Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, number one, best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke, Ramsey personality and various other things. He's co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour, many other things around here. He's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Katie is going to start us off in Akron, Ohio, this hour. Hi, Katie. How are you?

Hi, I'm good.

How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Good.

My husband is a physician, so he's got a really good income, but he also has almost $500,000 in student loan debt. We've been married three years, so I married into his debt. As such, we're not sure if now is even an acceptable time to be considering buying a couple of new to us used cars. Right now, he works out of state and will for the foreseeable future. So he's gone 50% of the time, and I'm here with all the kids. Last week, two of our vehicles were broken down at the same time, so I had no transportation. So I was just We're looking to spend maybe a total of $40,000 on a van and a sedan, and just don't know if we're still supposed to be driving clunkers because of that massive student loan debt.

Are we attacking the massive student loan debt?

Probably not as fiercely as you would like, and not as fiercely as I would like either, because this is a second marriage for both of us. We've both had to adjust our financial We've used a little bit, a little give and take. I'm more gung-ho than he is, but at the same time, we are still paying them off. We've paid off 100,000 of them in the past two years.

What's he make?

He It makes 400,000 gross. We're bringing home a little over 18,000 a month.

You should be bringing home more than that. Your taxes aren't that high?

It's It's about $19,000 after taxes and insurance.

That's almost 50%.

You don't have a 50% tax. There's some problems going on here.

Is he investing through his retirement plan?

Yes, but that's actually already been maxed out for the year.

Yeah, I know. That's why you're taking home less as well. That's part of the equation here. If we pause investing, you could get back 20 grand in your paycheck.

The question is not really cars, because based on the way you guys are currently living, you're trying to wander out of debt while continuing to do investing and while you have to do this. You make 400,000, you only paid off 100 grand in two years. I mean, it's just awful. There's no intensity at all inside.

We do also have a lot of the expenses that others may not have. With him working out of state, he has to maintain an apartment out of state. I have three step kids that live in a different state that he has to go out there to visit on a monthly basis, and so hotel rooms and travel for that. Then his- But truthfully, Katie, you told us you guys are not intense.

You guys are not working our system, okay? I'm not mad at you, but so I don't know why, whether you buy a car matters. I mean, if you want to go buy a car, buy a car, if you're going to keep working it this way. But you're going to struggle as long as you continue to do this. You guys are going to have to decide if you're going to lean into this debt thing and get rid of the debt. If you're going to lean into it, then stop the 401k and buy one $10,000 car and get rid of these two pieces of crap that keep breaking down. But as long as you all keep acting like people that make $400,000, you're going to keep spending what you're spending, and you're going to justify it and rationalize it, and you're going to stay in debt. You're not going to get out. It doesn't matter. $10,000 car doesn't matter. But what the question does do in your house, not with us, it doesn't affect us, but between the two of you, it causes you to say, Okay, are we going to do this or not? Are we going to keep limping through this?

Because at this current rate, you're going to be in debt for 10 years. That's not a plan. It's not a good plan. If you're going to do that, then, yeah, sure, buy a car. I mean, it's not all the cars you want to buy. I don't care. Because what you're doing is you're half-butt doing everything. That's just not going to... Everything we teach anyway. You guys need to have a discussion about this. We need to sit down and make the money we have, behave better, and we need to behave better, and we need to get in very, very intense because you are a broke doctor's wife. You're married to a doctor who is broke, broke, poor people making 400 grand. That's who you are. You guys got to decide if that's how you want to live or not. I don't want to live like that.

Yeah, part of this is getting a line going, All right, how much can and should we be throwing at this debt? We want to be done in three years. Okay, that's 170 grand a year. We got to be throwing at this. What does that take per month? Once you make it mathematical- And what must be true. Yeah, we got to cut some lifestyle.

What has to be true of our lifestyle? What has to be true of the travel apartment? What has to be true about this and true about that? What's the way we can, for a short period of time, what can we sacrifice? That's what you do, regardless if you make 40 grand or you make 400 grand.

Maybe you can repair the cars for five grand instead of spending 40, and that buys you a few years. Who knows? Yeah.

But I think what this highlights is not a car issue. What it highlights is the issue that the plan you're working is not working well, and you're not on the same page. You guys probably need to talk about what What the flip we're going to do going forward? Then that will answer your car question.

Do you even have 40 grand in cash to pay for this?

Yeah, probably not. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. George, one of the things that happens, and it happened with me, I didn't have a choice because I went broke. But you can choose to to take away all your options. You can choose to take away all your rationalizations. You can choose to do this. You have to run a mental scenario. I always tell people, Okay, you have no money. What if you had to have $10,000 by Christmas to save the life of your child with a medical procedure, and you couldn't borrow it?

What would you do?

You'd find it. You'd find it. All of a sudden, all this, Oh, I have to do this, and I have to do that. Bull crap. We're getting $10,000.

If you make it a priority, it happens.

It's like it's life or death. Whatever you focus on, you'll see the result. All of a sudden, all this stuff we think we need when you are trying to save the life. When you put it in that a mental gymnastic routine, then you're forced into looking at your life realistically.

Because dead isn't life or death, but you have to make it that way in order to get out. No, it's not.

But if you say, if you act like that's how important this is, until it becomes important, you're not going to do it. That's the thing. As long as there's something else- That's any goal in life. You're not going to do it. This is The Ramsey Show. Buying your first home is a big deal and sets the stage for your financial success. So work with a mortgage advisor you trust, not just some random website. Churchill Mortgage is Ramsey trusted because They help you avoid hidden traps and expertly guide you through every step. Learn more at churchillmortgage. Com.

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We take care of it. We want you to get the right people helping you buy or sell probably one of your largest assets of your life. It's big time important. Ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Pim is with us in Pittsburgh. Hi, Pim. How are you? Good. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up?

Yeah. Just a little back story. My wife and I are followers of the Baby Steps. We're on four, five, and six. We have about 65,000 left on our mortgage.

Way to go.

And then it would be completely debt-free. So that being said, my in-law's, her parents are They don't see eye to eye with that. They do their own thing. I don't agree with anything financially that they do, pretty much, but that's them. That being said, they redid their will and were updating it and going over it with us. They want to leave us a time share and two rental properties, and we don't want any of it. My wife and I, we don't want to ever be landlords. That's not something we want to do.

It's her parents, right?

It's her parents, yeah. Now, the problem really comes in where I'm a little bit more vocal than my wife. Now, I look like I'm not appreciative or- You've already said all this, right? Oh, yeah. It hasn't gone very well. I mean, I try to say that it's Basically, I think this is like, especially the rental, not too much of time share. The rental stuff, I think they view as a legacy, I guess. But it's not something that… I mean, even if someone were to give us a million dollars right now, my wife and I would not buy a rental property. That's just not something that we want to get into.

That's fine. Yeah, that's cool.

We want to get into. I don't know how to get around it, but be direct.

Well, I think you've already been direct. Yeah. And now you're accused of being the ungrateful son-in-law who's spoiling the whole family, messing up the whole thing. It was all going good until you came along.

Have they ever liked you, Pim? Has this always been a tumultuous relationship?

No, honestly, it's been good. But like I said, it's just we've never… Like I said, they don't do-Okay, so you said to them, I don't want this, and now that hurt their feelings.

That's where we sit today, correct? Yeah, pretty much. Okay, so what would you think the net… I don't know what to do to solve that other than it's been said, because you don't need to say it again, right?

Right.

You told them, We don't want this, and then they got their little feelings hurt.

Yeah. I don't know if we just bite the bullet whenever that day comes, we could just tell it.

No. I think your conclusion is correct. The only thing I would have said, if you'd have called me before you talked to him about it, would have just been your wife needed to tell him, not you.

Got you. I mean, she was there.

I know, but she didn't carry the weight of it. You carried the weight of it.

It hits different when it comes from their own daughter.

Yeah. Dad, I love you and I appreciate you. We do things different. I don't want to be a landlord. I know it means a lot to you to have these rental properties, but dad, I don't want to be a landlord. Thank you. It's very you. I certainly don't want dadgum time share. It's legalized fraud. I don't want anything to do with it. It's the worst industry on the planet. She doesn't say all that, but she could just say, Dad, I love you, but no. You sit there with your mouth shut. That would have been the only thing I would have changed about this scenario, but it's too late. That cat's out of the bag now, right?

No takebacks.

Any more discussions need to come from her. If you want to have a follow-up and make sure it's that the will is changed or whatever it needs to come from her. Otherwise, if they die and you're still in the will with this stuff, you just put the rental properties on the market and sell them, and you never take the time share into your name and just let it go into default.

Okay, that was going to be my next question. Because I did some research and it looks like as long as you don't sign any paperwork- Never touch it.

Never touch anything. Don't even discuss the timeshare. Just pretend like it didn't exist, and it will deteriorate and it will go its own way.

And they can't go after like- They can't come after me for their timeshare, and they can't come after you for their timeshare because neither one of us did this deal. Okay.

Yeah, you can't force a contract by inheritance. Okay. You'd have to be dumb enough to sign it when they put it in front of you.

Okay.

Now, if you just said, No, you people can have that. Just take that back. Well, we'll sue you. Who are you going to sue? The estate? Yeah, good luck with that. Because they're not going to. The timeshare people are just gross.

They'll move on and find another victim.

They're looking for old people that they can feed off of, and they bus them in from the Walmart parking lot and sell them, pressure them with a free meal or a free hotel room. Oh, yeah.

That happened on our honeymoon. First thing, first person you interact with is the timeshare salesman when you get to the resort. I said, No, thank you. There's nothing you could offer us that would make sitting through three hours of this hell worth it. Jeez, man.

It's like, they're just... It's the scummiest This thing. Oh, yeah. Anyway, so, dude, your wife has to talk about this. You can never talk about it again to them. You can only encourage her and cause her to have courage to be clear and kind and grateful, and the answer is no. Anytime it comes up, anything you can do like that. But, yeah, you can't do. Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still. Sons-in-law are not usually in a position of strength to take this on, our daughters-in-law. You got to take care of your own blood there. It's the best possible probability of this turning out well, relationally. Anyway, for the rest of you out there if you're facing that. Billy's in Chattanooga. Hi, Billy. How are you? Billy? Billy? Hey, Dave. I'm good. How are you? I'm better now that I found you. What's up?

No, I have a question for you. I think you'll feel a certain type of way about it, but I accidentally made a lot of money in crypto, and I'm wondering what would be smartest to do with it.

I'm still writing it right now.

Back in 2020, I put about 12,000 in. It turned into 800,000 in less than a year. I thought I was very smart, and I was like, Well, if I wait for over a year, I'll save a bundle taxes. I'll just sell 10 % for a house and let the rest ride. And then the rest crashed down to about 16,000.

Oh, my goodness. You went from 12 to 800,000 to 16,000?

Yes. But Now, so this is... I bought a house since then with that 10% that I sold. It's coming back up quick and fast.

I'm wondering if I should just pay off the house altogether and be done with it with that. I'm going to be way I'm more conservative than I was last time.

I'm not going to expect for it to get back up that high.

George and I would tell you to cash out any crypto today by the end of the day and then work the baby steps with it.

Pay the consumer debt first, get the emergency fund, then the house.

Work the baby steps with it. We're not hanging on until tomorrow, doing it by the end of the day today.

Too much anxiety for me.

This is The Ramsey Show. Let's face it, Dating antibiotics or other medicines isn't a matter of if, it's when. There's never a convenient time to be sick. I've been in a pharmacy at midnight because I had a speaking engagement the next day and I realized I was coming down with something. So now I stay prepared, and you can too, with a medical emergency kit from the wellness company. Guys, I've got one of these, and the medical emergency kit gives you peace of mind knowing you'll have prescription antibiotics and medicines to treat over 30 common illnesses like strep throat, pneumonia, bronchitis, UTIs, and more. It's easy to order. Just answer a few online questions, and your kit will be shipped directly to your door, along with a detailed guidebook. Don't wait and learn the hard way like I did, and maybe you have. You can have the prescriptions before you need them. A medical emergency kit is like having an urgent care in your home. Go to urgentcarekit. Com/ramsey and use the promo code Ramsey at checkout to save 15%. That's urgentcarekit. Com/ramsey, promo code Ramsey. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. We need your help, guys.

You can help us, and a bunch of you have been helping us. Thank you. If you will click the subscribe button or the follow button on your Spotify or Apple or YouTube or wherever it is you're listening or watching, it really helps our numbers. It really helps our algorithm pushing the show forward in those things. That way, a lot of people that don't know about this find out about it. You can also, if it has a share button where you can share it with friends, do that or cut the link out and email it to somebody and go, You got to check this out. Check this show out. Put a five-star review on there. Those things change the math. These different platforms then roll out. They promote us, and it doesn't cost any of us anything. You're our marketing plan, people. We need your help. Spread the word. If you read a good book, I was talking to a guy last night. He was telling me about a great book, and I bought it this morning.

That beats any algorithm saying, Dave, you would like this book. A friend, it hits different.

For sure. Stephanie's in Eugene, Oregon. Hi, Stephanie. How are you?

I'm doing well. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Well, one hill I will die on is that you deserve all the good you have and more for all the good that you've done. I have a question that I'll try to keep simple in a really complicated situation. I am my dad's oldest daughter, I'm helping him with his trust. We've got a really great attorney that's helping us. We're in the formation process of that, and we're learning as we go. I am one of four children with the addition of a A fifth child that my dad had with his second wife who was abducted when he was two, and now that son would be 31. My dad's wanting to include him in the trust with conditions like that he can prove his identity and that stuff. I'm just trying to know what the best way is to do this, if that makes any sense. He's been gone for 28 years out of the family. None of us know. My sister knew him. I didn't really know him. He doesn't, as far as I know, know we exist, but my dad's wanting to include him in the trust with contingency that he changes his name back and that stuff.

I really want to honor my dad's wishes, but I'm not I don't know how to handle this the best way.

Wow. Okay, so what is it you want to handle? I mean, if your dad wants to put him in the trust, you put him in the trust, you put the conditions on it, and then how do you handle it when your dad passes?

Yeah, because one of the conditions my dad is considering is that if he wants to reintegrate back into the family.

But he doesn't even… If he wants to do all that, why don't he call him right now?

Well, he's working on that. He's trying to locate him before he dies, but this is-Oh, you all don't even know where he is. We might. We don't know for sure. He's had his name and identity changed, but we think we might have found a city. So we're We're working on that in the meantime, but the trust has to go, assuming that maybe we don't find him before my dad passes.

Okay. Well, you'd have to ask your attorney for Oregon law on that. But I would suppose you could put a clause in there that if we can't locate him within X number of months, then all of their shares just revert to the other kids.

Okay.

Your dad has to believe that you all are really going to look for him. Yeah, absolutely. Because you could just not locate him. If you wanted to not do your dad's wishes, which you're not saying, okay, but you could just not try with that clause, and then the shares would all revert to you guys, the rest of you.

Yeah, I think that's mostly in the attorney's hands, that he would be the one that would… That's part of what's happening that the attorney would be the one to hunt him down. I don't think we would have the ability to drop that ball the way that it's being written up. Okay.

All right. The attorney can't find him within the next number of days, 180 days, then If he does find him, he won't meet the guidelines that your dad's putting in place. If he won't agree to do those things, like he just gives you guys the bird after you find him, right? Mm-hmm. Which Very well might happen. I mean, this is going to be weird for him.

I know, and I feel really sad for him because he was two years old when he was taken. As far as- Taken by his mother?

Yes. Okay. All right. She just jetted with the kid before Amber alert and-Exactly.never.

Found her.

Is she still around?

Is mom still around? Do we have contact with her?

No. No, she changed her name. She changed the boy's name and her younger son from a previous marriage. But her older sons, their names are still true. That's how we've been able to make some connections on Facebook to maybe find- It's like a true crime podcast.

Yeah. Well, I think you guys, from a relational standpoint, I think your dad, if he wants to go this far and be a blessing financially to this child, my advice to him would be, You guys pull out all the stops right now. You hire a private detective, you go find the guy right now while your dad's alive. That's just a practical piece of advice. It's not legal or financial because it's going to be a whole lot easier to figure out what the flip to do once you can locate the guy and actually begin a conversation. But otherwise, I guess you just put in the trust. Again, I don't know Oregon law, but you'd have to, and I assume, Most areas, you could just put a clause in the trust that if the attorney cannot find within 180 days of death, cannot find him or whatever number of days, then the share is revert to you guys. Or and or, if you do find him and he chooses not to meet the obligations your dad put in place, the guidelines?

Right. Is your dad in good health?

No.

Okay.

Yeah. No, that's why we're making some moves on this. I mean, he might live another decade, but he might go tomorrow. It's one of those unknown things. Is it appropriate to require possibly a DNA test as part of this brother proving his identity in the test? Sure. Okay. We know exactly who he is. He looks just like my dad and everything, but it would be more if there was other family who tried to contest it, his other family that tried to contest it, if that was ever an issue.

They don't have a standing with the court to contest the will because they're not a participant. The only thing they would do is just stir up trouble. But I mean, there's nothing legally that they could do. I couldn't come in out of the blue and jump into your all's deal. George couldn't and contest. You can't contest something you don't have anything to do with. All the rest of that bunch has nothing to do with this. His other half brothers his mother who's nutty and all this other stuff.

Right. I'm definitely trying to keep it just about the mechanics of the trust because there's lots of different emotions involved. More than anything, I just really want to honor what my dad's desire is for this.

Well, your dad is being unfair to the rest of you all to leave this to you to do. He should go do it now.

I'm sorry, what? Find the brother?

Find him and reestablish contact.

Yes, he's actively working on that. We've got plans A, B, and C in place, and some things are still unknown.

So he's actively working on that. Is this a massive wealth, Stephanie? What is the estate?

It's more than he ever thought he would. He's got a couple of properties that we would sell, and currently it would be between probably $5,000 and $900,000.

Split between the five of you? We would split that. Okay.

Yeah. But there's a possibility that just The first of it would go five ways, and the rest of it would just go four ways if this brother doesn't want to- Got it. Participate. That's stuff we're still trying to figure out. Yeah.

I just think you're going to get the guidelines. It's two, three paragraphs in this trust. It doesn't have to be rocket science. Here's the things that we're requiring, a DNA test, some other proof of identity, integration back into the family- Changing the name. And changing the name. We require those things, but it's for 100 grand? He may not want to do it. It's a lot to ask. You know I got a lot of leverage here. This is your dad trying to make good. I have too many years too late. This is the Ramsey Show.

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George Campbell, Ramsey personalities, my co-host today. Tyler is in Alabama, Birmingham, to be precise. Hey, Tyler, What's up?

Hey, Dave. I'm good. How are you doing?

Better than I deserve. How can I help?

I'm trying to invite the ways of Dave into the house. It seems like getting traction is tough. Me and my wife, we've ever come a lot in the past five or six years, and money is the next thing up for us to start handling. We got a young family, two boys, six and five years old. I want to start doing the baby steps. The My math is there. I make enough, and I have enough left over to start getting some traction. But at the end of the month, we're like, Where'd it go? We feel like we're not doing anything extravagant, but obviously we are. It's just fast food and gas stations, and then mother's days, birthdays, et cetera. But it seems like whenever the money conversation comes up, there's just a lot of emotion tied to it, and it devolves into either emotions or a little bit of finger-pointing and things like that. So I just I wanted you all's advice on how to get this thing going.

That was pretty vague. You're saying you're having a discussion using the tone that you're using with us right now or you're emotional?

I get there. Probably to my own fault, I wait until I'm aggravated and impatient about money, and that's when I want to talk about it.

Yeah, that is your fault. You're right. Right. She's emotional, too?

Yeah. You push each other's buttons when this comes up.

Let me backtrack a second. You said we've overcome a lot. What does that mean?

We've been sober, clean and sober from drugs and alcohol for about six years.

Good for you. Congratulations.

How long you been married?

I appreciate. For the same amount of time thereabout. Got married a little bit before we got clean. Wow.

What do you do for a living?

I'm a field manager for HVAC company, a residential company here in Birmingham.

Good for you. What's your household income?

It's 100k salary right now. This is the first year that they're introducing a profit bonus at the end of the year, but I don't really know what to expect, so I'm not really counting those chickens before they hatch. Got it. Fair enough. On the budget, I'm sticking to 100 grand.

How old are you?

I am 28 years old.

Okay, good. All of that is part of this story. The budget conversation, the two of you sitting down, includes all of your stuff from the past and all of your things out of the way you grew up. It includes the way you had money was handled at your house when you were a kid, the way money was handled at her house when she was a kid, the getting clean and the having been needing to get clean, then now you're making more money than you've ever made in your life. All of that comes, all of that adds to it. What I would suggest is that you start over with the approach and you start tonight.

When you're calm.

And you sit down. Yeah, number one, when you're calm, not when you're frustrated. I think you probably start with an apology. I think we can do better with our I've not handled our discussions very well. I've screwed this up. I'm sorry. Because you are. You should be.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, absolutely.

I'm not going to be the first to tell you, if I'm at fault in the way that I had to be in charge of this stuff at first, if I was a couple of steps ahead as far as getting clean when it all first started out.

So there's some echoes, there's some fear.

Exactly. All those concerns. It's control issues. And say, Okay, today Today, we're clean and have been a long time. Today, this is you talking to your wife, we make more money than we've ever made, and we're both sober and smart. So today, if we were to start doing a budget or start talking about money, it's going to be different than it was in the past. Today, we both have a vote. Today, we would consider everything together and decide as a team what we are going to with our money. You get a vote, I get a vote. We're going to sit here and talk about it. You don't start talking about what to do until you talk about why to do it. Because I think if I make $100,000 a year, A, we could clean up our mess, B, we could become wealthy, and C, we could travel or have nice cars that are paid for, we can move up in house. All of those things can happen if we can get our hands around this subject. I think that would be exciting. Start dreaming together again about what a really cool, prosperous future would look like.

Does that make sense? Then talk about what. But husbands, typically, we're the worst. Sometimes wives do it, but it's usually husbands. We talk about what to do because we're going to jump in there and fix it. Dave Ramsey says, You need to sell your car. Yeah. That crap, then you my name into a cuss word, and I didn't even do anything. You got to sit down and let's talk about big picture. I think we've got this trash in our rear view mirror. We've got sunshine out the windshield. We could really have an incredible life. We could change our family tree. I get excited about it and then shut up and let her tell you what she What would she like to do.

Ask her questions. Hey, what are you excited about? What are you dreaming about?

What are your fears? If we had a million dollars, what would you want to do?

Yeah, right.

Okay, now let's go get a million dollars.

Then she's excited about the plan and what we're going to do.

She's not got you coming at her with finger wagons and go, If you just quit going Chick-fil-A every day, we could do this. You can't do that. That crap doesn't work, man. We both are going to… I think we could lay out a plan together that we both agree on and stick to, and we can do with our money smart things and have some fun along the way and become wealthy. I think that lingo, that sentence structure is what's going to help you. George, what are you all?

Well, and then you go, and listen, this is not going to be my hair brain plan. I found this plan. Millions of people have done it. It's so simple, and yet it's hard because it's going to take us making some sacrifices.

But you look at it and see if you think it's good.

Yeah, and she checks it out and give her a vote, because right now, a lot of the times with your excitement or passion or frustration, it just comes across.

It brings the echo back from the days when you had firm fist on the money because she wasn't clean yet.

Right.

She feels like you're taking that control away again. You're marching back into her life with muddy boots again. You're bringing up... Now, I'm going to send you Rachel's book for both of you to read, Know Yourself, Know Your Money, because it goes into the household you grew up in. It goes into, are you a scarcity person or an abundance person? It goes into all of those things entering into this discussion. All of the stuff in that book is why the budget committee meeting, we call it, is a difficult meeting at first, because you bring all these suitcases full of crap into the meeting.

All your shame, guilt, baggage, mistakes, family trauma, it comes with you. You got to be the ones to change it generationally.

Accusations, all these things come in there. You got to go, Okay, we don't do that anymore. You guys out there, it does take a little while to build trust. It takes a little while to... Sharon at first didn't believe she had a vote.

Even though you told her, Hey, you've got to vote. You got to show with your actions.

She had to experience it for a while because for a long while, she didn't have a vote. I just did whatever flip I wanted to do. We've been married 43 years. She said somewhere around 35 of them are awesome.

That's a pretty good track record. The more the time goes on, the better percentage you have.

It's like, how many years? Think about we went completely broke, lost everything. They took the water meter out of the front of the house because I kept it back on after they turned it off.

They just took it away.

They took it away. I didn't know you could do that. Well, they have to when you keep stealing water, and that's what I was doing. I mean, we were that broke. We went from this level of terror to having an emergency fund. How many years do you think that we had to not touch that emergency fund for her to heal? Multiple? Yeah. Three, five? It wasn't 10 minutes, baby. I can tell you that. It wasn't just because I said it. It took a little time. It's a process. This The Ramsey Show.

Hey, guys. George Campbell here. No matter what platform you use for news or entertainment, you and I both know it is way too hard to keep your feed from getting junked up with bad content. I know I'm not the only one who's gone searching for The Ramsey Show, only to find myself two paws and twelve videos deep in a kitten hole on YouTube, which is great, but not what I'm looking for right now. And heck, if you're tuning into this digitally, there's probably some weird, scamy, suggested content trying to play in the sidebar right now. Crypto content. See what I mean? And that's why I love the Ramsey Network app. It is the best place for uninterrupted, easy access to the content that keeps you focused on your goals. It's all Ramsey all the time, which means you don't have to worry about getting off track. With over 7,000 hours of Ramsey content, yet You heard that right. 7,000. This is your one-stop single destination for advice you can trust and nothing you can't. So do yourself a favor, get rid of the distractions and dial things in. All you got to do is search Ramsey Network app in the App Store or click the link in the show notes to download the Ramsey Network app today.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book, Breaking Free from Broke. He is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. James is in Salt Lake City. Hi, James. How are you?

Really good, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Yeah, so we have a situation here. My wife and I got married about three months ago, My father-in-law, I know you say there's always a little bit of crazy in the family, and I feel like he's been the crazy in our family so far. We learned a few months ago, he drained his 401k to to send to somebody in the Philippines because they promised them a 50% return on his investment. He didn't tell anyone, and he was so excited about it that he quit his job. Oh, my goodness. Then he just sold his house. I helped him sell his house because I'm an agent. He's planning on going back to the Philippines. He's wanting to move there because he just reached the 62 and a half and wants to retire. He's so excited about this investment that he feels like he can. But he has zero savings. He just sold the house, and yesterday, we closed and got the money. It's in my wife and I's account, but he wants to spend all of it in that investment in the Philippines because he wants to get more of a return. We do have that power of attorney that gives us the ability to, I guess, hold back on it.

I mean, it was originally intended to give access to his accounts while he's gone and manage things, but we feel like this is some Ponzi scheme he's in, and he doesn't have any savings, any income, and we're worried about what to do, especially because with the Has anybody talked to him about the fact that he got scammed? We've tried to, but- And he doesn't believe it? It fuels him. No, he doesn't believe it, and it's fueled him even more. He's like, Oh, I'm going to prove to them that it's not a scam by sending more. Then every time he talks to the person he sends money to with some doubt, she's like, Oh, I'll give you more of your time.

How is he communicating with this person? How did he find them?

It's been over calls. It's like a friend that he connected to some friend he used to know.

What's the investment supposedly in?

He said it's some government project. Oh, boy.

There's a Nigerian Prince involved.

And he hasn't actually seen the return on this money. There's no actual results.

He got $2,000 a couple of weeks ago, and That was after he sent his whole 401k over there. So it's definitely not anything that he sent over, and it's made him even more excited.

Well, that's part of their scam, is they give you a little bit and they go, Oh, if you give us more, and then you give them even more, and then they disappear.

It's a pretty standard scam. Exactly. Okay, so this is your wife's dad. You're a whole three months on the scene. Your wife has to tell him, Dad, I love you too much. I'm going to protect you from how dumb you are. He's not crazy. He's just dumb. He's naive, That doesn't make him crazy. People get scammed all the time. They're trusting sweet, kind people. I think his daughter has to look at him and say, Dad, I am almost positive you have gotten scammed, and you don't think you did, but because I love you, I'm going to sit on this money for you until this proves out. If you get all of the money from your 401k back, Then we'll talk about doing more investing with the lady. But until you get all the money back and get a return, we're not putting any more in. $2,000 is just bait. But you can't do this. She's got to do it. But you're telling me you have control of the account, so you don't... I mean, this is not a matter of persuasion. You're just telling him what you're going to do. He's going to be pissed.

Yeah, and that's what we're worried about, too.

Well, you can't keep that. He's either going to be pissed or he's going to be broke. You get to choose which. There's really not a middle ground because the guy you're describing to me, he's got a hook hanging out of his lip. He's a bit hook, line, and sinker, buddy.

He's about to be homeless, which means he's going to be living with you for the rest of his life.

Homeless and penniless and stuck in the Philippines. That's what we're worried about. Yeah.

With their culture, it's like, if the parents can't provide for themselves, the kids take them in. That's what I'm concerned about.

Is he Filipino?

Yeah, he's Filipino. I'm worried like, Oh, he's going to lose all his money, and then we're going to be married, and then we're going to have to take her dad in and take care of him. Yeah.

She needs to tell him all that. Dad, I see where this is going, and I don't like it.

Yeah. You're You're not Hispanic, right?

No.

You really got to stay out of this. The only chance you've got of him maintaining a relationship with his daughter is if his daughter handles this. It can't be we. It's me. She needs to say, Dad, I am not going to give you your money until this investment returns because I am almost positive you have gotten scammed. I know you don't think that, but I love you, and I am going to protect you from this woman who is scamming you. I know you're going to be angry with me, but later on, we'll see how it works out. If you get all your 401k money back, and I'm wrong, I'll release this money to you. But I don't think you're going to get your money back. I think you've gotten completely taken in. She just needs to tell him that. That's what I would do if it was my family. But she doesn't need to say, My husband and I have talked about this. She's got to bear the emotional brunt of this because it's the only person he can hear it from and come back to later. If you get saddled with the blame for this, you're just going to be the evil son-in-law.

Everything was okay till you came along.

Yeah.

You don't understand how it is in our family and all this crap, right? That's the narrative that's going to come out of this. The only chance she has of doing this. You really have two options. One is she He handles it and tells him, Because I love you, I think this is a scam, and I'm going to protect you from this woman by not releasing these funds. I don't need them. They're going to be sitting here. You don't have to worry about me taking the money. If you get all your money back and you get a 50% return on your money, I will release the funds because I was wrong about you being scammed. But you're not going to get your money back, dad. She stole it from you. You got scammed, dad. This is your wife talking to her dad, and she doesn't need to say, Do not bring your name into it and do not say we. Say me. Because I'm telling you, her dad is going to be pissed at you for decades if you get blamed for this move. She's got to carry the emotional weight of this for the good of her dad.

That's what I would do if it was in my house. That's how we would handle it. Wow. I'm so sorry. That's awful. This is The Ramsey Show. I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that people have started buying life insurance to protect their families at levels not seen since the 1980s. The bad news is many of them are still buying crappy cash value type plans. I don't care what you call them. Whole life, universal, variable, adjustable, flexible. They're nothing but a waste of your money. Don't be confused and let someone sell you a plan that sounds better than it really is. Look, term life is the only way to go. Rates are back to all time lows, and the process to apply is easier than ever with many companies no longer requiring exams. You need to protect your family and use your money offers much smarter things than investing in a rip-off cash value insurance policy. Go to zander. Com or call 800-356-4282 and just compare pricing. You'll see why these are the only plans I recommend. Take care of your family and do it in a smarter way.

George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Keisha is with us in San Antonio. Hi, Keisha. How are you?

Hi, Dave. I'm great. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up?

I'm calling because I need guidance. I am a great saver. However, I haven't invested at all. I'm 50 years old. I have about $300,000 in cash, and I haven't invested. So my money is just sitting in the bank not earning any income, and I need your help. I opened a Roth IRA yesterday, and I put $8,000 in there because That's the max that you can put, but then I don't know where to go forward.

What did you put it in?

I put it in a Fidelity account. I just funded the account. I haven't invested yet.

Okay. What are you going to invest it in?

I don't know. That's why I called you. Oh, okay. I don't know what to do next. I'm going to research, but I wanted your guidance as a blueprint before I started moving forward.

Do you have a retirement plan as well through your employer?

I do what I haven't taken advantage of it.

Do you have a Roth 401k? Have you done some homework on that?

I haven't done anything. I just started yesterday, and that's why I'm calling today so I can get some guidance. I have a little bit more money saved, so In my checking account for myself, I have $300,000 saved. I put the 8,000 in the Roth IRA yesterday. My daughter, I've saved for her college in a CD, 5%, and she has $100,000 in there. Then I have a $25,000. That's my operating budget out of my checking account.

You are very good at saving. What do you make?

Well, I'm a nurse, and my income varies. Right now, it can be, depending It's based on how much overtime you want to do. It can be from 150. Right now, it's 76, 75.

That's cool. Good for you. All right, so this is not a one-time five-minute discussion, and you suddenly are an investor, okay? This is you begin the process of learning over the rest of your life about investing. The more you learn, the more comfortable you'll be. When you went to become a nurse and you went to nursing school, you didn't go to one class and then you were a nurse. You began a journey of learning, and that made you competent. Does that make sense?

Yes.

And your confidence and your peace of mind will increase with your competence as you learn more. What you're looking for is not just an answer from Dave on the radio or George for a few minutes here. We'll get you started, but you're going to start the process of learning. The more you learn, the more comfortable you'll be investing. You'll be as good an investor in a year or two as you are a saver. You need to be, and I'll tell you why in a minute. Okay? What you're looking for is go to ramsey solutions. Com and click on Smart Investor and find the pros in San Antonio and talk to a couple of them and interview them and decide who you want to work with, what you're looking for, someone you're comfortable with. Here's what's really important, and we try to not have any smart Mr. Pros that aren't this. Number one, if you go to our smart Mr. Pros, the people we recommend, they're going to do stuff the way we teach. It's going to sound like we sound on the radio. The advice is not going to be the opposite of what we teach.

The second thing is, is they're going to have the heart of a teacher, they're more concerned about you learning a little bit before you invest. Because a person who starts investing from where you are, you'll freak out the next day when the news media has something to say on the channel if you don't know what you're doing. Or if you just did it because Dave said do it or George said do it. I want you to have someone with the heart of a teacher. That means when you meet with them, every time you meet with them, you should learn something.

Okay.

That way you're making your investing decisions. I'm not. George isn't, and the Smart Investor Pro isn't. You are making the decisions because it's your money and you need to be Have your hands around it. Now, having said all of that- I thought learning all of that.

That's what I was saying. I just wanted a guidance. If someone tells me something that's just too far off, then I'll say, No, this is my blueprint.

Yeah, okay. Well, your blueprint is that you have understand it or you don't do it. That's number one. We teach people, and George and I both personally invest in four types of mutual funds evenly, 25% each. So $75,000 each out of the 300. We would say growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. Mutual funds that have at least, if you're buying from a smart Mr. Pro, have at least a 10-year track record. Don't buy brand new funds. Now, inside your 401k, you can do exactly the same thing and max it out. As George pointed out, do a Roth 401 over there, and maybe they've even got a match, and that'll help. You make enough, plenty, to load that 401k up and do a Roth with Fidelity, and you may choose to move that Roth to the SmartVestor Pro from Fidelity, or they may help you do it with Fidelity. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. Fidelity is not bad. There's nothing wrong with them. All these mutual fund companies have good funds and not so good funds. You're going to look at the track record on the mutual fund and say for the last 10 years or 20 years or 30 years, it's averaged X %.

It's had so many down years, so many up years. Here's what the stock market has looked like. We're going to measure that and look at that, and you're going to learn about all that. Four types of funds, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth. Here's why this matters. Okay. The $300,000 has been sitting there for how long?

Well, actually, it's gone down quite a bit. I had $500,000 in there, but it's probably been in there for Five to seven years.

Why has it gone down?

I had a major expense that I had to pay $50,000 for that. I paid for a funeral. Just over the years, I had a major expense in that made me look back at my finances to see what I was doing. Then I was just- Do you have an emergency fund separate from this money?

Yeah, she said she had 25K.

Okay, you've been dipping into this over time.

I would dip into it over time, yes.

Okay, so let's just pretend from an investment viewpoint that you had 300,000 sitting there for seven years, it made nothing. If it was invested at a 10% rate of return, over seven years, it would have doubled. Exactly. It would have become 600. The fact that you've not learned about investing and not, therefore, done investing has so far cost you $300,000. That's how important this is. Because here's the deal, you're 50. When you're 57, if you invest it well, this will be 600. When you're 64, that 600 will be 1.2 million. That's if you never add a dime to it. When you're At 71, that 1.2 million will be 2.4 million. If you quit dipping into it and you start investing it well. That's pretty cool. Yes.

I'm going to double my income this year.

I don't need your income. I just put your money to work instead of it sitting on its butt.

Okay.

That's all I did. It made you worth a couple of million bucks at 71 years old. That's how important this conversation is. Congratulations. Thank you. Starting from day zero. Thank you for asking these questions.

Oh, thank you. Starting from day zero, today, if I invest this 300, by the time I'm 71, I could have potentially 2 million. Yep. Okay.

Just think if it's invested at 10%, it'll double A lump sum will double every seven years.

Okay. By the way, that number doesn't come out of thin air. That's the actual track record of the S&P 500, the 500 largest companies on the stock market.

11.3% is what it's averaged since the stock market began. That's the average annual. If you only make 10, if you don't even do as good as the market, every seven years, your money will double. Get online right now and get a smart Mr. Pro in your corner. Go have a meeting or two, interview a couple of them, find somebody you like, and begin the process of learning and get this money to work. Get it up off its butt. It's sitting there. It's dwindling away because you haven't unplugged it from your emotions. You need to set over there somewhere and forget it.

I'm more scared of losing all that money than scared of the stock market, which has a great track record. Absolutely. So get on it. You'll be doing just fine.

Good stuff. This is The Ramsey Show. George Camel Ramsey, personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Our question of the day comes from Steve in Mississippi.

Steve says, Last year, my wife and I bought a home from a family member and have been living in it ever since. However, we didn't transfer the deed or title, refinance, or switch the mortgage to our names. Technically, the house still belongs to him and his wife because we wanted to keep their 3% mortgage rate instead of the 6% to 7% rate we were quoted. We paid $150,000 upfront when we made the deal, and we've been making the monthly mortgage payment since last year. Recently, we've reconsidered the deal and want to legally transfer the house to our names. The bank says they can't consider the $150,000 as a down payment because there's no contract. They suggested changing changing the sale price to 150K instead. Is this a bad idea for us? If we sell in the future, will potential buyers be confused about the low purchase price compared to the house's value? There's a lot going on here. A lot of mistakes have been made already.

Steve, what you did was unbelievably stupid. This is dangerous, really dumb and dangerous. Let's just pretend. Let's pretend the couple you're buying from had a car wreck, and it was an accident. But they get sued for $500,000, and they lose the lawsuit. There's now a lien on the house that they own for $500,000. You just lost your $150,000 in that scenario. If the bank discovers you've done this that the mortgage is with, they're going to call the loan 100%. You have to pay the whole stinking thing off in 30 days or they're going to start foreclosure. There's a due on sale clause in paragraph 17 in the deed of trust that your relative signed, and he sold the house without the bank's knowledge under the table. When they discover that, they'll call the whole mortgage and foreclose on him and take your house that you put $150,000 down on. Dumb. Oh, if the house burns, you got no insurance, doofus, because you don't own the house, and their homeowners insurance doesn't cover you as a renter. They had to transfer that to fire an EC, and they didn't do that either. A landlord policy. You guys have just lined up stupidity in a row and knocked it over like dominoes.

Dangerous. All so you could get a 3% mortgage that isn't even yours. You're killing me, dude. You're killing me here. Wow.

You just rented very expensively, and you gave the landlord $150,000.

What you can do is write up a contract that says, I'm going to put down 150,000 bucks. Put down 150,000 bucks and go to the closing table and get a mortgage and do a normal house transaction where you now own the house and you I'll have a 6% mortgage, which is what you should have done from the very first moment. If you don't and you want to just transfer it and just take over, you can't take over the mortgage. Get a new mortgage in the amount of the mortgage and what the bank is suggesting to you, that's fine, too. I don't care. Get this house in your name now and shut up about your interest rate. You've got a whole lot more at risk than 3% here with the level of dumbness that you all have engaged in here. Gee, man, just unbelievable.

Question, Dave.

You can't just make up crap like this. You have no idea what the implications are.

So obviously- He put in 150K. Would he have to get that back and then put it back in to make it official?

Well, you could just show it on a closing statement as a down payment. You just show it on the closing statement because it's already been transferred to the owner. Reduce what the owner is going to receive. It can show. But you have to have a contract that says this, and you can't have two contracts. It's called dual contracts. That's fraud. You can't have one, you show the bank, and one, this is the real deal. Just show them what you're doing. We put down 150, the money's already been transferred to them like it was an earnest money deposit. You can do this properly and above board, or you can just not show it Now, if you buy it and you record the deed at the lower price to your other question, it does not affect the value of the property whatsoever. If you buy a half a million dollar house for $350,000, it does not make the half million dollar house worth $350,000. It makes it worth $500 because it was already worth $500. The house is not... Appraisals aren't done based on what you pay for it. Appraisals are done based on what other properties in the area sold that are similar.

That's how appraisals are done.

Unless everyone in the neighborhood sold for $150,000 $150,000 less. Exactly.

It's not going to affect. Exactly. No. I mean, let's say you bought the house at a foreclosure or something at a bargain. Does that make it worth less? No. It's still worth what it's worth. You just got a deal. The last part of your question is not a problem at all. If the bank, whoever the flip the bank is in this deal, wants to just give you a mortgage and put the property in your name at 150 off the price, and you guys go get a mortgage, that's fine. If you want to do a contract showing the total price and $150,000 credit, you can do that, too. Get with a title company, they can show you how to do that. It's not rocket science. But people do not do these deals.

Your Atwood Mississippi deals going on here.

God, man. It works like this is a land contract or a contract for deed. People do those as well. It's the same mess, same exact mess. When you've got increasing interest rates or when people try to do this because they think they're taking advantage somehow The risk that you're taking is unbelievable here. Unbelievable.

The juice ain't worth the squeeze. That's what they say. Yeah.

Oh, by the way, if you do change the insurance into your name as if you're an owner, you have to notify the mortgage company because they want proof of insurance. When you notify them that that happened, that's going to indicate that there's been a transfer and the due on sale clause is going to be activated and they're going to call the mortgage. That's how I know you didn't do the insurance because they would have already started a foreclosure on your butt. I know you don't have insurance. You're screwed, man. Go get this fixed this week as fast as you can before this thing goes sideways on you. This is a disaster.

They said last year they did this deal. This has been a long time. A lot of risk you've been sitting on.

Let's drive the car out on the thin ice and hope it doesn't fall into the pond. It's going to fall, people. It's going to fall. You're going in, you're going to get wet. It just gives me a headache. You pushed it in. It's so scary. Well, I've watched people do... The problem is these dumb-but TikTok real estate scam artist people, how to go buy a house, and really, you don't have to take title to it. That's just stupid butt stuff, man, because you don't have control of the asset. The other party goes and gets an IRS lien, boom, the title is clouded, you're screwed. The other party gets sued to have me a dollar lien for car wreck. But can you tell this has happened to people I know? I've worked in these situations trying to clean up these messes after they've happened. You've taken that call. So, yeah, get this thing fixed. Guys, you can't just make up real estate law while you and your buddy are drinking beer. That's not how this works. You don't get to change the way things go down, man. I got a deal. Let's just transfer. What does that look like?

You're killing me here. Come on, man.

Wow. That does sound like how that deal came about.

I guarantee you.

Man, I'll just title it. Forget the title. Just give me some money and we'll make it yours.

I'm telling you, is it was a happy hour or Over A Serious Bag of Pot? One of the two. Something was going down here. It's just, this is not wise. This is The Ramsey Show. Wow.

What is the right way to do this? Let's go back in time.

The right way to do it is to contract to buy the house, keep your 150 in your pocket, and go get you a 6% A mortgage.

Is this something you'd bring in an agent?

You don't have to have an agent. You just got to have a contract, and you got to go get a mortgage company. To get a mortgage. To qualify you. You got to get a title company to close the deal. Title company can close the real estate, and you get title insurance Then you can get proper homeowners insurance and the things you need to do when you buy a house.

This was all for the 3% spread that they make?

Oh, 100%. The guy selling it is just a... He He makes he did him a favor. He set his relative or his friend up for a complete fall.

There's risk on that guy's part, too. I guess, these weird with this rental situation.

The biggest risk is he could get foreclosed on. If he can't come, let's say the mortgage is 300 grand. He doesn't have the money. They call the loan and he can't get the house sold before they... Because somebody really sold to pay out... Because he got to pay off 300 grand. They call that loan. If they activate that due on sale clause, and they will watch them Degrees of stupid. Completely watched them do it. This is the Ramsey Show. Here at Ramsey, we talk a lot about building wealth, and a big part of protecting your wealth is insurance. Having the right insurance is key to taking care of the things and people that are most important to you. When you work with our Ramsey trusted insurance pros and partners, you'll have the peace of mind knowing you're not paying for gimmicks. You're only paying for what you need. Get connected connected with a Ramsey Trusted Insurance Pro at ramseysolutions. Com/coverage. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're with us. Open phones at 888-825-5224. Well, with undeniable research and data, George Campbell's new book, Breaking Free from Broke, exposes the most common money lies and excuses head on, like credit card schemes, investing traps, and mortgage mythology.

It's all the stuff you wish you had been taught somewhere in school but weren't. He shares the story of how he went from a negative networth to a millionaire in less than 10 years. It's a number one best seller. Cool, George.

It's been fun. I've been getting DMs now as people have been reading it and they got the every dollar budget going and they're saying, I cut up my cards. Thank you for exposing the system, especially young people. Now they're saying, I'm gifting it to the young people in my life to help them avoid the mistakes that I made. This is preventive medicine now because, Dave, you've been doing the emergency surgery for about 30 years plus now, and I'm trying to help the next generation avoid all of the broke mistakes.

Well, there's two things in this book that are exceptional. Number one, the level of snark is fabulous.

That's in there.

The George quality brand snark is all through here. The other thing is the depth of research and the detail you go into on why these things suck. I mean, it's not just you ranting.

We have, I think, 140 sources in the book, and they're all in there. Because I wanted people to know this is not my opinion anymore. This is all data-backed.

Yeah, there we go. Just like that. Breaking free from broke, the ultimate guide to more money and less stress.

Ramseysolutions. Com. Com/store.

Place to go. There you go. You can always get it at the store. Lisa's in Waco. Hi, Lisa. How are you?

Hi, I'm fine. How are you, Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Okay, I'll give you my question first so you'll know the direction I'm going. I want to know if we are going to have to live on beans and rise through retirement. How old are you? I am 53, and my husband is 59.

How much money do you have in your retirement accounts?

Okay, we just talked to a retirement specialist because my husband is getting close to retirement. I looked at he is a postman and a pastor. In his postal, he has a TSP for 50,000, but then he gets He will get a pension. It's not very much because we just went back to work nine years ago. But the total pension, Social Security and TSP that he's going to be receiving as of today, if he retires at 63, is $2,068.

Okay. That's all the money you all have.

Okay, so that is what he would be getting per month.

Do you have any other nest egg?

Right now, I've been working the baby steps since last year. We have eight children, and I stayed home to be a stay-at-home mom for their whole lives. Then my last one is 14, and I went to work whenever my husband did. She was three when she went to school. The teachers told me I needed to go back to college, so I did. For five years, I did college, school full-time, college full-time, and mom full-time.

You got $50,000. Is that your total nest egg?

My total nest egg, that's what it looks like.

Okay. You're 53 and he's 57? 59. 59. Your household income is what?

Is 7,700 a month. Okay.

He does not get to retire next year. You don't have any money.

Or in four years.

He's 59. Right. Yeah. You're going to be working a while. Okay. You need to work the baby steps. How much debt do you guys have left?

Okay, I paid off 16 credit cards in 13 months, $47,000.

Good for you.

When I went back to school- Do you have any debt now?

Yes, I do. How much debt do you have now?

17,000 in a car, 21,000 in my house, and 32,000 in my school loans. Okay.

We need to clean up the car and the school loans as soon as possible in baby step two. Then you need to start setting aside 15% of your household income into retirement accounts in baby step four until you get the house paid off. When it's paid off, you load up everything. You guys need to get with this. It's time to clean it up right fast. Really, really fast? Yes.

I've been trying.

You're by yourself. Where's he?

He works as a postman.

I know. You told me that. Why is he not helping you? He is helping me. How come I've been trying? How come We aren't trying.

Well, I take that act. Okay, we are trying. We are working on this together.

Both of you roll up your sleeves in gazelle and tense, get these debts cleaned up, and then go from there.

Yeah, we've said for years now, Dave, retirement is not an age, it's a financial number. You don't get to declare a retirement just because you turned 62. You got to have money. We see too many sad stories where people go, I'm going to rely on Social Security and a pension to get me by. You realize we're living in poverty.

You got 7,700 coming in now, and that's 2,000 coming in.

Your expenses are six grand. In a retirement, you're going to have two. That's a problem.

It's an issue. We need to get the 32 cleaned up on the student loan, get the car paid off. Then there's only 21 left on the house. That's good news. We can get that knocked out as we go along later at Baby Step or six, but then start immediately. If you start saving 15, $20,000 a year and you do that for the next 5 to 10 years, you can build a pretty substantial nest egg and get with a good mutual or get with a good smart investor pro to help you do that, not a Retirement Specialist.

Yeah, I don't know what that was. It worried me.

Well, it's somebody they paid a fee to to help them analyze the postal pension, which is not... You can analyze it all day. It's going to be what it is. What we've got is 50 a day, which is not nearly enough. We need to be adding to that as soon as we get the debt cleaned up and get the emergency fund in place as fast as we possibly can. That's the idea. Benjamin's in Los Angeles. Hi, Benjamin. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Thank you so much. How are you today? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

I have a duty for you. I am working on breaking the family curse of poverty Me and my wife are through Baby Step 2, working on Baby Sup 3. I have an eye on my father and just watching him live paycheck to paycheck. He's working as a handyman in selling toilets in Michigan. I live in California. In looking at Baby Sup 3, After four, Baby's Up 4, 5, and 6, the kids, I have two kids, all of that. I also am wondering if it's wise for me in looking ahead to his future, trying to be a good son, and putting a addition on my house or trying to save to put an addition on my house for when he can finally stop working or when he can't work anymore, I can have a place for him to land.

Be cheaper to rent him an apartment in Michigan.

What would this addition cost?

I looked at it and it was about 60 grand, 70 between. I got a couple of bids, and so looking at it, yeah, about 60 to 70.

What's your household income?

My house has paid off. 91. Okay.

You got an awful lot of stuff to do before you start providing housing to your parents.

Indeed.

I don't know how you're going to get to all of it. Right. I want to- Your obligation is to your children before it is to your dad.

Yeah. I just feel worried he'll be cold on the street one day.

What's one day? Is that 12 years from now or tomorrow?

He's 55.

And he's able to buy- He's 55? He's not 85.

Good Lord, we're worried about something that's a decade and a half away. Man, go run your life. I would not worry about this condition. In the next 15 years, go become a millionaire. What if you're in a different house? You don't need to be getting bids on an addition to your house for a 55-year-old. Why did you even spend the calories? No, no, no, no, no, in his house by the time he needs a place.

You'll probably move by then.

Your whole life is going to be completely different 15 years from now, 20 years from now. It has nothing... No, no. Wow.

That's thinking ahead.

I'll tell you very much. Hey, man, go back to work in the baby steps, and the best way you can serve your dad is to take really good care of your family and your kids and build wealth, and then you'll have the money to write a check. If you want to have an addition and you got a couple of million dollars, 15 years from now, it won't be a big deal at all. You can do it. But you don't have to worry about it today. Good Lord. She thought the guy was 80 or 75. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell Ramsey, personality, number one best-selling author of the book, Breaking Free from I'm your co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour. Ramsey Networks' production is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-225. Oliver is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey, Oliver, what's up?

Hey, How are you doing today?

Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Yes, so I was calling in to see if I can take some guidance. I have been working on the baby steps for a while now, watching the video, trying to learn as much as we can. We recently have paid about $35,000 in debt. Now, we're left with about $40,000. So my question is, should I take money out of my retirement 401(k) to try to limit some of the debt that I have. We're trying to save for a house, but we just recently found out that we are going to have to do IVF in order to start our family. We're trying to knock out the debt as quickly as possible so we can start saving for that as well. I was trying to see, is it okay for me to use my retirement to knock out as much debt as I can?

Well, you've got a lot of goals that are good goals. Having babies is a great goal. The only thing better than having babies is having grandbabies. But I don't know how great grandbabies are going to be. I'd have been nicer to their parents. Yeah, having babies is a good thing. Getting a house is a good thing. These are good goals. You're going at it the right way. Of course, when we start talking about IVF, we're talking about something very emotional. Yes. I mean, like logic and everything goes out the window when you start talking about babies.

They're been trying to get us to get credit cards, and we're not trying to use credit cards.

We're not going to use credit cards for IVF because here's the problem. Having done what I do, I want you to go do the treatment. I want you to have babies. I want to do anything I can to help you, okay? But I don't want you to be paying payment payments, and it didn't take. You know what's more painful than not having your IVF work? Paying payments on an IVF that didn't work.

With that painful reminder every single month.

Every stinking month. That's horrible. Don't set yourself up for that. That's an emotional train wreck you're asking for. Please don't do that. I don't care what they say about how you are supposed to handle your money. They're just doctors, which means they're financial idiots, usually. Okay? What is this particular version of IVF going to cost?

They're estimating $25,000 $1,000.

Okay. Again, endorsing the idea that you're doing this, yes, you need to go do this. Yes, we're going to help you do this. I want you, having sat here in this chair answering these questions for 30 years. This is not the first time I've had this question, okay? I want you to go shopping because that's a high number. I think you can do this less expensively. I think there are other people that do IVF other than the one you've talked to, and you need to learn about them. Okay? So promise me you're going to get a second and a third and a fourth opinion. Anything else you were buying for $25,000, you You would shop it, right?

Yes, sir.

But logic goes out the window because there's so much emotion, and we pay whatever we got to pay because babies are important. No, we're going to actually use wisdom about an emotional process.

And part of that wisdom is not touching your 401k. There's two reasons why. Number one, you're going to pay an exorbitant penalty for doing so. Your income tax rate plus a 10% early withdrawal penalty, which is like borrowing at 30 something % interest, which you would never do. On top of that, you've Unplugged all this growth and compound interest that would have worked for you over the next several decades. Robbing your 401k is not a place you want to go to pay off debt or to fund the IVF.

What's your household income?

Roughly around 130.

Good. You paid off 30k so far. What's the 40,000 remaining?

We have 12,000 in a car, which we tried to sell off, but it was only worth a little less than five. We have 11,000 $10,000 in student loans, 7,000 in credit cards, 35 in a medical credit card, and 7,500 in a personal.

Okay. All right. I'm with George. No, we're not going to cash out the 401k. How old are you guys?

I'm about to be 30, and she is 27. Okay. All right.

It sounds to me like you could be debt free in around another year.

When we broke it down, we have it scheduled for next September.

Okay, so a year in a couple of months?

Yes, sir. Okay.

Let's pretend that we found IVF that was 15. Then if you're debt free in September, you'd have the 15 within three or four months. That following- Theoretically, yes. Yeah, That following December or January, we can talk about a procedure. Okay? And you'd be 31. That's probably your best plan. If Logics out the window because babies matter, and you're not going to do that, then push pause and just step back from the baby steps and scratch together the money and do your IVF now. Then after that, start your baby steps back. That's declaring it an emergency. That's what that is. If you do it that way.

That would be like you cover your four walls, your insurance, and every other penny, you're going to spend saving up for this treatment.

Then as soon as you get the IVF behind you, then you start back and you finish off the 40k. That's not my preference. That's plan B. But none of these include cashing out a 401k, and none of these include borrowing money for IVF. You follow me? Yes, sir. Yeah, you can do this, and you should do it. The house is just in the distance. You're just not getting a house for a while because we're going to put this in front of the house for sure. Agreed? Definitely. Yeah.

Yes, sir. No, IVF was when we found out we had to do that, we knew we were going to have to do that before the house, but it was, should I cash out just to get that closer? But if you're saying that, let's not do that, let's just attack it, the debt little a little, then we'll go ahead and do that.

Yeah, you'll be done by September, which means you'll probably be done by July or August. You'll probably make it earlier than your math is telling you most people do because you got a real reason. I would say a more aggressive goal. You have a huge why. Roughly this time next year, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we're going to be starting to chunk money aside for IVF in one year, give or take. That's what I would do if I were in your shoes. And please go shopping. Please learn more about the different pricing models and the different... One's a guarantee, one's a single attempt. There's all kinds of different ways they go at this, and it goes from 7,500 and up when you look at it that way. You got to look through. That's the experience I've had with the customers we've dealt with, and I've dealt with this a bunch. Not a medical guy, just been It's just question a bunch. This is The Ramsey Show. Listen, tickets for the Live Like No One Else Cruise are selling fast. This is the ultimate debt-free vacation, and I can't wait to celebrate with all the folks who've worked their butts off and changed their family trees.

We will be sailing through the blue waters of the Caribbean with the Ramsey personalities and other special guests. A bunch of cabin options are already sold out, so hurry and reserve yours with a $600 deposit today at ramseysolutions. Com/events. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Nathan is in Seattle. Hi, Nathan. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

My wife and I just got married about a month ago. We're just starting out, and together we have about $165,000 worth of debt. Ouch. Yeah, really. We're getting ready to tackle that, but I'm about to be eligible for benefits at my job, and we're trying to figure out if I should go ahead and do the 401k match, given that it's extremely generous. If I contribute 6%, then the company contributes 10% on top of that. That's a massive multiplier right there.

Okay. What debt is the 165?

It's mostly student debt. We got about $10,000 of a car loan and pretty much all the rest of it is student loans.

What's your household income?

Together, we bring in about 95K before taxes, though we're looking to do side hustles, work overtime, hoping to get that more up into the $120, $130 range, but baseline, 95.

Why so much in student loans with a sub $100,000 income? What were the degrees in?

My wife got her degree as a licensed marriage and family therapist, so that's $135,000 of the loans. It's a very expensive program, but doesn't pay a whole lot, especially right after graduating, she was still working towards the hour requirement for her license.

Okay. What are you doing?

I'm a handyman. I didn't graduate. I've got about $17,000 loans myself, but I now I work as a handyman.

Where's the Generous Match?

That's at my job, it's a company that takes care of a developmentally disabled adults. I basically do all the maintenance for the 14 properties that they have.

What do you make a year?

You're not a small business owner. You work for someone as a handyman.

Yes, that's correct.

I see. You make what?

I make 25 an hour.

It's about 50 grand a year.

Right about. Though I have opportunities for essentially unlimited over time.

When will she be licensed?

She'll be licensed in about 2-3 years. It's an hour requirement. Washington recently got rid of the time requirement, so it's just basically as fast as she can get her 3,000 hours.

In the meantime, she's making almost nothing.

Yeah, meantime, she's making about 45 Yes. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Okay. Well, the answer to your question is no, you do not enter into the 401k, even though it's generous, even though it is ridiculously wonderful and generous, because it's just a temporary thing. How quickly are we going to be out of this debt? Of course, that has everything to do with how much income you guys generate. The more you can do on your side hustle and other things. The faster she gets through her 3,000 hours, the faster you guys are going to be through this debt, and then you'll start your 401(k). You got plenty of time to build wealth. If you don't focus on this debt exclusively, and you If you're going to do three things at once, you're not going to get there. I hate it because I'm a math nerd, and I know what that match will do for you, but it's a temporary thing. It's just for a little while, like a year, I mean, like two years, maybe three, but hopefully two some change, and you guys are clear. Then by then, her income shoots up, and you'll be able to take advantage of this, and you'll be debt free and have an emergency fund, and you'll be setting the course towards wealth building.

But every dollar you throw in that 401k, in the meantime, slows down your get out of debt and it slows down your wealth building more than the match. I did the math on it, and it would currently take us about three years, maybe a little less than three years to get out of debt.

Doing the 401k match would slow us down by about six months.

Yeah, that's exactly right. But it'll slow you down more than that because the power of focus psychologically, when you're focused exclusively on one thing, that's where we find the probability of you actually making it through the plan.

That extra $250 that you're going to get back in your paycheck by not doing the 401k is going to psychologically get you so pumped because you're adding that much more to your debt. Yeah.

The only other thing I'll add to the discussion, Nathan, is the great news is you know how to be a handyman. Dude, that is your side hustle. You can make bank.

You know you can make $90 an hour as a handyman in your neighborhood?

Just running your own show, man.

Do you know why? Because I paid that to a handyman.

You did?

Yes, reluctantly.

But that's what I paid. Because you don't even know how a screwdriver works. Exactly.

I was willing to pay for the privilege. You're that guy. But you can make 50 to 90 in any neighborhood in America doing this stuff.

Yeah, I'm telling you, man, we're talking to handymen that run their own business, print up some digital business cards and hand them out around to their neighbors in wealthy neighborhoods, and boom, you go in, you fix every little stinking dishwasher leak or replace every light bulb.garbage disposal that's out or whatever else they need done. You do it and you wear blue booties on your shoes and you go in with a smile and you charge them a lot of money. We're talking to guys in that world right now, Nathan, that are making 200K. Okay.

Would you say that it's worthwhile then to not wait till amount of debt to organize an LLC?

You don't need an LLC. You need to go get your tools and go to work. You don't have to have an LLC. You just go get it. You can just declare a sole proprietorship. That's all you got to do. You don't need an LLC until you're making a million dollars or something. There's no point. The LLC doesn't do anything.

You'll pay a self-employment tax.

That's it. If I were you, my side hustle right now would be to build a great handyman business so big that it forces you to quit your tiny little job. Then this whole thing is not nothing to do with nothing. This whole discussion about a 401k goes away because you're going to be making so stinking much money running your own deal.

The generous 10%, truthfully, Really? It's five grand a year right now with your income. That's the max. You can create that with a side hustle very quickly and invest that yourself. I don't want you to get hung up on that.

I think your side hustle is going to out earn your... If you'll go do what I'm talking about, start your own business right now, today, start handing out, let people know in wealthy neighborhoods that you'll do whatever that you need them, they need you to do. You're there to serve them, and you're going to charge them, and you're going to be on time, and you're going to do what you said you were going to do, and you're not going to double bill them, you're not going to rip them off, but you're going to charge them a lot. They don't care. George paid 90 bucks.

Good God, George. I know. But you know what? It was because the guys actually showed up and did the work, and I trusted them. The other guys never showed up.

At some point- It's not a hard business. Just show up and be tight. If you know how to turn a wrench and you know which end of the screwdriver to use, it's not a hard business. You got to show up on time. That's it. People, man, they've already cross-wired their dishwasher watching a YouTube video and blew the house up. So they're glad to see you show up.

You talk to these small business owners, Dave. It's amazing.

They're making money, man. I'm telling you. Because they're competent and they have integrity.

That's all it takes to be successful?

Show up and do the work with a smile and take a bath. You can't mess this up, man. I'm telling you, you're going to make so much that this whole discussion about your 401k with this $45,000 job is going to be because you're going to quit because you're going to be running this business full-time for it. It's over. That's where this is going to end up going. I love this story. I can't wait to see the end of it. Call us back and tell us how it turns out. Oh, and by the way, then you're out of debt in two years.

That's what I'm saying. We need a more aggressive debt payoff plan Because what I like about pausing the 4-1-1-K match is it gets you a little bit angry. Like, Oh, my gosh, I'm missing out on the match. Good. Let that fuel you to get rid of your debt faster to get back to the match faster. That's the power, really, the psychological power of pausing more than the math of it.

You want to hear the irony of this whole thing?

What's that?

Three years from now, he's making $250 as a handyman. With $165,000 worth of student debt to become a marriage or family counselor, she's making $80.

That's an interesting story about the value of education.

The value of a trade in today's society. That's a micro would like that story. He would. He would be-I hope he's listening right now. He would be giving us his little micro snicker. That little Snicker of his.

That deep voice of his.

This is the Ramsey Show. All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have 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 at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Ramsey solutions. Com/agent. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best selling author of the book, Breaking Free from Broke. He's my co-host today. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. No one wins at anything accidentally. Oops, I You stay married 40 years. You stay married 40 years by working at it. No one wins the Super Bowl by getting off the bus and has no idea why they're there. They spent 25 years throwing a football and becoming the best in the world at it, and you get off the bus at the Super Bowl. You don't get off the bus and go, I don't know what happened. Where are we? I don't know what I'm doing.

You don't accidentally win. Success is a series of intentional acts. Wealth building is no exception to that idea. If you're going to build wealth, you're going to do it on purpose. If you're going to do it on purpose, the way you do it is monthly, you do a written plan telling your money what to do, giving every dollar a name. It's called a budget. Every dollar gets a mission. Every dollar gets an assignment, every dollar gets a name of your income before the month begins, and you agree on it with your spouse, and you pinkie, swear, and spit-shake to stick to the stinking plan. Then you execute your plan that causes you to win. You don't wake up at the end of the month going, I don't know where our money went. Look, we got a tax refund. How did that happen? I don't know. You can't do it. You got to do it on purpose. That's why we named the World's Best Budgeting app Every Dollar. It's the most robust flex app out there. This thing is kicking by. Tens of millions of people are opening up their phone every day, every week with their spouse, with every dollar on it, and keeping up with their budget and telling them what to do using this particular software, EveryDollar.

You can download EveryDollars for free in the App Store or on Google Play right now, and you can even go to everydollars. Com if you want to. It's free to check it out. Go get started. Libby's in Orlando. Hi, Libby. How are you?

Doing well. Better than I deserve.

Good. How can we help?

I have been just going back and forth with my husband and ping-ponging in my head about my current situation. I gave birth to my first child.

Yay. What'd you have? A little boy. Little boy. Awesomeness. Very cool.

Yeah, we have no debt. We use the envelope system for eating out and for groceries. Those are the only two, though. We're just really… We're minimalists. We've been living just on my income and saving for retirement everything that my husband makes because he's commissioned. We just never know what he's going to bring in. Some years is great, some years not so much. My job is pretty demanding. I work in the ministry, so we're always understaffed. I came home a couple of weeks ago to just a screaming child and a really frustrated husband, and he's like, You have to quit your job. You have to quit it. That was really hard for me to hear because I felt like I was letting my family down, but I also feel like it's my calling. I'm just really stuck right now. I feel like if we quit, or if I quit, it'll be really hard for us to figure out a budget because his income is so sporadic. We do have savings, but it's only six months, and I just feel… I don't know. I just feel really torn. What do you make? I make 55 a year.

And what does he make a year? It's a 10. Oh, you told me that six times. What does he make a year? It depends. Oh, you told me that six times. What did he make last year?

Last year, it was 70.

Okay. And what was it the year before?

The year before that, it was around Okay.

What will it be this year?

So far, it's probably looking like 50.

Is what he'll make?

So he went from 100 to 70 to 50? Yeah. What's he sell?

Insurance.

Why is it going down?

His partner and him, they just haven't… They're one of their leads, the major source of their leads, it dried up. They decided to structure their company in a in different direction.

In half?

Yeah. Well, yeah, it's been progressive. That's what it's looking like. I'm really nervous, but I also know we have savings and we're very frugal people. I don't want to quit, but I do want to honor my husband.

What did you say your calling was? You said, This is my calling.

Her husband called her to come home. That's her calling.

Well, yes, I know. But my purpose is also being a wife and a mom as much as I would rather be out there.

Wait a minute. Let's just stop a second. You just said you don't want to quit.

I don't.

Why?

It's a youth ministry. I just love it so much. Our kids, they're broken in the public school. It's dark. It lights me on fire.

Here's the practical options. Either you put the baby in daycare and you keep working.

Was your husband keeping the child during the day?

Yes, because the business has been so slow.

Of course, the business is slow. He's keeping a baby. If you don't work, your business gets slow.

Yeah. Well, he's not in the sales side of it. I don't know.

How is he not in the sales side and he's on commission?

It's because of how his partner and him, they split it, how they split the commissions. So his partner goes out and re-open- I feel like it might be time to end this partnership.

Okay.

Well, I don't have control over I'm not that.

Okay, let's… Yeah, you do. He told you to quit. Maybe you could tell him to quit. There's an idea. Anyway.

I believe in being a submissive wife, though.

Submissive wife doesn't mean you submit to misbehavior or stupidity. Okay? It doesn't mean you go along with things that aren't wise. That's not submissive. Submissive doesn't mean doormat.

I'm not a doormat.

No, we're a partner. Well, then let's talk about a proper biblical understanding of that. It doesn't mean you go along with things you shouldn't go along with. That's not what submissive means. That is not honoring. If your husband was doing cocaine, you're not submissive to that.

No, but that's different.

It's not different. It's still misbehavior. It's just an extreme misbehavior. Him not running his career well, causing him to keep a baby and get stressed out to demand that you quit your job that you love. There's a lot of stuff wrong with that whole thing. His career is what needs work, not yours. He needs to rethink how he's going to go out his career. It's not because his income is erratic, it's because it's failing. It's gone down 30% a year for three years in a row, and he's sitting at home home not working.

Well, he works from home, so he's able to take a call.

You don't work from home if you're keeping a baby. Babies are a full-time job. They're very demanding little critters Have you noticed?

Yeah.

There's no multitasking while watching a baby.

Yeah. That's mythology. I don't work from home and keep an infant.

What's wrong with putting the baby in daycare? If you want to continue working, eating He needs to go to work.

He needs to rethink his career. That's what I would do if I were in your shoes. If you called me up and said, I hate my job. I desperately want to be a full-time mom, and I'm going to quit my job because I hate it, I would say, Quit your job and be a mom. Let's figure out his career so that you guys can afford to eat, even though you're frugal and you're minimalist, okay? But you still got to have money coming in. He needs to work on his career. I would tell you to do that. But I'm also not going to... If you want to work, it doesn't make you a bad wife or mother to work.

Yeah.

There's no wrong answers here unless it's wrong for you.

Both of my daughters work, and they have three kids each, and they're godly women, and they're great moms.

I guess I just don't buy the whole you can have it all thing. I feel like I have to choose.

I disagree. It's not have it all. It's one version of motherhood versus another version of motherhood.

You're going to get judged on both sides.

Neither one are evil, and both contain guilt. You can't get away from mom guilt. It chases you everywhere, apparently. So I've been told. I suffer from none of that. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, James 1:12, blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. Thomas Edison said, When you've exhausted all possibilities, remember this, you haven't. I do like that. I like that. That's good. Lisa's in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Hi, Lisa. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Well, thank you for taking my phone call. Sure.

What's up?

I was calling to get your advice about a rental property that we have that's paid off. Since the tenants moved out, we've put about $30,000 on credit cards to get it renovated, to get it ready to either sell or to rent out again. I just wanted to give you my financial to get your advice as to what you would do if you were in my shoes.

Sounds like you can't afford to have a rental property.

I know. The $30,000 in credit card is a big no-no. I already know.

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's like you're too broke to have a rental property because you can't even renovate your own property.

Right.

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

The comparative market analysis said it's worth 152,000 once it's all said and done and renovated. But that's our rental property. We also have a house that we live in now that we owe $169,000 on. Total debt, including the 30,000 in credit cards, is $280,000 total debt. That's a HLAC loan for $83,000, our current primary residence, which is $169, and then the $30,000 buying the.

What was the HLAC loan for?

The HLAC loan, again, stupid financial decisions that I made, but the HLAAC loan was to pay off the rental property. It was like 43,000 that was left, and we paid off one of our car loans.

So you didn't pay it off. You You moved the rental property debt onto your personal residence. Stupid, stupid. You didn't pay it off. You just moved it.

You're right.

Okay, I'm not yelling at you. I'm just trying to make sure you understand. So, yeah, sell it and pay off this crap. Pay off the heat lock and pay off the credit cards.

Okay, do the baby steps, start with the credit card, then go to the heat lock, and then would you put all the rest of it into the rest of the mortgage, 169, or would you invest it?

Not put on the mortgage.

And make sure you have an emergency fund.

Have an emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses. If you're working the baby steps, you're going to do that. You're going to be 100% debt-free except the house. That leaves 169 on the house only. No heat locks, no nothing else. But you didn't even have enough to pay off all your debt. What was the other debt? You had the heelock and what else? Credit cards and one other thing.

Are you ready to yell? All right. I'm not yelling. No, that was it. No, I know you're not. It was 169 for the mortgage, 83 for the heelock, and then the $30,000 for the credit card. I got that. That was- That's it? Did you ask you that? Is that it? Yeah, that's it. That's our total debt.

Yeah, that's our total debt. Okay, so if you pay off the credit cards in the heelock with the sale of the rental, you will have enough left over to build your emergency fund out, right?

Yeah, definitely. Okay, good.

That's great. Here's another way of thinking about this, okay, Lisa? There's a thing called a sunk cost analysis, which is reverse engineer of the thing, okay? Okay. Let's pretend we had $150,000 sitting in the middle of our kitchen table. Okay. Stacks of Benjamins, okay? Would we go buy a rental property with it and pay cash, worth 150, or will we pay off all this stupid debt?

Definitely pay off the stupid debt.

That's reverse engineering it. That tells us to sell the rental property and pay off the stupid debt.

I figured you were going to say that, but I just wanted to make sure and hear it from you. I'm fairly predictable. But it's a good thing, though. It's all a great advice, and I appreciate you taking the time for my Honey, we love you.

We appreciate you calling in. Thank you for being a listener, okay?

Hey, no problem. Have a blessed one.

You too, kiddo.

It's that simple and it's that hard.

But the lure of the stupidity on TikTok telling you that you got to have a rental property.

Then they say, Never sell it.

It's passive income. I got your passive income. $30,000 worth of renovation. There's your passive income. It was paid off. That teaches you what it… There's nothing passive about on Real estate. It's very active. There's things called tenants that you better be active with.

An active headache all the time.

She so desperately wanted to keep this rental property. She just kept backing into it and backing into it.

If I put enough money in, it'll make sense.

There we go. Eric's in Fort Lauderdale. What's up, Eric?

Hey, how are you guys doing today?

Better than we deserve. How can we help?

Yeah, I'm just wondering what the next step is after being debt-free, because I feel like I'm just throwing money into savings with really no goals.

Well, let's get some goals on the table here. How much do you have in savings?

Fifty thousand.

How old are you?

Thirty-four. Cool.

How much have you got in savings? Fifty thousand. Oh, you said that. God, I'm sorry.

All right. You're saying you don't have plans. Are you single?

Yeah, I'm single, not married, no kids. I feel like I should want that stuff because everybody has that, and I I feel like that's what somebody my age would want or should want, but I'm really not interested in it right now, so I don't really know what my next step is besides just throwing money into my savings.

There's three things you can do with money, and you ought to do all three Always, regardless. You ought to save and invest it for future goals, and you do need some goals, whatever they are. I don't care if it's family. You need a goal. Let's say I want to be a millionaire by the time I'm 40. I don't care. Let's set it up. The second thing is you need to enjoy Enjoy money. Have some fun with it. Plan a vacation. Yeah, and spend some of it on good old Eric. He's a good dude. He works hard. Okay? The third thing is you need to be generous. Always be giving, always be investing, and always be enjoying at some ratio. If you're ever doing only one or only two of those, you are out of balance. You need to... What I would do is lay out a game plan and make my money behave. It's very satisfying trying to make money behave. It has a bad aftertaste on the back of your tongue when it just leaves and you don't know where it went. That's called regret. If you lay out and say, Okay, I'm going to systematically invest, and if I do that for this period of time, I'll have a million dollars in a good mutual fund.

Okay? I'm going to enjoy this percentage of my income. I do that. I get a check in from the publisher on Total Money Makeover. I get a nice check ever so often from them on that. I think still sells like a crazy man. I take that check and it's already divided up. Half of it almost goes to taxes, right? The other half is divided between fun, additional generosity, and additional investing. When the check comes in, in a sense, it's already spent.

Predecided.

Predecided. Okay. Just do that, and that'll get rid of this gnawing feeling. But if you don't want to get married and have kids, that's fine. There's no... I mean, do what gives you joy. I will warn you that about the time you commit to that, she will run over you. I mean, you won't be able to stop her. Yeah, you won't be able to... It's just going to It's going to happen. About the time you think you got that, yeah, okay. Anyway, that might not happen, but you don't have to. There's no rule that says to be happy, you have to do that. Just because everybody else does something doesn't mean you have to do it. That's cool. But you're right, George, get some goals. What are we? I want to own 10 pieces of real estate. I want to own- You want to start a business.

Who knows what it is?

What would I do if I had a million dollars? I don't know. Let's get a million dollars and find out.

But I love just splitting it up. It just helps to be logical and go, I'm going to give some, save and invest some, and enjoy some. Then you create your every dollar budget and you actually have a line item for giving, and you actually mark things down under that category, and you actually have the spending fund money category for Eric, and you put some things in.

Then you have no guilt when you take that fund money and buy a cool car.

Because you pre-decided.

It's not impulsive. I got my generosity over here. I got my investing over here. This is money for, okay, I'm going to buy a cool car. You don't have to go, I don't think I'm- Should I have done that? What did I do something wrong buying that car. You didn't do anything wrong. You did it on purpose.

That's cool. That's one of the most underrated parts.

You feel so guilty spending this much on a vacation. Why? You worked your butt off. You should only feel guilty if you have no generosity and no investing and you're broke and you went on vacation.

It was all impulsive.

Yeah, that's not it. But if you plan it out and you got this money sitting there for that purpose, ding, ding, ding.

That's the most underrated part of doing an every dollar budget is there's no guilt. You pre-decided. Nothing's impulsive because everything was intentional.

It's boring once you get it rocking. I know.

That's why you got to add a little bit of fun in there. A little bit of peace. You have to add an impulsive fun line item in the budget. I'm going to be impulsive with my $20 this month. Get crazy, Dave. Crazy.

That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, folks. Dave Ramsey here. Budgeting doesn't have to be boring. You just need a budgeting app that's made with you in mind, and that's every dollar. The EveryDollar app has helped millions of people work the baby steps and take the stress out of planning and managing their money. Start budgeting with EveryDollar for free right now. Just go to ramseysolutions. Com/everydollar and download the app today. That's ramseysolutions. Com/everydollar.