Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw. I'm joined by your co-host, George Campbell. We're hosting together, so give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. We'll take calls all afternoon about your life and your money. Let's go straight to the phone lines where we've got Brian from Des Moines, Iowa. What's going on, Brian?

Hi. Yeah, I'd e-mailed you guys a little while ago. Three, four weeks ago, about I'd lost a bunch of money in a cryptocurrency romance scam. My current state, as part of my divorce decree, I had to pay my wife a property equalization payment of almost 98,000, which I was able to do last week. I ended up having to get three loans to cover it, and now I am saddled with almost 98,000 in loan debt.

Got it. Okay.

Are these personal loans? How did you get the debt?

One's a personal loan, one is an unsecured loan, and one is a loan against my pickup.

Oh, boy. Wow.

Okay. Tell us more about your financial situation. What are you bringing home? What's your income? Is there anybody? Tell us more.

I make about $80,000 a year. My take home is, I think it's 2011. It's bi-weekly.

Do it four random months?

I just did the math on… Yeah.

Help us understand the crypto romance scam plays into all of this?

Well, my intention for emailing you guys was just to find out, is there any resources for scam victims? I mean, is there any support groups where you can talk with other victims and to share your feelings and what have you? Is there any financial help?

Well, so how long ago did it happen? Let's to get our bearings around it. How long ago was it?

It took place over between September of 2022, and it concluded late January last year, 2023.

How much money was involved?

Over 230,000.

Whoa. Oh, my goodness.

I'm guessing this is over a period of time where it was just a little more and a little more?

Yes.

Wow. Oh, gracious. You're out the $230,000 plus the $98,000 for your ex-wife.

Yeah. I mean, I started off with a couple of hundred bucks investing into what turned out to be a fake site. I mean, it was just flat out stolen.

Oh, my goodness.

Then I went from 200 to 1,000 to three. Then I just kept putting more in there. I pulled that out of my retirement funds and 401(k)s and what have you.

You just drained your entire life to keep up this house of cards.

Yeah.

Obviously, it's like the normal things to do, right? You notify your bank, you file a complaint with FTC. When you did all those things, what came of that?

I didn't do those things. When I realized that it was a scam, the first thing I did was I contacted my divorce attorney, and he reached out to his network of attorneys and see if there was somebody that knew anything about crypto investing and and what have you. They did find a guy in Des Moines that traced my funds. All of it ended up over. Instead of going to this crypto site, it ended up at an exchange in Singapore. Okay. And along with a lot of other victims' funds, there was... He said it was over a million dollars in this account at the time when he traced it. So he put together all the information.

So it's all well documented.

Yeah, and he We actually filed a federal lawsuit against, we don't know who was involved with this, but there was a lawsuit in process against the unknown scammers. It's the first one that was in Iowa, is what he told me.

What's he telling you are the next steps?

Basically, just to wait and be patient. The process of serving documents and waiting for responses is ongoing. He thinks it'll conclude sometime late this summer, early fall, probably around Labor Day, I'm guessing.

You feel like legally there's a handle on it, and so now you're really just looking for emotional support? Is that- Yeah, I think he's got a handle on it legally.

But yeah, I mean, just the whole process is there. I was mainly inquiring, is there any organizations out there? I know there are fund recovery places. There are some that are scams that will take advantage of you. There's some other ones that actually do Try to help victims.

I see one on here by FINRA. It's fightcybercrime. Org. You can go on there. It literally is a romance scam recovery group. That's literally what it's for. You could check into that. Again, that's fightcybercrime. Org. We don't endorse them or support them. I just looked it up real quick. I don't know anything about the group. It's just something that popped up. To answer your question, and there's a couple others out here that I can see. To answer your question, they are out there.

There's another one called, if you go to againstscams. Org, Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams, SCARS as the acronym. You can look that one up. Again, we don't have affiliation. We're just googling like the rest of you. But I think we have to just start to rebuild, Brian, and go, let's pretend we never get this money back because the chances of you getting this money back, slim to none, and it hurts. You're going to have to let go of the shame and guilt and the fact that your life has imploded over the last few years. That's a very, very difficult thing. I would highly suggest you get one-on-one counseling and therapy to deal with this, regardless of what happens with the groups.

We would recommend better help for that.

That's a great online one. That's a great online one.

I'm already involved with I have a better help for this right now. Okay.

On the financial side, I wouldn't try to... No one's going to just go give you $100,000 because you were a victim here. You're going to have to figure out, how am I going to get rid of this debt as fast as possible? How do I get my income up in order to to take this out as fast as possible. I'm guessing this $100,000 isn't the only debt you have?

Currently, it is. I have no credit card debt because I use debit cards. Okay.

Was the pickup paid off and you took a loan against it?

No, I had a balance of about 5,700 on it, and I just had to borrow more against it to cover that equalization payment. I already know you guys are going to tell me to sell the truck, get out from under the one and drive something cheap for a while while I work on the next one.

Yeah. How much is borrowed against the truck, specifically?

Thirteen five, and I think it's valued about 17 something.

Okay. So you're underwater by a little bit?

No, it's valued more than what I owe on it.

Because you owe the 5,700 still on top of the 13,500, or is that total?

Thirteen five is total.

Okay, great. So that'll give you a little bit chunk of change to get something, a beater car to drive around. That'll lower your debt by a little bit. And then just focus on attacking these debts. I mean, I think you can get out of this within, my guess is two and a half years max, with some hustle. And then just rebuild and get the help you need. This is a hard lesson to learn. I appreciate you sharing with all of America to warn them that this stuff is real. Never send anyone Bitcoin, whether you know them or not.

Never, never, never.

These scams are real. It hurts my heart. My heart hurts. I know.

My heart goes out to him. That's so much money. That was no doubt his retirement. I mean, he was in Gosh, almost $400,000 on this. That's painful, painful stuff. This is The Ramsey Show.

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You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw, your host. You are joined by George Campbell, your other host, author of Breaking Free from Broke, best-selling author. Love that, George. All right. I'm excited. It's not very often that I get to announce the 20th anniversary edition of the Total Money Makeover. It's now available, guys. Let me tell you something. This is the book that changed my life. It has changed millions of people's lives. Over seven million sold. The Total Money Makeover, I'm telling you, it's the simplest, most straightforward and proven plan to change your finances. You can solve your hardest problem with the least complicated money book you'll ever read. I love it.

I love it. I love that they updated the font, but not Dave's face. So he still looks 20 years younger on that cover, which I think- It's like a time machine. That was a nice editorial choice by Dave to go, Keep the old photo. I look great. But it really is.

It's what we all recognize, though.

It's the date we know. It's The same heart, but we've updated and expanded the stats in there, the advice on mortgages, car loans, investing for retirement, paying for college, buy now, pay later, all of these more recent traps that have popped up over 20 years. Here's the best part that I'm excited about. What's that? Dave re-recorded the audiobook. Love that. For the first time ever, it's crispier. He's a little older, a little more rugged, a little more wise.

Yeah, a little bit of a little rasp in the voice. That's right. I like that. All right. Plus, every book includes three months of every dollar premium for free. The best budgeting app ever also included.

I love that. New users only. Good call out here.

Yeah, of course.

If you're already on there, you don't get to stack it. If you're a new user to every dollar, take advantage of that. But I'm excited about this. I'm excited to get my hands on that audiobook and follow along in the book. That's It's my favorite way to read.

I love it. I'll definitely listen to it again. It's a banger. It never gets old. All right, so go to ramseysolutions. Com/door and get the total money makeover 20th anniversary edition so that you can become one of the millions who have said goodbye to debt and built wealth. 20 years worth of success and stories cheering you on. Man.

I wish I read the book when it came out. I'm sad that I learned about the book way later. After the fact? What, nine years later, I finally learned about it and read it.

Listen, I never actually bought the Total Money Makeover. I bought the workbook, the money makeover workbook, and it's like you can fill in all the things. Listen, when you're in debt and you go through and you put in your income and then all the debt, not going to lie, you feel a little bit sad. It gets real. But the hope is on the other side.

Amen.

There you have it. Let's go straight to the phone lines. We've got Aaron in Toledo, Ohio. What's going on, Aaron?

Hey, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call.

For sure. How can I help?

My wife and I are in a position to purchase a investment home property at 25% of our home market value. Our question is, what would be the best loan option to purchase this investment property? We do have the cash in hand to pay this 25%, but that would totally liquidate our funds in the bank account and put us at net zero in checking the savings account. How urgent is this purchase?

I'm sorry, what's that? How urgent is this purchase? If you don't do today, is it Can this be done six months from now?

It's going to be done in the next, probably, one to three months.

Is your personal residence paid off?

Yes.

Awesome. You're saying in order to do this, you'd be liquidating all of your three to six months of expenses?

Correct.

Plus some.

What's the number on this? What's this place going to cost?

$55,000.

Why are they selling at 25% of the value?

My wife and I acquire 75% of the home based on a family's desk, where we're purchasing the 25% from another family member.

Oh, you're buying the metal?

The house for- You're buying the metal.

Correct. That makes more sense. You're not really getting it at 25% of the value. You're putting in the extra 25 to own it free and clear.

Correct. Cool.

Okay. How about this? Because there's no urgency on this, I would love for you guys to maintain three months expenses, then make the purchase once you have the money beyond that.

How long would it take you to save up another basically three months to put with this as cash?

Quickly. I mean, we have no car payments, no debt, no home payment. For us, that's the three, six months of bills paid up, and we would have that done pretty quickly in six to eight weeks.

I love that. So that's the plan. Is there a reason that wouldn't work?

I would talk to the family and say, Hey, here's the plan. Three months, 90 days from now, we're ready to do this deal. We'll have the cash at closing. It's going to make things simpler. It's not going to put you guys backwards into debt. Because what happens is you take on this loan and then all of a sudden you have this pile of money in the bank and you go, What else could we do with this money? That's what worries me about taking on the debt even for a short time. I would try to avoid that at all costs.

It sounds like you can. They've got the income where they can do that. So you're logical. I love it. I'm happy for them.

It's a good deal. I was like, Are they about to get scammed? Who's selling 25% of market value? That makes more sense.

It does make more sense. Love that. All right, well, let's go to Will, who's in Birmingham, Alabama. Will, how can we help you out?

Hey, guys. I just want to say thanks so much for taking my call. I've listened for a long time, and I'm glad to be here.

We're glad you're here. How can we help?

I have a million questions, but obviously, I can just ask one. My main question is, my wife and I have $111,000 in student loans, but $75,000 of that is high interest, and it's 8% and 14.5%. I was wondering… Yeah, I know. It's- Sorry, dude. Yeah, you're not kidding. I found out right after I told her I wanted to marry her, she didn't know. Her parents took it out. It's been a huge trial, but- Are these parent plus loans?

Are these in her name, and she had terrible credit? How do you even get a 14% student loan?

Well, as you all know, they like to screw anyone they can. What it was at the time, her mom literally googled and just picked the first student loan she found.

It's a private loan.

Yeah, it's private. So she borrowed more than she needed to to pay for housing, food, and- To cover her lifestyle.

I did the same thing. Here's the good news. The good news is with private loans, you do have a little bit more leeway and wiggle room because it's not It's not the federal government, right? So if you come in here and you try to make a deal with them, many times they have the ability to make deals on payments. So what my husband and I did, because the last bit of debt that we paid off was all private loans. And so what we did is we stacked up a good percentage. We stacked up about 60% of what the real value was, and we offered it in cash, and they took it.

There's an idea. Okay.

Well, I guess then my question is, we got married Married in January, and your boys saved up a lot of money, and all in all, both of our debts was 181,000. Okay.

What was the 81,000? Right now, it's 111. Oh, so you knocked it down already.

Yeah. We've knocked 60K down, and we've only been married for five months. And not only that, I've got $37,000 in stock. And Half of it's short term, half of it's long term, but had a ton of gains. My dad wants me to keep it, and I'm tempted to sell it, but then we won't really have a nest egg. I'm preaching the choir here with you guys.

Yeah, but that's not your nest egg. I know your dad wants you to keep it, but I can speak for George. He doesn't pay your bills. George and I want you to sell it. Number one, that's not the place where a nest egg would lie in single stocks. That's thing number one. And thing two is you need this money. You're at 8 and 14% interest. You're losing money hand over fist. You got to get something in there to knock that out.

I'm not worried about you getting another 37,000 in investments one day. We'll get there. But right now, we need a priority of getting this debt knocked out. I'll tell you, Will, I did the same thing, not at this scale, but I had some Apple stocks when I worked at the retail store back in my day, and I sold them, and I used it to pay down my debt. I had people going, Dude, are you serious? That money could have turned into... I know you can play the what-if game all day long about what your investments could be, but I'll tell you, you have a guaranteed return when you get rid of this debt and get it out of your life.

That's so true. The thing to remember here is when it comes to getting out of debt, we just talked about the total money makeover. When it comes to getting out of debt, there's a way to do this, and it's walking those baby steps in order. Baby step one, you get the $1,000 saved. If you had money saved, you knock it down to $1,000 so that you can do baby step two, which is you're paying off all of your debt using the debt snowball method. It's smallest to largest, guys, by balance. We're not talking about the interest rate, although it could be tempting in a situation like this. You do the smallest loan first, and then you turn around and you stack back up that 3-6 months of savings. But here's the thing, we're not putting it in single stocks. We're not putting it in the stock market at all. We're putting it in a high-yield savings account. It's liquid, you can get to it. It's great that right now they've got pretty high interest rates. That's the way this works. Those are the first three baby steps. That's your quickest, most risk-free path to debt freedom.

This is The Ramsey Show.

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Well, what's going on, everybody? You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is George Campbell. If you ever come and visit us here at Franklin, Tennessee, you will come into a beautiful lobby. We will greet you with warm cookies and coffee and probably the nicest human beings you'll ever meet out there. A hundred %. You'll see the debt-free stage, which is where people come from far and wide to do their debt-free scream. That's what's going on today. Today on the debt-free scream stage, we've got Raphael and Candice. Whoop. Good to have you guys here. Where are you from?

Dallas, Oregon.

Dallas, Oregon? Mm-hmm. There's a Dallas and Oregon. What's that next to? Salem. Salem. Okay, I know Salem. Very, very cool. You're here to do your debt-free scream. The people want to know How much did you pay off?

We paid off $281,388.74..

I like it. I like the detail. That'll do. I love that. How long did it take you to pay off this debt?

49 months.

49 months? Okay, I'm tracking. What were you How much money you're earning during that period?

We started out with $188,000, and then we're currently at $220,000. What do you guys do for a living?

I'm in security engineering.

I'm a public school administrator. Wonderful. Can we ask what debt this is? This was everything.

We were very normal. We had a 401k loan. We had credit cards, personal loans, a horse trailer.

A horse trailer.

Okay. Which I'm guessing there's a horse involved somewhere. And a mountain of student loans.

Wow. How much student loans? $200,000.

Wow.

My goodness. The question everybody wants to know is, you sold the horse trailer. Did you get to keep the horse? We kept the horse trailer. We paid it off. Kept the horses.

Love it. Oh, multiple horses. Yes. Wow. Now, is the whole farm paid off now? The mortgage is not paid off yet. That's the next to go. Correct.

I love it.

You got to make some serious headway in 49 months. What was life like before this? Take us four plus years ago.

Yeah, we were really a little reckless with our spending. We made good money, and so we continually just tried to live and spend that.

We sat down one day and we were looking at our budget, and Rafael said, What are we going to do about all of this debt. And I said, Well, we could do that Ramsey stuff. And he's like, What are you talking about? I was like, Oh, yeah.

Well, I know about it, but I haven't done it.

I had been listening to Dave for about 10 years, but I would actually turn off the debt-free screams because I felt like I would never or- Was it too convicting? Be in that space, and I would tear up and be sad. Oh, man. Wow. So you went, This will never be me. Why even get my hopes up and listen to these stories? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. And so to be here is just the most amazing.

Well, what change that made you go, I am going to listen to this, and I am maybe I can be that person? Having a partner and a husband on this journey with me who said, We can do this. We can do anything.

We're amazing together.

We can tackle this. So We've been married for four years and just started this journey.

Oh, so you were newlyweds at the time? Yes. You combined all of your debts. You're like, Oh, my gosh, how are we going to live? Yes. This was during pre-COVID. I was actually traveling from California.

I moved up from California.

I used to travel back and forth from California to Oregon every week for eight months. All the airplane flights, the lodging, the food, my company wasn't paying for it because I made the choice to move to Oregon. It wasn't like, Hey, would you like to move to Oregon? We were paying out of pocket with all this. I just started seeing the bills just stack up and stack up. When she told me about the Total Money makeover, I didn't even finish the book. I think I got through the first chapter. When I landed, and she picked me up, I'm like, We're going to do this.

You're like, We got to go. I can't take it.

It's one chapter in. You're like, I got it. Let's go. Game on. That's right.

The first year, we were pretty davish. We had a couple of things still we were doing and trying to still live, but do the plan. Then we started financial peace, and we were the second class in, and he was like, We can't be Davis anymore.

This is it.

We've got to completely commit. Tell us what was your Davis thing? Because everybody got there something. Everybody's got something. Tell us what's your Davis. We definitely ate out quite a bit, and we would still do vacations. We'd set aside, Well, this is enough going to the debt. We're okay, instead of committing and saying everything extra goes to the Was there a day when you were like, We're going all in?

Yes. What was the biggest sacrifice during that time? You remember going, Oh, that was a hard thing, but it was the best thing. I think for me, well, during the whole Baby Step 2 period, the hardest part for me is I'm not... I'm I'm just a nerd, obviously, but I have a free spirit in me, and it only comes out with my beautiful wife here. There are times where I wanted to be like, Sweetheart, you need new shoes, or You need new pants, or I just wanted I just throw things at her. But at the same time, I'm like, No, I can't because we're going to do it. Okay, all this has to go to the. You could justify in your mind because you're like, I'm a hero. She needs new shoes. Or really, it was just your way of getting your inner child out to spend some more money. You hushed the inner child and you guys did some hard things for... I mean, four years is a long time for a lot of people to sacrifice. Yes, it was a long time.

What was the hardest part? The horse trailer. That was the hardest thing to get rid of? Well, it was a A month into when we got serious, really got serious and stopped doing Davis, it was a month into it.

All of a sudden, I hear that there's a horse trailer coming. There needs to be a trailer when you have horses. That's the problem with horses. They need a lot of accouterments. That's right. Land and trailer. How much was the trailer? It was only 5,500 out of this big mountain.

Okay, but it was already a big mountain.

But it was more emotional than the financial.

It's the principle of it.

Another five grand we got to pay off for this horse trailer. It took It took us getting on the same page together and really being committed to our goal, what we wanted to change all those behaviors and to change that pattern of how we were acting.

What would you say to that person that was you? You've got $281,000 of debt, 200 of it student loans. You're listening to people like yourself now on the radio going, I know they're doing it, but this is not for me. What would you say to them real quick? That it's possible.

It feels like a when that student loan debt is so big and you think, I'm just going to have this forever. But you just start taking steps a little bit at a time and it starts to go away. Then you build momentum and you feel this energy. All of a sudden, you believe at some point through it that it can really happen. I think it also takes love, too. Her and I used to talk about when it was the last thing that we had was that student loan because that was the biggest. Just the way she would talk about it, I knew there was a little bit of guilt and shame behind it, but she would tell me how she used the money and everything. I'm like, You know what? I would have done the same thing if I were in your shoes. But it's okay, because it's our debt. We're just going to get rid of it.

I love it. I love the language. It's ours. Everything's ours. I love it, guys. All right, let's get ready to do this thing. We've got Ralph and Candice from Salem, Oregon. You guys paid off $281,000 in 49 months, making $188,000 to $220,000. Let's count Let's get down. Let's hear that debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Oh, my gosh. That's a good one.

I love it. What a sweet couple. Robin I'm proud of them. Raphael and Candice, they're an inspiration. We also have a gift for them, Jade. We've got two every dollar premium subscriptions that they can use. That's right. They can pass it on to the person who says, It's not going to happen for me.

Pass it on. It can happen. I love stories like this because all the time we get people who call in the show, George, and they say, I'm just being buried. I don't think that I can pay off my debt. Can I really do it? Can I really do it? This right here, Raphael and Candice, they are the epitome. You can see that this is possible. You support each other. I love how Raphael was like, I know that I'm a nerd, but there's a free spirit somewhere inside of me, and they really just complement each other. That's the way this works. It's $200,000 of student loans.

That's amazing. I don't know how… They're the sweetest couple. They may have been like this from day one, but it seems like there is a connectivity that happens once you go through this process together that makes their marriage even sweeter. I feel like they're in a new, newlywed phase again. Yes. In this debt freedom phase. And let me tell you guys out there, there's nothing more romantic than debt freedom, okay? The last thing she wants is you to rack up some more debt to get her more crap. Get rid of the debt and see if that doesn't increase the joy and love in your life.

That's a fact. I love that. I love that so much. It just goes to show changing your habits. You do work to change your mind, and you can completely change your life, change your family tree. That's what they've done.

No shortcuts.

Don't tell me you can't pay off these student loans. Don't tell me it's not possible.

You can tell me you won't. If you're living in La Vita Loca, it's time to hold your horses and make some changes before you go further into debt.

Live in La Vita Loca, haven't heard that in a while.

I always try to bring it back. Don't forget about Ricky.

I love it. This is the Ramsey Show.

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Com/ramsey. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw, joined by George Campbell. We're taking your calls all afternoon long. We're talking about your life and your money. Be sure to give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. Hit us up, and we'll help you out. All right, let's go to Tampa, Florida. We've got Desiree on the line. What's going on, Desiree?

Hey, thank you for taking my call.

No problem. How can we help?

Hey, so my parents recently passed away, and they left me with a house and two cars, and I don't really know what to do from here. My dad really wanted me to sell the house and have money set me up for my future, but I know a lot of people at my age would kill to have a paid-off house in their name, so I was just calling for advice on what I should do next.

Goodness. I'm sorry to hear about your loss. I'm sorry to hear about your loss.

It's awful. How recent was this?

My dad had passed away about two weeks ago, and my mom passed away when I was younger, so it was just me and my dad for a while.

I'm so sorry. Was this sudden?

He had been diagnosed with cancer, so he was given about a couple months to live. We knew it was coming. We just didn't really know how soon it would be. It It was sudden, but I had time to process it.

Well, it's still fresh, and I want you to be able to grieve and not make any big financial decisions now. We'll help you take the right next step, but I want to give you permission to not do anything as well. Okay. Because there's no urgency here. There's nothing on fire, right? No. You're living in the house?

Yeah, I'm living in the house. I still have to pay the bills and stuff like that.

As far as settling the estate, do you have help with all Did he have a will?

Yeah, he had a will and all that stuff. It was all left to me. There's nothing really to deal with the courts about it. I know it's going to be a little bit of paperwork, but it was pretty much clear and done that it was all for me.

Okay. There were no debts or anything like that? All of this is you will be getting all of this?

He did have about 8K in credit card debt that does need to be paid off. I was thinking about just paying that from my savings or selling the house and using that to help pay off the debt as well.

What about the cars?

What are they worth? The cars were paid off. I have a 2017 Jeep. It's probably worth about 15 to 20 now in that range. Then there's an older model BMW that I don't think I'd get more than three or four grand for.

You said you might sell the house to pay off that little bit of debt. Why not one of the cars?

Just because I don't really know if at this age I could be a homeowner. I'm only 21, and I only make about 25K a year. And I know in the area of Tampa I live in, you have a required flood insurance, and that's a couple grand a year, plus property taxes and all that stuff. I just don't know if I'd be able to afford living in a home at my age.

Yeah. The insurance and taxes alone.

Yeah.

Okay. Well, what George said is true. I mean, if you have the money to keep things as they are, you don't have to make any decisions right away. But if you're finding that, Okay, I need to start thinking about what's going to happen, who's going to take care of these taxes, who's going to take care of this insurance, that thing, then at what point do you think you might be starting to feel it?

I really have no idea. Maybe about a couple months. I've already had to start setting up all the bills in my name, and then I have to go to the GMV and get the titles transferred and all that stuff. It would probably be about a couple months until everything's said and done, but I don't really know for sure exactly.

Have you notified the lender that your dad has passed?

I don't believe so.

Okay. I would do that. I don't want you to go rush and pay this because you may not be responsible for this. The credit card debt is unsecured, and therefore, they're not going to liquidate your car or home in order to pay this. They'll just have to eat that cost, most likely. I would look into the laws in your state and what will be required, but I would at least notify them that he's deceased. East.

Okay, I got you.

Is the home paid off completely?

Yeah, it's completely paid off.

What does it cost per month to keep this home afloat with all the insurance, property taxes that are involved?

I know the bills come out to be about $800 a month, but I haven't really done the math on the property taxes and insurance, but I know that would add about $10,000 to $15,000 a year.

Okay, that's the math I want you to do to see if this is reasonable for you to stay, because there's no reason to go out and rent for $1,500 if keeping this house afloat and you staying there is going to be $1,200 a month. So I would crunch the numbers on that. And if it's unsustainable, if it's much bigger than 25% of your take home pay, which I personally hope your income goes up very soon because you're making about $12 an hour right now?

Fifteen, but yeah, pretty much.

Okay. So if we can get your income up to 30, 40, 50, 60, now this becomes a much more reasonable expense in your life.

Okay.

What's the house worth if it were to sell?

If it were to sell, it'd probably sell for about 350. I'd probably gross about $300 after I'm paying off everything. Okay.

That's a nice shift. Was there Any other accounts involved here that you were a beneficiary of, retirement or otherwise? Bank accounts?

No. He just had debt that he had to pay off. He didn't have any money to his name, and that's why I heard it's going to get taken out of the estate for his credit card debt. That's what I worried about.

What's the situation with your personal vehicle?

Well, I was driving a car under his name, and now it's mine.

Okay. Is that the Jeep or is that the other one?

That's the Jeep.

Okay. You'll keep the Jeep. It's paid off. When you're ready, the other car, I'd probably go ahead and let that go because the longer it sits, it's just losing value. I'd probably sell that one-off sooner than later whenever you feel up to it and just clear that out and To simplify this a little bit. Now you got a house and a car that your dad left you. Both paid for. Really, really great gift. Really great.

Do you have any community? Do you have any other family or friends in the area?

Yeah, I had friends a while, a little bit away that were offering to move me in for 575 a month. I thought that was a pretty good deal because it'd be less than my monthly expenses owning a house. I just know that owning property at 21 is a pretty big deal, and I Would regret selling it if it wasn't the right decision.

Sure. But if you sold this and you put that money, let's say, in a high-yield savings account for two years to just restart your life and go live with friends and have that community, I think that's money well spent to do that. You're still going to have a giant chunk of change to go spend on a house later on when you're ready, when you're in that next phase of life. Maybe you get married. I don't want you to feel like this is a golden handcuffs. It's a huge blessing to have a paid-for house that you get to live in. But I also know there's a lot of emotions attached to it.

Yeah, I don't know your dad, but my guess is that he wasn't thinking you're going to live in this house for the rest of your life, where you have to live in this house. He left it to you as a gift, and you get to decide what you want to do with that. I like George's idea. I think that this is a really cool gift. It allows you a certain level of freedom, and you let that money grow, and you'll be able to buy the home that you want, that you're ready for when the time comes.

If you want to get connected with a Ramsey-trusted real estate agent, you can do that at ramseysolutions. Com. They can help you list this, get top dollar for it, so it'll set you up for the next house in the best way possible. But, Desiree, I'm so sorry you're going through this. That's not something any 21-year-old should have to suffer through and losing both parents. I can't imagine.

Did we help you out?

Did we answer everything Yeah, I really appreciate you guys taking my call. Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for the call. Also, we're going to give to you a year of Financial Peace University to give you financial literacy as you head into adulthood at 21. There's going to be a lot of traps, and you're going to be a target because you have no debt and you got money to spend. As you get your income up, I want to make sure that you do the right things with it to build wealth with confidence. Hang on the line. Ibu will pick up, will get you a year of Financial Peace University on us.

That's great. That includes every EveryDollars, by the way, which is the best budgeting app out there. I love EveryDollars so much, I have to say.

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That's very good. It takes it out of your head and gets it on paper, which I love. Every dollar is the best way to make the most of your money, and you do that by creating and sticking to a monthly budget. Every dollar makes it simple to plan and track spending. You track your expenses, and you can save for what matters most to you all in an easy to use app that fits into your busy lifestyle. I also love that it fits in your pocket because it's an app on your phone. You can do the desktop version, but I love the phone, and it helps you keep a pulse on your spending and make progress on your money goals. And you can do that with every dollar. So if you don't have it, get it. You can download every dollar for free in the App Store or Google Play today. That's every dollar. All right. Thanks for hanging with us. That does it for this hour, but we'll see you next hour here on The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

I'm your host, Jade Warshaw, joined by George Campbell. We're taking calls all hour long about your life and your money. If you want to speak to us, if you want our advice, you can give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225, and we'll give you our best take. Listen, you're grown, so you can take it or leave it. No one has to do what we say, George. Let's get that straight.

I rarely think they actually do, Jade, but at least I sleep well at night knowing I told them exactly what I think.

That is correct.

Brutal honesty.

We'll give you our honest opinion, and then what you do with that is up to you and- It's between you and God. It's between you and God, really. Let's go straight to the phone lines. We've got Priscilla. She's in Pensacola, Florida. What's going on, Priscilla?

Hi, Jade and George. Thanks for taking my call. You bet. Hi. I am two weeks in, rather, to this program, and I'm a little bit older. I'm 48, my husband's 55. We're trying to figure out after the We have the $1,000, we're on step two. We have a lot of assets, but obviously, we have a lot of debt, too. I'm trying to figure out how to do this. We have three homes. One is out of state. There's nine years left on the mortgage. We owe about $450 on it. It's worth about $900,000. It is fully rented. The rent covers the mortgage on it, so that's about $65,000 a year. Then we have another home that is worth about $450,000 to $500,000, and we owe $135,000 on it. We use that one as an Airbnb, and it brings in about $50,000 to $55,000 a year. We have another property, our Lakehouse, that actually doesn't have a mortgage on it, but it does because we took out $190,000 on 0% cards for 18 months.

Yikes.

Okay.

What's it worth?

It's probably worth four and a half, like $450, something like that. Okay.

Is it rented?

Is that a vacation property?

No, we're currently living in it because we renovate our homes. We got to that 190, and we're like, We've done this before. Not that this is the right way to do it, but we'll get to a certain point, and then we take out 0% cards, and then we take two years and we just pay it off. We We were like, Okay, actually, we're at 175. I'm seeing corrected. But we get to a certain point where we're like, Okay, that's too much. Let's just pay that off. Then we have three cards. Only one has a note on it, but it's like 50,000. Then we have a personal loan for 20 from a family member. Our income is without the rental properties, it's 275, a little bit more during bonuses or whatever, but just say 275.

Is that from both of you?

Yeah, plus the income that we receive from the Airbnb and the property that's out of state. What I'm trying to do is, and When we pay all of this, we have extra money. It's not like when we did that every dollar budget, we have money left over. But I never paid a bill. I've been married a long time, but I never paid anything, so I had no idea. Our last kid just got married, and I'm like, Well, maybe I should look at the bills and see what we have. I was like, Wow, I spend a lot of money. Really, I was just spending it. I never paid anything. I just swiped my card and my husband paid it. But my question is, do I just pay off the credit cards next, or should I sell the house that's out of state? It would actually pay off everything that we own and start again. But my husband's concerned because we I don't have a lot of… In our 401k investments, we have less than 100,000. He's like, That house out of state, which will be paid off in nine years, we could make $7,000 a month.

Since it's paying for itself…

That's where it is. Here's my thing.

We're going to listen to you guys.

Just listening to you, you're all over the place.

I'm exhausted, Priscilla. It was a lot. Are you not exhausted? Playing the 0% games and this is all going to work out.

And moving stuff on credit cards. You've got a whole mortgages on credit cards. Just let me understand the credit cards. You've got the 190 from house number 3 on cards. Did I hear that right?

Yeah, it's 175.

175? Yes. What else do you have?

From the renovation of the house that doesn't have a mortgage on it. Okay.

What else do you have on credit cards. That's it. That's it.

You got the personal loan for 20, car loan for 50, 175 across a bunch of cars, 135 on a rental, and 450 on the other rental.

Yes. Which house do you want to be living in? Are Of these three houses, are there any that you're like, This is the house that we're retiring in, or is the goal to ultimately buy someplace else and live there?

Yes, that's it. Where we live, we're on a lake right now, but we'd rather be on the ocean. Our ultimate plan was just to finish this, rent it, and then move to another property.

What would it look like if… The out-of-state one, I'd love to get rid of the out-of-state one, but if eventually you guys are going to… You're going to stay in Florida, you're just going to a different location in Florida?

Yeah, probably in the same general area, just on the ocean as opposed to on a lake. The only other thing about that other house that's out-of-state is that the state is that the state that it's in Because we don't live there, charges, I think it's like 6% sales tax as a penalty for living out of state and owning a property and selling them that state. Well, if I'm you, I'm still getting rid of this out-of-state property.

We never recommend out-of-state rentals because of the hassle factor. You don't have your eyes on them, and you wouldn't choose this place in Florida where you are now. You're not going to go, Hey, what if we bought this rental way over here in this part of the country?

And you need the money. I mean, what are you going to get net out of that?

I just did the math here. You guys would knock out both rentals, the car loan and the personal loan and the credit cards. You'd knock out everything and have money left over.

Yeah, I know. That's what I was trying to say, but my husband is just, I don't know.

Here's what he's not thinking about. Now you You have these cash flowing properties, right? You have the cash flowing property that's worth $450, the Airbnb. You have $55 a year coming in from that. Is that after you pay the mortgage? Because would it increase if we got rid of the mortgage on that?

Yeah, but not by a lot because $135. The interest rate is so low. It's only $500 a month, so it's not really anything to speak of.

But I mean, it does give you- Okay, let's say it went up to $60. Then the Lakehouse you're now going to rent out, right? That's paid off. Yeah, I would rent that. That's going to cash flow. You have no debt payments to make, and you're making over 300,000. I think we can pick up a nice little nest egg fairly quickly if we didn't have debt in our life. Agree? I agree. Imagine being able to put away 50% of your income into investments.

That's what you'll be able to do.

That would be our next step. If we sold that house, you would just put 50% away.

Is that what you're saying? I'm saying you could. With your budget and your income, could you live off 150 and put another 150 into investments? I think the answer is yes. You could to max out your retirement accounts, put money in a brokerage. Heck, you might be able to pay cash for more real estate later if you so choose. I'm just saying you're going to have way more options. You said you're old. You're 48. You might have another 50 years in the can here, Priscilla. You got lots of time to build wealth with this income, and I want you to put it to good use instead of continuing to play games with debt. And that's going to be hard. Your husband needs to watch this call. I don't know that we can convince him, but this has to be a unified decision.

100 %. Yeah, I think he's got to understand how you're feeling about this because, again, it's not always just about the numbers. I mean, George laid out a really great numbers plan, but when you called in, it was exhausting. It was a lot going on, and you don't want to have that stress and that hassle, especially into your retirement year. So this is going to simplify your life and find you the money you need to get debt-free.

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You're listening to The Ramsey I'm Jade Warshall, your host. Next to me is George Campbell, your other host. We're taking your calls all afternoon long. So that means you can give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. Call in, and we'll do our best to help you out with your situation. Remember, let it be about life and money, career. You can throw some family stuff in there, but don't- That helps. Don't go too far in the weeds. All right, let's go to the phone lines. We've got Tiffany in Denver, Colorado. What's going on, Tiffany?

Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I started the total money makeover about four months ago. About a year and a half ago, I had 70,000 in debt. I bring in about $120,000 a year, and I had approximately $20,000 in savings. I wasn't aggressively trying to pay down the debt. I was just paying what was due. My aging dog, who I've had for a very long time, fell ill, and I spent more than that $20,000 that I had saved on his care. Since then, really grateful. He's been in quality health, but he is aging, and he's aged out of being eligible for pet insurance. My question to you is, over the last four months, I've managed to tackle about 12,000 of this debt I took on a part-time job and a roommate and really just been very aggressively trying to pay down this debt. But as part of the total money makeover, I reduced my savings to about $1,000. My concern is Some of these medical expenses for my dog are going to be upcoming, and they're going to be big. How big? We're talking probably over the course of the next couple of years, probably $10,000 to $12,000 to get him the treatment that he needs.

I know.

How old's the dog?

He's 11. He's 11. But he's got good life in him.

What's the breed?

I promise you, I'm not trying to… He's a great Dane.

Oh, wow. Listen, I get it. I have a Rottweiler. He's 12 He's eight years old, and they don't usually live that long, so I totally get it. Okay, great Dane. Wow. He's doing good.

He is. I'm very, very blessed, but I want to continue to be a good steward of this pet, and I know that that's going to be costly. So I'm curious what your advice is. Do I scale back the bigger with which I'm paying down this debt? I'm really hesitant to reengage with those lines of credit in order Did he pay for his care?

No, we're not doing that. Here's the thing. Let me just get a handle on the numbers because some of it was in the past and some of it's in the future. You cleared out all the money you had saved. You're down to 1K, and you now have 70,000. Is that where you're at in debt?

I started at 70, and that's including all of my student loans, car credit cards, and some of the debt that was incurred on his initial treatment. Now, I think I'm at 52 or 53.

52 or 53. Can you tell me how much is on the credit card?

It's spread across various credit cards. I think there's approximately five and a half on one card. There's a Care credit line, which I think I have three on, and then there's a separate revolving credit that has, I think, two on it.

How much do you owe on your car?

Eighteen.

Eighteen on What's the student loan?

The remainder is the student loan.

What's the car worth?

Probably approximately 18. I've been impressed with the value that it's held.

Listen, we can attack this in a couple of different ways. As I mentioned before, our advice is our advice. You can do what you want to do on this. If you choose to put 10, or 12, or $15,000 aside to take care of this pet, that's your prerogative, it's really going to set you back time-wise. Now, you've got a nice income, 120,000. You really get to decide how extreme you're going to go on this. If you say, You know what? This pet means everything to me. I'm forfeiting the 15,000 for the pet's care, then that's just more. I'd try to make that up in side hustling. I'd try to make that up in any way possible. Sacrifice and lifestyle. Sacrifice everything. If you're going to do that.

The way I would look at this is I want to be debt free as soon as possible, so I'm able to cash flow all of the upcoming pet expenses. So let's say you have 52 left, you make 120. What if we could tackle this debt in a year or less? So in one year from now, you're debt free and you're able to cash flow all the expenses. Until then, I would create a sinking fund if this is a priority for you and say, All right, I'm going to put 500 bucks away every month for this dog. That will slow down my debt payoff by 500 bucks a month. And you just have to eat that and go, All right, I'm willing to make... It's going to take a little longer. Or like Jade said, what if we could find a way to make an extra 500 that now goes toward the sinking fund so we don't slow down our debt snowball? That would excite me more about this process. But the thing is, we are not going into debt ever again to cover a medical expense for the dog, or you for that matter. Okay.

That makes total sense. Just to be clear, when I started the money makeover, I did take on a part-time job and a roommate. That is part of that 120. I make an extra $2,500 a month. I think a sinking fund sounds like a good idea in the short term.

Had you projected your debt-free payoff?

June of '25, if I keep paying at the rate that I am. I keep my living expenses as low as I possibly can.

You're on track to do it a year from now. This 10,000 to 15,000. Now, I do think, I might get canceled for this, but I do think that you should set some boundary.

Don't tell her to sell the dog, Jake. No, I'm just saying- I've tried that one before.

Set some boundary or limit and say, Okay, what more am I willing to invest into this? Because these things can go crazy.

It can be unlimited. People have spent $30, $40, $1,000 to keep their animal alive. At some point, people have different feelings about this. Dave will go, Well, it's sad, but there's another dog out there. Dave loves animals. Let me tell you that. He's not an animal hater. There Maybe no amount of money I would not be willing to spend to keep my two French Bulldogs alive, Tiffany.

And see, I have a limit. I get it. I love my dog. I've had Bootsy since he was five weeks old, but I do have a limit on what I would spend, especially at his age. I think going into it, it's good to have that so that if you do hit that barrier, it's like, okay, there's a little bit of... I mean, there's guardrails. Everybody needs guardrails. I think it's worth it to think through that. I hope it never comes to that, but that's what I would do if I were in your shoes.

There's also There's also that spot where you go, All right, this animal has had its best of its life, and I have to do what's right for the animal. That might mean letting the animal continue on with its poor health. Eventually, it goes, and it's sad. But at some point, it's selfish to keep an animal alive for our benefit when it's not doing well and it has a miserable quality of life. Now, that's not this situation.

Although a great day. Did she say he was 11?

Eleven.

He's getting old. He's gray.

I found the The smaller French Bulldogs don't have a super long life, but the small dogs can just keep going.

Oh, man. Those guys, they hang in there for life.

But the bigger the dog, it's harder to sustain life with those big bones.

My Rottweiler is, what is he? Is it He's 12 or 13, and he's showed no signs of slowing down. Although I'm thinking that his left eye is starting to cloud up a little bit. He's not seeing his treats as well, and so he's getting old.

Listen, I took my French Bulldog to the vet and they did X-rays and everything. They were like, Oh, yeah, she's got a fused spinal bone. She's got the inverted tail. She's got hip dysplasia. Why? And I went, How did this all happen? She was like, Oh, she was born like this. And I was like, Oh, okay. French Bulldogs, they're just born broken. And that's Why they're so expensive, Jade?

It's just- My dog's eyes don't make tears anymore.

That's how old he is. Just cries on the inside?

He has to have drops in his eyes. And okay, you guys can sound off on this. We went to the vet two years ago for his or maybe it was a year and a half. They said, He's old. His eyes don't make tears anymore, so you have to have these drops for the rest of his life. I'm like, Okay, that's great. But every six months, they want us to bring him back in so they can rewrite the prescription, but he has to pay for a visit. I'm like, You already said this is going to be it for the rest of his life. That's a scam. That's messed up. I don't like when they do that. I'll just tell you right now, Well, what do you feel about the pet insurance, George?

Would you do it? I rarely find that it's worth it, but it's peace of mind for some people, especially if you have a higher risk dog. So I'm not mad at people for it, but we would tell you, Hey, get a sinking fund and put away that same amount of money. You'll usually end off better off financially. That's what I would do. But most of them are overpriced for what you get.

Well, don't get caught up. That's the moral of the story. Don't get caught up and don't go into debt for these pets. This is The Ramsey Show. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. Live from the debt-free stage, we have Will and Katie from Greenville, South Carolina. What's going on, guys? Good. Hey, how's it going? We're doing pretty good. So what brings you in here?

We are debt-free.

Awesome. Tell us. A good reason. Tell us how much you paid off.

Well, I paid off 102,000. I did it separate, and Will did it separate, and we just got married a month ago. So we made a promise to each other to to start our marriage debt-free. This is a dual debt-free scream. You guys did this individually, became debt-free, and then got married. Correct.

Okay, so yours was 102, Katie. Will, what was yours again? I was right at 45,000. 45,000. Okay, so what debt was it?

Mine was all student loans.

I knew it. Will, what was yours?

Same thing, student loans, and I had a car payment for a little while.

Wow. How long did this take? Katie, we'll start with you. How long did yours take? Thirty Thirty months? Will, what about you?

It was 18 months. Was this a competition? Did you guys start at the same time? Let's see who gets there first. Obviously, Katie had the bigger number. I found the Ramsey and the Baby Steps, the Ramsey Show, and the Baby Steps first, and we were dating, and I brought it to his attention at dinner one time.

How long have you been dating? Five years. Oh, wow. Okay, so this was just... It wasn't in the beginning? No.

We had Not at all.

Not at all.

I've been dating for probably a year or two. I've, again, found the baby steps, and I was like, I can do this. I've always been very budgeted and had an Excel spreadsheet, but this really made me fine-tune it. I was like, I can really get through my student loans. I brought it to the table and I was like, We really shouldn't get through our debt independent. Because we started, and after two years, we're like, Okay, we're going to make this a future thing, and let's independently pay off our debt and start marriage. Was it a goal to have all your debt paid off before the wedding? Yes. Was it like a race to the finish here? How close was it? We did it. I paid off mine first, and then he was a little Dave-ish, and there were a lot of arguments about really kicking his bud in gear. It was some debates. It was some debates. It was spirited conversation.

But he made me a promise.

It was the start of 2023, and he was like, By the end of the year, I promise you I will have my debt paid off. And he kept that I think it was the 23rd of December. Wow. Sweet. Just in the nick of time, you swung in there.

Exactly, yeah. Will, how do you feel when she brings us up at dinner? You're like, Listen, I'm trying to have my steak, and here you are. How did that feel?

I mean, it was interesting. I was new to the whole thing, but it made sense once we got into it, and then you start thinking about it in the future. It's like, Okay, a lot of problems you hear in marriage derived from the finances, right? That's right. The spender, the saver, clashing heads. I didn't want that stress. I wanted to go into this on the same page. That way, the worst thing we argue about, I forgot to take out recyclables. I love that.

That's a smart way of thinking. You don't want these big problems. If you can tackle the big things, yeah, let it be about taking out the garbage. I love that.

What was the range of income during this time for each of you?

Mine was 63 to 87.

I started right around 50, ended up at Nice. Awesome. What do you guys do for a living? I'm an architect, commercial architect. Cool. I work inside sales at a distributor, and then I work part-time at FedEx, package handler. Nice. It's awesome.

He picked up that job to pay off debt, and I also talked him into selling his car.

That's impressive. He's put a lot on the line.

Katie, you're a persuasive woman.

You should be in the sales role. You're crushing at this.

What was the hardest part? I mean, for each of you, it had to have been a little bit different. I mean, obviously, Katie, you had more debt, but you were earning a little bit more. Will, you had a little bit less. Tell us, what was that dichotomy like?

I struggled early on because I picked it up first. He was out there spending, spending, spending. I'm like, I'm following this plan, man. If you're going to be in my future, you better get on board. Yes. I mean, he finally realized that. He was like, I was I'm going to lose you if I didn't get on board. I was like, Yep, you were.

Exactly.

Wow. That was a big fear for me. Just my background, we didn't really have much growing up. I finally get a job. I'm finally starting to see some income. It's like, Hey, by the way, we should use all of your money to pay off your debt.

I'm like, Oh, really? It makes you feel some type of way. Exactly.

Now you enter your marriage completely debt-free, which changes everything. Exactly. Sky's the limit. We just had our first joint budget meeting, which is very different for us because we've been so separate. With. That was easy and fun, and where's our money going to go?

I love that.

We got to pick that out. Well, some couples' first budget meeting is like, Oh, shoot. We got to pay off your 100,000 in student loans? There's some resentment, there's some frustration, there's some anger, some sadness. I love that you guys entered this season with just joy and freedom. That's beautiful. You have the honeymoon already? Yes. Where did you guys go? We went to St. Lucia. Oh, nice. Oh, beautiful. Paid in cash, I have to hope. Exactly. Yeah, that's one of the beauties of this is you can do trips like that, and you don't have to worry about the repercussions when you come back. No credit card payments to make after this trip. Exactly. Look at the photos. It's beautiful. They had their fancy drinks.

How did you guys play in the cost of the wedding? Did you have family help, or was that part of the debt payoff? How did you do that?

We cash flowed it. My parents paid for half of it. They were going to put in all of it, but I was like, No, we're grown up. We can do half of it.

Come on now. We cash flowed it.

We cash flowed the honeymoon.

He cash flowed my engagement ring.

Everything has been cash flowed. Cash flowed a new HVAC system. Once I got on board the steps, it was just all in.

That's something. What do you say to the folks who are in your shoes? Maybe they're newlyweds, they haven't started on their debt yet. Maybe they're engaged and they're starting to have those preliminary money conversations. What would you tell them?

For me, Bogo Groceries. You got to get the deals. Then take advantage of the free tools that are out there. You guys have a great app that is completely free. What's it called? It's the Every Dollar. Every Dollar budget an app. The tools are free. Hustle, on the other hand, it's sold separate. You got to put the work in.

Hustle sold separately. This guy.

I love it. Just don't let other people get in your head. People will tell you all day their financial advice. That's fine. If it works for them, it works for them. Do what's going to work for you in your future. Once you get to this point, it's so magical. I can't explain it to you. I just hope that you can experience it one day, too. See for yourself. You can. I love that. That's beautiful. Oh, my goodness. What an exciting time, guys.

What's next for you guys?

We are going to get a new car.

Well, a new car to us. We talked the other night that we're going to... His car is really old. So we're going to save up for a couple of months and in the fall, purchase a used, new to us car with cash, of course.

What's cool- Buying cars in cash.

And you guys now have the muscle built of going, We how to save up in cash flow things. Vacations, HVACs, cars. Nothing scares you once you've done the hard work of paying off six figures in debt. Right. And we do have a mortgage, so I got into a mortgage on my own prior to the baby steps. But now it's our mortgage, and we've got a goal of December 2025. No way. So we are back in because.

Wow. You all are going intense on the mortgage, too. This is amazing.

I'd like to get it done. That's also on our horizon.

Wow. Well, we're proud of you guys. We're going to make sure you have two Every Dollar gift cards since Every Dollar worked so well for you. We've got two that you can share with the people in your life, hopefully inspire them to get down the right track as well. But let's get ready to set up that scream. So we've got Will and Katie from Greenville, South Carolina paying off separately before marriage, $102,045, in 18-30 months, making $55,000-$87,000. You guys are rock stars. Let's count it down.

Three, two, one. We're down free.

Let's go. I love it. Man, I'm proud of them. He said the hustle was sold separately.

Hustle sold separately. That's going to be living in my head rent-free for a while.

I mean, that's real. We'll give you the plan, but the hustle- Here's the other life hack, threaten your fiancé into debt freedom.

That's a strategy. It worked for Katie, I'm just saying.

She was like, If you don't do this, this deal is off.

She's like, You want to get with this? You're going to have to get rid of that debt first, all right?

I love it. I love that they did it the right way. They were like, Listen, you do yours, I'll do We'll come together, we'll cash flow this wedding, and then we'll go to St. Lucia to celebrate. Wonderful stuff. It doesn't get any better than this. Wow. This is the Ramsey Show.

Hey, folks, the Total Money Makeover 20th Anniversary Edition is now here. I believe the success of this book is all about the hero stories. People who felt overwhelmed and stuck until they found the least complicated money book they ever read and learned how to work the plan and to actually build wealth. Go to ramsey solutions. Com/store to get the Total Money Makeover 20th anniversary edition and become one of the new Total Money Makeover heroes.

You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. This is George Camel. We're taking your calls. So give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225, and we'll get you on the board. Hey, we've got a great event that's coming up soon. It's called Dave Ramsey's Investing Investing Essentials, of which, George, you're a big part of this.

I am stoked for this event. We are preparing. There's so much in the weeds in the best way possible. I'm like, Dave, you've never shared this stuff publicly. He's like, No, this has been the recesses of my brain for 20 years. It's going to be very interesting as we deep dive on, of course, the investing 101, the basics, but very quickly getting into some more nuanced pieces. How do you choose mutual funds? What's the formula that you use to buy real estate property? He's We're going to do some deep dives on that. I'll be covering a lot of the investment traps. We're taking questions live, pre-submitted questions from the audience, and we've already got thousands signed up for this, so it's going to be a great two nights.

I've been asking some questions from some of the folks who have helped put this together, and it sounds like the first night is mostly investing, like stock market investing, and night two is the real estate stuff.

Focused on real estate, yeah.

I love this. Okay, so at the event, Dave is going to go into deep diving into investing. For the first time ever, he's sharing his personal playbook investing, including exactly how he buys real estate. This is a two-night virtual event. Again, it's happening May '21 through May '22. And because it's online, you can watch it in your Snuggie. That's what I'm talking about. If anybody still has one.

And here's the best part. If you can't make the exact time on those days, you have 48 hours after the event to catch the replay. And if you do VIP, I think you have 14 days. And so this is a great option for those that are going, Hey, I can't make it. Still sign up because this information is well worth your time. It It's a... Tickets are on $1.99. You can bring your spouse on board. You don't have to pay for an extra ticket for them. $1.99, you'll have access to the stream.

I love that. Investing is something that you guys have asked us about. You've said, Hey, we want to go deeper into this. We want to know more about it. This event is for you. We're starting with the basics, okay? But then we're diving into the specifics. Like George said, things like mutual funds, real estate. You'll learn specifically how to maximize your 401k and your mutual funds as it's related. You'll learn Dave's personal strategy, again, for his investing and which investing trends to follow and which ones to avoid. So again, tickets there are $1.99. If you do, invite me to your house. I want to watch it.

I will be taking notes, and I'll be standing there the whole time. Okay, what was that, Dave? One more time?

I'll watch the replay. I know, right? Visit ramseysolutions. Com/events to get your tickets today. Love that. I can't wait for that. That is so, so valuable. All right, let's go to Birmingham. Let's see, Effingham, Illinois, and go to Missy. What's going on, Missy?

Hey, Guys, I'm so happy to talk to you.

You as well. How can we help?

Okay, so I want educated today. I want to know about my whole life insurance. I know that Dave doesn't like it, so I want to just cash it out and put that money onto our debt and get out of debt a few months faster. But Dave also says, Don't do things that you don't understand. I want to understand these policies. I just don't understand on what my husband would get if I passed away. I know Dave says some of it, the insurance company is just going to keep.

That's right. With most policies, yes, the way it's set up.

My beneficiary.

First off, I would say I love that you're digging into this. I love that you're getting the sense that whole life isn't the way to go. However, I wouldn't just up and cancel it, cash out, get your cash value and run. We want to make sure that you're covered, that you have the right life insurance in place. We to bridge that gap and get one in place before you cancel the other one. If you're thinking about term life, that's what we would suggest. It's a whole heck of a lot cheaper, and you get the coverage for the term that you choose 15 or 20 years. That frees up a lot of money that you could do your own investing with as opposed to a whole life situation.

That's the part of my question, though, because I have two policies, two whole life policies, and I only pay $207 a year on one, $39 a year on the other one. They're not breaking me by any means.

But what are these policies worth?

One of them, the benefit amount is $20,000. The other benefit is It's 5,400.

See, that's the difference.

That's why you're not paying much. You ain't got no insurance.

We want your insurance coverage. The whole purpose of it, let's go back, the whole purpose of it is to cover your income for the people who depend on it. If you were to pass away, you have a level of income, your spouse is dependent on that and vice versa. We would usually say 10-12 times what you earn in a year is what you're looking for. That's the coverage amount. Maybe if you're a stay-at-home mom, George, what is it? 3-4 times or 4-5 times?

We generally say at least a $500,000 policy, assuming that a stay-at-home spouse, it would cost at least 50 grand just to cover some of the duties. That's right. Like, childcare and some of the other things involved.

That's why this is so cheap.

I guess that's where me and my husband, we haven't talked fully about how much life insurance I should have on me. He has a ton. If something happens to him, I'm set all as well. I guess we feel like I don't need as much as he has on himself. If I were to pass away, he would be okay with his income fully.

Well, again, that rule of thumb, the rule of thumb to tell him is 10 to 12 times your income and 10 to 12 times his income. That's what we're looking at.

Then at least half a million if it's a stay-at-home spouse.

So that's the rule of thumb. Here's the crux of this entire argument. You said it before, in these whole life packages, part of the money that you're paying is going to your premium, and part of it is investing into your cash value. When you die, if something happens and you pass away, you don't get to keep the cash value. That's what we always say. The insurance company, that's the part that they keep. We always say, Well, that's not fair. If you've I've been investing into this for all this time, shouldn't you get to keep it? And you don't. So that's thing one. And thing two is, if you really think about it, a lot of those whole life situations, the rate of return is really, really bad, like 2 to 4% bad. It's really bad. So the idea is, Hey, you could get a term life plan and pay- At a fraction of the cost. At a fraction of the cost. And with all that extra money, you could invest into good growth stock mutual funds and get a rate of return that's 8% to 10%. It's invested in what you wanted in. You've got a lot more choice in the matter.

That's why we say that. Plus, then there's the idea that if you work the baby steps and you keep on going, at some point you're going to be self-insured and you're not even going to need a policy like this unless you like one.

You don't need insurance for your whole life. You need it until you're self-insured. And that's the problem, is you pay this thing forever and it's so expensive. Here's the deal. If I told you, Hey, buy my auto insurance, but I'm make you pay an extra few hundred bucks, and you can invest through your auto insurance. You'd be like, You're an idiot. I'm not buying that. And yet we do it with life insurance every day. And so that's one more reason to go, Don't mix your insurance with your investing. Let your insurance do what it's supposed to do.

So let's say just hypothetically, I dropped dead tomorrow. Is the benefit amount or the death benefit, is my husband actually going to get that?

Or- They would write him a check for the benefit.

He'd get the death benefit. He said it's $20,000, and one was $5,400, so he'd get $25,400.

Okay. But he may not get the cash value. Most policies are set up to where you don't get the cash value if you die. You only get the benefit amount, the face value of the policy.

Let's pretend you did get the death benefit. Let's pretend you did get the cash value.

How much cash is in this thing?

It's not much of anything. One of them, one cash value is 1,700, the other cash value is 972,000.

I'll buy some flowers for the funeral I guess, with that money.

I'm like, You could take that money, like I said, and invest at a far better... I mean, like I said, many of them are 2-4%. You could do better in a high-yield savings account is my point.

Here's the spark notes. Get term life in place. Make sure the policy is effective and running, then cancel the whole life. There's going to be surrender, whatever, fees, and you're going to eat crow on it. But you know what? You're going to set yourself up for wealth building the future the right way. I'm going to send you a copy of my book, Breaking Free from Broke. I want you to read the investing traps chapter with your husband because I cover permanent life in detail, explaining with the numbers and covering the different types. I think it will give you some peace that you guys are doing the right thing.

Okay, great. That's awesome. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. You're welcome. You hang on the line and Austin will make sure you get a copy of Breaking Free from Broke.

What a great call. We get that all the time. I think there's a lot of confusion around that because people, for some reason, like to use their insurance as investing tools.

It's peddled so hard because people make so much money by selling it. There's a reason Gerber has got life for the babies on there, and you think you're being a good parent. Your baby doesn't have income. There's nothing to replace your people.

That's a very, very good point.

Although my baby hopefully will with some modeling gigs.

Your baby is very cute. Baby Mia is... Too precious. Yeah, she's front cover worthy. Definitely. All right, that does it for this hour of the show. Thanks for hanging out with George and I. We'll see you next hour on The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I am your host, Jade Warshaw, joined by George Camel.

Good to be here with you, George. It's so great. You know what, Jade? This is a special day. As we get started this hour, special shout out to producer James Childs, 13 years at Ramsey today. Congratulations, James. The haters doubted. None of us thought you'd still be here, and you've done Excellence in the Ordinary for 13 years now. And another shout out to associate producer Austin Selby, who is last day at Ramsey's tomorrow. He's moving away from us, and he's served us with excellence now for almost three years and moved on to producing the Entree Leadership podcast with Dave, and he will be sorely, sorely missed. So thank you, Austin, and Congratulations, James. A happy and sad day around here. That's great.

I feel like we should be singing like Boys to Men, Into the Road. I won't do that.

Can I be honest? I do that when any team member leaves, I play that song and follow them out the door. Although we've come.

That's it. That's all you get. That's good. Let's to a call. These are very important announcements that we do have to make.

But I got to celebrate the team behind the show. Of course. They make it happen. Because I just saw we were the number 16 show in the nation. That's legit. It's not because of us, Jade.

Definitely not.

It's because of the amazing team that pulls We have a show off every day.

Otherwise, we just... Listen, without them, we're just nerds that think a lot and talk to ourselves in the car. All right, let's go to the phone lines where we've got Martin in Charlotte, North Carolina. What's going on, Martin?

Hey, everyone. My My question is, I have an RV that is my primary residence, and I was wondering if I should treat that loan as bad debt or if it's a house loan as I'm working on the snowball effect. Here's the thing. It's on wheels, and therefore, it's a depreciating asset. And therefore, we would put it in the boat or in the RV of bad debt. Because that thing is going down in value every day you live in it, unlike a traditional home, which would go up in value over time. Okay. So what's your long-term game plan? The long-term game plan was to pay down debt, obviously, then purchase a plot of land and build a house. Okay. How much debt do you have left outside of the RV?

Outside the RV? Under 30,000.

Okay. What's left on the RV?

I think roughly 40,000.

Okay. What's it worth? What's it worth?

It's worth about 37, give or take.

You've made my We're already underwater on this thing, and so hanging on to it just means you're still going to owe 40 or 39, and that thing's going to be worth $36, $35, $34, $34, $35, $34. You see where this is going?

Yes, sir. How quickly are you going to be out of debt, the 30K?

Roughly in eight months.

In eight months. The plan is in eight months, we're debt-free. We're thinking of a way to sell this RV and figuring out what it takes to get in another rental that's not going on and going down in value so that you can start saving up. Is that what thinking?

Yeah, either that or save an emergency fund and then go that route because the rental is going to be more expensive.

How quickly can you get your emergency fund?

I already have the first up to $1,000. It's the 36 months.

Three to six months? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it would roughly be four months, four and a half months for that.

Okay. Does that get you three or does that get you six?

That gets me six, ma'am.

Okay. I'm wondering if you go three and then start saving up to get out this RV because you're upside down, and so I'm trying to mitigate the loss.

We want to get rid of it as quickly as possible. Okay. I'm even wondering, could you sell the RV? I know you're underwater by a few grand, so you save up the difference, sell the RV and just go rent and get a roommate.

That is a possibility.

What's your RV payment?

Nothing's off the table. It's $400.

Okay. I'm just wondering your area, could you get a roommate and you split the cost of rent and you're paying five $600 in rent, but you've got this debt out of your life, now we can focus on the $30. It's not going to slow you down by all that much.

Yeah, that's definitely a possibility. I just have to look around, but nothing's off the table.

I'd probably go that route simply because this thing is dropping like a rock. If we're talking about a year and a half from now being ready to rent after the debt is cleared, after the 3-6 months, after you save up first and last month's rent, I feel like a year from now, you could look up and be $5,000 upside down or more.

Yes, ma'am. That's fair. Because for the next eight months, you'd be making minimum payments on the RV while throwing the rest at your other debts. Now, your balance hasn't moved all that much, but that interest is still climbing while your car is depreciating. You have a few things happening all at once, converging, that make this a bad plan.

Okay.

I hope that helps. Get out of this thing, rent for a while. That's what I would do if I was in your shoes. But yeah, the RV life, it seems like a wise move, but long term, it's not going to help you out because that thing is going down in value so quickly.

It's definitely not the move. But thank you for the call. We got Nate, who's in Dallas, Texas. Let's see what Nate's talking about. What's up, Nate? Hey, how are you? Doing good. How can we help?

Yes. I was just gone. I'm 21, and I haven't been back to school yet, and I plan on going back this fall.

I've been working full-time, and I'm in a job that I really enjoy and that I like, and that there's some pretty good potential. My girlfriend just recently decided that she's going to move and transfer to Alabama, which is about nine hours away from where we are.

I'm just thinking about moving with her or finishing up this coming year and then transferring.

Are you guys getting married?

Well, the plan was within the next two years, yes.

How long you've been dating?

Two years.

Okay.

Are you engaged? Are you looking to get engaged in the next few months?

Yes.

Okay. Can I run this- That was the plan.

Then now, if she moves that far away- Why is she moving? I'm not able to follow her.

I don't really… For college.

For college? Okay. Got it. She still has a few years left, and she's going to finish… Where at in Alabama? University of Alabama. Okay. Would you be able to find a job in that area?

Ideally, yes.

What work do you do?

I work at a small engineering firm, and we pretty much just do bridge inspection on the side that I work on.

You said earlier in the conversation, you were like, I'm 21. I haven't had a chance to go back to school yet. You said that you were working full-time. You had a job you really liked. Can you talk a little bit about that? Were you in school and did you stop? Why did you stop, and what are you going to go back and do? Yeah.

I got a semester of hours under my belt right now, and I've just been working since high school for about two years or two and a half years.

I just decided that I need to go back sooner than later. I'm starting up this fall.

I'm already registered and everything.

Are you paying cash?

I'm going for accounting. Yes, ma'am. Okay.

So you're going for accounting.

So you're wanting to switch fields entirely?

Well, Yes. I was never really for engineering. It was just the job I landed.

Okay.

But you know you want to do the accounting deal? Yes. And you can pay cash semester by semester. Have you looked into what that's going to look like in Alabama? Since for you, that's going to be an out-of-state school.

Exactly.

I'm going to a community college this fall, and I've looked at the one in Alabama, and it's almost double, which that's only 6,000.

Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I want you to think clearly about this because I don't want... Even if she's going into debt for school, I don't want you going into debt for school. You guys might have a long-distance relationship for a while. Here's the thing. She decided to go to Alabama. That doesn't mean you have to follow her. You might have to ride this one out and see where it ends up in the next couple of years. But I don't want you going into debt, and I certainly don't want you sacrificing to chase a girl who's not your wife. This is The Ramsey Show.

Listen up. Trying to reach your money goals without a rock solid budget is like trying to climb Mount Everest in ice skates. It isn't going to work. That's why we built the EveryDollar app to help you win with money. It's the simplest, most straightforward way to track your spending and give every dollar a job. That way, you can stop letting your money push you around and start reaching those money goals. Download every dollar for free on the App Store or Google You're listening to The Ramsey Show.

I'm your host, Jade Warshaw. I'm joined by George Campbell, author of Breaking Free from Broke. If you don't have a copy, make sure you pick up a copy. It'll change your life. It's this generation's total money makeover. And speaking of that, 20th anniversary. That's what I'm talking about. Make sure you get one.

That's app timing for Dave to go, You know what? Time to update this book. I'm not going to let George compete with me.

George was taking some of the... He was taking some of the smoke. That's all right. There's enough room to go around.

It's an honor to take smoke from Dave Ramsey. There you go.

All right, let's get into this question of the day, George. The Ramsey Show question of the day comes from Lauren in Indiana.

Here's what she had to say. After years of living paycheck to paycheck, I'm finally getting my life together, have paid off all my debt, and I'm in baby step three. But now I have a debilitating problem with anxiety around spending money. Aside from regular spending on groceries, gas, and medications, I am terrified of the idea of spending money on other things I need. For example, I need to buy a new car and repair the one I have in order to sell it, and I'm scared of spending money on rent once I'm able to save enough to get my own place. I always thought I would have peace once I no longer had debt, but this anxiety is holding me back. How do I get used to the idea of spending money now that I have that cushion that I've worked so hard for? This is a common problem. So number one, Lauren, you're not alone in this. This is like a new muscle you're flexing because for so long you've been in sacrifice mode. And what we say is once you get out Out of Baby Step 3, you move from intensity to intentionality. So you're on the cusp of that.

I do think once you have that emergency fund, it changes your anxiety around money because you're still not at safety quite yet until you get through baby step three.

I agree. I also think there's, depending on what your background is, she doesn't tell us much of her background. But if you've experienced the things that go along with being broke, I can think about times coming home and the water has been cut off and you're like, shoot, the water's cut off, or you come home and the electricity has been cut off and you're like, shoot, the electricity. Those little things I talk about in my book, the feeling of being at the register and you go to slide your card and you think it's going to be declined. You don't know, is it going to be declined? Is it going to go through? All of those things that make your heart beat fast and make your armpit sweat, that all still lives inside of you. Whether it's debt collector's call on your phone, to this day, I keep my phone face down. Nobody's calling me, but I feel that it's in my body and it doesn't go away. My guess is that there's probably something... She literally says, I'm terrified at the idea of spending money, and probably there's something inside of you that is fearful of one wrong move putting you back to where you were.

It's a scarcity mindset. And what we have to move toward is an abundance mindset. And this is not heebie-jeebie power of positive thinking. This is getting a financial foundation under you, sticking to the budget to where you know, I've got the money to make the car repair, so I don't need to freak out. I'm paying cash for this used car, so I don't need to freak out. I've worked hard for it. I'm going to enjoy the money. And that takes time, truthfully. It may take months for you to finally get into that rhythm where, I bought this thing. It's going to hurt a little bit emotionally, but I don't have debt hanging on the back of it.

And honestly, for me, a thing that helps a lot is when you do have your every dollar budget and you can look at it and say, I budgeted for this. The money is here. And going and looking, honestly, looking and saying, Okay, the car thing that you talked about, do you have a sinking fund that you're putting away for those repairs? And just putting your eyeballs on it and going, Okay, I'm being a responsible person. And when you get ready to spend that money, just working with your brain and just telling yourself, Hey, I'm a responsible person. I'm not in debt anymore. I'm safe. Life is good. I can't tell you, George, to this day, your girl, I talk to myself is all I'm telling you.

You know what this reminds me of whenever I go to the airport, I always go straight to my gate to make sure it exists. You all ever do that?

My husband drives me crazy with that.

You just walk over. It and then you turn around and go get some food. That's what it feels like with money for a while. I'm like, I'm going to check the bank account just to make sure the emergency phone is still there. Okay, it's still there. I can go to bed now. It hasn't moved. No one took it. And that takes a while to go. There's no monster under the bed. No one's coming for me. I'm safe.

I love to hear in the comments. I'd love for people to comment the thing that once they became debt free, it was like, this is the thing I struggled with. Some people still pay their electric bill for the whole year just in case. Wow. Those just in case things that you do. I know I've heard Dave talk about the Sharon Wants It category. Swi. Swi. It's just there because it gives her a sense of security. I think we all have those things that if you build it into your normal life and into your budget, it will help out with that anxiety that you feel. It's like, okay, some people, we recommend three to six months of expenses. Some people have seven or eight, and I'm not faulting them for that because there's something that's making them do that. It's like, listen, you do you. There is a personal part of personal finance, and I think those sorts of thoughts will help her.

The last thing I would say is force yourself to give. Force yourself to spend. That's good, George. Put that in the budget and it will release. Once you have that open hand and you're giving more, I I just talked to this happiness expert this morning, Jade, Arthur C. Brooks, some fascinating guy. He said that there is an actual science to people that give, they actually make more money. It's not this karma thing. He said, If you give a dollar, you get back 160. That's great. He said, It's because you are a problem solver, and those people tend to work harder, to be more successful, to serve others more, and that ends up causing more success. It was a fascinating principle that unlocks something, and I think that's behind the spirit of giving and even spending. Forcing yourself to have some fun money in the budget is a good thing, and you have to spend that 50 bucks. That's good. Lauren, no matter the month, I'm going to spend it. I'm going to get a little massage. I'm going to go out with friends. I'm going to go play some mini golf, go buy a book, do something that brings Give you joy, and you'll realize that spending isn't this evil thing.

That's right. We've villainized spending when you're in debt to go, Don't spend a dime. Once you're out of debt, spend. Live like no one else so that later you can live like no one else. That's good.

Don't forget that part. Have a little something that you say to yourself, like a, I don't know, something that triggers- A little mantra, affirmation. Remember on Anger Management, Guzfaba. Remember that? There it is. You need a little something that you say, not Guzfaba, but you need something that you're like, I'm safe. I worked for this. It's in the budget. Whatever that is. It, George.

That's good.

All right, let's go to the phone lines. Cole in Salt Lake City joins us next. What's up, Cole?

Hey, thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

No problem. How can we help?

About a year ago, I fell into… My parents convinced me that they wanted to buy me a car as a gift instead of just getting a beater. Okay. It was supposed to be just a gift, but I've since gotten married, and they've now come back and said, Well, you should take over this payment. We want to give this to you.

That's messed up a little bit. That's not a gift.

Yeah. I'm scrambling. I'm a full-time student, so I have limited working hours.

Is the debt in your parents' name or your name?

As of right now, it's in their name, but they're wanting to transfer over. My wife is actually international, and so she's not able to work yet until all the green card stuff goes through.

What do you make?

I make... I work part-time. I think gross. It's about 1,700 a month. We just moved into a new apartment. I was paying student housing for about $500 a month, but now it's a little over a thousand a month.

You make $1,700?

Hey, can I- I make 1,700.

Can I ask you a question? Is there something going on with you and your parents? Is this a spite thing? They didn't want you to get married, and so now you got to pay the car note? No. Is there something going on?

No. I think it's just what married people do. It's like, if I'm old enough to be married, I'm old enough to have a car payment.

Do they know that you're broke? Be a grown up.

I've explained, and we have this conversation.

But my question- If you take over this car, it's going to get repowed.

That's what, yeah.

Because what's the payment?

My question was, the payments, so I'm about, there's about $20,000 left on it. Okay. Payment's about $470 a month.

And what's it worth?

I think I'm on water. I think it's only worth about 16, 17.

Yikes.

Dude, you make 20,000 a year. This is a problem. You can't afford this car. Right. And it sounds like it's now their problem because that dad is in their name. And so if I were you, I'd say, Mom, dad, I appreciate you buying me this gift, but it's no longer a gift, and you're going to sell it, and you can do what you want. Yeah.

Just give it back to them. It's their car. They decided on the payment, and that payment is what got it upside down. You didn't decide any of this. You took a gift that they gave you. And if they don't want to give you the gift anymore, then you just give it back. And that's how this works.

And you'll need to save up and buy yourself a car, a little beater car, maybe five, six grand for now until you can upgrade that car. But this is not cool, man. And there's a lot of parties to blame here, but your parents calling us a gift and then turning it into a loan is not how this should have gone down.

Agree. This is The Ramsey Show.

It's the last call for our two-night virtual event, Dave Ramsey's Investing Essentials. It's set for May 21 and 22, and you do not want to miss this. I'll unpack my personal playbook on investing and real estate and show you how you can feel confident in your investments, too. Tickets are $1.99. Snag a VIP ticket and you'll get two sessions with a Ramsey-preferred coach. You can join from anywhere. Go to ramseysolutions. Com/events and get your ticket today.

You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. This is George Campbell. We're taking your calls for the next hour or so. Give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. Hey, let's go straight to the phone lines. We've got Sarah, who's in Dallas, Texas. What's going on, Sarah?

Hi, Jade. It's a It's a pleasure to speak with both of you today. I really appreciate you taking my call.

We're glad you're here. How can we help?

My husband and I, in January, officially became completely debt-free. We paid off the house. Nice.

Whoa, good rates.

Yeah, It felt great for about two seconds because in December of last year, he was diagnosed with breast cancer. In February of this year, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. In the last three months, we have literally, every time I turn around, it's another $5,000 to $10,000. Hey, you need to meet your deductible. We need this upfront. You'll be paid back. I feel like I'm drowning. He needs a new vehicle. He has nearly 400,000 miles on his vehicle, and it's breaking. And although we're debt-free and we have more than… I mean, I have tons of an emergency fund, I guess, relatively speaking. I feel like I'm drowning still, no matter what I do. And every time I turn around, it's several thousand dollars here or there.

What is your deductible?

Our family deductible is $10,000.

Okay. And once you hit that for the year, are you done? Is that your out-of-pocket max?

That's my out-of-pocket max.

Okay, that's good. And what's your income?

Before taxes, between $10,000 and $12,000 a month. That's before taxes? It varies. Yeah, before taxes. We're both self-employed. Oh, okay. So I have to keep some back That's right. Some of that goes to investments.

How much are you investing?

I calculated it. You're going to laugh at this, usually close to about $50,000 a year.

Okay. Is that about 40% of your income?

That's about 30% of our income.

Okay, so you've been going hard. Mm-hmm. Okay, so that could be some of the reason you're feeling it, because we'd say be at about 15%.

Now, you've got the house paid off, so you can invest more. But if you're in a season like you're in, I might dial it back to get some breathing room for a sec and then dial it back up to 30% once you're in the clear and let your time and energy and money be focused on your health right now.

Okay. Does it matter? Does our age matter? He's 60 and I'm 52.

Sixty and 52. Okay. Well, I wanted to ask you, you don't I don't have to go too far in it, but what's the nature of the diagnosis? Is it, Hey, we're going to go through radiation, and this is going to be seven months that are really tough, but we have a great prognosis at the end, or is this looking like a battle, like a long-term deal?

He had surgery, and it's breast cancer for both of us, as you said. The surgery was considered curative for him. He's just on oral medication.

Great.

I did not have a complete mastectomy me. I had only a partial mass removal, basically. We're still waiting on final results on that to find out if I have to go through chemotherapy and radiation or just radiation. Understood.

Okay, praying for just radiation. Okay, so with him, what I would do is I'd try to project some of the timelines on this. If his surgery was considered curative, what's it going to look like health care-wise for him now that he's had his surgery? It It feels like you're a little bit out of the woods as far as him having surgery, massive bills coming in for him, but we don't know yet what that means for you. But it looks like you know for sure you're going to be hitting that $10,000 out-of-pocket max. What does it look like to make sure that that money is piled up for you? And is there any part of this that you would be having to go outside of your normal insurance provision in order to receive care? Those would be the two questions and the two boxes I'd want to check right away. Okay. Just to put a little bit more information around what's going on. Because if we say, Listen, it's $10,000. Just be prepared for $10,000 a year, then that's something that you guys can put away for and start thinking about what that looks like and start working out plans with your provider in order to make that work.

Is this a high deductible health care plan? Yes, it is. Do you have an HSA attached to it then?

I do.

Okay. You may want to max that HSA out every year as a part of your wealth building strategy, as a part of your tax advantage strategy because of the triple tax savings with that HSA and the fact that you guys are probably going to use it every year. That will at least, you'll basically save your tax rate on your medical bills by putting it through the HSA and spending out of there.

Okay.

Do both of you have life insurance?

We only have it on me. Unfortunately, we married a little later than most people, and his health did not allow us to get anything that actually could be affordable for life insurance. Because I'm the primary income for the family, we got life insurance on me. It is term life insurance. Okay, good. It costs about $60 a month.

Are you guys self-insured at this point?

Aside from my life insurance, yes.

You have the house paid for. How much is the house worth?

$3.50..

Great. What's in your nest eggs combined? All the retirement accounts.

I was adding it up. I believe it's somewhere close to about $900.

Great. Okay, excellent.

That's on top of your emergency fund. How much is in there?

That was including the emergency fund. I have a money market account that has about 100 in it, and that's more than enough of an emergency fund for an entire year.

I want you to breathe easy knowing that you guys have done such an incredible job setting yourselves up for a chaotic life moment like this. While it's scary, the actual financial part, I have total faith in hoping. Rock solid. You guys have done an amazing job on that front. As long as you have this health insurance in place, nothing's going to tank you guys financially. So I wanted to sleep easier knowing that financially, you're going to get through this. Okay. I mean, you guys are baby steps millionaires. You've done a really good job on that front.

Do you guys have kids?

No, we can't have kids. We were never blessed, but that's okay. We have each other.

You do. Listen, to George's point, financially, you guys are okay. You guys are going to be in our thoughts and prayers for sure. This is a really tough season, but it's just a season, and there There's going to be some joy on the other side of this. I'm believing that for you guys.

We're going to give to you a year of every dollar premium. I hope that helps with your budgeting experience as you lay out all of your expenses and the income, and you have all the bank transactions coming in and the paycheck planning tool. I hope that gives you some peace just to look at the numbers and that becomes your safety to go, We're going to be okay. The budget said so, and that's a big help. So hang on the line. Austin will hook you up with a year of every dollar premium. Wishing the best for you guys.

Yes, definitely. That's tough. But this is why we do, and this is a huge part of why we teach what we teach, because it's not if a storm is going to come, it's when a storm is going to come. You don't know what the nature of that storm is going to be. You don't know if it's going to be with your marriage or with your health or with your children or with your job. But we do know, George, that money touches everything. It touches every part of our life. When your money is in disarray and then you face one of those storms in life, it just causes more and more chaos. It makes something just feel like you can't get through it. But when your money is on point, that's one thing that you can go, Okay, I've done that. Check that box. Now we can focus on the things that matter. And in this case, it's their health, focusing on getting well and doing what they need to see it through to the other side.

Yes. And a lot of people, Jade, they got, Well, I'll get the will done next year. I'll pay off the debt someday. But man, life is short. You only live once. Yolo is true. And so get your act together now because you simply don't know what's coming down the line. So if you don't have a will, if you are an adult and you don't have a will, get it done today. We have friends at Mama Bear Legal Forms. You can knock this out in 20 minutes. They give you six months to complete it. It's affordable. We've got our code, so you can check them out when it comes to term life insurance, it's very affordable. Got to have it. It's very affordable. Get it while you're healthy. Get it while you're young. From our friends at Xander Insurance, all of this stuff matters. Health Trust Financial, if you need good health insurance in place, they can help you find that. Ramseysolutions. Com/ health. Don't leave this up to chance. Your life is too important. You only live once, so let's make the most of it and get our finances in order. Sarah is a great example of that.

We're praying and thinking of you guys as you go through this, and we hope that you call us back with some great news. Yeah.

And all that you said, George, that is really you loving your family well. This is how you take care of the people who love you and you love them, and they depend on you to do this. Do it today. This is The Ramsey Show. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. Thank you for listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw, joined by George Campbell. Our scripture and quote of the day says this, Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm. That's Proverbs 13:20. Then Bon Jovi said this. He said, Don't get too comfortable with who you are at any given time. You may miss the opportunity to become who you want to be. I dig that. Love it. And by the way, hey, thanks for listening to the show. When you guys listen, obviously, it gives us jobs, George, because if there weren't listeners, we wouldn't be here. But if this show has done anything for you, be sure to like it, subscribe it, share it with a friend, share it with a family member. It just spreads that life change all over the place, and honestly, all over the internet, because there's a lot of crap on the internet, George.

We got to displace a lot of filth and tomfoolery out there, Jade.

I know that's right. We need to take up space is what I'm talking about. If you listen to us on a podcast, share it with somebody. If you like the YouTube, make sure you like it, make sure you subscribe it. When you do that, it just fluffs it up and everybody gets to see it, and it takes up more space, and we want something positive out there. Spread the love. Something that's giving you hope, something that will give other people hope in This crazy world, this madness that's going on. We need a little bit of light, a little bit of hope. All right, let's go over to Becky, who's in Kansas City, Missouri. What's going on, Becky?

Hi. Hey, what's up? Hi. I have a question. My husband has been transferred to the West Coast with his job, and we have a home that we just love. We are about two-thirds paid off. We're struggling with, do we keep it because this is essentially where we want to retire and rent on the West Coast, which the rent is twice our mortgage. Yikes. Or, yes, or do we pay it off because we have money investments to pay it off, but the stock market right now is doing really well. It has more a higher rate of return than the interest on our mortgage payment.

What money is that? Is it your retirement that you're talking about?

No, it's not a 401k or anything. It's we received an inheritance, a small one, and we invested it, and it's getting a good rate of return.

How much is it? What's it at?

It's at How much is the inheritance or the rate of return?

The inheritance.

Inheritance, it was half a million. We invested half of that and left the rest in cash.

Okay, so you've got 250 invested and $250 in cash, just in high yield?

Yeah.

Okay. What's left on the mortgage?

$290.

Wonderful. Well, I don't love the idea of hanging on to a residence across the country when you don't even know what life's going to look like. Are you going to be purchasing on the West Coast? Is this a long-term move?

No. We're here for 6-10 years at the most.

That's long-term.

I feel like- On the West Coast. You're going to be in the West. Let's say you're in the West Coast till 2034. Yeah. I would want to purchase a spot over there. In that case, I would just... Because you're going to move, is this happening next week?

It's happening within the next few months, yeah.

Okay. Well, because of that, paying off the mortgage versus not is... I would sell the property regardless and use all of that plus your savings in the investments to purchase a property on the West Coast. I would do the same. Versus and paying double your mortgage for that, because the same thing is going to happen. The real estate on the West Coast, it'll probably appreciate, too. Later on, when it comes to retirement, you can buy whatever dream home you'd like back in the Kansas City area. It may not be the exact home, and I know you love this home, but you're going to be a different person 10 years from now. Exactly.

In a different stage of life. What's desirable will be totally different. I mean, there was a time where we liked Formica countertops and lots of walls. And naughty pine walls. Yeah. Wood paneling.

You'll still have to grieve it. A home is still a real special place and the memories that were made there. But the countertop and the layout, we can always find something beautiful down the road. I would sell the property, I would not hang on to it, and I would put all of that money, the equity from the sale of your home, plus the investments, and buy a property to lower your mortgage or even pay in cash. That would be my goal, and to get that next property paid for. That's going to set you guys up really well over the next several years.

Very good question. Thanks It's for the call. That's a good one. Whenever you're moving, I think that's the hard part, George. People want to keep. It's like, Oh, but it's doing so well, or maybe you even fixed it up. You put money into the property. That's the hardest. You have to let it go.

Or you think, Well, we can rent it and make great money.

Yeah. Then you come back to it 10 years later, you're like, This is not the house that I left.

As Dave says, some guy changed the oil on the Harley in the living room. Oh, 100%. You were gone.

You're like, Oh, gosh. Listen, before Sam and I moved here to Nashville, we were living in South Florida, and we had put so much money in renovations, cash renovations, too, into to our home. We made it just the way we liked it. Then, of course, we moved here, and it was so hard to get rid of it. There is that piece in your brain that's like, Oh, I wish I could keep it. Maybe I could rent it out, which, I mean, no way. But just six months later, we went back to visit South Florida and saw the house, and I was like, This is not our house anymore. Already, whoever bought it was renting it out, and already it was a different house. Already, the weeds were all grown up. I was peeking the window and you're like, Why would you buy that couch? Why would you put that couch in there. It's not the same house as all what I'm saying. George, let's go take another phone call. I think we can make it. Let's see. We got Mary, who's in San Antonio, Texas. What's going on, Mary?

Hi. Yes, I just have a quick question. I'm getting ready to do a bunch of renovations in my home, painting and exterior and interior and some flooring in my kitchen. I'm just wondering, which is the best route for me to go to get that money to pay for it. I didn't know whether to go Heloq or pull for my retirement and then pay taxes on that because it'll be marked as income when I You're not 60 yet? I am 63. Okay.

What do you mean marked as tax? You're saying because it's in a traditional account?

Right. Because I am retired, and so I rolled over about 50,000 into a retirement fund. It's in the market, I guess. Okay. So it's growing.

I definitely don't want you to do the heel-off because you're taking on debt, you're moving backwards, you're putting the home at risk. And so that's a It's a real bad move, even though it looks real attractive for a lot of people who have equity in their homes to go, I'll just have a credit card attached to my house and go back into debt. That's not a good option. Do you not have the money to cash flow this and just pay for the renovations outright without Are you stepping into retirement?

No, because I'm probably looking at around 15 to 20,000.

Do you have an emergency fund? What do you have in savings?

What I have That 50,000 is probably about what I have.

What's in your nest egg? What are you planning on retiring off of?

Well, I receive a pension. I'm living off my pension and then Social Security I mean, I get a good monthly income.

Between those two, how much do you get a month from the pension and Social Security?

About $0.45 a month.

$0.400? Mm-hmm. Then What are your monthly expenses?

Gosh. With the house and everything else.

Food, utilities, insurance.

Well, can I just clarify real quick?

Do you still have a- I'm like, 3,000.

Okay. Do you still have a mortgage? Do you still have a mortgage payment? I do.

I do. I refinanced a few years ago. I mean, it's a long story why I had to do that, but divorce and Things happened and I needed the money.

So I had to refinance. What do you owe on this mortgage?

About 100,000.

Okay. Can I just ask, what you're wanting to do? These are cosmetic things that you want, They're not necessity. It sounds like painting floors.

Well, the house is 30 years old, and I haven't painted it at all. So it needs the upgrades, plus the flooring in my kitchen. I had to have my house leveled because it's on a cement foundation. Right now, I have patches of cement in my kitchen floor because they had to drill through this.

I would only do whatever is necessary, and I would use your cash flow. If your expenses are three grand, you get an extra 1,500, start saving that, putting that aside, and start cash flowing these as you can. But I wouldn't tap in to anything else.

This is a cautionary tale, guys. We never want to borrow against our home. The goal is to have that home paid off by the time we enter into retirement so that we have that peace. We're really just able to live our life and enjoy it to the fullest. All right, cautionary tale, guys. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, guys, I'm Rachael.

And I'm George.

And you've probably heard our voices before on The Ramsey Show.

And do we have a surprise Nice for you?

Yep, we have our very own show, Smart Money Happy Hour, where we talk about pop culture, current events, and of course, money.

George, it's a great show. And what else do we talk about?

So much, Rachael. Not enough, and yet too much. We talk about guilt-tipping because tipping is out of control, and I won't stand for it anymore, which is why I'm sitting.

I'm glad you're taking such a stand.

And we also talk about something else I'm passionate about, Disney adults. Why is it a thing? Listen, some adults still find the magic. Sure. We also talk about toxic money traits and girl math. If you don't know what those are, you have to listen to the podcast. Yeah, there's a lot there, you guys. It's pretty fun. We keep you relevant is what I'm trying to say. We help you out. So pull up a chair to the happy hour you wish your friends were having. We promise you won't regret it. If you don't have friends, we'll be your friends. We will. We're great friends. So make sure to check it out on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or the Ramsey Network app.