From Ramsey Network. This is the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm Ramsey personality George Camel, joined by the incomparable Jade Warshaw. That's right, best selling author of money's not a Math Problem. And we're going to be taking your calls today about your money and your life. And it could get messy. And we're going to give you some advice you may not like. But at the end of the day, here's what we want. We want to see you win. We want to see you have more peace in your life. We want to see you build more wealth than anyone has ever built in your family. To break generational curses, to finally just go to bed and sleep and not be worried about what's going to happen tomorrow with the bills and how we're going to accomplish that financial goal. We want to show you a proven path to get there. So give us a call at triple 8825-5225 and we will do just that. Alex kicks us off in Dallas, Texas. What's going. Sorry, Alex, what's going on with you?

Not much, sir. How you doing?

I'm doing. I got choked up already. I'm very emotional today, so we got to watch out. How can we help?

All right, so we're in a nutshell. I bought a home last year for me and my daughter. And then I met someone, and I am looking at getting engaged. And she is talking about wanting to put 40,000 down to help pay off the home faster. She's the one that pointed me towards financial peace and all that. But my line of thinking is, this is my debt and my mess to clean up. And I just wanted an outside opinion on if I should let her do this or not.

So, she want your time? Are you guys engaged yet?

I plan on popping the question here probably within the next month or so.

Okay, well, hopefully she's not listening or else. You just got a spoiler in this. Yeah, go ahead, Jade.

So, just to clarify, you had the home. The first home was with your daughter?

I have a four year old daughter.

Okay. That got. Got you. Okay, so how much do you owe entirely on the house?

Just over 138,000.

And so her putting the 40k down, is that just her to be, like, this is going to be ours together? Like, what's her. What's her motivation behind that? Just to help pay off the debt.

Just to help pay off the debt. We also talked about possibly refinancing to add on, but then the 40,000 is what? She has been saving up for a long time now to buy her first home.

So what would happen if, after you guys got married, you guys decided how that 40,000 was best spent, whether it's to put it towards a mortgage or some other thing that, you know, you.

Might need to renovation.

Yeah. How's that hit you?

My line of. My line of thinking is it's a three bedroom house. We've had the discussion about possibly having more kids, and if that happens, the house I'm in now is not big enough for them.

This feels like a very future decision because this doesn't have to be your forever home together either. She could move in. So let me play out how I. If I was advising you guys, kneecap to kneecap, I'd say, hey, let's wait until we have the document from the courthouse. We come back from the honeymoon, we combine the bank accounts. Now let's talk about what to do with our money so that I don't think anything needs to happen right now.

I agree.

Until you guys are officially married, we don't need to combine any of our finances, any of our savings. Once she's there and she's your wife, then we can say, all right, we want to stay in this house. Let's pay down the mortgage down to zero. We can roll all that equity into our new home down the line a few years from now, once we actually run out of room, because we actually have the kid there, that's when that decision should be made. Okay, so I don't know. I don't know the urgency of her, like, throwing all her savings at a house she doesn't own, because I'll tell you, I hope, and I think it's all going to work out perfectly. But the calls we take on the show is when everything didn't work out perfectly, and now it's an ex fiance who has $40,000 stuck inside of the equity of your home. And now there's a big legal battle. And so it is very unwise to mix finances before you're married, before you have legal protections, before you've really combined your life.

She had just brought it up of, you know, after we were married, that's what she wanted to do. And I just kind of hit the panic button, I guess.

Well, after we get married is a great sentence that changes everything.

Yes.

And so I would. You can start to make plans. Just don't make any actual moves until you're back from the honeymoon. But, yeah, I hope it works out. And congratulations to you. It's exciting.

That is exciting.

A man on the cusp of proposing.

Oh, yeah. Hopefully she didn't hear this.

Well, I think she knows it's coming. It sounds like isn't gonna be no surprise to her.

The names were changed to protect the innocent.

All right, Doug is in Atlanta, Georgia, up next. What's going on, Doug?

Hey, guys. Really appreciate what you all do. I am starting medical school in August, and I've never been in debt in my life. And I looked into different types of loans that I could get to pay for this, and it seems like the smartest decision would go for the federally unsubsidized loans. But things with the interest rates, it's going to be quite a bit of money taking out, and I've listened to you all show for a long time. The idea of going in debt for the first time is really scary. And essentially, the total amount of cost of tuition plus cost of living can take out of $73,000. Tuition is around 44. And the way the loan situation is structured, it's two separate loans you can take out for the first cost of the tuition, and the second cost up to $73,000 for a total amount of 73. I have some funds saved up, but I'm not really sure how to go about this.

What do you have saved up?

So I have about 30,000 in cash and another 30, and it's in a high yield savings account yielding about 5%.

What a life.

And. And the other amount is in investments, but not a retirement fund.

How much is in the investments that's not retirement?

About 30,000 as well.

So you got $90,000 just laying around?

No, no, it's about 60.

Okay, 60,000 laying around. Okay. There's your answer, my guy. We're not gonna. We're not gonna tell you the best debt to take out because we don't think that there's a scenario when it is best to take out.

That's like saying, what is the best nickelback cd? I don't know that I could tell you, honestly.

No, I totally hear you on it. I just looking long term for. I'm just kind of scared to completely liquidate all that.

Well, yeah, that's my question for you. You called with a question for us. My question for you is why is it more appetizing for you to take out debt rather than just pay cash and be done and done with?

This is it. I mean, totally makes sense, but the situation is that the tuition for medical school, that's yearly, so it's 43 a year and then the living and things like that. So it's over four years of medical school, and I won't be even making any type of income until residency, which will be essentially five years from now.

But the good news is you have the better part of that for two years. I mean, you've got.

You could. You could cash flow the half of this is what we're saying with the money you have.

So can you come up with another 13 or 15,000 within a year's time? I think that you could. And then get ahead on the next year prior to that. And if you have to take a semester, a break in order to make this happen. The point is, don't go into debt when you've got time and you've got money, which are two really good resources to have here.

And you have any help from family?

Not really. That's kind of, at this point is like, everything is on my own, man.

That's real tough.

If I'm you before this semester starts, and even if you can put it off a semester, I'm stacking up as much cash as I can. Because if you can come up with a little bit more cash to make this work, you're going to be able to cash flow this whole thing, which I think you can.

Thanks for the call, Doug. This is the Ramsey show.

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Id 1591 in mlsconsumeraccess.org equal housing lender 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Jade Warshaw. Well, if you're looking for something fun to do in less than a year from now, check out the live like no one else cruise. Okay, that was really good. I legit was like, we got sound effects every time. Joe in the booth hitting the sound effect button. Nope, that was just old Jade. That was pretty good, if you weren't aware of what that was. That's the. The ship horn. I don't know what it's called.

Yeah, the ship's horn. Let's go with that.

I feel like someone out there is, like, just glazed over. And I'm going, this guy. Ship horn. It's going to be Dave. All of the Ramsey personalities. Seven days at sea for the ultimate debt free celebration, March 22 through the 29th. And on top of our whole crew being there, we've got special guests. We've got Steven Curtis Chapman, Monit Chohan from the Food Network, Deena Carter. We got comedians, magicians, you name it. There's so much entertainment on this cruise. On top of, you know, hopefully some transformational, life changing content from us personalities.

George, I want to hear you do a set, a comedic set.

Oh, Jade, that's called a tease in the biz that I'm working on. I'm working on it because I got a captive audience who can't leave. I thought this is the time to try out.

Listen, you and a speedo is not enough. We need to hear the comedy, George.

Yeah, that's not funny. That would just send people get refunds. So we want. You won't be seeing that, but we will be seeing some sites. Turks and Caicos, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas. It's going to be a good time. And again, this is for those who are debt free, meaning, baby, step four or above. So if you're in debt, I wish you could join us, but please don't, because you got priorities right now. This is for those who they're out of debt. They've been waiting to celebrate. You want to meet, you know, other Ramsey fans and the whole crew? We're going to do, I think, the Guinness Book of world records largest debt free scream on the let's do it.

I'm. I'm here for it.

So vip upgrades already sold out. Most of the suites are sold out. In fact, many of the cabin types are completely sold out. So if you're trying to pick a cabin, like one with an ocean view, you got to get your deposit in right now. This thing's going to sell out real soon. Book your cabin@ramsaysolutions.com. cruise. And we'll see you in March of 2025.

Woohoo.

Can't wait. All right. Charlie is in Everett, Washington. Charlie, welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hey, I really appreciate you guys taking my call. How are you guys doing?

We're doing great, man. How can we help?

Well, I'm trying to get it directly to the point I am drowning. Paycheck to paycheck is a nice way of putting it. I own a home. My biggest, I guess, mistake is an auto loan. I'm about 20,000 upside down on it.

How'd that happen?

Well, I purchased the vehicle about three years ago when I was making significantly more money. A recent and abrupt breakup with who I bought my house with.

Oh, boy.

Had me, because I drive truck, and I did drive long haul over the road. And when the breakup happened, I switched driving positions to a local job.

Mm hmm.

And so I'm making roughly, I'd say, conservatively, about 4500 a month.

4500 a month. Okay.

That's your take home pay?

That's take home after taxes.

Okay.

What other debt do you have? So you've got this car you're 20,000 upside down on, and what do you owe on it, by the way?

50, 52,000.

Yikes.

Yeah.

And you're saying it's worth 32?

Yeah, roughly. And so I've tried to sell it for about a month and a half, close to two months, maybe. And there's just. I mean, I can't blame anybody, but there's, you know, it's not going anywhere.

What price point? What were you selling it for?

Well, at first I put it up, you know, basically kind of like a takeover payments. This is what's owed. And then I put a couple grand aside in hopes that I could maybe, like, pay the difference, and that didn't go anywhere. And so, like, I don't know if I should just do, like, a voluntary repo.

No, no, no.

We'll walk you through some options. Let's get through the rest of your debt. What else do you have?

Okay, well, I got 230 left on my house, 53 on the truck. 112 thousand dollars credit card. A $3,000 credit card. And I got my lowest one trying to do the snowball. I got my lowest one down to about 600 now.

Okay, good.

And that's all the debt.

All right. So if we knock out the credit cards, all that's left is fixing this car problem. Now we just have a mortgage to deal with.

Correct.

All right.

And so with. With the truck payment, my mortgage is just under two grand. It's 1828, and the truck payment is 979.

That mortgage is eating your lunch a little bit right now when it comes to your take home pay, don't you think it is?

And so. And where I live, I looked around. Luckily, me and x are on good terms as far as. As far as the house goes. She moved out. There was no, you know, I don't know really how to put.

She didn't. Her name wasn't on the deed or the mortgage. She didn't have any equity in this thing she does.

She's not on the. How the mortgage company explained. It is. I'm the primary, but she is on the mortgage.

Okay, so what happens if you stop paying? They go after her?

No, no, no. She moved out, and that was part of my, I don't know if it was maybe an ego thing, but it was, you know, in the heat of, you know, because like I mentioned, the split was not mutual, and it was very abrupt and out of emotion and maybe ego, I said, okay, well, you want to do this? I don't. I'm not losing my house.

So did you refinance or did you get her name off the loan?

We are in the process of working those details out, but that is the end goal of getting her off the house.

Okay.

And so. But with the credit cards, one of my, the higher credit card, that's kind of eaten up my trying to do just the minimum payments, which on the. On the one, it's like $600 a month.

And what were you making before as a trucker?

Yeah, you mentioned you changed your trucking schedule to where now you're making.

So you're making less doing local. What were you making before?

I was making about 120.

How can we go back to that?

Well, currently I got a kiddo and animals at home, and so doing, going back to what I was doing is kind of out of the question for another couple years anyway.

Is the kiddo new?

No, no, no. She'll be 18 in about a year and a half.

So again, how does that change from before? Because you had the kid and the pets before. We're just trying to understand what made you make that shift and why you wouldn't go back to it temporarily to clean up this mess.

Well, the reason I was able to be gone on the road was because the ex was at home. And so when she left, I all the. Because when I was on the road, it was, you know, payday hit. I sent her the money and the bills were paid.

When does your 18 year old go off to college or kind of do their own thing?

She's thinking about it. She doesn't know if she's going to go to college or not.

And you feel like you've got to be home with her.

To a degree just because a lot of her growing up, I was on the road, and so it's. I'm kind of. I feel like kind of a rock between a rock and a hard place, and I'm just kinda. I feel like I'm, you know, doing minimum pain.

Here's the deal? If you're gonna. If this is between a rock and a hard place and you're saying, well, there's gonna be a voluntary repo, probably can't afford the mortgage long term, I'd rather you go to work now for a year and clean this mess up. Because here's the deal. You get out of this credit card debt, and we get out the underwater piece on the car, now we can breathe again. But you need to be making eight grand a month instead of four grand a month in order to make this work.

Okay?

Because to your point, even cleaning up these credit cards is going to free up $600 a month. I mean, what, that's going to change the equation big time with your numbers, to have an extra $600 a month to put towards this upside down car payment. So if I'm you, I understand what you're saying. Kids, you know, obligations with pets. Pets I could care less about in this situation. But with your daughter, maybe it's you having a sit down conversation with her and saying, listen, I know I haven't been there. I have made a mess of things, and I'm getting about the business of cleaning that up. And part of that is me cleaning up my financial life so I can be there for you.

It's a different kind of sacrifice, but it's the one that'll stick with her seeing her dad get out of a mess and just own up to the mistakes and go, I want to have a different legacy for your future. Maybe you help her cash flow, college, but you gotta have money to do that. This is the Ramsey show.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey show. I'm George Camel, joined by Jade Warshaw. Open phones at triple 8825-5225 don't be scared. Give us a ring. Will try to help you figure out what the next step is for your life and your money, regardless of where you stand and how long you've been listening. That's what we do on this show. Ashton is in Oklahoma City. Up next. What's going on, Ashton?

So we've got kind of a weird and unique situation.

I like that.

In 2018, we went through Financial Peace University. We moved out of our house. We moved into a super small apartment, and we went hard, and we saved up enough money that we were able to get completely out of debt, and we were able to start saving money to buy a house, which we did in 2020. And everything was great right up until I got sick.

How sick?

I've had really sick. I started having a whole lot of neurological issues. In the last four years, I've had three brain surgeries, and I need another one.

Yeah, that's. That's beyond sick. I'm so sorry, Ashton.

It's okay. I'm just glad they know what's wrong with me at this point because it took them a really long time to get here. But in the meantime, I was no longer working. My husband had to quit his job because he couldn't get me to and from all these doctor's appointments and help me take care of the kids and put us kind of in a situation. Three.

Three kids. Okay, so you're in the house. Three kids. You've had these medical issues. Where are you guys financially after the storm?

Okay, so let's hold right before we get to that. So when he quit his job, we opened up a company, and we ran that company. We stayed positive the whole time. It was great. We were able to replace his income, and we did really good. Just him running solo on his own.

What year was that?

That was in 2021.

Okay.

Or, no, I'm sorry. 2022.

Okay.

In 2023, another small company approached us and asked us if we would buy them out. I was like, yeah, we don't have the money for that. And they were like, well, what if we didn't own our finance? What if we carried. We carried it and you just pay the profits? Just. I knew the company was super profitable because I had seen them around, and I felt really comfortable with that. So we purchased that company from them on an owner finance on the contingency that I do not have a minimum monthly payment. I only pay them 60% of whatever the profits are and then we retain 40.

And how long would that take before you've paid the full price?

Roughly? We estimated that it was going to be around 18 months. The industry, because of the economy, has kind of tapered down a little bit. So I'm thinking we're going to be closer to about the 24 month mark right now. I don't think it'll take us very long. It's also profitable. So in all of this, all of this that's going on of learning how to run a business and trying to deal with everything. The surgery that I need is really. It's new to medicine. It's more popular in Europe than it is in America. And last, in April, we actually had to fly to Spain to meet with a doctor who actually is leading the research on this condition.

Okay.

And there's a very good possibility that they're not going to be able to do the surgery here. While we do have health insurance, we do not. We can't use it out of country and that's kind of problematic.

What would it cost?

We've got about $50,000.

Ooh, yay. Yay. Okay. And do you have any money saved?

We've got a little bit. I'd say we've probably got about 5000 in savings right now.

Okay.

And no debt.

I have about $1,500 in credit cards. But to be honest with you, the credit cards are what we use for the business. Just so I don't have to have people have a debit card and I can track their expenses a lot better. So each, we have two employees and each employee has a credit card.

We run a 300 million dollar company with company debit cards.

Just saying it just makes me nervous.

It makes me nervous because you all racking up debt and your health is on the line. I'm just saying debt is not adding any piece to your equation right now.

So can you tell us the urgency? Sorry, I'm just trying to. I want to make sure we spend plenty of time with you. So you need to have the surgery. Can you, can you explain to us the urgency of the surgery? Is it like, hey, I gotta have this thing instantly or else my health.

I'm gonna go blind.

Okay, how, how soon?

I've got, I've got like less than a year.

Less than a year. Okay.

So the surgery needs to happen within the next twelve months.

Yep.

Okay.

Does it get riskier the longer you wait or is it just kind of.

The same thing it's more of a chance that there's, right now they feel really comfortable, if they did it right now, that my vision would return.

Okay.

But we don't know in the future if this will continue and if. When they do the surgery, if I will get my vision back.

Okay. Tell us about your assets. What type of vehicles do you have that you have paid off?

I have one vehicle that's worth about $5,000 that we paid cash for that I own outright. We do have two car payments. We kind of got in a situation with one of the work trucks that we have to have a work truck and we couldn't afford to pay cash for one. And the other one was, it just wasn't financially reasonable to repair at this point. It had just served us purpose.

So those two have debt on them. So they're not assets. Anything else do you have that you could sell off? Because obviously the only place that we're.

At right now is the possibility of selling our house, using the proceeds from equity in our house to buy an rv and live in an rv for a year or two and just kind of do what we do.

Well, I wouldn't do an rv. I wouldn't do an rv. But I mean, your health is on the line. Few things are more. I don't think anything's more important than that. So I'd rather buy stability for the house. Yeah, but just rent.

So my only concern with renting, and that's kind of why I wanted to reach out to you, is that the rent prices are really more even for.

Like a two bedroom apartment, rv, underwater value. And so you have to calculate both costs. You might say, yes, I'm spending x amount of dollars on rent, but you're spending a lot more upfront to buy something on debt that is going down in value when you do an rv. So you're losing a heck of a lot more money. You just don't feel it in the same way because you're accustomed to debt. But trust me, you're losing a lot.

You're going to live with five people in an rv.

I worked at. So. So we have about a hundred, about $125,000 in equity in our house if we were to fall out.

I think that where you're at, and unless there's something that you haven't included with a $50,000 surgery coming up with no real assets other than your house, you are against a rock and a hard place. And because you do have a lot of debt between these trucks and you've got some other things going on with the business. It could make sense for you to get your health in place. You guys rent temporarily. You get your financial footing back on because to what George said earlier, the amount of peace you're going to feel going into the situation, owing nobody nothing is priceless. Then you're getting the surgery that you need. You're going to be able to have time to recover without just this feeling of, we've got this business and we've got to do this and we've got to do that and we've got a mortgage that we've got to cover. I think that for you guys, having a fresh start with fresh health is going to be a good move.

That's kind of where I'm at.

What is your household income? You're living off 40% of the profits. What does that amount to a year?

We take home about 70,000 and then I leave the rest in the business accounts.

Okay, so you guys are making 70. You have to pay all these payments. Here's what I would do if I was in your shoes. I'd sell the house. You have the equity, the 125. Use 50 of that for your surgery if that's where you guys are going to go next. Right.

Right.

Pay cash for the surgery. That leaves you with 75 plus the five you have in savings. And that becomes your fully funded emergency fund as we get through the storm. And then we rent, and then once things are back to normal, we own the business outright, we're back to getting 100% of the profits. Then we can look at buying a new home.

Yeah. And mind you, it's not going to just be 50,000 for the surgery because, I mean, you're going to Spain and your husband's going to. And he's staying somewhere and there's flights and there's recovery and the trip back. So really make sure you price this out with that money from the sell of the house.

That's an all inclusive price.

All in.

Okay. Okay. Great, great, great. So I love to hear that over there.

It's tremendously, tremendously cheaper.

Okay. Well, I wouldn't do the rv move. I would rent, even though it hurts. Because right now you've been building all this equity and you're going to trade that and, quote, throw away rent. You're buying peace during a time where your life is chaotic.

Yes, sir.

And so I'm going to be thankful to pay rent to that landlord because I don't have to deal with all the problems. And I wish you the best in your health. Truthfully, Ashton, I hope that this is all resolved and you call us back with a wonderful update. And I hope the financial part will figure itself out. This is the Ramsey show.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Jay Warshaw. Here's a friendly reminder as we head into the summer to come visit us at the Ramsey Solutions headquarters just south of Nashville, Tennessee. So make us part of your road trips, your flights, if you want to make a trip to Nashville. And we'll feed you with cookies and give you a free mug. And you can enjoy the show on the glass here if that's what you're into. And lots of lovely people out there visiting us today from all over the country.

Wonderful folks.

Great. Let's get to our question of today. Today's comes from Alyssa in New Hampshire.

Yeah. She says, my fiance and I are getting married next year and plan to merge our finances. We agree on working together after the wedding date to be debt free. Love that he will be coming into the marriage with student loans and a car loan. I am budgeting with every dollar and my debts should be paid off by the time we marry. His financial advisor is telling him to use the avalanche method to tackle his debt and has brought up other financial suggestions that are not in line with the Ramsey method. Since our finances are separate now, it's fine, but how do we compromise once we get married? This is a great question. So first off, Avalanche method versus debt snowball. For anybody listening with avalanche method, you're listing by interest rate. So you're considering the lowest interest rate and you're listing them that way and paying them off. Whereas the debt snowball, we list them by balance. We completely disregard the interest rate because we know that over time, honestly, the difference is negligible. And for most people, they get more of a psychological benefit when they're focusing on the smaller balance. They get quick wins.

And there have been many studies that have shown that this is actually Harvard business, Time magazine.

They all came out saying, we agree with Dave Ramsey. This is actually the better, more. This method will get you to success more times than the avalanche method.

So, so now we're getting into the nitty gritty. His financial advisor is telling him non Ramsey things. And I think, here's the thing. Here's what I want to clarify. When we tell people, wait until you're married to combine finances. That really is the nuts and bolts of bank accounts and debts and things like that. But you can still be talking about what your methodology for handling your money is going to be. And on that, I think you should be very detailed and very, as, as detailed as those conversations can be. Yes, we both care about paying off debt. Yes. Here's what we're going to do exactly when we get married. So I kind of feel like the advisor's leading him astray.

Yeah. I'm concerned about this financial advisor. I might consider firing him and finding someone else.

But there's another that it's a problem.

Yeah. This whole compromise, once we get married, I think what it's going to be is, you know, your word versus his and what the better method is. And, you know, we have a proven plan. Millions of people have followed it. It works. This guy is carrying debt for who knows how long. And the problem is a financial advisor like this would say, oh, don't worry about paying off your debt aggressively. You know what? You should be investing that money instead. So invest with me and I'll sell you these products. And I'm a big fan of having a financial advisor in your life. There's a time and place and there's a right way to do it. And, you know, we can help you find a trusted financial pro@ramsaysolutions.com. i don't know that now is the time for him to be working with a financial advisor. He needs to get his butt in gear and be working, getting that income up and paying off the debt. And the sooner he is to debt freedom. But by the time you're married, the faster you guys will excel in your own financial journey. So I'd go through financial peace University with them and say, this is our, this is premarital counseling.

If you want to marry me, this is part of the deal. We're going to go through this as a couple and you're going to watch every lesson with me. We're going to talk about it. Hopefully that gets them on the same page. But that's a big, I mean, that's one of the biggest life questions. How do I get my spouse on board? How do I get my fiance on board? It takes time.

If you want to be my lover, that's all I thought about when you said that.

Spice Girls. That's usually what's happening in Jade's mind. If you're ever wondering, Nathan is up next in Reno, Nevada. What's going on, Nathan, how can we help you today?

Hey, Jordan. Jade, thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it. So I left my job of about five years, like two months ago. What had happened is the management tree kind of kept changing. My boss's boss changed, and it just became kind of frustrating to work there. They wanted me to do things that. That I didn't excel at or didn't go to school for, wasn't qualified to do. So eventually, this led to me leaving. It was just getting too frustrating. I moved to a new job where I work remotely, and the money is better. Everything's kind of better on paper. I just really don't like this job at all. And it's been a super frustrating experience from basically week one.

What don't you like? The fact that it's remote.

There's that I don't like working remotely. I find it demotivating. My boss is not a strong leader at all. And because of that, we've been having, I guess, professional disagreements frequently.

What do you do for work?

Not the nature of the work.

Yeah, it's not. Well, it's a little bit the nature of the work, too. So I am a programmer, database professional, and they kind of sold me this dream on this job to say that we're very high tech, we're very fast moving. And I came into this job and I realized very quickly what they meant by high tech and fast moving was spreadsheet. And I feel like I've kind of checked all of my skills at the gate coming into this job.

So you're bored?

So I'm bored, yes.

We can't stay here.

What would light you up? Like if I snap my fingers, are you in an office and you're doing this, you know, are you in database administration? What's the sort of goal? If I could put your role on paper?

Yeah. So what would light me up is. So I really liked the work I did at my last job, just not the management. I love working with databases and scripting data pipelines, things like that. And so that would make me very, very happy, and I don't see it.

And you don't think that exists locally? It sounds like you want to be in person or at least have the flexibility to be in person.

Yeah, it doesn't really. There's not a lot where I am. I know my location was listed as Reno. I'm actually in Elko, and it's a really small town. There's not a lot of options here. What was that?

What's keeping you there?

I really like the town. Other than that, not much here. We have family all around here.

When you say we, are you married? You have a wife?

Yes. Yes. Sorry. I have a wife and a child and another one on the way.

Okay.

Congrats.

What's your wife do?

My wife is a stay at home mom.

Okay, well, we can't have the cake and eat it, too, so we've got to decide, is this where we want to live? And if so, I've got to be okay with, a, working remotely doing the work that I love, or b, I'm going to have a commute getting to whatever locale has the, you know, the work that I want to do, right?

Mm hmm. Yeah.

So there's going to be some level of compromise in there. Either I've got a 45 minutes commute, but I don't mind because I love it, or, you know what? If I just had the right boss, I could do this remote work thing and fly out for the company, you know, yearly meeting, whatever. And so I think we need to start looking at other options. And my biggest worry for you, Nathan, is that you go with you. And so my worry is you go to the next job and you go, oh, my gosh, this one. The boss is this way and the work is this way. And I'm just worried you're going to fall into the same trap. And so at some point, it's kind of like going to college. You kind of get what you put into it. And if you excel at every opportunity and you've got the right attitude about it and the work that, you know, management's not toxic. I think there's a lot of opportunity, wherever you are, to grow and excel. And so that's. I would do some homework and a little bit of soul searching as well to figure out what's next for you, but I would not quit until you had that next thing lined up.

Okay.

I don't want you going back to the old job. There's reasons you left there, and for those same reasons, you're probably not going to like it once you get there.

Okay.

Even if they would have you, I don't know if they would. Plus a pay cut, it sounds like.

Yeah, just a little bit.

So unless you were hired into a management role or something where you went, hey, I want to lead people, it doesn't sound like that's. You. But, you know, you have to go and step up an opportunity, not down.

Is there any way, and this is just me throwing this out there. Is it a large enough company where there might be a move laterally where you could go into the database thing and maybe you're working with a different leader?

Yes. Yes, there is.

I'd explore that. And I don't know if your leader is the person you would go to for that based on your relationship. Hey, I don't really like working with you, but the other guy seems great. So, you know, be kind. Treat others the way you want to be treated. But also don't settle. Nathan's life is precious, and it's worth more than just staying at a job you hate. I'm going to send you Ken's new book, find the work you're wired to do, which has the get clear assessment. I hope that helps you, Nathan. So hang on the line. It will help you out. That puts this hour of the Ramsay show in the books. Thank you to Jade Warshaw, my co host. All the folks in the booth keeping the show afloat, including Kelly Daniels, sitting in for James Childs, our producer. And you, America, will be back before you know it. From Ramsey Network, this is the Ramsey show. I'm George Camel, joined by Jade Warshaw. Open phones at 888-25-5225 you call in, and we will help you build wealth, do work that you love, and create amazing relationships. At least that's the goal.

I can't promise that we'll accomplish all of that in a single hour, but it's a lofty goal and we'll do our best. So give us a call. 888-825-5225 Alex kicks us off here in Orlando, Florida. Welcome to the show, Alex, how we're doing.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. How can Jade and I help?

I'm just trying to figure out if I should file bankruptcy or not. Pretty simple.

That's a pretty serious thing you just lobbed out there. It's like, I'm not sure if I should go with Coke or Pepsi at dinner tonight. What do you guys think? That's pretty serious. Alex, what, what caused you to come to this point?

Well, just been out of work for about three and a half months. Had about 30,000 saved, down to my last 10,000. I know it cost money to file bankruptcy because I've done it back in 2008.

Oh, gosh.

Not your first rodeo.

So how much debt do you have that's making it bad?

I got a hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt and a lease, which is about 15,000.

So you didn't learn your lesson from 2008? Is that what you're telling us?

No.

Actually went through a separation in 2021, and our life savings was taken by my ex, and I became a single father at the time.

You didn't get anything from the divorce?

It wasn't actually a divorce. It was just a kind of snatch and grab.

What? Yeah, a snatch.

So there was no legality to it?

No, no, I didn't. I didn't pursue it, and I do well when I'm working, so, I mean, she needed it more than I did, and I had my son so focused on that.

Are you saying this is like a robbery? Like, they, like, cleaned out your bank account? Like. Well, they probably needed it more than I did, so.

No, I said that. But, yeah, she did clean out the bank account.

So she cleaned out the bank account. You walk away with nothing. Is that what this hundred thousand in credit cards is? Tell it. Tell us what that came from.

Well, some of the depth. I did tell her to transfer because I kind of seen, uh, the relationship or the marriage coming to an end. Um, so, like I said, I do better than her when I'm working. And I just was trying to be, you know, the bigger man.

How much was the life savings?

100,000.

Okay, so she took a hundred thousand. And then you had 80. She took 80. Okay. And so. And then there was also debt that she transferred. How much debt did she transfer?

About 60,000.

And then you went $40,000 into debt over the last few months?

No, it's been since 2021.

Okay, and what kind of. What caught. Where did that come from? Is that you trying to keep food on the table?

Just. Just robbing Peter to pay Paul balance, transferring 0%, paying off other balance transfers, and just kind of caught up to me now.

Okay. And what, I'm trying to get to the bottom of this because I never want you to have to consider bankruptcy again. So if you hear me asking you a lot of questions is not me trying to drill you into the wall, it's me trying to understand what's going on. So I just want to throw that out there. So you're transferring balances, but you also said that you've made a better living than her, and you obviously felt like, hey, let me take some of this debt on. I'm not going to fight it. You kind of were taking that stance. So what was taking place right after the fact that suddenly it's like, I'm robbing Peter to pay Paul. I'm not. Help us understand what took place.

Just transferring from state to state because of work? Yeah. Moving around a lot.

What kind of work do you do?

Alex? You with us?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. What. What line of work are you in?

I manage car dealerships and motorcycle dealerships for a living.

Got it. Okay, so you're in car dealerships. What are you earning like? What's a normal take home pay for you every month?

Anywhere from eight to ten. Take home after taxes, net.

And that's currently.

You said you have. You've been out of work for three and a half months. What happened over the last hundred days where you've been unable to earn a single dollar?

I've just been looking, you know, swinging and missing. Just, you know, made a move. I was at a place, made a move. It was a wrong move. It wasn't a good fit. And then, you know, grass is not greener. Water your grass type of deal.

But can you work at a dealership? Does it have to be, you know, managing one? Could you get some job in that world?

I probably could, but I've been. I've been managing for many, many years, so it's kind of.

It feels like a downgrade, like a.

Fish out of water.

How many, um. How many, um, shots have you taken at this? Was it just 30?

I got 32 applications on indeed, right now, currently.

Okay.

And then all for a car dealership. Management roles.

Car power sports. Yeah. Motorcycles or cars.

Do you know anybody in these roles? Because Ken Coleman would say, proc proximity principle. Okay, so you've got, you've got. You've made your calls and you've said, hey, I'm applying tell so and so. Put my resume at the top.

Absolutely. Network with about 20 different people at 20 different dealerships. And I've worked at probably eight different dealerships in Orlando. Met some people and everybody spread out, but, yeah, I'm networking.

Okay. Do you feel optimistic? Because it sounds like. Not if you're talking about bankruptcy.

Well, just because I have nothing coming in and I only have so much left.

So what I say all the time is any job until you get the job, because I wouldn't want to sit and piddle away.

Can you drive for Uber?

Yeah.

Yeah. With my lease at 10,000 miles a year, sure.

I mean, you're sitting here with a whole lot of debt and no job process.

I get it. I get it.

Whatever. Whatever it is, it is hilarious when people drive up in luxury cars doing Uber as a side hustle because they're trying to get out of debt. I got nothing but respect for someone just trying to get a better life. Even if they made some mistakes.

Yeah, because your choices, you piddle away or, you know, you burn through $30,000 of savings or at the 20,000 mark, you go, okay, this is it. I gotta do something. What does it take? What's your bare bones budget? What's it take every month for you to just keep things running comfortably?

7000.

Not comfortably bare bones.

7000.

Okay. 7000.

Do you have a mortgage?

No. No, I sold my home.

Okay, so you're renting right now. You've got the car lease and 100,000 in credit card debt. That's it?

Yeah.

And you got $10,000 to your name.

That's it.

Okay. What's the interest rate on these credit cards? Are we talking like 22% apr?

We're talking anywhere from 1599 all the way up to about 27.99. Obviously when you're, when you're. When you get into debt, they raise the interest rate.

Are you paying like 2500 bucks in interest a month right now?

Gosh, I don't know. When the, when the promotion does 0% promotion end, which I wasn't aware of, they actually charge you the interest on your balance.

Yeah.

Plus your minimum payment.

Yeah.

Here's what I would do. I'm gonna go do my homework and calculate exactly how much interest I'm paying, exactly how much I'm getting screwed. Because I think we need to turn, uh, turn some anger into action here. And sometimes you got to pull that rubber band back to feel some pain because you've been living pretty good, Alex. I mean, aside from the life circumstances, you know, you've had a great income, you've. Your expenses are high, you've got a lifestyle. And now it's hard to come down from that, isn't it?

Oh, yeah.

What's your home? Tell us about your living situation.

Renting.

Renting. Okay.

Yeah.

Oh, boy. Yeah. Any job until you get the job. And I'm talking about any and every job you can get your hands on because you got $7,000 a month to make, my friend, and you don't have much time to do it. You have 30 days to lock down something. And if not, then you're gonna have to look at deflating this lifestyle in some way, shape or form.

We've got to get back to making six figures fast, and then we can easily avoid bankruptcy. We can clean up this debt in a few years with some sacrifice and bringing our lifestyle down, but income is what you need right now. I don't care how you get it and how much pride you have to swallow to get there, man. You need this. Hope that helps. This is the Ramsey show. This show is sponsored by betterhelp. Hey, it's Deloney. And wow, 2024 is flying by. So let me ask you, what's something you're proud of so far this year? What's something you wish you could change direction on? Its important to take a moment to celebrate your wins. And its also important to make adjustments for the rest of the year when you need to change. Therapy can help you take stock of your progress and set achievable goals for the next six months and beyond. Therapy is a safe, effective place to learn how to say hard things out loud and make a realistic plan for moving into the future. Ive personally been blessed to have a great therapist who helps me get heavy things off my chest.

And you can find a great therapist, too. If youre thinking of starting therapy, give betterhelp a try. Its entirely online, convenient, flexible, and suited to fit your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no extra money. Take a moment and be intentional for the rest of 2024 with Betterhelp, visit betterhelp.com deloney today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp. Help Deloney. Welcome back to the Ramsay show. I'm your host, George Campbell, joined by Jade Warshaw. Today, if you're enjoying the show today or any other day, do us a quick favor. It costs you nothing, and it means a whole lot to us. And that is hit the share button on the show. Leave us a kind review, hit the subscribe or follow button. It may just take you a second, but it pays dividends to helping us reach more people and showing the algorithms that, you know, we're out there. We're trying to displace all the toxicity and filth out there with some hope for people in their life and their finances. So if you could take a moment do that, it would mean the world.

All right, let's get to the phone lines. Aaron joins us up next in Dallas, Texas. Aaron, welcome to the show.

Hi.

Hey. How can we help?

Well, I was calling today to see what your recommendation would be on not having health insurance per se, a year or two to knock out debt.

This is not real. You're not really asking this, are you, Erin?

Oh, absolutely. My husband and I went four and a half years when our children were young without health insurance. And it was a blessing at the time because we needed that thousand dollars a month to pay bills.

But that was just luck.

That's like saying, well, I used to play in traffic as a kid, and I never got hit. So.

I just see it as it's $16,000 a year that really has no return.

Just wait until you get a medical bill.

I'm changing your name to John Bon Jovi because you're living on a prayer.

Well, you know, I mean, it's like. It's just realistically, like, during that time period, you know, it was one of those things when all three of my children needed to have shots for school.

Yeah.

And, you know, the pediatrician. It was going to be $600 at this place. It was going to be dollar 400. I went to the, you know, health department, and it was $56.

Sure.

So, you know, there's options out there. There's lots of free clinics.

I love a deal. But what happens if somebody, like, really breaks their arm? Or you.

We had a call recently where she went through four brain surgeries.

Yeah.

You just don't know what life's gonna throw at you.

I know, I get it.

This is kind of like, okay, let's.

Talk about the reasoning behind this all. Why would you do this?

Just to knock out the. So, okay, as of this morning, I had $155,000 of debt in two car loans, a student loan, and my solar panels. I paid off the two car loans and the student debt, which just leaves me the solar panels.

How much?

I guess it's 86,000.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow.

You got smoked on these solar panels.

Well, I mean, not okay, but.

Well, no, but what's your income?

Income is 25,000 a month.

Okay, so you guys have a killer income.

You make 25 grand a month, and we're worried about 16 grand a year for health care.

I know, right, seems wrong, but why.

Not just use your amazing income and be done with the solar debt within, you know, six months?

Right. Well, and that, you know, is definitely doable, especially since I just, you know, knocked out $2,000 a month of other debt. But I was just curious to know your opinion, because I always go back and forth on, like, I'm raising my hand again.

Why I'm raising my hand again. Did you say you knocked down $2,000 a month of debt?

Of the payments, yes. So this morning I paid off.

Okay. 2000 in payments. Got you. Okay. I was about to say okay, yeah.

That'S so your take home pay is 25k.

I'm sorry?

Your take home pay is 25,000 a month?

Yes.

And how long has it been? That.

Just only over the past like say two and a half years.

So is this you and your husband combined? Do you own a business? Tell us more about why.

So I'm self employed.

Okay, self employed. That's why you don't want to buy health insurance because it's so expensive.

Riddle me this, you guys make three hundred k a year take home. You have 86 left in debt, right?

Right.

You have 25,000 a month coming in. What are your expenses going out? Do you guys have a crazy lifestyle?

Well, yes and no. You know, I do have six acres of land with a nice house, a nice barn. I mean my for the house payment which I've just increased.

What do you mean you increased the house payment?

Well, I increased how much I'm paying towards.

Oh, got it. Okay, what's the payment?

I up that. So that is 3600. And then on, on average real estate taxes and insurance is about 1000 a month.

And then you have like what, a little over like 1500 bucks for healthcare.

Right? Yes.

Where is the other, like, I don't know, $20,000 going every month?

Well, it was 2000 a month going to car payments.

Okay, 18 left. Keep going. Let's see, let's see. Keep going.

Some of it.

But are you investing?

My question is why aren't we having $15,000 in margin every month to throw out our debt?

Yes, well, so yes, I should tell you that. So the money that my husband makes, so like last year I saved 100% of his income which typically can be anywhere from four to 6000 a month.

Okay.

So yes, I had saved all of his income. So that's four.

So how much do you have in savings?

Well, as of this morning I had a lot but you know, I just spent it down.

What happened this morning?

That's when she paid off the debts.

So you, in a lump sum, got rid of a bunch of debts today?

Yeah. And what was the total amount that you got rid of today?

77,000.

Okay, see this is what I like to hear. I love that you're making headway. I think you're doing the right thing. I don't want to have to convince you to buy health insurance. You can afford health insurance. That's a blessing. And I think that I'm not going to insult your intelligence by telling you why it's important. I think that you know that and I think that, but you need to just go on ahead and get insurance. And if you don't, you're really playing with fire.

And it's the same reason you have home insurance, same reason you have auto insurance. You're transferring the risk that you can't carry over to an insurance company, and in exchange, they ask for a premium. And so that's what you're saying. You're doing the same thing with health insurance. If your house burns up in a fire, you don't have the money to go replace the house today. Right?

House. Right.

It's the same thing with your health. And so that's the way I think about it. Makes me feel better about dishing out that coin. And you guys are blessed with an amazing income. And the truth is, if you put 14,000 of your amazing income a month toward the solar panels, they're gone in six months. It's second grade math.

Right?

And so if you just do that auto pay 14 grand to your solar panels. 14 grand. Can you live off $11,000 for the next six months?

I mean, yes, we really could.

If you can't, your lifestyle is out of control. If you can't live off $11,000 a month and take home pay, all of America is slamming their heads against a steering wheel right now, going, oh, my goodness, if I had $11,000 a month, my life would change.

Right?

Spending, like, coping mechanism. I feel like you. You're, like, living la vida loca, but you're not quite telling us.

Well, I am the numbers.

Okay, so now I will say, like, over the past two years, because, you know, yes, my business has done so well that, you know, it really has been just kind of like a, you know, again, I've, you know, 100% of my husband's money just went into savings. And so then it was like, whatever I made, spend it.

Yeah. Okay, so you have the budget definition that I used to have, which is as long as I am taking care of the most important things. Rent, cell phones, groceries. I know that amount. Everything else is for. Treat yourself right. That money should be up for grabs. And before you get off the phone, I'm gonna give you a copy of the book. Money's not a math problem, because you guys need to get on a budget. And a good budget means deciding how you're going to spend every single dime ahead before the month even begins. And it's not to say that you're not going to have any fun or that you can't do, you know, some of the things that you want to do with your income. You can do a lot of the things that you want to do, but it's about having a plan so that you don't look up and go, I don't know what I'm spending $25,000 a month on. It just kind of evaporates. Right. You don't want that, because at the end of the day, we are stewards of this money. And so you need every dollar. We're gonna make sure you get hooked up with that.

And I'm gonna take it a step further, because something tells me if you don't have health insurance, you probably don't have any term life insurance. You probably don't have a will. These are all things that when you are in a family or you have somebody else that is now part of your life, they are so, so important to have in place. You need health insurance, you need term life, you need a will. We're going to make sure you get hooked up with that. This is how you love yourself and your family. Well, you can't just be out here living on a prayer. You got to make sure these things are in place. And by the way, for anybody else listening, insurances, those things that we just spoke about, they are not a baby step. They do not wait until after baby step two is over. You institute those things as now. Now that you know about it, you got to do it now, because like George said, they. They shelter you, you from the things that you can't afford if they should happen. Your car breaks down, your house burns, God forbid someone passes away.

These are the things that protect you from life.

Storms go to ramsaysolutions.com checkup. We make it easy for you to figure out exactly what you need and how much. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Jade Warshaw. The number to call is 88825 5225. We're old school around here. You gotta make an actual phone call. No DM's, no emailing in. You gotta talk to us right to our face.

And, might I add, be open to the opinions y'all are calling in to ask us our opinion and what we might do.

Yeah, that's a good call out, Jade. Some people calling in looking for validation and justification of what they're gonna do. What they did do.

Yeah.

And I'm not here to cast judgment. We just want to help you with the next right step.

That's right.

And we're confident that it will work if you do it. But I feel like sometimes we get off a call and we're like, and America knows it, too. They're not doing anything.

They're not doing anything.

They're not doing that. So that's fine. But we got people to help. And so if you want to waste our time, like, don't hog up our.

Phone lines, just know we love you. We want what's best for you. We're not trying to make good radio. We really are thinking about what's going to serve you and your situation, and we want you to get out of debt, and we want you to have all those great things.

And it's what we would do, and it's what we have done. These sacrifices we tell you would do, tell you all to do, we would do them ourselves. And Jay's lived it. Paid off half a million dollars in debt with her and her husband over seven years. I've done Uber and Lyft, and I've ate the lean cuisines.

You know, I've done with that, George.

I'm done with that life. Jade. Now I go to the grocery store, I walk right past the link cuisine.

Good as you should.

I don't care if they're on sale or not. You're not going to tempt me.

It was just a season. It was a season.

It was a season. All right. Steve is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Steve, welcome to the show. How can we help today?

Yeah. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Appreciate you.

Yeah. What's going on? Yeah.

So in a nutshell, how do I prioritize? I'll just ask the question. How do I prioritize, baby? Step two, with where I think where my career could be in the future. So I left the wastewater field, wastewater treatment, and a few months ago, because there was very little room for growth, kind of got to wait for somebody to retire or leave to get promoted. But I really did like it. I don't love the incentives of municipal government. It's slow paced. If you go getter, people are telling you to pump their brakes. But I got headhunted to go back into that field, so I left the field about four months ago, I guess five months ago. Private sector customer service. I've never done this before, but I really like it. Like being in the private sector where if you're a go getter, they don't tell you to pump your brakes. So I really like that. But I got headhunted to go to a different municipal facility that would pay $1,200 a month more than I'm making now, just to start.

And that's a pretty serious raise.

It's a pretty serious raise.

Well, how much more would you have to do at your current job in order to make an extra 1200 bucks a month?

It would take a promotion, a few. Yeah. And so it's tough though, too, because this in the municipal wastewater, I started a side hustle. I do it on the side as well for private mobile home parks and campgrounds. They need somebody with my certification. So I do that on the side and I'm looking to grow that. So that's another positive to the job.

And how much do you earn from that?

Last year, I made about 20,000.

Okay, how much debt do you have?

Just about 66,000.

All right, what kind of debt is that?

Vast majority of student loans. So it's going to be like 60,000 is student loans. One home equity loan because our boiler went out for 5000. And then credit cards are about a thousand.

Okay, so let's play out the scenario where you take this new job, you get the pay raise. What will you be making year?

Yeah, so. Well, I know the numbers per month.

What's it per month?

So from right now it's 33. So be 4500 per month.

Okay. Yeah.

And you said 4500 per month. That's not including the side business. And I take home 1500 on top of that.

Okay.

Be like six.

Six grand a month is what you take home?

Yes.

72 grand and take home. All right.

What about your wife or somebody? You said our boiler went out.

Yeah, my. My wife, she stays home with our three kids.

How old are the kids?

Four, two and five months.

Mama is working.

Okay, well, here's the deal. You making 72 versus what you're making now, which is what, 40? Somewhere in there.

Last year, I paid taxes on just under 70, but that wasn't. That wasn't take home. It was more like 50.

Okay.

Or 45 take home.

Well, with your 66k, I'm thinking you're going to be able to pay off this debt a whole lot faster by taking this new role. And it's not a forever thing, you know, it sounds like you enjoyed both. Who knows? You might jump to this new role and go, wow, they're giving me far more leeway now because I'm in, you know, more senior position. They're letting me make more decisions. I'm moving faster, I'm able to make more. You're able to do the side hustle. I think the upsides here are wonderful.

Yeah.

And it's not like you hated that job. It's just what you wanted, to move at a different pace and make more. And now you're going to be able to do that. Yeah.

Interesting, interesting.

Yeah.

I appreciate that. Yeah, because, I mean, the debt, the debt, it's really scary to me. I mean, we're barely paying anything towards it.

Yeah. What's your total payments? Your student loans, the home equity loan, the credit cards? Are we talking, you know, 1000, $1,500 a month going toward payments?

It would be that way, but we make so little that we're in the save program and that's just for a short term thing. I don't want to do that. But we didn't, we didn't really have an option. We bought a house that we couldn't, I mean, we're house poor.

How much?

It's not a big house, but what.

Are you paying a mortgage?

675. It's nothing.

Oh, so what do you mean? Your house poor?

Yeah. What do you mean?

I mean, just stuff breaks on an old house and, you know, you try to, you try to get, get traction on, on your debt snowball. And every time you try to get traction, you drop $200 on this, $500 on this.

So let me give you a little peace of mind, let me give you a little peace of mind with these student loans, because when it comes to the save plan, like you mentioned, I actually do think that when you're working, actively working with intensity, a debt snowball, the save plan can be a tool for you to keep your minimum payments low so that you have as many dollars as possible to throw towards your smallest debt. So if you're doing that right now, yeah, that's a good move for you to keep that intensity, throwing it towards your smallest debt, which I think you said was a credit card of $1,000. And then you'll move on to this home equity line of credit or the home equity loan. Now, your student loans, is it one big one for 60 or is it broken down into a lot of little guys?

It's a bunch, yeah, it's like eight or eight or nine, you know, between 1005 thousand.

Okay.

And then there's one big $20,000 loan that we consolidated that was a bunch of private ones.

So when you do your debt, that'll be our last. When you do. Well, contrary, when you do your debt, snowball, I want you to do it thinking about these little, these individual little loans, because what's going to happen is, is when you, when you pay your payment, you're satisfying the interest for all of those little guys and you're satisfying, you know, whatever the, the payment is for all those little guys. But when you go in and say, I'm gonna make an extra payment, you've gotta call in and say, which loan you want to go to, that which loan you want your principal payment to go towards. So even though you're saying, jade, I've got $60,000 of student loans. If you have a student loan individually for $1,000, you're gonna call in and say, I want to pay off this thousand dollar loan, and it will be gone. And when you do that, your overall payment's going to go down. And so that's the way I want you to attack those. Because it might be that in line of smallest to largest, you may have a couple of student loans that come before this home equity loan.

And if that's the case, do that, because that's going to make you sleep a lot better at night to know, okay, I just knocked out a $3,000.01. I just knocked down a $2,000.01. And so that's what I would do.

And, Steve, what are your monthly expenses to cover your household insurance bills, you know, the mortgage, plus your minimums on your debts, what does that add up to?

Yeah. So if there's nothing unforeseen, we have 800 a month left over. So right now, I take home about 4300. So about 35.

So you'd have an extra 1700 a month if you took this job. Plus the side hustle on top of the eight. Yeah. Now we're talking 2500 going toward your debt. That's 66 real quick.

Yeah, it would just be the, it would just be the, the 1700, though, because the, the business income was included in the 43.

Got it. That'll still get you debt free a whole lot faster, my man. I like Jake's advice. Prioritize a little, guy. That's a motto I live by. Jade, thank you for that. You're welcome. This is the Ramsay show.

All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence. Confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're someone you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you@ramseysolutions.com. agent ramseysolutions.com agent welcome back to the Ramsey show.

I'm George Campbell, joined by Jade Warshaw. Well, Jade, as springtime and summer rolls around, people start looking for houses, maybe thinking about selling their house. And you got to do this the right way. And selling the house the Ramsay way makes home ownership a blessing instead of a burden. And the Ramsey trusted program is the only way to find an agent that you can trust to help keep you on track with what we teach here at Ramsey and get the best offer for your house or find the right house for you. And we're going to send you some of the top agents in your area who we trust. And you get to review their stats. You get to interview them, them and decide which one you want to work with. And these agents, they have years of experience. They've sold a lot of homes, and they're going to help you make a wise decision when it comes to pricing and marketing strategy making or choosing the right offer. There's a lot of details here at play, and they know exactly what's happening in your local market. So you can find a Ramsey trusted agent for free@ramsaysolutions.com. agent love it.

All right, let's go to the phones. Dean awaits in Tampa, Florida. What's going on, Dean? Hi.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. How can Jade and I help?

Okay, so I have a low income, and I have high debt for my income, but I'm probably going to be needing a new car here pretty soon. And I'm just wondering, at what point should I be getting the car? I don't want to buy the car, like, financing it. I want to buy the car, like, outright.

Good.

That's the spirit. Debt is not an option. And so let's. Let's help you find some margin here. How old is your car? Like, how soon does this thing need to be replaced?

It's a 2008 car, so I'm surprised it's still running.

What kind of. Yeah, what kind? Because that matters a whole lot.

Saturn Aurora. It's a 2008 Saturn Aurora.

Wow. You don't find many Saturns on the road these days.

I wish it were different. I do. Oh, man.

That thing has seen some things. All right.

Yeah.

What's. What's it worth?

Probably when I looked, it said anywhere from, like 700 to like, 2000.

Okay.

Okay.

Let's say it's worth two k. How much debt do you have?

So right now, I have about $4,500 of debt. About 4000 of that is credit cards. And then 500 is for medical debt.

Okay. Not bad.

And what's your income?

So right now, that's kind of the issue. So at my current employer, I'm making $20 an hour, but I'm only working one to two days a week because there's not a lot of patients coming in. But I'm planning to start a new job on the 15th of next month, and that will be 1810 an hour. And that's a full time job. And I'll keep my current employer for like Sundays for a twelve hour shift.

Oh, nice. That'll be like a side hustle then. You said 18 an hour?

Yeah. My new job will be 18 an hour and I'll start that on the 15th. And then my current employer is $20 an hour.

Okay. So you'll, you'll move up to making about 36 grand. Plus you're probably. Plus you're keeping your one to two days. All right. So with that, you know, you could pay off that $4,500 fairly quickly. Right. Are your expenses pretty low?

That's the other thing. I have decently high expenses because I'm a single parent. That helps, but it's still hard.

What are your, what are some of your highest expenses? What's rent?

So I'm living with my mom, so I'm not paying rent specifically, but I'm paying other things like the Internet and the electricity and the water.

Okay.

Is that like $300 a month? What are we talking, $400.

In total for all of my expenses? I would say it's probably $1,000, honestly.

Okay. So that's great. That's not expensive for anyone, even a, even a single parent. A month is great.

Think about this. If, let's say you're making your 36 grand, right, that's three grand a month.

Okay.

And your take home might be closer. A little over two.

Okay.

And your expenses are a thousand. That means you have over a can throw at your debt.

Yeah.

And 4500, it's gone in four months.

Okay.

So I think then can you, will your car survive another six months or so?

I think so. It's just like every once in a while there's like a major thing that happens that I have to fix with the car. Like I just had to fix, like, something with the tire, like the mechanics in the tire and stuff like that.

And how much are you shelling out on average, every time?

Um, like a 1800, $601,000.

And you have the money to do that each time with cash?

Not really.

Are you putting it on the credit card?

No, I have not put anything on my credit card. Like six.

So you've been cash flowing it. What about dad? What's he contributing? And can you count on it at all.

Dad recently has been contributing for, like, the past two to three months, he's been contributing, and it's like $300 a month, which is enough. Which is almost enough for my son's daycare.

Okay. Is that court ordered or either way, do you feel like he's going to continue that?

I think so. I hope so.

Is there anything court ordered? What was the situation with child support or alimony?

I was never married, but it's been a fight up until recently, so it's just now that I've gotten him to start, like, taking on his responsibility as a parent.

Okay.

Got it. Well, we'll consider that bonus money. I hope it's always there, but let's. Let's live, you know, as if it's all up to dean to figure this out.

Yeah. And how long is this no rent situation good for? Are you in this for a couple of years, or has there been a date that you need to move on?

No, my mom's actually, like, my mom's the best. No, she has not said anything like that. No, she said that.

Does she have a car as well that you could use if yours was in the shop or if yours broke down for some reason?

Yes, my mom has two cars, and I could borrow one if I had to.

Does she need two cars? Could she sell you one for cheap?

No, because she has one car that's like a 2013, and then her other car is like a 95.

Okay, so the 2013 is more than what you'd want to pay, I'm guessing.

At this point, let's say the Saturn broke down. Could she sell you the 95 for a $1,000?

Highly doubt it.

Is it sentimental? What's the deal with this 95?

Her whole thing is, like, if she has car issues.

Yeah, but I'm not mad at that. I think as long as it's there for both of you as a backup option, then gray. I mean, she has a 2013. She should be fine.

And I'm making sure you've got a backup in case you have more car trouble as you're getting out of this debt. But it sounds like as you get this new job next month, four months later, you're completely debt free. Then we can start saving up to switch our car out. It might be a $5,000 car for now that you upgrade to. Then you get the emergency fund, begin investing, then you can upgrade that car over time. And so just stair step it and take it one. One step at a time.

What? I want to think more into the future, because I think that you're going to solve the problems at hand relatively quickly with the plan we gave you, career wise, what are your aspirations?

So I'm actually in school right now. I'm going to school full time online. I'm supposed to get my bachelor's in, like, 2025. 2026.

Okay.

And then I want to open my own business doing event planning. And then I also, like, I work in the emergency room right now in the hospital in my area.

Okay.

So I want to continue to do that. I just don't want to ever. Like, I'm kind of counting on myself here. So I don't want to come to a point to where, like, I'm not making money in my, you know, in my self employment aspect, and then I. I'm screwed for my child. So that's kind of like, my fear.

What's your degree in? What are you getting?

It's going to be a bachelor's in business administration.

Okay.

So.

Well, that. That. That is to help with the event planning, or will that help you with the work you're doing now?

Both.

Okay.

Both.

So with the work you're doing now, how will that raise your pay?

Is there a ladder you can climb on the administration side?

So, with my current job, the $20 an hour, I can't simply because someone would have to leave for me to be able to get a better position. But with the employer that I'm going to, it seems like there is room for growth because that company is nationwide, so I would be able to grow there.

Okay. I would just. Yeah, I would love to. For you to be really clear on what that looks like numbers wise for you, because I'm guessing you're paying something out of pocket to make this education happen. And I love the event planning idea. I like having your eggs in more than one basket. Just want to make sure you're off to the right start. Single parenting is not easy, but you have a great support system.

And I'm going to send you a copy of my book, breaking free from broke. Dean, it's going to give you some ideas to find that margin, some encouragement along the way, and it's going to help you avoid ever going to debt again. But we are wishing you the best. And it comes down to margin. Jade. Spend less, make more. I know it's not the most exciting advice we could give, but that is the only true proven path to freedom that puts this hour of the Ramsay show in the books. Thank you to Jade Warshaw, my co host. All the folks in the booth, including Kelly Daniel, filling in wonderfully for James child. Who needs James anyways?

Who is James?

We'll be back before you know it. From Ramsey Network, this is the Ramsey show. I'm George Camel, joined by Jade Warshaw. This hour, open phone lines at 888-25-5225 the phone call is free. All that we would ask is that you maybe take our advice. Is that too much to ask, Jade? We'll find out very soon. We're here to help you win with money, build wealth, do work that you love, and create amazing relationships. That's what it's all about. That's what it's been about for the last 30 plus years now. And we're still going.

We're still going strong.

You can't get rid of us still standing as long as Dave's on vacation. We are here. There we go. Yolanda is on the line in Tampa, Florida, to kick us off. What's happening, Yolanda?

Hey, George and Jade, how are y'all doing?

Good.

Goofing off. How can we help today?

That's awesome. So I. My husband and I are debt free, sort of. We were debt free, and my son went to college, and I signed for a parent plus loan, and I had no idea what I got myself into.

Oh, man.

How much total?

About $80,000.

What's the interest rate on this thing? Because I know parent plus loans will really take you to the cleaners.

They do. And when I. When I signed up for this, the guy was like, oh, if you have bad credit, don't worry, you won't get approved. And then all of a sudden, I was approved.

Did you have bad credit?

Well, I mean, it wasn't great. It was in the mean.

Okay. All right.

Long, long story short, I have three loans. My son has four loans totaling up to $80,000. So he did pay off one because it was only, like, $900. But there's all these little loans, so we're trying to pay off the little ones, but then all these big ones are still incurring, and it seems like the needle is not moving. And I need to know if it's using any kind of wisdom to consolidate, because the aid vantage sent me a link to consolidate, and I'm like, you know what?

Let me just see if I can.

Get a hold of the Dame Ramsey club.

The only time that it's a good idea to consolidate federal loans is if you know that you're getting a better interest rate overall. So you might say, yeah, I have this one that's got a crappy rate, but the rest of them have pretty good interest rates, and you're just annoyed by them. So you really need to make sure to kind of look at everything as a whole. Because here's the thing. When they consolidate them, a lot of times they will consolidate based on, you know, your own financial snapshot. So it's not just. It's not necessarily to say that you'll have a better rate. So look, and, like, do your homework on this, because generally, with federal loans, once you consolidate, you only get the one shot. It's like Eminem. You only get one shot. Do not miss your. Sorry. I'm. I can't help myself. And I apologize profusely. But I digress. What I was saying is, you want to make sure that you choose a very good rate, because you don't want to just consolidate for the. For the idea of they're all in one spot now. It's less annoying. I just make one payment.

So, really, looking at those interest rates and what's the plan? Is it that you and your son are paying these off together, or you're doing it? What. What did you guys decide with the parent?

Plus, so the deal is, is my son stays at the house, and he's got a job, and he's dropping $500 on every paycheck, which is twice a month. So about a $1,000. Okay, so with mine alone, the minimum payment is, like 652.

Yeah.

And so we're. I'm just trying to figure out, should I put a lump sum on the smallest loan?

Yes.

And then how much money do you guys have?

Oh, what do you mean?

How much savings?

Oh, none. I don't have any savings.

Okay.

Is it just, you know, it's my husband as well.

Okay.

But he is the saver, and it's one of those situations where I'd rather just not know what he's saving.

Does he have savings?

He does, yeah.

How much does he have? Have?

Oh, probably about 20.

He has $20,000?

I believe so. He's really good with the money. It's me. He's not on the one.

When did this turn into a competition in your marriage? Why won't that 20 grand go toward your son's student loans?

We. We haven't discussed that.

Ah, I think you need to have a discussion. Let's bring him into this. Yeah.

You guys. Is this your biological son between the two of you?

No. So we are a blended family, and the biological father has, for lack of better words, kind of lifted his hand off the situation.

Okay. So that that brings in, you know, a different dynamic. Is he willing to, you know, cover the debts of someone who's not his biological son?

Yeah. How long has he been in the. In the picture?

Ten years.

That's significant, because here's the thing. Those loans are in your name, so he's really helping you pay off your debt. And really, it's our debt, because you guys are one unit.

Do you guys combine your money in all other aspects, or you kind of just. He does his thing, you do your thing.

Well, here's the thing. He pays for everything, and when it comes to the bills and stuff, and I use my job for the vacation money.

So you guys just have an understanding. Yeah, I'm with George. I know you called for one answer, and we're, like, getting into your personal business here, but it's worth getting into, because I do think that over the long haul, this is going to serve everybody better. But I think you have a discussion at the right time, at the right point, and say, you know what? I'd really love for us to kind of just. Right now, it's kind of like a deal. Like, you handle this and I handle that, but I'd really love for us to kind of become one and really talk about it from that point of view. What I don't want, and, you know, this relationship better than, of course, George and I. What I don't want is for it to sound like you want that so that you can get at this 20,000, because that's really not the spirit of it, and I don't want it to come across that way. And it's just sort of a catalyst.

For, hey, we have really done a poor job of communicating well and combining our finances in a way that. That, you know, we're building towards something together instead of just, well, you do your thing, and as long as the bills are covered, you know, and this vacation money's not gonna get the student loans paid off. We need some serious traction here. That's why you called us. And that's only gonna happen is if you guys take your full household income and use all the margin you can create to attack these loans, which, let me remind him, are in your name.

Yeah. And, I mean, it begs the question, like, even you saying. And it just. All of this has made me realize, I don't know how you would feel if I asked you about this money. I don't know how you feel about me having debt in my name. Like, these are all conversations that in any relationship, I think that you need to be having. But in the meantime, back to the payments. Yeah. To your point, listing them smallest to largest, you're satisfying the minimum payment, and then whatever extra money you and your son can come up with, collectively, you're throwing it at the smallest debt until it's paid off. That's how that works.

Okay, so I am doing it correctly.

No need to consolidate. In fact, it's better to not, because you haven't broken out. And as you knock out a little debt, you're gonna free up a payment. Knock out another debt. You free up a payment. So you see the momentum that you start to build versus trying to attack a giant mountain, and you're just hacking away at it.

Okay. Yes.

That's the spirit.

Found out we're on the save plan as well. So, apparently, after ten years of $13,000.

If it's still there, we're not. Here's what I want to clarify in the last minute here. So, with the save plan, and I said this earlier in the hour, but the only time I think the safe plan is a good idea is in a situation where you are actively and intensely paying off your debt using the debt snowball method. So if that's what you guys are doing, it can be a tool for you to say, all right, save plan is going to allow me to lower these monthly minimums so that I have more money to throw out the smallest debt. So, for instance, let's say your smallest debt right now is $6,000. Instead of paying a high minimum on everything, you'll have more money to knock out that $6,000 debt faster. So, for that reason and for that mentality alone, what I suggest the save plan. But please, please, please don't get into it thinking, hey, I can relax, and in 15 years or in 20 years, the government will have my back, because that's just not the case.

Yeah, we got to start throwing huge chunks of money at this. We're talking 2030 grand a year, at least, to get this knocked out. We're not waiting ten years for nothing. Let this be gone in two or three. And that means combining finances with your husband and getting on a plan. This is the Ramsey show.

Are you planning to sail with us on the live like no one else cruise? Then you better book your cabin before they're sold out. If you're on baby step four and above, come aboard March 22 through the 29th of 2025 as we set sail for Turks and Caicos, St. Thomas, San Juan, and the Bahamas. Join me, the Ramsey personalities and a ton of special guests for the ultimate debt free celebration. Book your cabin because they are going fast. Head to ramsaysolutions.com cruise today.

Welcome back to the Ramsey show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Jade Warshaw. You've heard us mention during this hour talking about budgeting, talking about every dollar. And if you don't know, the best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a budget. You got to put it on paper. You have to face the music, face the reality of your financial situation. What is your income? What are your expenses? We ask those in almost every single phone call because you need margin in order to win. With money without margin, you're not going to win. And the only way to figure out if you have the margin is by doing a budget. And the best budgeting tool out there is every dollar. It makes it simple to plan spending, track expenses, save for what matters most to you. And it's an easy to use app that fits into your busy lifestyle. If you've got a spouse, you can both be logged in and have that, that accountability and transparency. It'll help you keep a pulse on your spending and make progress on your goal. So be sure to download every dollar for free in the app store or Google Play today.

Kiana's up next in St. Louis. What's going on, Kiana?

Hi, Jaden.

George.

Hey. How can we help?

Hey. So I was wondering if I should go back to school. I recently moved back into my mom's and under her roof, her conditions are that I go back to school.

How old are you?

But. Yeah, but, but I can't ignore the debt that I have. So.

Yeah. Who's paying for it if she's making these demands?

That's a good question.

I don't have. I don't have any bills and, you know, she's always done everything she can to help and so she's not. I don't think that she wouldn't help.

But you do have debt. What's your debt situation?

Yes, I do have debt. I'm about $88,000 in debt right now.

What kind is it?

66 of it is student loans. Half of that, though, is a consent judgment.

What's that?

That means that I've been kind of taking the court. So I've got to get a payment arrangement for this. I'm currently on an active payment arrangement.

Got you. Is, are they private loans or. They're federal?

So this one, through consent, was through an interest free student kind of loan thing through a not for profit. The other one though is subsidized, unsubsidized and then I think parent plus a little bit of it.

Okay. So basically with this judgment that you have to pay, what is that? What do you have to do per month? Or like what's the deal? Yeah.

So I'm in an arrangement where I started off small but as of course the years go on and I'm set to increase my payment. So right now I'm at 200 a month for it. Next year when I pay off my car I'll be at about three to 500 for it.

Okay. Oh yeah. So it's kind of what I have to follow.

So you got 66 in student loans and a car loan. What's left on that?

That's 6000. That's set to be paid off in September of next year.

Okay. What's the other 16 in debt?

12,000 in medical and then there was like three in collection. So. Charged off. Credit cards active? Yeah.

Okay.

So what is your income that you're bringing in right now and what type of work?

Right now I'm an insurance producer. I work for my mom and so I'm bringing in 38,000 currently with her.

Okay. And what does that look like for you per month?

After taxes and everything that's about 2200.

Okay.

Well did you finish school?

So I didn't. I got out to pursue my relationship and that didn't go too well.

Oh boy.

What were you majoring in? What was the goal?

So biology major under minor in chem. And I wanted to be a dentist so I'm not ruling it out. If I go back, I want to go for dental hygiene temporarily.

Dental hygiene. And what would that cost?

I am not sure. I know that they have a two year program. I've been looking at averages but I'm not too sure exactly the price for it.

Okay. So I would say getting off the phone with you here, one of your homeworks is to find out and price out different dental hygiene programs because I do think that for you, especially if you kind of know what you want to do, really getting the price points and figuring out how you're going to pay for that is like the most important thing that you're going to do because we know student loans don't work. Right. That's a. You got the raw end of the deal on that. So that's thing one. Obviously we're going to hook you up with Ken's book paycheck to purpose. We're going to hook you up with the fine work you're wired to do so that you can kind of do the assessment in there and make sure that dental hygiene is really where your strengths lie. So that's a homework for you. Plus the homework for us is giving you those free items. Now, let's talk about this debt. So the 2200 a month that you're making, is that full? Are you working 40 hours a week full time?

Yes, that's full time.

Okay. I think that you can find another job and make more.

Okay. My question is, is mom gonna be okay with this?

She is. She's okay with whatever will help me be successful.

Okay, good. I didn't know if you were, like, under her thumb. Like mom. I work for mom. I work. I live in mom's house. And so I was just. I didn't know if that was gonna go over well if your income is tied to hers.

I'm really trying to be loyal to her. And so she's mentioned venturing off and making a little bit more, doing something different. But I just.

Because if you can make 60 in the insurance world instead of 38, well, now we got some margin to really attack this debt because what I'm seeing on paper, you've got a giant hole in the shovels. Just not big enough to really make a dent here. We've got to increase our income significantly.

And the truth is you can do that with the skills that you have to offer without having a degree. And so I like dental hygiene for the future. But right now, to George's point, we got to get some money in, in the bank account. And so if I'm you, I'm going to start looking online and I'm going to start applying for any, any and everything that makes me more than 2200 a month. Basically. That, that lies within your state.

Think about this way, Kiana. How much can you put towards your debt every month right now?

So I haven't been putting anything. I do start my second job tomorrow, though.

What will you make off of that?

I did the math. It was like only 9000 a year.

Okay. So that again, I'm glad that you're making the effort, but I just know you can do so much more and make a lot because here's what I want, everybody, and here's my thing. Everybody can't live as an adult at their parents house. And it go well. So if you have the opportunity to live at home and it's drama free and you can.

There's an exit strategy.

There's an exit strategy. You can take advantage of that for a short period of time in order to accomplish a goal. I'm all for it. But the key is you've got to have, like George said, an exit strategy. And that involves getting that income as high as possible so that you can take advantage of the fact that you're not having to pay rent and you're not having some of those expenses that go along with having your own place. And so that's what I want for you, Kiana, is to make the most of this limited time only offer.

Yes.

I like it.

It's a limited time only deal.

I hope that helps.

Yeah.

Let's go to Jason in Green Bay, Wisconsin. What's happening, Jason?

Hi there, guys. How are you today?

Doing well. How can we help? Help.

Awesome. I discovered you guys just a couple months ago, and you guys are like my heroes. The advice you give and the compassion you have for people, it's just. It's awesome. And I thank you for it.

Thank you.

How you. Of course, how you might be able to help me. I. Before I. Four years ago, before I ever heard of you guys and the baby steps, etcetera, I went ahead and purchased a brand new vehicle, which I'm not a millionaire, and I. And I was not out of debt. So now I know that that's kind of a no, no. It's worked out for me.

I have.

I don't really regret it.

What do you mean by it's worked out?

Well, I have no reason to regret it yet. I do still owe about 9200 on it.

Okay.

And I think what I have really appreciated about having a brand new vehicle is the warranty that it came with and that the little things that have happened have just been completely covered. Little engine things like transmission issues.

I thought new cars were supposed to be bulletproof. You shouldn't have issues by buying a brand new car.

I admit. Yeah, I admit you're right. It's a Kia soul gt for anyone that might be wondering. And I started. Had these issues beginning, I want to say, September or so of last year. You know, I brought it in and they. Oh, our coil needs to be replaced. Okay. A couple of weeks later, the engine light went on. It happened to be the same thing. Oh, must have been a bad coil. You know, we'll take care of that. It's under warranty, you know, so.

No problem.

Well, it.

Sorry, we're running out of time, Jason. What's the question? We'll see if we can get to it.

Okay, well, I just found out with this current repair that my engine, my warranty is no longer. I just surpassed the 66,000.

So you're gonna have to pay out of.

No, they're gonna. They're gonna cover it. Because when I first brought it in, it was still under 60,000 when they first started troubleshooting last. Last fall.

Okay, what's the question?

I'm wondering, is it worth getting a supplemental car insurance now that I'm not under warranty?

No, do not do it.

Just pay what you owe for the service. If they cover it, great. If they don't, you have a car, and cars need maintenance. And don't buy a Kia soul again.

We've learned our lesson there. Brand new. It was sort of old.

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We are back. It's the Ramsey show. I'm George Camel here with Jade Warshaw taking your calls at triple 8825-5225 we'll try to help you take the right next step for your life and your money. Brandon is in providence, Rhode island. What's going on, Brandon?

Not much. Thanks for taking the call.

Sure. How can we help?

So, kind of got a good problem to have. Fortunately got a nice, big promotion at work recently, so pretty big salary increase.

Yay.

How much by? A little over 15%.

Way to go.

Wonderful. So what will you be making after.

Taxes and benefits and everything? It's around 4100 a month.

Great.

Cool.

So really, it's most money I've ever made in my life. And I've got a few kind of big life things I'm saving up for, and I feel like I don't have enough saved up. And I feel like I want to be able to continue to, like, power, save while being able to enjoy the money that I have.

Are we talking about. Oh, go ahead.

Yeah. So I'm 33. I'm also debt free, which is great.

Wonderful. And you got an emergency fund.

Yeah.

Because you said you feel like you don't have enough savings. Are you talking about investing?

Not really investing. Just like, I'm getting another car at some point. My car is very unreliable. Starting to get to that point. It's, you know, I've had it for almost ten years now. So maybe it's, you know, savings for a house, things like that. I feel like those things are going to come up quickly over the next couple years, and I just want to be ready, you know?

I mean, the way we would teach is, you know, you're going to save three to six months of expenses right after you've become debt free, which you are. And so stable income. It's just you. How's your health?

Good.

I mean, three months might do it for you for right now. And then if you decide later that you want to up that to six months, that's your prerogative. But the way we would teach is baby step three is save three to six months of expenses, and then after that, you can begin baby step three b, which is setting aside for your down payment on a house. And at any point throughout this journey, if you want to kind of set up some sinking funds, which is basically you setting aside a designated amount of money every month to go towards a specific task, whether it be, you know, upgrading a vehicle or car maintenance or whatever it is that you feel like is on the horizon with your current vehicle. You can do that?

Yeah, I feel like I'm kind of comfortably at that point now.

What are your total expenses every month?

I just did my. Looking at my budget, I live well below my means that has. I probably spend less than half my total income every month.

Okay. So you could put around, like, two grand away to your savings goals.

Maybe a little less.

Okay.

I think what would help you? Because you said when I gave you the first framework, you're like, yeah, I feel like I'm comfortably there. You seem like you're not living above your means at all. So is it just that maybe you need a very clear target so you feel motivated? Is that where we're at?

No, I just feel like I'm gonna have, like, the car and the house thing come up at the same time, and I'm, like, not gonna have enough money. Comfortably sick.

Well, they're very different goals. You know, a home down payment that might look like $60,000 for you, whereas a car might be 15,000. And so if the car is more urgent, it's okay to not save up for a home right this second, be investing 15%, and then put away $2,000 a month for, you know, a year. That'll give you $24,000.

And I'd start. I'd start with the car first, because you can control that. Like, uh, let me say it the opposite way you can control when you're going to buy a house. It's not going to sneak up on you, right? Like you get to just to decide, I'm ready or I'm not ready. No one's going to, you know, put a gun to your head. But with the car, your car could break down or, you know, could come to the point without you necessarily wanting it to, that you do need a new vehicle. So I would start setting aside money for that first since, you know, it's coming. And then with whatever money is left, then you can start building a down payment. But I think that having a really clear target is something that's going to keep you on pace and it's also going to inform whether or not you're ready. And you won't have this feeling like it's sneaking up on me. It's like, no, I have a plan. I'm saving, like George said, 15,000 for this and 60,000 for that. So nothing sneaking up on you. You're just following a plan until you get there.

Are you on a written budget right now, Brandon?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just feel like I'm not gonna be able to save enough. That's my worry.

Well, what is enough? Let's define enough because that can be a real squishy moving target.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you.

I mean, that's what we want you to have, a concrete goal. If you want a $20,000 car, you know exactly what enough is, right?

Right. I mean, I would love to have 40, 50 grand save the way right now, but I don't.

For what?

Just a car. And, you know, again, to start that kind of down payment process.

So let's separate these if we're going to make it tactical. If I was your, your coach right now, I'd say let's get your every dollar budget. We're going to have different sinking funds, and those can be tied to actual savings accounts. So you could have a high yield savings account. One account is for new car upgrade, one is for the down payment, one is for vacation because you said you want to enjoy your life. And then we automate this to we go, all right, $500 a month going toward vacation. In a year from now, we'll have six grand. 1500 bucks a month is going to go toward a car. Ten months from now, there should be $15,000 in that account. You see how much more clear it is when you have those goals?

Yeah.

And there's going to be seasons. Right now, you might be in a season where you got to upgrade the car and you need a vacation and the house may, you know, we're going to punt that next year, we'll start the house down payment goal, whatever you want to split it, but just don't have a flat tire to where you're putting all your effort to one thing, but you feel like I really should upgrade the car, man, I really need to enjoy life a little bit. You're 33, you're debt free, you're a young guy, you got time on your hands. And so I just put that money to good use, applying it to those different goals.

And if I were you, I'd get into every dollar premium because they've got a long term planning feature in their financial roadmap app where you can really look in and say, like you said, whether it's planning for a down payment, those other savings, you can plug in those numbers with what you have as margin and it's going to help you project how long it will take you to save. Because I think for you, just being able to say, okay, if I want to save 50 grand, it's going to take me x amount of months or x amount of years to make that happen. And then it's, at that point it's just a matter of walking through that plan. There's no unknown and there's no, you know, if anything, you'll get there faster because you'll be motivated and start to earn more money. So.

That's right. Good question. Thank you. Terry is in Huntsville, Alabama. Up next, how can we help Terry?

Yes, thank you for taking my call.

Sure.

You've got the best, the best show on radio.

Oh, we appreciate that. We think so too. We're biased though.

Yes. Okay. I'm 65 years old and I really would like to retire at the end of the year. Okay. So my situation is I'm wondering if I should pay my house off. And the payoff is $83,000. My monthly expenses are 2500. And I calculated if I pay my house off, my monthly expenses will go from 2500 all the way down to 1500.

Wow.

Great.

This is the money that I have available. I work right now and my monthly income is 2800. I have a ra, which is worth 1000, excuse me, $134,000. I have a retirement account at work which, which is worth 20,000.

Okay.

And so I wanted to call you up since you all have more experience with money than I do. Is that a good idea to go ahead and pay my $83,000 house off?

What's your.

I want to retire at the end of the year.

Is your plan to just live off Social Security?

Yes, my Social Security actually is going to be 21 45 2100.

In your mind you're going, hey, that's way more. I only need 1500 to live and I'm used to living off of 2500.

Right. And paying off the house would, would clear $947. You know, I won't have to pay that a month because the house will be paid off.

Yeah. If your nest egg was larger, I would say this could be a good move. It worries me that the total nest egg is one hundred fifty k and you're about to take over half of that to knock out the mortgage. I love the spirit of it, but I think you might be better off continuing to not try to knock out this mortgage with your current income while you're working and letting that nest egg grow a little bit, because every seven years it'll double. Terry. So if you left it to 72, for example, you'd have 200, you know, 300k in there.

Not to mention if you wait longer on your social, Social Security to get the max benefit. Since you plan on living off this money, that might be advantageous for you as well. So you get the maximum amount.

The hard news is you might need to work another year or two because retirement is not an age, it's a financial number. And right now then the, you have great low expenses.

That's right.

But we need that nest egg to get buffed. And so I'm going to try to get more in that retirement account, you know, continue to live below your means. You're doing great. And I'd keep working for a little while before pulling the trigger on that. Thanks for the call, Terry. This is the Ramsey show. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Jade Warshaw. Our scripture of the day, two corinthians 417 and 18. For our light and momentary troubles are achieved, leaving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Aretha Franklin once said, it's the rough side of the mountain that's the easiest to climb. The smooth side doesn't have anything for you to hang on, hang on to. I like that.

I like it. I like.

Aretha Franklin got away with words. All right. Alyssa joins us up next in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Alyssa, how can we help you today? Today?

Hi, Jade and George. Thank you so much for answering my call.

Sure. What's your conundrum today?

Yeah. I am currently 23. I'm living at home with my parents and my sister. I have a full time job. I currently make about four to 6000 a month, just depending on the month I'm in. Baby step number two, getting after my debt. I have about 9000 in debt with my car and about 28,000 with my student loans. I am just wondering if I am financially ready to kind of get out of my parents house and move out into an apartment. That would be about 900 a month. I just want to make sure I'm continuing to be gazelle intense while also trying to live on my own and kind of take the next step.

I love it. Well, you sound very mature the way you're talking. I have no doubts that if you were to move out, you're still going to stay gazelle intense. So where all four of you moving out if it benefits you, if you're like, hey, six more months and I could really knock out this debt with no bills, that's fine. But if you're like, hey, I really just want to be out on my own. I'm going to have inexpensive rent, I'm going to get roommates, I'm going to make the sacrifices, then I'd say go for it.

What kind of work do you do?

I'm currently a strategic sourcing buyer for a kitchen and bath company. I work for the hospitality side, so. So I make about, I would say 74.

Why the fluctuation?

Is there commissions or something?

Well, I do a side gig of dance teaching so I make quite a bit of money doing that as well.

So have you crunched the numbers on this? If you move out, you spend $900 a month on your place and all the things that go along with that. How does it affect your debt payoff?

Yeah, I guess with the car it would probably extend it about a month to two months. I haven't really looked into the student loan side of things, but without moving out, it would get this debt kicked off by next July, probably with how intense I've been going after it. And if I did move out, it would probably extend that to maybe six more months or a little more than that. So it's just knowing if I'm mentally, emotionally, like good to move out. Not that I don't love my home, just want to make sure I'm taking the next right steps and, you know, making the right decision with this debt.

Yeah. So we're talking like eleven months versus 18 months, right, right.

I, you know, at 23, if you were I don't think there's a wrong answer here. Let me start by saying that, okay. But at 23, if you're ready to move out and you have the money to do it, you've got first and last month's rent saved. Do you have a little bit of savings set aside that you can kind of just to make sure that you can pay for the things associated with the move and getting settled and getting some, you know, at least an air mattress, like having the things that you need to live on your own. I don't know what you have or don't have.

Okay. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think I'd be covered there. It would just take the more, you know, out of paying that debt each month and, you know, pushing it out a little further.

And here would be my challenge to you because I'm wired this way, and maybe you're one of those, like, high achievers. I would go, okay, it's going to take me 13 months if I stay here, how can I make it take 13 months? Even if I move out? What would I need to do with my expenses and my income? What sacrifices would I be willing to make? How much more dance could I teach? Could I get a promotion at work within the next six months to a year? My annual review? Start thinking in those terms to speed up the process and just keep the momentum. Momentum. Because that's my thing is, you know, as much as I want you debt free, I think not losing the progress and momentum is super important if you do move out.

Yeah, yeah. And I thank you. I appreciate that.

Yeah. I don't think there's a wrong answer. If I had to vote for one, I'd vote move out and do Georgia's in more intense.

Well, I hear Dave rams in my head, and this is the Dave quote. An eagle that doesn't leave the nest is called a turkey. Something like that. I butchered it. Dave says it so much better in his southern and draw. Yeah, but, you know, so you caught. I moved out at 20 and I had, you know, at debt and I was. I had two, three roommates and, you know, you just do whatever it takes. But I think there's an independence and maturity that happens when you. When you gotta pay your own bills and you start thinking about spending differently when it's like, no, this is my paycheck now. Mom and dad ain't. They're not covering dinner tonight.

Yeah, that's true. That is so true. My last year that I moved out of my parents house, I had one year of college left and I was basically couchsurfing. Cause I was like, I can't live at home anymore. And so I was paying a small amount to sleep on my friend's futon that was, like, in the living room.

They should be paying you for a chiropractor after that one.

It was worth it to me, dude.

All right, let's go out. We've got one time for one more call from Caleb in Vancouver, British Columbia. How we doing, Caleb?

Hey, good. How you guys doing?

Great.

How can we help? Help.

Oh, you there, Caleb?

Well, let me see. I. Did we lose theirs? Caleb. How you doing, man?

Sorry about that.

Hey.

Oh, sorry about that. I'm just calling for some advice with my growing family. My wife and I are in a position where we're trying to decide if we want to renovate our home and make way for another baby, or we should potentially be considering selling and buying something that's a little bit bigger for us.

Oh, interesting.

What would the renovation cost?

That's the thing. So what we're hearing from the contractors is $100,000 to $150,000 to turn our one bedroom suite into two, likely just at max two. So we'd be moving some rooms around.

Wow. Do you have the cash?

That's the thing. We'd be likely looking at, like, a remortgage to do that situation.

Okay.

What is your house worth?

That's the thing. You guys are going to think it's crazy, but our house is actually worth $1.8 million.

Okay.

Wow.

But it's a sweet, like, a three up, one down situation where we live with my mother in law. She's upstairs, and then we're downstairs in the suite. And so we're trying to stay in the home because we love living with our mother in law, but, you know, we also just need the space because we want to have more children.

Yeah. And you got one right now.

Just one? Yeah. And we're hoping to have a second in the next year, but I'm trying to do this planning before we even get pregnant, like, whether we want.

You talking about three bedrooms up?

Yeah. Three bedrooms upstairs, one bedroom downstairs. Hmm.

So it sounds like there's room for.

The kids if we were to, like, cohabitate. But we. We do try and live quite separately. My mother in law is upstairs in the three bedrooms.

Could you it. Can you.

Your family be upstairs and she's down?

That would be. That would be ideal.

What's wrong with that?

The issue we're having is that my mother in law doesn't want to live in the suite. She doesn't want to live in the basement suite. She wants the comfort of living in the three bedroom home.

Who owns the house?

We have a 60 40 split where I own 40% and she owns 60% thing. What's that? Sorry?

The 60 40 split. I've never. Is this a thing that happens in Canada?

No, it was a situation where my mother in law was going through a divorce and essentially she was going to need to sell this home and she gets the vote.

Well, here's the thing. Let's say you do put on the addition. Let's say you. Let's say you had 150,000 today to put on this edition. That's going to add a certain amount of equity to the home. How does that get split? Who decides when it's time to sell the house? Like, how does this work long term?

Yeah. So our 60 40 split is if the house, if we grow the house in value by, let's say, $200,000, by doing this renovation, the agreement would be that we would split whatever that. Let's say we were to sell for 2 million in three or four years. We would still split a 60 40.

Got it. So the growth is split in those ratios. Now, what would a new house cost to you guys? Could you buy a new house for 1.9 that suits all of your needs?

So. Well, ideally, if we're, if we're gonna, you know, sell in part, we would likely part ways.

Yeah.

So my wife and I would probably go for something that's closer to a million, which might sound ridiculous to the listeners, but in my area, that's.

No, I get it. I'm voting for that right now.

I think that's the move. Now, you said you loved living with her, though.

That is true.

So. But that's what we're thinking as we want to live near each other. But. But we.

Yeah, I. Caleb, I wouldn't move forward with this plan. I'd probably just look for a different home that fits your family's needs and she does her thing and y'all visit each other. But, man, that sounds complicated and expensive, and so I wouldn't go through with it, especially because who knows who gets the final say here? Who gets the vote, who gets the equity? It's just simply too complicated. That's it for this hour of the Ramsey show. We'll be back.

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