no savings to put away. Ever since then, we got out. Between then and now, we got out of that lease, moved home. We were lucky and fortunate enough to be able to move home with our parents.

Saved up there. We got married. And now we're living in a totally different place, and we're, you know, through a lot of risk-taking through our jobs. Okay, so where are we today? What's your question? The question is, I don't know if I'm ready to buy a house or I need a second car. How much money do you have piled up now after this turnaround? My wife and I have stashed away approximately $116,000.

Very cool. Why don't you do both? Buy you a $10,000 car and then put a down payment on a house. You got enough. Yeah, it's a little bit more complicated. buy you a $10,000 car and then put a down payment on a house. You got enough. Yeah. It's a little bit more complicated. Is all the debt gone? Yeah. I just paid off the one car that we have. Yeah.

$14,000. I took that away. What's complicated, dude? You got the money to do it. You turned it around. You probably got your confidence shaken by being stuck in the mother-in-law's basement for a while you know but hey you know go get your house man or go get a rental but buy a $10,000 car for sure this is the Ramsey show this show is sponsored by better help this is the season

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Just fill out a short online survey, and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist. Plus, you can switch therapist at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash deloney. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host. Thank you for hanging out with us, America. Christine is in Atlanta. Hi, Christine. How are you?

I'm doing great, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up in your world? Well, I feel like I should have been listening to you a long time ago. So my husband passed away of COVID three years ago, almost, not quite. I'm sorry. And he had a little bit, a little bit of life insurance policy and I panicked and I went ahead and paid my house off. It was like $225,000 left and I used it all. And I'm like concerned that I made a mistake by doing that because I went to my friend's financial guide and he's like, you're so far behind at 55 for what you should be.

And he made me feel stupid for doing that. And then I started watching you and you are, you're all about the house payoff. I was like, good with that. But then you do talk about how your, um, income is your wealth building thing, you know? And so anyway, I, I'm a realtor and I have just had a slow down screeching halt on sales and I'm just afraid any you know what I've got left in savings I'm gonna have to start using that to supplement um well what would that's where I'm at first off I'm sorry for your loss that sounds terrible second off this financial guy is is not the guy no one should be making you feel stupid right yeah no one you know you're going to them for advice you want to learn but they

shouldn't be making you feel stupid i i would not look at this as a big mistake i would go okay you did it's not like you went out and bought something you couldn't afford or it's not like you went out and you got you. You paid off your home, which is something that we would teach you to do. Yeah, you may have gone a little bit out of order, but maybe not. I mean, let's think through this. Do you have any other debt? No. Okay. Do you have any money set aside that you could call just savings that's liquid? Yes. So I have what's left like that we work together work together to build like I have 300,000 in a high yield account but after listening to Dave you're like excellent yes but like high yield accounts aren't the way you build money like I hear Dave you say that all the time so I've got

that and then I've got I don't understand understand the, I've got a rollover. There's something called a rollover that I've got, and a Roth, and then a beneficiary. And all of that adds up to be about $140,000, $145,000. But here's the bottom line, okay? You don't have any bills, your income is slowed down and you have three hundred thousand dollars that you can eat out of until you get your income back up right right right you're doing better than you think you are christine you're okay am i okay i feel panicked why are you gonna how long is gonna take you to burn 300 grand and you're not gonna burn 300 grand may take you 10

years to burn 300 grand because you're not you're not supplementing this to the tune of $8,000 a month. I know you're not just by listening to me. I mean, you take 1,000 here or 1,000 there to make sure you've got food coming in until the real estate business picks back up, right? Right, right. I guess I've just been not sleeping at night ever since talking to that guy. Like, why would you do that? Well, that guy, let me help you with that guy, okay? Here's two words for him.

You're fired. Mm-hmm. Now who's stupid, okay? Right. So, yeah, because he's an idiot. You don't need to talk to him anymore, okay? He's a classic financial guy who's a nerd and has zero relational capabilities. So, if you want some help, click on SmartVestor at Ramsey Solutions.

They will not have that approach. They'll have the heart of a teacher because the more you understand, the less anxiety you'll have. The more knowledge you have, the less anxiety you have. But let's just take a real basic, simple thing from the sixth grade, okay? How much are you taking out of your high-yield savings account to pay bills with right now while things are slow per month? Well, nothing so far. Okay.

So really, what are we worrying about? Well, I guess, like, I don't know. I guess I just, after talking to him, I just have very exciting thoughts. Okay, you've got to quit saying after talking to him. I think he just threw you in there. He does not count. Okay. I want you to count on you for a minute.

You just use your brain. Your brain's fine. You don't have a broken brain. Okay. So your brain says, I haven't used any of the 300 grand. If I started taking $2,000 a month out, it would last me for 150 months if it made no interest. You know how long that is? 12, 14 years. Right.

Okay. You're okay. Okay. You're okay. You have such a big stinking pad that there's nothing you're going to do that's going to screw this up okay you have no house payment unless you go blowing unless you go blowing 100 grand a year somewhere and burn through this money in three years and don't work you're okay and you're not that person okay so you don't you need to stop stop it with the anxiety you're very capable

you're smarter than the guy you met with you probably have're smarter than the guy you met with. You probably have more money than the guy you met with. Do you have kids at home, Christine? No, unfortunately, we did not. Just a four-legged one. Okay, four-legged. Four-legged dog. Kids count. What I would do if I were you.

All right. So you need to get somebody in your corner that is the heart of a teacher. That's our SmartVestor pros. Sit down with them. They'll help you with how the rollo your corner that has the heart of a teacher. That's our Smart Investor Pros. Sit down with them. They'll help you with how the rollover works, how the Roth works, and how the beneficiary position works. You need to understand those three things because you feel confused, and it made you feel like the guy was right when he made you feel stupid,

and you're not stupid. You just don't know something. I'm not stupid, but I can't work on my new car. When I lift the hood on it, I have no idea what i'm looking at looks like a spaceship okay but i'm not stupid i just don't know how to do that and if i have a mechanic that tries to make me feel stupid he's fired it's not his job his job to fix the car right not not assess my car fixing abilities so now you did the right thing by paying off your house i think you've been very wise and very conservative the only thing i want you to do is to engage the knowledge gathering process here to get your confidence up because the more confidence you have the less anxiety you're going to have the better anxiety you're going to have, the better sleep you're going to have,

the more real estate you're going to sell because a salesperson who thinks they're broke smells bad. Right. So would you use some of that money into like the $300? Should I put that into like I've been listening to you here? I'm probably going to move some of that into something other than a high yield. But only after you understand it and only after you realize and internalize, as Dr. John Deloney says, your body recognizes that you're okay.

Because your body thinks you're going to die and it's freaking out. Yes, you're exactly right and that's just due to this guy's speaking shame over you yes okay and so i just i rebuke i rebuke that okay it's just bull crap it's just bull you're not that you're not that girl you're not a dumb girl he was saying that it was like a low interest rate. Why would you do that? And I guess that's what I wake up at the night thinking about. He's wrong.

I might invest some of it for that reason. But I'm not ever going to do anything after this phone call, if I'm you, because of that guy. Right. He's completely invalid. He invalidated his position. He invalidated his opinion. he invalidated his position he invalidated his opinion he invalidated his relationship he's fired for god's sakes don't let him have any more free rent in your head yeah because he's somewhere eating a sandwich you're here calling us and worried to death over what he said and he's out to lunch he was out to lunch when he met with you yeah

hey why do you think that is, Dave? Like, you know, obviously we have really great smart fester pros. They have the heart of a teacher. Because those of us that are academically trained math nerds, we look at the math and we are aghast if someone didn't do the math right. And we think everyone should be able to understand it instantly the way we math nerds understand it. And so we're just like oh god

you're an idiot you know and it's it's how our that's how our stupid non-relational math nerd brains work and he shouldn't be in the business he's in because he's he's in the wrong business because he's bad at it his job is to coach his job is to inspire his job is to teach not to shame and so he's he's a he's a rookie or he's an idiot or both. This is the Ramsey Show. Are you working the baby steps? One of the smartest and most impactful changes you can make is to ditch your cash value life insurance plan, if you have one,

and replace it with a term life policy. Listen, the only thing a cash value policy is good for is overcharging you for the life insurance and then paying you a crappy rate of return on your overpayment. Stop wasting your money and really focus on getting out of debt and growing your savings. For over 25 years, I've trusted and used Zander Insurance to find the best rates on term life insurance from the top-rated companies. They keep the whole thing simple. You can apply online or over the phone, and they even have low-cost plans that don't require an exam. Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Even if you

don't have a cash value policy, if you're one of the 70% of people who have no life insurance or not enough, it's even more important to get this done. 800-356-4282 or zander.com. Guys, I got to tell you, thank you. Jade and I are impressed with all of you. We appreciate you so much. We know that you've been subscribing to the show and clicking the follow button and the share button and telling people about the show and sharing links of the show and leaving five-star reviews. We know this because the numbers are ridiculously up on our podcast numbers. Our YouTube numbers are wow, scary. Thank you very much. Many of our talk radio stations around America are seeing bumps. Thank you guys for sharing and spreading the word about the ramsey show we appreciate you doing that uh you are our only marketing program without you we're screwed so please spread the word and those five-star reviews

they're very helpful thank you they do change the algorithm seriously the way they the way these platforms decide who what they're going to pop in front of someone randomly is not random it's based on your all's reaction and you guys five star reviews and you guys number of subscribers and all that kind of stuff and the number of downloads all that so thank you guys very very much we appreciate you our numbers are just amazing jackson mississippi james is on the line. What's up, James? Hey, Dave. Dave, I'll be 64 in August. I'm still working. I'm retired from the military, so I get up in military retirement.

Thanks for your service. You're welcome. Thank you. And I'm going to start the baby step one tomorrow. This is how far behind I am. I have about $102,000 in debt other than the house. Me and my wife together make about $140,000 a year. And here's my main question I wanted to ask you.

I've only been listening to your show for about a week now. My son turned me on to you years ago, but didn't pay attention i wish i had i thought i'm an idiot but anyway uh i have 9 500 in a stock from the company i work for i work for a food service company and their stock i have 9 500 hundred dollars in that and i have sixteen thousand and a 401k my question is and this is my logic if i draw that out i can pay all my debts off except for the house the two cars and one other one other deal that you're not going to like so what what do i need what do I need to do with that? Well, you're going to need that 401K later

because we need to build you a nest egg to retire with after we get you out of debt, agreed? So I would not cash out that 401K. I'd let that ride. I would cash out that stock. And what we're going to tell you to do is list your debts, smallest to largest. You said you had $100,000 in debt, right?

Yeah, about $102,000. Right, and how much of that's your mortgage? None of that's my mortgage. Oh. That's without my mortgage. My mortgage is $480,000. I thought you said you had $14,000 in a 401K and $9,500. My God, what do you owe on your cars?

That's the problem. My truck, I just bought it. It's brand new. I owe about $45,000 on it. Sell it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not kidding. What else?

What's the other car? My wife's car is a RAV4. I think we owe her like $12,000 on that. That's not the problem. That's fine. That's not the problem. $18,000. Yeah.

Half of your debt is the mistake you just made. My timeshare. Yeah. No, half your debt's that truck. Okay, yeah. Yeah. How much do you owe on the stupid timeshare? $29,000.

Yeah. And you got screwed on that. That's legalized fraud. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I just listened to you this morning on a previous podcast talk about that. Yeah. I'm sorry.

You better. Yeah. So, hey, man, I'll help you. You can still do this. It's not too late, but you're going to have to pay a lot of attention and you cannot make big mistakes so you're going to undo the truck and i don't know how you're going to get out of that timeshare or if you can get out of it but i'm going to begin to negotiate with them if i'm you uh hire an attorney and try to work your way through that timesharing see if you can get out of that debt or pay it off one of the two um And then we've got to work what we call the debt snowball,

and that's listing your debts smallest to largest. So take that $9,500 worth of stock. We're going to throw it at some of your small debt. And, James, we'll pay for you to go through Financial Peace University because I think you're ready to listen now. And we'll help you do this stuff. We'll show you exactly what to do first, what to do second, and how to do this. But you and your wife are going to have to sit down and get very, very serious about this and say, gosh, in seven years, we've got to have this mess cleaned up and have a pile of money.

Thing is, though, if they make $140,000, if they say, okay, we're going to live on $100,000, they take that stock, that all but pays off the RAF for it, put a couple thousand with it. He gets out of that truck, buys something easy in cash. I wouldn't. If he got out of the timeshare, then he's almost there. Yeah. And I wouldn't put too much towards legal fees for that timeshare. I mean, it's $29,000. We'll knock it out.

But I mean, if you could pay $5,000 and get out of it. Yeah, that's true. With a good lawyer that works that stuff, then maybe. But the point is he can be done in a year. Yeah. If he makes the right choices here. And then you need to work on your house yeah and start piling up cash and you got seven years that's right and then you're 70 yep so it's very doable but you're gonna you're not gonna be driving that truck yeah that truck's a problem it's the biggest problem in the whole

thing um lucky for him he's got his military retirement yeah that's helpful but that's part of that 140 yeah so i'm just gonna tear into this thing man i'm gonna i'm gonna make a make a sprint to the finish that's what you're doing and you can do it we'll help you christian i'll pick up and he'll get you signed up for financial peace university we'll pay for it you and your wife both work on this stuff james and then you make the sacrifices to win and you still have time to turn this around. You do not have time to half but do this. You've got to do it all exactly the way we teach. If you don't do, if you don't sell a truck, I don't know how you're going to turn the corner here. If you don't bust that timeshare in the mouth, I don't know how you're going to turn the corner here. If you and your wife aren't working the thing together, I don't know how you're going to turn the corner here. So you've got to do it. You don't have a, you don't bust that timeshare in the mouth, I don't know how you're going to turn the corner here. If you and your wife aren't working the thing together, I don't know how you're going to turn the corner here.

So you've got to do it. You don't have a second, third, fourth opportunity to figure this out. You've got to do it, and you've got to do it now. But it can be done. I'm not saying lose hope, but I am saying freaking pay attention. For real. Lean in, baby. Lean in.

We'll help you. That's what we're here for. Bella's in Bozeman, Montana. Hi, Bella. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you for having me. Sure.

How can we help? So I started listening to your radio about two weeks ago, and I just wanted to say thank you for motivating me to hang off the debt that I have. Cool. for motivating me to, um, paying off the debt that I have, um, my mom. So about, um, one and a half years ago, I've borrowed from my mom, uh, 7,000 euros. And I've been pretty much kicking the can and neglecting that, that debt for, you know, for this entire time, because, you know, it's my mom. So, so you're like, you know, there is no APRs on its on it so i wasn't it's a different type of interest when it's family right exactly um but now since i've been listening to you guys um i feel so embarrassed and i mean i've been embarrassed this entire time because um you know i don't want her

to know that i'm struggling with money but How much do you owe her, Bella? 7,000 euros, which is probably equivalent to about 7,000 euros, which is equivalent to 7,500. About $7,000 or $8,000. $7,000 or $8,000, yeah. Okay. And wait a minute, so she's out of the country? Yes.

Okay, and what do you make? What's your income? So I think last year I made about $40,000, and I think this year it's going to be a little bit better because I've been working seven days a week and just trying to, you know. Good for you. So what will be wrong with scratching together $7,000 over the next few months and just paying her off? Why would that not work?

That's the problem because every time I put it to the side, I have my little envelope with $1,000 inside of it for the emergency. And whenever I have leftovers, I put additional money inside of it. And there is always a couple of months there is some kind of emergency that I have to take that money and you want to know what that sounds like to me you want to know what that sounds like bella when i come when i listen to people and they say month after month i have unexpected costs come up i know that they're not doing a very detailed budget are you using every dollar um no i'm just writing everything on a piece of paper all right well before we get off the line with you christian is going to pick up and we're going to make sure you have every dollar and on there you can plan and be very detailed each month about what your expenses are and it's going to

help you plan for those and they won't be emergencies anymore so you'll be able to keep that thousand dollars set aside and make some progress this is the ramsey Show. Dave is in Seattle. Hi Dave, how are you? Pretty good, how's yourself going? Better than I deserve, what's up? So I got kind of a tough family money related question. I don't know how to approach a family member as far as regards to money. Um, the long story short, um, unfortunately my mother passed away and my uncle has a 50% stake in her house. And he came with me with an offer to cash me out, but it was about a couple hundred thousand dollars low, lower than what, um, market analysis reports and multiple realtors that I've talked to have said that place is worth. And I don't know how to give them the tough answer or ask them just,

hey, this seems really low without burning a family bridge. So I'm just having a tough time if you go back to your uncle and say uh sure i'll be happy to sell you but i'll sell it to you at uh just a little bit below market value which is a whole lot more than you're offering you think he's going to get mad and run away mad essentially yeah and then the house would go on the market it was my grandfather's. It was my grandfather's house years ago to where I'm trying not to burn a family bridge. I know. You didn't burn a bridge. If he acts like that, when you do that, he burned the bridge.

You can't choose who burns bridges except you. But you're not burning a bridge. You didn't say go to hell. You said, I want a price. Yeah. If he gets mad, he's the one burning a bridge. You can't control him. But we're also not going to be scared of his reaction by $200,000.

Especially if you have it printed out and you can show him, say, hey, I did a little research. Here's market value if you can show me what you're looking at and you know make it more of a conversation rather than some sort of a you know i'll be happy to sell you sell it to you at a little bit of a discount but not not this steep and if you don't want to do that it's okay let's just put on the market and we'll you know we'll just both get our money out of it. Yeah, because I guess the other kind of an issue is he does live at the property, too, to where he would have to, because he owns 50% of it, he would have to move everything in. That's his problem. Yeah.

It's not your problem. Okay, so let's walk back through. How old are you? I'm 25. Okay. And how long ago did your mom pass? About five years ago. Oh, my God.

That's been going on a long time. Yeah. So he's been sitting there. Has he been paying you rent? No. So he's living in the house rent-free for five years? Yeah, the house is paid for. Yeah, I know.

But he's not paying any rent for your half? No. You think that's fair? Well. Do you think that's fair? That you take your 20-year-old nephew whose mother just died and don't give him anything for his half of the asset? I think your uncle's a skunk.

Yeah, I think you're. If i have a 20 year old nephew and his mom just died my job is to take care of him not pee on him yeah right no yeah hello son seriously so you and and you're you're scared of this guy i I was just about to say that. This guy's a problem. All right. Now, what's the house worth, honey? Everybody said $900 on the low end. Okay. So let's pretend it's worth $900.

It has no debt on it, right? Yeah. Okay. So if you sell it, you guys are going to spend somewhere around 10% of that in selling expenses. So it's going to cost you close to $100 in selling expenses. So you're probably going to net $800. So your half is worth somewhere around $400 if you all sell it. Yes.

What did he offer you? He offered me $320 or $360. Okay. That's not bad. Not any. Okay. me 320 or 360 okay that's not bad all right okay you actually you said it was hundreds of thousands off it's not your half after after selling expenses if you all sold the house is worth some i mean the thing's worth 800 000 right after expenses okay it's worth 900 if we take if we take 10 12 of expense offer expenses and negotiation off of appraised value it's worth 900 if we take if we take 10 12 percent of expense offer expenses and negotiation off of appraised value it's not going to be that far off you know if you pay a

six percent commission as an example if you uh had other miscellaneous expenses you negotiate a little bit you pick up the title policy for the buyer whatever and your net profit on this property is going to be somewhere in the 800 range your house worth somewhere around 400 he offered you 360 yeah take it that's not bad all right you where did you get that you were getting a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand less than it was worth uh just talking with people trying to know how did you get there i mean the numbers you gave me do you see how i just did what i did yeah i've seen how you're doing that, yeah. Thank you. Unless you didn't think you were going to have any expenses selling the property.

He didn't account for expenses. Yeah, but even then, it's only $50,000 is your half of that. Yeah. Half of $900 is $450, and he offered you $360. So you thought that $100 100 000 was what was off well because the realtors on the low end of said 900 to where the house next door similar square foot had sold for 1.1 for the low end of 900 to where it just seems a little off wait the realtors are off well the numbers are a little low at 360 this seems like well no they're forty thousand dollars low if the house is worth 900 he's saying it could be

you're saying what you're saying is based on comps it might be worth more is that what you're trying to tell me it's worth 900 and then you change that so which number are you going with that is the value son well on the low end is 900 the high end would be 1.1 okay so say no no no no no no no no no you are not you don't have you don't get to have a 20 range in value on a million dollar house you need to figure out what the house is worth okay all right if you want to be fair fair, here's what I tell you to do. Order an appraisal. Pay $500 for an appraisal. Find out exactly what the house is worth and quit talking about ranges of 100 to 1.2. That's not even – several people in that conversation don't know what they're talking about.

The thing's worth something in there, but that's not a range that you don't – if you're getting ready to put a house on the market, you don't go, what's worth somewhere between $900 and $1.2? That's a lot. We've got comps. This thing's worth $1.15, and we're going to put it on the market at $1.2 and hope. You figure out what it's actually worth. So let's get an actual appraisal or a very, very professionally done,

high-quality realtor doing a comparative market analysis either one then take 88 of that number you follow me for 12 for expenses 88 of that appraisal number divided by two and that is what your half is worth and if you do that and the appraisal is $900, the 360 offer is not a bad offer. And I'll get up off your uncle then. That's what I would do. This is The Ramsey Show. Well, the Money in Marriage weekend here on the Hill at the Ramsey Event Center in October

with Rachel Cruz and Dr. John Deloney spending three days with you talking about money and marriage. It's fun, funny, and a little bit blunt. Yeah, they go there. And sold out. You can't get a ticket for October. It's gone. Sold it out two weeks ago.

Wow. And the tickets are six. They at 699 the vips are a lot more than that if you want to sit down front and hang out and do all that kind of stuff and uh it's a two and a half day deal so the gang decided we're gonna do another one since that one sold out we're gonna do it um uh in on valentine's day 2025 so valentine's day going to do another money and marriage event with Dr. John Deloney and Rachel Cruz. Went on sale, I guess it was yesterday, and dadgum, y'all, thank you. It's about to sell out, isn't it?

It's not sold out, but I mean, wow. Popular little product here. It's a great event. It's a wonderful event. Well, they're fun. The two of them are funny and fun and they're irreverent and they're real and authentic and all that stuff that people like and so you'll communicate better you'll strengthen your emotional connection you'll get on the same page with money

um and um hey it's two and a half days away from the kids so shut up it's a money and marriage getaway valentine's Day 2025 on sale now. Tickets begin at $6.99. And please don't wait around. You'll have more FOMO when you miss this one. And it's still a full weekend, right? 13th through 15th? It's a what now?

It's still a full weekend, right? It's a full weekend. Yeah. It's what? Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Yes. Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And ramsaysolutions.com slash events.

Get your tickets to the uh four thousand of you or so that signed up for the dave ramsay's investing essentials that ended last night i taught at the last two nights two hours a night um thank you wow what an incredible turnout to that virtual online event um not my favorite thing to do i prefer to be in front of a live studio audience instead of a bunch of blinking lights and a camera but george camel and i had a good time and they had cookies and we had cookies we had american cookies chocolate chip american cookies i'm just saying so i was jealous i was homemade and then george bless his little gluten-free heart he went and got some gluten-free cookies and you could taste the fact that there weren't any little glutens in it i'm

just saying you could tell yeah you can they might i'm not sure those are real american cookies but we had a lot of fun with it and uh all the investing stuff and man we went super nerdville and uh if you missed it we'll try to do it again for you someday but because i've never taught that material before it was a lot of fun to teach jennifer is with us jennifer's in denver colorado hi jennifer welcome to the ramsey show hi dave thank you for taking my call sure what's up um my question is how do I go forward supporting my family financially? I just kind of went through a little separation. We're back together.

We're going to work on our marriage, go to counseling. We just had our first child together. He's three and a half months old, and neither of us are working right now. I'm staying with my parents, and they're supporting me and my son. My husband is actually in rehab, kind of waiting to start working as soon as he can. So I'm just at a point where I'm not sure exactly where I need to go and what to do to support my family financially at this point. Okay, you've been through hell. What's he on?

What was that? What's he on? It was alcohol. Okay, and so he's in inpatient rehab? Yes, he is. Good, good for him. He's getting some help. How old is he?

Yes, he is 29. Okay, how long has all this been going on um so we met actually last year in may so a year ago and um we got married pretty quick and then within the first week that we got married we got pregnant and so yeah but he was an alcoholic before you met him yes he was an alcoholic before um and while. Yes, he was an alcoholic before. And while I was pregnant, I was working two jobs at one point to kind of support us financially. Because he was just drinking. Okay, so now he's on the wagon and he's in rehab. some help for you to be able to walk through and keep good solid boundaries and have reasonable expectations of his healing to go forward yes i am in counseling good okay yes good yeah all right

and but you have a place to live you're with your mom and dad and you have a place to live. You're with your mom and dad, and you have a baby. And what bills do you have? So I have a car loan. I owe about $18,000 on it, and I pay roughly $500 a month for it. What's it worth? It's worth probably $12,000 at the most. Who said? CarMax. That means it's worth $15,000 at the most. Who said? CarMax.

That means it's worth $15,000. Okay. CarMax is offering you a wholesale price on it because they want to buy it and resell it for a profit. So go to Kelly Blue Book, kbb.com, and look up private sale, and you'll see that car is probably worth $15,000 or $16,000. Do you have any money at all? I don't. Are you working at all gonna start no i'm gonna start working next week hopefully i have a job

interview tomorrow so i can start working again what will you be making um 22 an hour and i'll be working three night shifts from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. a week. Okay. I want to start talking about scraping up some money and getting this car sold. Okay. It's a burden. You need to get about a $5,000 car that you pay cash for and get rid of this $500 payment.

It's a huge problem in your life right now mathematically, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. If you didn't have that thing around your neck, this whole conversation would be different, agreed? Yes. How are you paying for it now? So my parents have been helping, and also they've been paying me to help take care of my grandmother.

Her health isn't the best right now, and so I've been kind of pitching in to help with her well your parents are good they've been giving you a good safety net and they're taking care of their grandbaby their daughter and they're trying to love you well and you're being good and that you're thinking about how i can create a sustainable life yeah so and you're smart because you're not afraid to work and so you're going to get some work and then if we can get your expense level way down and get your income up to where you're stacking cash while you're with mom and dad and he comes out of rehab in 90 days clean and then both of you get to work you can start building a life together then yeah okay yeah you can do that so we got it because he's probably in

there for what 90 days he can be there up to nine months. He's been there almost 60 days right now, but he can't start working until he's hit the 90 days. So he's kind of in limbo waiting to work. Okay, cool. All right. But does he transfer to outpatient after 90 days? Is that what he's doing?

So he's going to still live at the same place um he's got some good insurance who's paying for his insurance yeah medicaid good okay good yeah well his job is to get clean and stay clean because he's a dad now and a husband. He's no longer a party animal. And so good on him that he's doing the hard work. And your job is to demand of him, if he's going to be in your presence, to get clean and stay clean. That's your job. That's what your therapist is telling you, right? Yes.

Okay, good. Because that's the way it is because you got to be careful on the codependency side of this equation too so you're good you guys are a sweet couple you just you just walked head-on into a buzzsaw and now you're fighting your way through it and i'm proud of both of you for throwing your shoulders back and facing this you're going to be okay if you keep facing it have you plugged into a good church kiddo i have not no i have not been to church in a while i would recommend getting that family and that element of your life around you so that because a whole person has a spiritual walk emotional healing intellectual healing

financial healing work in all these different areas of our life to create a whole life that is sustainable okay okay? Okay. All right. And you hang on, kiddo. We're going to help you. I'm going to put you guys through Financial Peace University. We want to walk with you and be part of this wonderful healing story. We want to see what God does in your life.

It's going to be pretty cool when we get the other side of this and we look back and go, wow, someday you got grandbabies and you look and you go, man, this guy, sure glad he straightened his life out. This is the Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host. Thank you for joining us, America. Hey, guys, we're about 12 miles south of Nashville in a wonderful little town called Franklin, Tennessee. The Ramsey campus is here and we have a big, beautiful lobby with a great coffee shop in

it with homemade cookies. They're chocolate chip, by the way. And of course, some coffee, and it's all on us. Come by and visit. You can see some of the history of Ramsey in here. You can watch the show. We do it live on the glass from 1 to four central time every weekday and we'd love to have you come by and see us there's usually 50 to 200 folks sitting out here sometimes there's two

and sometimes there's 300 so you never know but um and in the middle of that lobby is also the debt free stage brandon and morgan are with us hey guys how, how are you? Better than we deserve. I love it, brother. Where are y'all from? Rockford, Illinois. Cool. Welcome to Nashville. How much debt have you guys paid off?

$672,000. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. How long did this take? Four years and nine months. Gee, man. Wow. What was the range of your income during that time? $165,000 to $335,000.

Nice jump. What do you all do for a living? We're veterinarians. Ah, so you got the practicing gear, huh? Yes, we do. So can I guess what the type of debt was? Yeah, two vet bills. Student loans?

Is that what it was, student loans? Yeah, we had $57,000 in two different vet trucks, $80,000 in student loans we had um 57 000 in two different vet trucks um 80 000 in student loans that's not we're large animal veterinarians dave yeah okay i'm getting that and then uh 385 000 when we uh bought into the clinic as a partnership and then 150 000 for our mortgage okay wow i thought i thought it was all uh student loans there was i'm glad to hear it wasn't all there was 92 000 student loans before that for my half of student loans and then we got married in june of 2019 and then we really got gazelle intense on on the rest of the debt so did i hear you paid the mortgage off too the mortgage y'all are weirdos wow how old are you two weirdos

30 30 i just turned 32 you're're 32 years old now. 100% debt free and you own part of the practice or all the practice? A portion of it. A portion of it. That's a big practice then. Okay. What's the house worth? Right now it's like $230,000. Way to go y'all. And you got two fabulous careers. Both of you vets, both of you doing large animal, and you're kicking butt. You're making 300 plus. Way to go, y'all. You're rock stars, man. Very, very cool.

What got you on this Ramsey stuff? What got you so fired up? We had a couple of great mentors who are also veterinarians. And when we were students, you travel around to different clinics, and we got to go and stay with Dr. John and Lori out in Idaho during our clinical year of school. And Dr. John sat down with both of us the separate times that we were out there, and he walks through a budget with you, and he introduced us to this plan. Wow. Thanks, Dr. John.

And Dr. John is now a long-term missionary and uh he had us start teaching other vet students about this through a christian veterinary mission as an organization wow and then any of that student that rides with us we try to share the the financial piece teaching thank you very much wow wow you guys are amazing 30 years old 672 000 paid off in four years and nine months what do you tell people the secret to doing that is work hard you worked all the time work hard don't complain just have long-term vision you have no idea how it pays off yeah so when dr john sat down with you and went over this ramsey stuff did did you have any pushback? What was the hardest part of taking it on? I know when I sat down with Dr. John, I went out later than he did.

But we have to run our own vehicles when we're doing large animal work. And he told me just to buy a lot less truck than what I dreamed of coming out of school with. So that was a hard pill to swallow. I had this dream of it. She got a pretty nice truck. Yeah. For those of you that don't know, the only people that are dumber about pickups than construction people are veterinarians.

Very true. Buy a truck that's 60 times what it needs to be to go visit a horsey. I mean, come on. Wow. Way to go, guys. I'm proud of y'all. Excellent. Very, very cool.

So you report back to Dr. John. Does he know he's this big of a success? We keep in touch email, and we told him when we paid off our debt, and we'll try to send him a video of this. You need to because he gets a lot of credit in this particular version of a debt-free scream. I'm proud of him too. I appreciate him.

I never met him, but I hope to. Or maybe I haven't, I don't know. I have a question for you guys. I mean, we have people calling all the time that want to be vets and they're looking at $400,000 each of student loans. How did you come through this? With only 80.

Yeah. We both worked during vet school. I didn't think you were allowed to do that. And before vet school too, keeping it low during undergraduate before you get to vet school is a huge part. Choosing the right school, I got to believe is part of it. In-state, we went to an in-state smaller undergraduate school and then in-state vet school and i did undergrad in three years i applied without a degree with a ticket into vet school to try to save money that way all right you heard it here first turns out if your horse is if your horse is sick you don't

care where the guy what gal went to school you just care if they can fix the horse the job that's all we care about how many of you asked your dentist where he went to school, you never did. Okay? You never did. You just said, fix this thing. It's hurting. Wow. Way to go, you guys.

Very, very cool. You guys are amazing numbers. You guys have done nothing but work. You've had no life. I mean, you've been on beans and rice, and you've been on not beans. I mean, that's a lot. Four years, $672,000. I mean, we're talking $200,000. and rice and you've been on not i mean you you that's a lot four years 672 000 i mean that's we're talking 200 000 i mean 150 000 bucks a year you're rocking it on the debt wow we just we just

lived like we were in college still we just the same same budget pretty much so when did you finish this have you have you had like a momentum yet? Like you ran out past the end of this and you went, whoa, we now have a lot of money. It was in March. So it wasn't very long. Okay. It has not been long. Oh, so you haven't really felt the full effect of this yet. Not yet.

All right. I mean, you start making $25,000 a month and you don't have any payments. Yeah, that'd be nice. You guys are so used to living frugally it's like it's not even set in i said that they kind of went huh not us that's you you got you guys what very very very impressive very impressive so proud of you and who's the munchkin over here oh that's avery she's two avery is two so while we're doing all of this we have a baby too yeah yeah let's just put that in there throw it in the mix yeah and you changed her life and she

doesn't even know it her mom and dad are such hard work and smart people wow this kid's got her life ahead of her it's gonna be amazing oh how cute that's fun nice youtube picture thrown in there of the wrinkly baby i love it very. Very cool. 32 years old, paid for house, $335,000 a year income. Yeah. I think you're going to be okay. Yeah. I think you're going to make it. Wow. Way to go, you guys. Very, very proud of you. Okay. So you tell people the secret is work. What else do you tell them the secret is? Live below your means. We know some people that have been doing a vet job for a long time and and they want to retire but they you know financially might not be able to so um just

just work hard stay to a budget um live within your means yeah way to go very cool all right brandon and morgan you guys are you're amazing people thank you so much for being weirdos normal's broke and you aren't so proud of you're gonna be millionaires in 20 seconds man where you're going wow very very cool if you're not already by the way so brandon and morgan and little avery from rockford illinois a couple of veterinarians 672 thousand dollars paid off in four years and nine months making 165 to now 335 they rocked it count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're debt-free pretty stinking impressive this is the Ramsey show Jade Walsh all Ramsey personality is my co-host thank you for hanging out with us open phones

at 888-825-5225 so a lot of people misunderstand that might be being too nice what we teach about money or the baby steps or they've just figured out that 10 things dave ramsey got wrong is good click that's good clickbait right and uh five things i disagree with davesey on. It's good clickbait. And people will click on it. And so they write articles or they do stuff or they post stuff in whatever, social media or some stupid Reddit thread or something. And so it's kind of funny, the mythology. So our team made a list of things that are mythology.

It's people twisting your words. At a minimum. Yeah all right i'll read the myth and you tell me you tell me where they got it wrong okay okay so myth one is only eat rice and beans and beans and rice okay um if you really think I literally mean only eat beans and rice, then you got other issues. Dave, a lot of people think that. I know. Then they got other issues. That's just kind of dumb.

It's a metaphor. Beans and rice, rice and beans. It's what people say is what you eat when you're broke. So eat broke people food. So quit going out to eat and spending 300 bucks at a stupid restaurant when you're broke people. That's all that means. But it doesn't mean every night you're literally. I will tell you this to back up this myth.

It's hilarious. We get anywhere from one to six requests a week, a week to co-author a beans and rice cookbook with me i yes i hear that a lot i could have i could have done that a lot but it's a metaphor people it's not real grow a humor bone it's a metaphor okay i actually saw somebody say it's not good for my mental health or my physical health to eat rice and beans every day oh god ridiculous all right moving on myth number two you have to pay cash for a house dave ramsey says you can only pay cash for cash for a house yeah well yeah that's the best thing you can do because the i mean the the best way to get wealthy is to get out of debt and stay out of debt. Right.

Because it's their most powerful wealth-building tool is your income. So, yeah. And the borrower is slave to the lender. And even if you're buying a house, you're a slave when you owe Citibank money. I mean, countrywide, whatever. I mean, you owe somebody money on a stupid mortgage, you know. So it's not that. Yeah, I would rather you do that i don't borrow

money period for anything ever i don't need anything bad enough ever i haven't borrowed money in 30 years since i went broke and it's one of the reasons i've got some money because i don't give it all to some stupid bank oh yeah so yeah. So that is the best case scenario. But it's not the only thing we say to do. We say around here, if you're going to buy a house, do it on a 15-year fixed where the payment's no more than a fourth of your take-home pay. Best thing you can do is put 20% down because you avoid PMI, which is $75 a month per 100,000 borrowed. So you borrow 300 grand. It's $225 a month just going to buy

insurance for the mortgage company in case they foreclose on you so that's why we tell you all that and then let's get out of debt let's get the stupid thing but if you put down five percent your first time home buyer ten percent and you take on that PMI you just need to know you're taking it on and you take on a debt you just need to know you're taking it on and then you need to get about the business of getting it paid off right because it's standing between you and being wealthy love that it's a blocker but um i never told anybody i i will always tell you you know if you can figure out a way to do the hundred percent down plan i like it do it yeah why not all right myth number three a thousand dollar emergency fund is enough to cover all of your emergencies. Never was, never will be.

Baby Step 1 is not a $1,000 emergency fund. Baby Step 1 is a $1,000 starter emergency fund. When I did that 30 years ago and doing the baby steps 20 years ago, doing the baby steps, I didn't then think it was enough. It's not enough. It's not supposed to be enough of an emergency fund it's there for the little emergencies to keep from knocking you off the emotional wagon while you go about the business of getting out of debt but it's not enough emergency fund of course

it's not but if you sit around and wait till you save ten thousand dollars to start getting out of debt your butt will never get out of debt and once again you've bifurcated and diluted all of your efforts and you lose. So, but you're trying to look for some stupid excuse to not face this stuff. Then you can figure out a way to lie about something we said here. Yeah. I hear it all the time. Dave Ramsey's out of touch a thousand dollars. That's not enough for an emergency fund. Dave Ramsey's out of touch. There's no question about that. I am definitely out of touch, but it has nothing to do with I thought $1,000 was enough. I got you. All right, let's talk about myth number four. Getting out of debt is a math problem. I've never said that.

I've always said it's a behavior problem. Personal finance is 80 ahead knowledge and um i mean the closest thing i ever said to that was the title of your book which is the opposite it is the opposite money's not a math problem wow that's interesting 80 behavior 20 head knowledge all right myth number five you have to work 80 hours a week forever. Never said that. I said, if you'll work like no one else later, you can work whenever you want. But my grandmother did say there's a great place to go when you're broke to work. Yeah, I think people get up off of your couch, potato. Quit watching Netflix when you're broke.

Go make some money, and then you don't have to work so stinking much. Short-term sacrifice, long-term gain. Yeah, nobody wins without sacrifice, but it's not a permanent thing. I haven't worked 80 hours a week my whole life. It's not sustainable. All right, this is an outright falsehood. It says you got to pay off your home

before you start investing. Well, we never said anything close to that, ever. Not once. Never. Never in 30 years did I tell you that. before you start investing well we never said anything close to that ever not once never never in 30 years did i tell you that so i'm telling you i'm just really good clickbait i mean just use dave ramsey something something uh salacious something lies something big you know dave ramsey once killed my pet you know i don't know whatever it is you know i mean i don't know just make up something and put it on there because everything on the internet is true abraham lincoln said that so um i mean come on guys seriously it's just this stuff it's just way off it's way off well what

do you what do we say we don't say that you have to pay off your home before you start investing no we say you need to get out of debt before you start investing everything but the house and that's very clearly outlined in the baby steps. And anybody who actually looks at it with an honest intellectual eye knows that. That's right. But a lot of these people, they're not trying to, they don't actually believe this. They're just twisting something up because of good clickbait. They want an excuse why you can't do it.

And for everybody on social media that says it can't be done, for everybody on social media that's a victim, for everybody that's a whiny little baby boomer, Gen X, Gen Z, Gen whatever, millennial, whatever gen you are and you're a whiny little victim, a little wuss, for every one of you that says it can't be done, that it's impossible, that America is dead and we need the communists to take over, for every one of you that are out there, there's a thousand people that proved you wrong by actually going and doing this stuff. Or if they want to get it right, they can just pick up a copy of the Total Money Makeover.

There's only 10 million copies of that thing floating around. You probably can find one. And so, you know, it's on a lot of people's tables. It makes a nice coaster some people sit it on their coffee table it sits there for four years before they read it and then suddenly they'll pick it up and read it when something bad goes sideways so it's out there floating around pick it up you can do this stuff people it you know we joke around and we read the mean tweets and we all that stuff here on the air because it's entertaining and with you guys but the truth is

um anybody out there that's telling you folks a lie under the heading of it can't be done and therefore they're stealing your hope those people are evil hope stealers people who steal other people's hope are evil especially to further their socialist communist left-wing agenda it's just wrong it's evil and so it aggravates a crud out of those of us here at ramsey we joke around and cut up with you guys about it but you know our job here is to show you mathematically psychologically spiritually relationally how you can win because we really believe you can win and then somebody wants to distort something to steal your hope it you know it pisses us off because you're you're we we work for you guys we we're here for you

we exist for you so for those of you out there who get it, thank you. We love you. This is The Ramsey Show. Henry's with us in San Antonio. Hi, Henry. How are you? I'm doing great. I have a first world problem.

It's a problem that all of your listeners hope to have, okay? Cool. My cars my cars are paid for. My house is paid for. I have money in the bank to cover emergencies. I have a traditional brokerage account with about a hundred and $50,000 worth of stock in it. And I have an IRA with over $3 million in the portfolio. And I only have $7,500 in a Roth. But I'm 77 years old. And Uncle Sam wants me to pull the money out of my IRA on their schedule and my taxes on that is going to be going up year after year after year I want to understand what I

can do to try to pay the minimum lifetime income tax way to go. Yeah. Thank you. How much of this did you inherit? Zero. Okay. And you got a net worth approaching $5 million count in your house, right? Well, no, no. Well, the house is only worth about half a million. Yeah, okay. So $4 million anyway.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, but no, when I turned 65, we had the cars and all the debts paid off. Yep. And I had about $250,000 in a 401k. And my wife had retirement. Mm-hmm. Well, I've got Social Security. I've wife had retirement. Well, I've got Social Security. I've got her retirement. I can afford to be.

You've done very well. You've done very well. Congratulations. I decided I could go into some risk. Yeah. And I told the company I was retiring from, I want a lump sum. Yeah. And they gave me about a quarter of a million dollars and so with that half a million i made some shrewd investments shrewd but reasonably conservative

investments and that's grown by a factor of six in the last 12 years well it should that's perfect that's well done very well done so you've've got $3 million in a traditional, and you have required minimum distributions, RMDs. Yes. And they're forcing you to pull a percentage of that out based on your age each year. It increases each year. Oh, which she's got to pay tax. It's on a curve. And when you pull it out, it becomes taxable, and you're asking how to avoid that.

If you're going to consume that money, if you're not going to give it to a charity, I don't know of a way to shelter it. I don't need to shelter 100% of it. I do not know of a way to create a shelter for that. It simply is traditional. Traditional is taxable you're being forced to pull it out with required minimum distributions we call them rmds and i do not know how to avoid that uh obviously if early on you had rolled it to a roth you would

have paid the taxes uh on at that time of what it was worth at what it was worth at that time and it would now be tax free and roths are not subject to rmd so i'm 63 i have moved everything into roth for that reason and paid the taxes now so that the growth later i don't get bid on um but i'm but i'm i'm 14 years ahead of you right now so uh or you're 14 ahead of me, depending on how we want to look at it. But anyway, so you've done a great job, and the question you're asking is excellent, but there are no shelters for our income. The only thing you could do to the extent you increase your charitable giving to a um you know a certified 501 then um then you can obviously that is deductible but you're giving the money away to keep from giving anything to

the government so you're giving away if you give away a thousand dollars you would have paid taxes on that that would have been 300 bucks so you're giving away a thousand to keep from paying the government 300 at that point but if you're if you're just away a thousand to keep from paying the government 300 at that point but if you're if you're just depends on what your goal is your goal you asked how to avoid taxes the only way i know to do it's give it away uh because i do not know of another thing you can do with that um that that you know shelters it obviously if you create any earned income at 77 these this is all unearned income but if you create earned income then at 77, this is all unearned income. But if you create earned income, then that qualifies you to continue funding Roth IRAs, but that does not help you

shelter these RMDs. So let's talk more about that. So obviously we always suggest for people to start with the Roth IRA or Roth 401k option for that reason. But for people who already have money in an IRA, we would say, say hey don't start rolling it over until baby step seven right so at what I mean obviously you know he's 77 years old he's got three million dollars at what point if somebody's got a decent amount of money in an IRA would you say hey it's not going to be worth it for you to roll it over or I'd only roll over this this portion of it where does that kind of stop loss well if you've got the cash outside of the three million let's say he had told me he had another million dollars if he wanted to start

converting big chunks of it to roth pay the taxes out of that other million dollars but you're you're still not avoiding the taxes which was his question you're going to pay the tax yeah when you're anytime but at least let's say for instance that let's say for instance that um that we were talking to somebody who was 60 years old and they had uh three million dollars and if they had an extra million to somewhere else and they wanted to use that million to convert this three million to tax-free growth okay if you're 60 when you're 67 that's going to be six million dollars that's right all right and when you're 67 that's going to be six million dollars that's right all right and when you're 74 that's going to be 12 million dollars and it's tax-free because back when you were 60 we spent a million so it's worth it's worth it to do that yeah because

you got 12 million dollars there at 74 in our little scenario we ran that's tax-free so if we had caught uh henry back then and if he had extra cash, he doesn't have the cash right now to pay it. No, he doesn't. Because he's got the big chunk of his wealth is in this 401. So he doesn't have the outside cash to pay the taxes on the whole thing. If he's in great health and wanted to plan for the next decade and say okay this three million is going to be worth seven or eight 10 years from now and i would rather that seven or eight to be tax-free and not subject to rmds then i'll pay the taxes now uh and any of it he wants to think that way about he could pay the taxes but you don't cash the 401k out to pay the taxes it's extra money at baby step seven this is this is playing beyond

getting out of debt that's right beyond basic investing now we're playing up in the in the stratosphere with strategies and um and i'll throw out a thing i threw out last night too on the uh on that uh wealth on that investing essentials thing we just did i mean i'm 63 100 of mine's been converted to roth here's the beautiful thing of that not only am i not forced later on to do the rmds your children but i can never touch it and leave it to them and there's still no tax on it so let's say i live to 93 30 more years all that money i have in my retirement how big that is going to be and it's 100 tax-free when inherited ding ding ding ding ding ding ding now there's a play this is the Ramsey show Jade Warshaw Ramsey personality is my co-host today today's question comes from greg in south

carolina yeah he says my wife and i are 35 years old and have four young kids i make about a hundred thousand a year before taxes we've been paying on my student loans for three years and our student loans are one year away from being paid off we pay about a thousand dollars a month the loans were provided by a family member at zero percent interest and they have said they really don't care how fast we pay them off should we continue with the same intensity to pay these off uh or is it okay to slow down and start investing and planning for the future seems like we should shift gears and start planning for the future as they have said they don't really care really care how fast we pay them off. What do you recommend? I'd pay them off. You said that you're one year away from having

them paid off. So finish paying them off. One year is not going to stop you from shifting gears, as you said, and planning for the future. Part of you planning for the future is you paying your debt off so that you can take those next steps so i would do it i i would do it i mean i think that family members might say oh we don't care we just want to help you out but i don't like i just don't want to owe anybody money and i certainly wouldn't want to owe my family members money you're a year out honestly even if you were two years out or whatever i would still tell you to pay them off and do do so with intensity and get them out of your life period yeah and i don't really know how to ask them but if they don't care if you ever pay it off maybe they should just forgive it

that's what makes me think they really do care yeah yeah because if they didn't care it would be a sick parent toxic crap we're trying to teach them a lesson we're trying to teach them responsibility by making them pay it back it's like oh geez come on yeah so yeah what we're going to do is we're going to keep them in debt to us and because the borrower slave to the lender lender, boys and girls, and when you eat Thanksgiving dinner with your master, it tastes different. Yeah. So people, don't loan your kids money. Don't loan your kids money.

Never loan your kids money. If you have some money and you want to give your kids some money, fine. But don't loan your kids money. You freaking control freak. Don't loan your kids money you freaking control freak don't loan your kids money i'm going to teach them a lesson they're 30 they've already learned all the lessons you got okay they're past your lessons you control freak that's all that is if you want to bless your children bless your children and if they're worthy of being blessed they're good people and they're not going to screw up and you're going to help them move ahead and you've

got some wealth and you're sharing it with your family that's great but don't loan your kids money that's from the old guy michael's in denver hey michael how are you doing awesome how about you too better than i deserve. How can I help? Well, I took care of my parents until they passed away back in November of 2021 and June of 2023. Wow, I'm sorry. And then I found out that, yeah, me too. It's been tough, but things worked out as far as financially were concerned for me because I was able to pay off my debt and make sure that my dad was taken care of for as long as we possibly could all that fun stuff but I had an uncle that also passed away and he wants he I've got an inheritance coming to me from that

and I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. How much? About $200,000. Wow. Wow. You got the proverbial rich uncle. Apparently, yes. I knew somebody had it. I've always heard about it. You're the guy. I'm the guy.

Yeah. I have a $250,000 note left on my house. I have no $250,000 note left on my house, and I have no other debt. I have a 401K going with my work. I don't have an IRA or anything like that or a Roth IRA set up yet. I don't need to do that. Okay. But I've got an HSA going.

I've got – Well, you're already doing everything smart. Just pay off your house, dude. Yeah. Okay. I wasn't sure. It won't pay off to the house fully. Yeah, but what do you make?

What do you make? It would help about 75. Okay. So how quick are you going to pay off that little bit of balance? Well, I plan on re-amortizing the balance. I wouldn't re-amortize. I'd pay it off. You don't want to do that.

That's just going to give you lower payment. Pay it off. Right. Okay. Have you got any other money laying around um unfortunately no i just got the the uh i got 50k and in a 401k and about 10 in an hsa and that's about it i have my emergency fund of about four or five months and your your parents estate is not going to yield anything uh the reason why i'm debt free right now the reason why i have a nice house and all And your parents' estate is not going to yield anything? The reason why I'm debt-free right now, the reason why I have a nice house and all that stuff is because of that. Okay, so it already has yielded, but you're not getting any more from that. Okay.

Hey, can I throw something in here? When was the last time you did something really fun? Like a really great trip? Something for you? 15 years. Okay, you need to do that too. You need to do something fun, and you've been surrounded by a lot. What could you do that would just be mind-blowing for $10,000?

There's a gaming convention I want to go to, but I could always do a cruise or something like that with some friends of mine. Do a cruise. Gaming conventions. That's small potatoes. That's nothing compared to a cruise. Really nice. What's the location

you've always wanted to see? Australia, New Zealand. Go on an australia new zealand cruise it's going to cost you a little more to do it right it's going to cost you a little more right but jade jade's right jade's right drop 15 on that and go do because i got to tell you man great barrier reef are you a diver by chance i am not i'd like to learn how to but i'm 54 just had a heart attack sure not dove the great barrier reef in 2020 it is an it is world class it's amazing australia is a fabulous it's a

fabulous country you need to go do it you need to go to it yeah book you a nice cruise jade's right good good good idea no he just sounded like he's been taking care of parents and rich uncles. He's been doing all the hard work. He's been doing the right things. He's a good guy. And yeah, you need it. Yeah. And 50. So yeah, go to the gaming convention and go to Australia and then put the rest on your

house and then sit down and look at how quickly over the next three to five years we can knock off the balance of whatever's left on that house after doing that. But you're exactly right. Folks, we tell you there's three things you can do with money. Have fun with it, give it, and invest it. And you should always do all three. And I almost left out the fun one. That's what I'm here for, Dave.

Jade is here for the fun. That's what it is. Jen in Maryland, speaking of inheritance, Dave, I want to give a huge thank you for a recent comment about inheritance someone sent in a question about whether they were entitled to encourage others to pursue the baby steps since they had a leg up by getting an inheritance just like that guy did and um he said your answer relieved a burden from my heart i wasn't completely aware of it i received an inheritance from my father a nice amount not life-changing, but I've

always felt a little guilty, like I had it easier because of that than other people. And I have rarely taken good care of the money, and I have more than I started with. I've used the required minimum distributions for very positive family experiences, like trips. I could have blown that money, but I didn't. I've been a good steward, and I shouldn't feel guilty. Thanks for telling me I shouldn't feel guilty thanks for telling me I shouldn't feel guilty gosh not at all amen you know what I think I think Dave that the footprint

that Ramsey has had in society I think we're going to see more and more people who leave inheritance leave inheritances and that say oh I I received I had a rich uncle or I had rich parents and that's great like that's the whole point. Like you, it's generational wealth that you're building and a good man is leaving an inheritance so that you can also do the same thing. I think that's incredible. You should not feel guilty about that. Yeah. She's quoting the Bible there, boys and girls. A godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. There you go. And so you put yourself in a position that you not only have taken care of yourself at retirement,

instead of sitting around waiting on somebody else to take care of you, like the government. But on top of that, you've taken care of other people in your family. You've been a blessing to your community. And then you leave an inheritance. Also see, this is why you do the stuff we teach here.

It's being a grownup and stuff stuff this is the ramsey show jade warshall ramsey personality is my co-host today the best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a monthly budget. Jade, you and George and Rachel have done a bunch of our webinars on how to use every dollar and the results of people learning how to use every dollar from you guys. When people get on this budgeting app, and it's the world's best budgeting app, and they lay out a full paycheck planning, and they start working the baby steps, it changes everything. Everything.

Can't be stopped. Yeah, I'm about to start rolling out another series of webinars on EveryDollar, so stay tuned. Yeah, very cool. Well, you can download the EveryDollar app for free at the App Store or Google Play or at the website, EveryDollar.com. If you want to hook it to your bank, there's a small charge to do that, and we put in all of these other features when you do that, like the paycheck planning. And we coach you along through the baby steps. And it's a pretty stinking incredible experience.

So that's how I would go at it if I were you guys. You need to get this on your phone right now. You and your spouse sit down and start making your money behave. Sarah's in Virginia Beach. Hey, Sarah, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave and Jade. I appreciate your time. Sure, what's up?

I have a handful of problems. I'll start at a debt problem, I have a marriage problem, and I have a home problem. Uh-oh. So I have roughly $60K in consumer debt that I've been, so I guess I might rewind. I kind of casually started following the baby steps last fall and I have my car paid off, but I keep getting set back to step one. And so I got really serious about it at the beginning of the year. And I also have $124,000 in student loan debt. In addition to the 60K? Yes. Okay.

I'm in the last year of my Ph.D. program, and fortunately very blessed to be able to work on that full-time while I'm working. So that's very good. A Ph.D. in what? Aerospace engineering. Okay. What are you making at your job? $115,000. When you finish the Ph the phd what will that do to your income uh unknown i'm a civil servant so i would assume probably will step outside of

civil service if you want to maximize an aerospace phd right correct um i do have some several benefits so you don't have any benefits that are equal to double your income. True. And you can double your income if you have a Ph.D. and you step outside of the government crap. Okay. Anyway, what's up? So I'm trying to pay off my debt.

I have about $1,700 in child care expenses every month. As far as the marriage problem goes, so, okay, so sorry. And Baby Step, almost two, I'll be back to my $1,000 emergency fund at the beginning of June. Okay. So then I'll go back to Baby Step two. But the marriage problem keeps coming up

and like divorce and separation is constantly coming up. And I'm wondering if I should pause the Baby baby steps to try to like save money yes yes in case okay and so the third problem on top of that is um in february i had a dishwasher leak that like flooded my kitchen and ended up having like a mold problem and the insurance company didn't remediate properly and so we went back and forth with them a lot. And they halted all work. So I have a half demo kitchen.

And they decided they didn't want to deal with it and just paid us out. My husband hasn't agreed to take the payout. So I have two insurance checks sitting on my kitchen table right now. I have no kitchen, and I'm about four months into that. So I'm wondering, what do I do about that? How many children did you say you have, hon? I have two. What age?

Three and six. Okay. I'm sorry. You are completely overwhelmed. You got babies, you got a PhD, you got a moldy kitchen, and you got a marriage on the rocks. There's a lot going on. Yeah. It's definitely lot going on. Yeah.

It's definitely trying to swim. Yeah. So what we need to do is choose which battle we want to fight. That's where I don't know what to do. I don't know. If the home is worth it, I'm not necessarily sure if I'm ready to throw in the towel in my marriage. I don't know that, and I never encourage that um unless someone's getting abused but um uh yeah i think you need to sit down with a good marriage counselor whether or not your

husband will go and he won't go i know but you go without him yeah and you start making decisions using that marriage counselor as your as the help for your brain to think clearly. When are you done with the PhD? Well, so far I'm on track for defense in spring of 2025. Okay, so you've got a while. Okay. Can you put that on hold for three months? I'm unsure. People in, once again, with my agency or my department have been asked to finish their PhD

or take a leave of absence to finish it. I'm not sure if that's really an option. I'm just saying I would go into this, whoever's managing the PhD program, and say I'm in the middle of a bunch of personal crises. I need 90 days to get through. Okay? And then I would sit down with a marriage therapist and say, we're going to decide what we're going to do here in 90 days.

If you're staying, then we're going to deal with the house. If you're not staying, he gets to deal with the house. You're going to take the kids and go to an apartment. Okay, so what do i do about the equity in the homes you're going to get that as part of the divorce if you do that okay okay so i mean to add to this i did pick up a side hustle but uh okay you don't need a side hustle you make a hundred thousand dollars a year and you got 73 000 things coming at your face at the same time.

You need to set some of those things down and decide which battle you want to fight. I'm going to set the PhD to the side for a minute. I'm going to set the moldy kitchen to the side for a minute, and I'm going to work on this marriage and make a decision about it, and he's going to decide we're all in and we're working on this together, or we're going to pull the plug on this puppy and he gets the moldy house and has to sell it as part of the disillusionment in the divorce agreement and then we'll restart the phd while you live in an apartment with two children that has an actual kitchen so do i just continue saving money and yes you pile up money you are

in the middle of a freaking hurricane. You're going to get your debt paid off. You're going to pile up money right now because you're going to need a big old pile of money for all these different transitions you're going through. Okay. I want you to get out of debt, but getting out of debt is not the top of your list right now. You're in the middle of a storm. No, you're in the middle of several storms. Okay. in the middle of several storms okay at the same time you just gave me a list of storms i don't want any one of your five storms okay okay i don't want to be raising two littles with a moldy kitchen a phd program

and a husband who's off the ranch and and then i'm going to worry about debt in the no we're not worrying about debt right now you got to get some of this stuff cleaned up and get get up an emotional situation where you've got some some headspace to be able to get back on the phd properly and then be able to get back on the debt and finish the phd get your income up, get a fabulous career, go make $200,000, $300,000 a year with that, and go raise these kids with or without this marriage, depending on what the conclusion of that is. I hope it stays together. But you've got, you know, you're not focusing on the marriage.

You're focusing on everything else. And you're not focusing on the molding kitchen. You're focusing on everything else. You've got 73 things you're trying to do at one time, and none of them are getting done. And so you need to kind of force rank what's real here and what's important. Okay, moldy kitchen is not real, not important. I can get a different kitchen.

Screw it. Okay, PhD can go on hold. But wait, we're taking a 90-day sabbatical on that. Screw it. It's sitting to the side, period, done. Not negotiating it. I'm telling you what I i'm doing i'm not going to do it for 90 days okay that because i have other stuff in my life that is more important than the phd i have more important stuff than dealing with contractors on a moldy kitchen because the stupid insurance company didn't do their job okay so now what am i to? I'm down to feeding my kids and healing my marriage or systematically ending it because

it's already ended and we just have to admit it. One of the two. Then when we get that solved, we can start to deal with the other stuff. We've got to force rank these things based on what's real and what's important first. And then you can work your way through these problems. Gosh, I'm sorry, honey. You got a boatload. This is the Ramsey Show.

Our scripture of the day, when pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with humility comes wisdom, Proverbs 11.2. C.S. Lewis said, humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. Daniel is with us in Milwaukee. Hi, Daniel. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? So, two weeks ago, me and my wife found out that she has preeclampsia. She called me on her way to the hospital after a routine appointment. And now we're facing the prospect of no longer being able to do a natural birth and kind of overwhelmed with some health care expenses here. The cost of a pregnancy in the area seems to be between $25,000 and $35,000, which is about the balance of my entire emergency fund.

You don't have health insurance? I have a Christian-based health share. And we signed up. As soon as we got married, changed our name, and then we found out about a month later that we were pregnant. And we were about two days too late for being covered. Have you contacted them and told them this story? I have, yep.

And there's no policy adjustment available? They're not going to help at all? There is not. They will cover the baby as soon as he's born, but the birth is entirely on us. Okay. What's your household income 120 000 a year and when did you get this news uh about a week and a half ago okay all right um here's my baby's gonna be born in seven days here okay here's my experience i would

get on the phone with your ob not Not your OB's secretary, your OB. I want to talk to him or her personally on the freaking phone. I don't want to talk about practice management. I don't want their crap. I want to talk to the guy, the gal on the phone. You got it? Then I want you to tell them what's going on. No insurance.

I need an advocate, dude. That's what you're telling him. Is your OB a man or a woman? He's a man. He's fantastic. We're really lucky to have him. Great. I'm glad he's fantastic because he's getting ready to be super fantastic.

So I need him to help you get in contact or even shop among hospitals that when you pay cash for this in advance that they give you a 50% discount. They'll do it. Yes, yeah. The hospital we're going to does say that they offer a 45% or 50% discount for cash payers, and that still comes out to roughly $25,000 to $30,000,

depending on if it's a C-section or not. And with this being high risk, they can't necessarily determine that. No, we won't know that until we know it. Okay. Exactly. So you've already run that to ground then? Correct, yeah. So it's looking like it's going to be yeah after the

cash discount around around the amount of my entire emergency fund which is the great news is you're getting ready to have a baby and the great news is you got the money to pay for it i don't know anything else to tell you all right yeah just with with the you pay you pay the bill you just pay the bill that's what your emergency fund's for. This is called an emergency. The definition of an emergency is an unexpected event that you could not have anticipated. This pregnancy going sideways is an unexpected event that you couldn't have anticipated. I'm sorry, but your emergency fund's getting used. When you bring that baby home, you're going to not think anything about the $25,000.

It's no big deal. You can get you some more money. All right. Thank you very much. I just wanted to say that every dollar has been absolutely fantastic for our marriage in this process and getting us to this point. Thank you very much. Man, I'm so sorry you're facing this, Daniel.

Your wife's going to be okay. The baby's going to be okay. Your finances are going to be okay. The baby's going to be okay. Your finances are going to be okay. The great news is you all have done such a good job with your lives and with your money. You've already run to ground something that most people don't even know exists, which is a 50% discount on labor and delivery if you prepay. You've already got that before you offered me the 25. I thought I was turning 25 into 12, but you'd already got that before you offered me the 25 i thought i was turning 25 into 12 but

you'd already turned 50 into 25 i mean and the only other thing is you're doing good watch everything like a hawk yeah as they're yeah look at every stinking expense because making sure they didn't triple charge you for the eight dollar a piece tylenol because that's what you're going to see on the invoices um and you know really audit the bills as they come in because it's like real money we're paying here especially for babies they put everything insurance companies and people don't have to pay attention to medical bills and sometimes you get triple billed on stuff and um hospitals aren't evil they're not trying to steal from you they're just incompetent in their billing processes and they overcharge through the nose yes eight dollar

tylenol is a real thing yeah per pill it's nuts so um yeah it's just you know but they you know that's what insurance covers it so nobody looks at it right and nobody nobody says this is nuts oh no he'll be looking he'll be looking yeah he'll be looking this guy's on it you're on it daniel you're you're like you're like a superstar dad and husband wasn't that interesting when it's your money you suddenly care very deeply about what's on the receipt absolutely yeah if everybody was on an hsa with a high deductible and you watched what the money went to for the high deductible then health care costs would be driven down by marketplace pressures. That's right. So that's the deal.

But insurance just makes everybody blind and lazy. Zach is with us. Zach is in Indianapolis. Hey, Zach, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you doing? Good, man. What's up?

Yeah. Hey Dave, how you doing? Good man, what's up? Yeah, so me and my wife are currently paying off student loans. We have $13,000 left to pay off. And so our plan was pay that off by around December and then start saving for a down payment for a house. Good plan. Yeah. Well, I would throw one thing in there first. I would want you to get three or six months saved up before you start saving for that down payment. Yes.

Yep. So my step grandmother, so my step mom's mom is getting married and she has a house that she is not going to need. And so she was going to sell the house. She just kind of wants to be done with the house and not have to worry too much about it. But she offered that me and my wife could rent it with the understanding that we would own it at the end of two years or get financing for it um with the understanding you would own it at the end of what two years to get financing to go ahead and buy it oh not you would own it outright i was about to say no no no no no no yeah so she said that she wants to keep our rent exactly what it is right now, which is very low.

We're only paying $800 in rent. Should we keep it that way? And she said that 100% of the rent money would go toward the purchase of the house and that the price would be locked in at $225 right now. What's the house worth? I think my question, $225. Okay. So it's not a bargain bargain it's just a little bit of rent credit yeah well so you wouldn't you wouldn't have bought this house if this deal didn't come so either you don't even like this house it's not our dream house no i'm not that you just don't even like it the only thing that got you was she thought oh i'm getting a bargain because i'm

getting my rent credited that's the only and the rent's low and that's the only thing that got you was she thought oh i'm getting a bargain because i'm getting my rent credited that's the only and the rent's low and that's the only thing that got your attention and if you were driving down the street and there was a for sale sign this house you would not have called on the sign you're getting sixteen thousand dollars of rent credit give or take yes but the other thought is we would be living with low rent. You are now. The question you have to ask yourself is, rent aside, because you're able to save up a lot with that low rent. Rent aside, you already have low rent. You have to ask yourself, would you have bought that house

with it being $16,000 cheaper? And the answer probably is no. It's not like you're making bank on this deal. And you probably wouldn't have even had your eyes on this house if she hadn't said anything. It's not a good reason to buy. It's not a deal. It's not a deal.

I'd walk. I would just rent where you are and pile up cash. You would not have picked out this house, Jade's right, if it was on the market for $225,000 minus $16,000. So what, $209,000 or whatever that comes out, you would not have bought that house. The only reason you're getting sucked into this was the relationship. Family. And then for a second, you thought you were getting a deal.

Don't do it. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. If you're a leader, your personal growth matters for your organization, because whatever you lead can only grow as much as you do. I know from experience. I've been CEO of Ramsey Solutions for over 30 years, and now I'm sharing that leadership

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