Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in your life, specifically by talking with you, coaching you in your money, in your work, and in your relationships. The phone number to jump in is triple-eight-eight-two-five-five-five-two-two-five, triple-eight-eight-two-five-five, two-two-five. I'm Ken Coleman, and I'm with the lovely, the talented, the enthusiastic, the unstoppable, the incomparable, she's still waving me on here. Jade Warshaw, and we are here for you. Jade, you're ready to go? Let's go. I must tell you, for the YouTube audience, you're going to have to make sure you really check out the fit today. Look at that. She's going to stand up. She's rocking the Air Jordan. Is that actually suede? Is it suede? The suede sweatsuit? That's what I like to see. Call it suede. Suede sweatsuit. I am just rocking the Brawnie shirt because I couldn't find anything else in the closet. But we are here for you.

That's your choice, Ken. That's your personal choice.

No matter what we're wearing, we are here for you. David is up in Springfield, S Massachusetts. David, how can we help? Hi, thanks for taking my call. You bet. What's up?

All right, so I am a mattress salesman. I'm currently driving an hour to work every day and back. I have zero debt. My total cost of living is $700 a month. That includes $520 for gas. Now I was wondering if I should move out towards there because I currently am not paying rent. So that could jack up my cost of living, but it could take a lot of stress off of myself. Or I can move within the company to a location closer to where I live, within 5-10 minutes. There's no guarantee I'd stay at one store, though, and it could possibly lower my income. I was just wondering what I should do.

Okay, so no to lowering the income. That's not an option because you have too many other options in this economy right now to where there's just no viable reason for you to lower your income. Making the move closer to the current role to me is the best option you've given me. I'll give you another option in a minute. Let me tell you why. Yes, you're going to have to pay rent, but you know what? That's called adulting. It's time to do that anyway. Number two, you're going to save money on the gas, but you're also going to take less wear and tear or put less wear and tear on the car, too. I think if I look at less wear and tear, Jade, and I look at less gas money, and I look at less stress, those are three viable reasons to move closer to the current job. Now, the third option is, all right, let me look at a better job. If you want to be a mattress sales and that's setting you up for a better position within that company, then I think you go option two, which is moving closer. But I look at a third option, which is, can I make more money?

Can I get on a better ladder and remove the drive as well? That would be my favorite option. But I'm curious, what is that professional future? What are you thinking about?

I don't really have a direction until I got into sales. I do personally love sales, working with people and everything. I definitely would like to keep it in there. Going to school and becoming an electrician was also an option, just being in the trade. Love that. I just don't know if I want to take out student loans or just save up.

For that.

No. How old are you? 18. 18. Yeah.

All right. Because... Because you don't... By the way, it's very normal to be 18 and not know what you want to do with your life. I say we go to moving closer to the current sales job. That's going to change your life. We laid out all the positives to that. Allright now, you begin to think, Do I really want to make the move and go to trade school and be an electrician? Do I want to go into plumbing? Do I want to do something else? I'm going to give you my get clear career assessment as my gift, an early Christmas gift for you, and the book, From Paycheck to Purpose. Think of the assessment as a compass and the book as the guide to climb the mountain that you choose. Because at 18, you have plenty of time to experiment and check this out and get some awareness of who you are and what you want to do, why you want to do it, and where you can do it. That's the next step. Stability is key. Jade, you cannot make big life decisions when you're stressed out, and you're driving two hours in the car and you're frustrated.

You need some life stability that will lead to life clarity.

I'm going to play against you on one of these, though.

Of.

Course you are.

Here it comes, folks.

Here's the one thing that I would also think through. I think what Ken said was great and really good advice, but there was one thought of it that I thought, Okay, well, if you do Ken's assessment and you start getting clarity around something that you would like to do that requires some form of investment on some form of education, I'm not saying it's college, but maybe it's something that's going to cost you to get the training that you need, there could be a piece of this where it's good for you to stay where you're at temporarily in order to save money because your cost of living is so very low, that might be the margin that you need to save up. I don't.

Mind that at all. I don't disagree.

My.

Point here is there's- I don't want him to go backwards financially, so he gets a better paying job locally.

That's right. The point is, it's not urgent for you to be like, I've got to make this choice instantly. Finally, I want you to do Ken's thing first, and then that's going to inform what your choice is next. That's right.

Makes sense, David?

Yeah, absolutely. One last thing. I think I was a little unclear on the income. It is a flat rate or commission, so it's a possibility of lowering my income. However, that's not a definite. I could be making even more money by moving closer-.

I didn't know that was an option. -and take the money off of my- That's my favorite option. Yeah, I wasn't clear about that. I'm sorry. Here's what Jay and I are saying. We're in complete agreement. I just want you to be stable. I want you to make that work rhythm. Here's what I know. I'm getting ready to post right now on the commercial break. I'm going to Instagram. I was working on this. I'm reading all this wellbeing at work stuff. Let me tell you something. If you're sick of your job, I can promise you you're sick because of your job. I'm getting ready to post that. When a young man like this and anybody is driving all that hours and you get sick literally. You know what I'm saying? Heatily, emotionally, and then that leads to the physical lack of wellness. My advice, David, was I want you to be well so that we can make the right choice. But if you can stay local, meaning we switch jobs and we don't go backwards financially, I agree with Jade. That is the best choice for all of the reasons: the car wear and tear, the gas money, the rent.

Hey, you're saving money on rent right now. I love that move. Now, and by the way, I get to stabilize my life. That's right. Then I decide, is it welding? Is it electrician or whatever use? I know you mentioned electrician work, but can I give you a quick piece of advice on the electrician piece? I want to challenge you in the next two weeks to go to coffee or lunch or a cocktail with an electrician or two. I want you to just go, Hey, I'm thinking about kicking the tires on this deal and going into this. Before I do, tell me what you love, what you hate, the good, the bad. How did you start? When did you launch your own business? I would love for you to get that advice from an electrician. Jade, I can't say that enough for young people.

Don't you have to be 21 to have a cocktail, Kim?

Oh, I forgot. Look at you catching me on all the particulars. I'm just playing. You got me on that one. I'm not promoting underage drinking at all. I forgot that he was 18. No cocktails, David. All right, get yourself a No Dools. Do they still sell that trash? A Zima.

Well, that's.

Cocktail, I think. Is it? It's got alcohol. Near beer.

Yeah, just.

Because you put the Jolly Rancher in it doesn't take the alcohol away. We have lost the train. Let's get it back on the tracks. Hang on the line, David. We got the get clear assessment and from paycheck to purpose, but you got some great options, my friend. Thanks for the call. Don't move. More Randy show coming up.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show, where we help you win in your money, life, your work, life, and your relationship life. I'm Ken Coleman, Jade Warsaw joins me. The phone number is triple-eight-825-5225. Jade is one of our money experts here on The Ramsey Show. I am the work, I don't like to have the word expert, but I help people win at work. How about that? If you're winning at your work life, here's what I know, you have a better chance of winning in the rest of your life. So wherever you're at on the journey, maybe you're not happy at work, you want to make some more money, you want to launch this side hustle, get out of debt. I want to help you make more money while we're in the steps. How about that? To the extent that we could take any of those calls, I'm here for that. I love that. Jade is ready to go for you as well. We continue with Preston in Columbus, Ohio. Preston, how can we help?

Hey, how's it going? Good. I work a job where I have to move every three-ish years. I rent currently, and I didn't know if I should continue renting or when I move next, I should look to buy a home because I've heard that you shouldn't buy a home unless you were planning on living on it for at least five years. I didn't know if I should just continue renting for the rest of my career or should I try to buy a home?

How much longer do you plan to be on in the military?

I'm doing the whole 20. This is the whole thing. I've still got 18.

More years. Okay. Is it just you or are you married? Do you have kids?

I'm married with one kid and one kid on the way.

Okay, cool. I think you need to take it on a case-by-case basis. So far you've made it this long without buying, correct? You're currently renting? Yeah, I'm currently renting. Okay. I think there's something important about not stacking up a bunch of real estate in different states and cities. Two years is where you want to be as far as not having to take on capital gains and things like that. I think if you can take it on a case-by-case basis, because at some point, purchasing real estate is going to be a big part of your wealth building, but I don't think that you're there yet. I think right now that you can continue to rent. As you've been in the military longer, if you end up being stationed somewhere longer and it seems like this is going to be at least four or five years, it could be worth it to get into real estate, buy a home. Then if you know you're moving somewhere and it's going to be a short-term thing, whatever that profit you have, just pocket it, put it in a high yield and let it grow, whatever baby step you're on, that thing until you can buy again long term.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, currently we save. We have our rent, obviously, but then we also save. We have a brokerage that we call our house fund that we put money into.

I'm.

Fine with that. We figured we wouldn't be buying a home for what we think is a very long time. We figured we just invest into a brokerage. Then whenever we can buy a home, we have this nice pot of money to hold on more.

Than trying to build. What's that very long time. What's that number in your head?

Well, we'd like to build a home eventually, and that's probably when I retire, so 18 years from now.

Okay, I love Jade's advice, and we get a lot of these calls from folks in the military, and a lot of the advice you get is, You know what? You guys can everywhere you go, buy a house, and now you're building a real estate portfolio. I've heard that. Yeah, I've heard that. I know. Terrible. We really want you to avoid that temptation. Jake can explain why, but I would just say this. You think about 18 years from now, you think about that home fund that they're investing in, that is going to be a sweet down payment on the house.

You want to build.

Maybe even pay cash. Maybe cash. I love the idea of you guys renting or taking advantage of military housing and just stack cash to build the home of your dreams. I think that'll keep you going. If you keep your mind on... I'm just playing a little mindset thing here, and I'll get back to Jade. But my mindset would be, How sweet of a home could we build? Or, How can we pay cash for this house we want to build, and it's just 18 years? Let me tell you something, my friend. I'm old enough to remember going, 18 years is a long time. I could sit here today and tell you 18 years goes by fast.

What baby step are you on?

Currently, we have no debt except for student loans.

Okay, so as much as I love the picture that you're painting, and I love the idea that you're thinking ahead and putting money away in a brokerage, I'd like to get you a little bit more focused so that we can get to this beautiful reality that Ken has painted and even the reality that you're saying of, Hey, in 18 years, this is when we're going to do our dream home. Let's pedal back just for a second and make sure that we're going about all of this in the most efficient way possible. Is that fair? Yeah. Okay. How familiar are you with our baby steps?

I know them, yeah. I've listened to Dave for.

A while. Okay, so then you're well aware that first we want to get a thousand dollars saved. Do you have that?

Yeah, we've got. We've got emergency fund that's a little over 20,000 sitting in a savings account.

Great. And how much student loans?

I have about five left, and then my wife has about 10.

Okay, so if you're following the plan, then you know that the first things first is we keep $1,000 and we take any extra money and we throw it at our debt, right?

Yeah. I think the only reason we do that is we both have the military paying our student loans, so we get payments alongside our payments.

What does that look like long term?

They'll.

Pay it off completely?

Yeah, they'll pay it off completely. My loan, I had... I just got out of school here recently. My loan was originally 10,000. The army has already paid five of it off in the last three years while I was in school. They were paying on it.

If you pay them off early, will they reimburse you?

No. Are you making- They don't pay me. They pay the loan provider directly. If there's no need for them to pay the loan provider, they won't pay them.

Interesting. All right, I'm going to let that slide because I know that that's going.

To go. Which is why we didn't tackle them aggressively as we did when we got out of.

Consumer debt. You're not on the hook for any of this whatsoever?

I mean, we make payments alongside them, so we're making payments. But I've done the math.

What I'm trying to understand here is, is it worth it for you to... Because if you're paying payments now, if their promise to you is, Hey, we're going to repay all of this, I'm not really sure why you're making payments now. So part of you...

Go ahead.

They pay a long side of us. We pay, they pay. But we have to be in good standing. The loan provider says, Hey, this is your monthly due, and we pay that.

What's your monthly due?

I think my wife owes like $2.10 a month, and then I pay like 70 on mine.

Okay, so she pays two-10 and you pay 70, and then they match your payment?

Yeah, they match your payment based off... It's weird. They have a weird item, but they pay about 1,500 a year.

Okay, so I would just love for you to get clarity on that because I would hate for you to kick this around for five and six years, a piece. I would love to find out and get clarity and be like, Hey, I want my cut of this, but I also don't want to be paying payments for the next 10 years. Is there any way that I can pay up and get my part of this done and then you guys pay your portion of it? So do a little research on that for me because I want you to get the money that they're happy to pay, but I also don't want you doing this for years and years and years to come. Is that fair enough?

Yeah, it's fair. We're pretty sure. They'll be paid off within the next three years. I know the month, but.

With me and my mother. And that's with you just keeping this payment as it is? You don't.

Have to do anything else. Right, and they pay based off of the initial principal. So my loan was a $10,000 loan, so they paid a certain percentage of that initial principal and they keep paying based off the principal, whether the principal... Because now it's at $5,000, but they still pay that. I mean, last payment was like $16.

Okay, I still stand by what I said, and I'd still look and see, is there any way I can make this thing go faster? Because I don't want to pay payments for three more years. So just check into it. It'll make me sleep better at night. That would put you to baby step three. Are you currently investing 15 %? I just want to make sure you're doing these baby steps, and then the next thing is putting aside for that house. Go through, check and make sure things are clicking for you. If they are, you're doing excellent. I'm just poking holes in this because you're already doing so well. I want to make sure that you're just like you're already running fast. I just want to make sure that you're win the race is basically what it.

Boils down to. I like it. Good job, Coach Jay. Thank you for the call, Preston. Hey, don't move. We're going to take a quick break. Coming back with more of your calls. This is The Ramsey Show. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey, folks, it's Dr. John Deloney. This time of year can be hard, and seasonal affective disorder is real. When I moved to Nashville, the time change caught me off guard. It got dark at 4:30, and I was ready for bed by 6:45 PM. Things weren't as fun. Even the food lost its flavor. Now I know how to prepare my body when things get dark. I go outside to enjoy nature. I stick to an exercise routine, and I intentionally connect with people. Another thing I did is therapy. Therapy can be a bright spot even when the sun goes.

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I think you can make more money and experience more meaning. That's very relevant. I'm here to help out on those work questions. Let's get right back to the phones. Going back to my old stopping grounds here in the Hot Atlanta area, Ricky is on the line. Ricky, how can we help?

Hey, how's it going, guys? I'm in baby step two, and my question is, how should I best set myself up for filling my boss's old position?

I love this question.

That's right up.

Your alleyway. I love this. We're talking promotion here. We're talking more pay, right, Ricky?

Correct. All right.

Tell me what we know right now. Where do we stand? Is the position officially open? Is the boss saying... Okay, tell me what more.

Yeah, so it's officially open. His last day is tomorrow. I've already talked with my boss's boss and told him I want to apply, and he welcomed that, but let me know that he's looking for someone who has a lot of leadership capacity or experience in managing a team or on the other end, the job is facilities management. So just experience and knowledge in that field, managing a budget, those kinds of things. Those are the two things that I think is going to play against me because I don't necessarily have that experience.

And it sounds to me like the boss set you up. The boss's boss set you up. I'm going to give the real, real always. That was a bit of a stiff arm. Well, sure, I welcome that, but I'm looking for... It's a way of going, I don't see you as maybe the top candidate, but I love your question anyway, Ricky. I love your spunk because you felt the stiff arm and you still called me and said, How do I change that perception? This is what I'm going to lean into, okay? All right. What experience do you have? In those two areas where you don't have a lot, do you have some?

Yeah. Okay, talk to me. I think I have more leadership experience than he realizes. I've had two direct reports for about a year and a half as far as leading a team, but as far as my college basketball experience.

You play college basketball?

Yes, small-.

It don't matter. You're talking to a guy who would have probably chewed my right leg off to play D3 or NAIA. Of course, that would have been problematic once I made the team. I've only had one leg. But you get my point. I really think that that is a huge thing for you to talk about leadership in the college basketball setting. I would talk about what you love most about leading those two direct reports. Here's what I don't want you. I don't want you to go in and go, Look, I've done this, and I've done that. That's great. I want him to see you light up when you talked about being a captain or a leader in the program. I would tell a story. What was the leadership role? How would you describe your leadership role on the basketball team?

Yeah, I mean, being a point guard, floor general, leading the team in multiple.

Different ways. Here's what I want you to do. Instead of talking about what you did, I want you to talk about how you led, which is I was a point guard. And then I want you to talk about what you love most about the pressure of leading.

Yeah.

That's a narrative. Now, same thing with the two direct reports. I've had these two people report to me for the last year or whatever it is, and I really, really enjoy this. I'm really challenged by this. Do you see how we're going to create... Because it's one thing to go, I've led, and I think you could do a good job. It's another thing for him to see your heart and to see your face light up when you talk about leading as a servant or however you want to describe your leadership style. That would be the only advice I'm going to give you, because I think you're quite capable as a guy who is a point guard. You know how to distribute the rock, baby. That's what a good point guard does. We get into the set, we're looking at the plague. When I got to ad- Lib, I'm going to ad-Lib, but I am the captain on the floor. I would grab that narrative and just say, Listen, what's his name, by the way?

Who?

The boss's boss?

Make up a name.

Make up a.

Name, Bob. Okay, Bob, listen to me. Thank you for even encouraging me. I know you're probably looking for somebody with this experience and this and this experience here, and I get that. But listen, because you give them the opportunity, I want you to hear my heart. Here's why I want this gig and why I believe with your leadership, I can fill the gap. That's the narrative. If I'm Bob- In the logistics, I would just say the same deal. Tell them what experience you have in the logistics side, but really it's about the people on the team. They know what they're supposed to do. Your job is to help them do their job.

Go ahead. If I'm Bob, I'm happy to hear you talk about all that stuff. I also want to know how it transfers. If I'm Bob, I want to hear you say, I understand certain things about this job, and here's how that skill transfers into that. Here's how I see it helping. That's part of what I want to see. At the very least, coming out of this, Ken, and you can tell me if I'm off track, this is your field. I'd also be asking questions about knowing going in that he was given the stiff arm. I'd also want to know what the track is. Some of my questions would be.

Like, How.

Do I attain it? How do I get there? What do you have in mind for me reaching this next level?

That thing? Yeah, either way, I love that advice. You know what? That's at the end, though.

That's at.

The end. That's at the end. Then you go, Listen, thank you for the opportunity to share my heart. Now, if this doesn't work out. Here's what I'd love. What can I do? How can I do it to get an opportunity next time? I love that advice from Jade. I think that's great.

I think that's great. That's good. I've even thought about or had some mentors suggest looking into some commercial HVAC education certification courses, things like that.

But no, that's really good. Hey, listen, Ricky, last piece.

Yeah.

Last piece on this. This is all mindset stuff. This is my favorite. I love to coach. My favorite thing is on the mindset here is you have nothing to lose. If I was talking to my teenagers right now, I'd say, Look, there is zero risk. I feel like I've given you a nice little framework. You choose to use what you want, but you go in with confidence. Take your shot. You're a point guard, baby. Five, four, three, two. Take the shot and get yourself in the best position for the shot, and then be okay if you missed the shot. Michael Jordan famously... I got Jordans on today. Me too. You and.

I both. What you got?

I just got the old school. There we go. Old school sneaks there. Here's the deal. Jordan said once, and I'm paraphrasing, I'm known for making the last second shots, those clutch shots, but the fact is I've missed thousands more, I'm paraphrasing, than I've ever made in that clutch moment. That's right. The thing is, Michael Jordan, for all of his greatness, and by the way, for all the people out there, yes, he's the greatest. It's not LeBron. Come on, Ken. It ain't LeBron. Take your LeBron stuff and just I'll raise you a Michael Air Jordan, okay? Nothing against LeBron.

No, I got it against LeBron.

Well, see, I don't. People think because I say Air Jordan that I'm against LeBron. It's not true. He's just not the greatest. The goat is Michael. Anyway, the point is- That's what I'm saying.

We're on the same team is.

All I'm saying. I know. Michael was the goat because he was willing to keep taking the shot.

Also because he won the most.

But- Fact, more rings.

Yes, that's right. It makes me... Can I just go into something that there's.

This- I'm already seeing you go there and I'm out of the way.

Look, there's an episode of Family Matters where Harriet goes to apply for the job that- She knows she's not qualified for.

I love it.

They're trying to give her the stiff arm. They're like, You're not qualified. She goes into this whole rant about how raising a family gives her the transferable skills to actually do the job. I agree with that. She's like, I manage the budget. I'm the driver. She goes into this whole thing. At the end of the day, she gets the job, Ken.

Because she's the CEO of the house.

That's right. He better shoot his shot. You never know what it might be then. I like that. You're a winning shot.

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An MLS ID 1591 and MLS consumeraccess. Org, Equal Housing Lender. 1749, Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee, 37027. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show where we help you win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warslaw is my co-host, cohort, and we are here for you. The phone number to jump in is triple-8-825-5225. Of course, Jay is going to take care of those money questions. But hey, I'm in the seat today, which means we can talk about your work, and your work is tied to your money. You want to make more money, you want to launch a side hustle. Maybe 2024 is where we increase the income with the side gig, or we get the raise because we finally say it's time to move. We're going to talk about-.

Is the year.

For all that? It is. It's all of it and above. Here we go. Sacramento, California is where we go next. Daniel joins us there. Daniel, how can we help?

Hi, Ken and Jade. I'm glad to be here.

Well, we're glad you're here. What is happening?

My parents are in their late '70s, early '80s, and they're thinking that they want to put my sister and I on their bank account. And in case something happens that we can access funds. And just in general, my dad has a debilitating disease. And so my mom feels like she's the only one. And if something happens to her, she gives her a sense of security, I think. And so I just want to think if you think that's a bad idea for us to be on my parents' accounts, bank accounts.

I don't think it's a bad idea. You're probably, are you the power of attorney for your dad?

No power of attorney. My mom makes all the decisions. He's still in good shape and motoring along, but it's a degenerative disease. It won't get better, it'll only get worse. But there's no power of attorney right now or anything. They just... For the first time we did it last week, we just were brought our IDs to the bank. They added us on the account, and that was it.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea. The only question mark I have is she's worried that something would happen and you guys would need access to the money, but not her. I guess I'm trying to figure out what's the scenario that she's concerned about.

Yeah, the scenario that she's concerned about is that if something happens to her, my dad can't really make good decisions. That's, I think, her primary concern.

That makes sense. It does make sense.

What would happen.

I'm not mad about that. I'd say go for it. I don't have any red flags on it. I was going to ask you. As long as it's just the bank account, it's not like you're being added to debt accounts and things like that.

I'd absolutely do it unless you... I was wondering if you have any red flags. I mean, this makes a lot of sense. I think there's a lot of wisdom here given their health and their age.

Do they both have wills?

Yeah, they have a trust.

Okay, great. And the.

Thing I like about this, too, Daniel, they came to you on this. You're not nosing into this. There's no tension here. It just feels right. Am I correct? Do you have any misgivings about it? In other words, why did you call with that question? Which way were you leaning?

Well, when I asked her why we were doing it, she said, Well, all my friends have done it. And so it seems to be like the thing to do. I want to support them 100%. It's just that that didn't seem like a great reason to me. I wanted it to just think through if it makes sense or not. That was.

Basically it. Well, unless you're not trustworthy, there's no downside that I can find. And if I really put myself in your shoes, if my parents were getting up in age, especially if there was any degenerative disease at play, I certainly would want access to that stuff sooner than later, just in case. So really putting myself in your shoes, I would do the exact same thing. I don't know that my parents, there's four of us kids. I don't know that they would give all four of us access to their account. Not that we're not all trustworthy, but it's just not necessary. One person heading up the thing makes sense. In your mom's case, I could totally understand that being something that she's concerned about. I don't know about the thing of, Oh, all my friends are doing it. That might be her reason, her reason. But my reason would just be, Hey, it is important that someone who can really think through things cognitively has access to this money in case something were to happen to her and money was needed. That just makes sense to me, so I'm good with it.

Yeah, thanks for the call, Daniel. Let's go now to Knoxville, Tennessee. Christian is there. Christian, how can we help?

Hey, how are you all doing?

Good. How are you, sir?

Good. How are you? Good. Make this short and brief. I'm 25. I got probably about 30, 30-plus thousand in debt. I'm a tower hand. I make roughly on an eight-hour a day, $200 a day. But I got a car loan that I got to pay for. I got medical debt that's in collection. Here recently, I just had the state of Mississippi come after me for child support. So they're going to be coming after me pretty quick for that. I'm gone. I work Monday through Friday. I'm home on the weekends. I'm just trying to figure out some way to basically get more financial freedom and get out of debt and have a better lifestyle, I reckon.

Okay. So let's start. First things first. So you're making what, about 5,000 bucks a month?

Four.

Or 500? 4,000?

I'd say more closer to like 36 on a good month.

Okay. Is that after taxes? Yeah. Okay. You said you've got around 30,000 of debt. Do you know the exact number?

No, ma'am.

Okay, that's thing one. The first thing here is in order to get organized to understand what the problem is, we've got to see it for what it is. When you get off the phone today, I want you to go check, log into all those accounts and see exactly what the debt is. If you could sparse it out, what type of debt is it? You may not know the exact amounts, but can you tell me what type of debt it is?

It's more like personal loans and stuff like that for the vehicle, auto loan. And I just know when I look at it on my credit apps and stuff like that, they just say they're in collections and stuff.

So is everything in collections?

I believe so.

Okay, so right now, it's like you've been going along, all this stuff is happening, and you're just letting it take place. The fact that we're not really sure what the debt is, we're not really sure how much the amount is. Do you see this theme playing out here?

Well, I got some of my debt, mainly the auto loan and a couple of the hospital loans or hospital collections. I got them on a debt relief program. I pay like $380 a month for them to basically keep it in a savings account, and they negotiate prices with them.

Hey, Christian-I'm not doing anything. -christian, listen, I'm going to shoot you straight. We're going to get you some help. He needs one of our coaches. But let me tell you what I think you need to hear. Your hands have not been on the wheel. I don't think it's Jesus taking the wheel, but somebody has taken the wheel, and it ain't you. Listen, nothing against you at all. I'm trying to be a wake-up call to you. You've got children you're supposed to be supporting, and you're not, and the state is coming after you, and everything's just been like, I'm letting life happen to me, and I think you need to start happening to life. One of the things that you need to start to do, as Jade said, is get aware of what's going on. I want to give you a free session with one of our financial coaches, but you have got to do what they tell you to do. The second thing is you better start making some more money. You need to be working crazy hours with the skill set you have because that will help you do what Jade's coaching you. You got to get some more income and start putting it to work.

Also, the question is, I pay a lot in rent. I live by myself. I have a service dog, but I live by myself. I live in a three-bedroom, single-wired trailer, and I pay $1,200 to.

Live by myself. Change that. Go live with somebody else.

With the state of Mississippi wanting child support, and I figured later on there might come a child custody case, I'd also need somewhere to call my own with that room for my child.

Well, we cross that bridge when we get there, or go get you a two-bedroom.

You getting this mess cleaned up is what's going to ultimately even give you a dog in that hunt. But right now you don't have a dog in the hunt. You got to get your mess cleaned up. You've really got to show that this matters to you. Because right now, I hear a guy that's like, If it happens, cool. If it doesn't happen, no big deal. You got to go somewhere and find that enthusiasm to really make this happen for yourself. Get out of that debt consolidation thing. That ain't working for you. Hang on the line.

We're going to get you a session on us with one of our financial coaches, Great Hours, Jade Warshaw. Thanks to James Childs and the crew, this is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in your money life, your work life, and your relationship life. The phone number is triple-eight-eight-two-five-five, two-two-five. I'm Ken Coleman, Jade Warshaw joins me. She's our money guru. I'll be helping you on work-related questions because that plays into your money big time. Triple-888255, 225. Let's go to Tiffany, who joins us at Cleveland, Ohio. Tiffany, how can we help?

Hi, thank you for taking my call. So basically, I'm an aesthetician, so I have my own spa room. I've been here for two and a half years, and my business is doing great, especially starting off during the pandemic. I have lupus. So this isn't really the greatest job for me, but this is what I love to do. And that's the one thing that I'm actually good at.

So when I.

Work myself too hard, it flares up. I have a hard time. My husband and I have been married for eight years and together for before that. He is a juvenile probation officer with a bachelor's degree. I guess my main thing is that's the job that he's been in for 13 years now. We're seeing a counselor. We're working on things, but I'm finding myself getting frustrated with the fact that he refuses to go and find a better job that would pay better.

What's he make?

He makes 2,000 every two weeks.

Okay, 4,000 a month after taxes?

Yes, after taxes. Okay. Yeah. So I bring in more than that.

What do you bring in?

So on average, like 3,000, 3,500 or so a month.

I thought you said he did 4,000.

No, no, no. Sorry. I'm sorry, 2,464 a month.

That's him, 2,464?

A month, yes.

Okay.

Yes. Sorry.

What is his job again?

He's a juvenile probation officer. He has a bachelor's degree. He's making a.

Bachelor's degree. Is he salary or hourly?

He's salary.

What's his salary?

What is it?

40, 45, something like that range? 40? Yeah. It's got to be like 40. Yes.

Then after taxes and insurance and all.

That good stuff. This is not about numbers. This entire call is not about numbers. This is about you feeling like he should be, or excuse me, he could be, and he should be making more money.

Could.

Be doing more, yeah. Yeah, and it's creating a lot of attention.

Yes. Am I being unreasonable? I don't have a degree.

No, but the way you're going about it might be. What is the narrative? When you sit down with him to the best of your recollection, how are you talking to him about this?

I've tried it a couple of different ways. I've tried saying, Hey, I can help you with your resume. Let's try and see. Or I've tried to say, Hey, this is the great time to apply to jobs. They're hiring everywhere.

I have to make content. I got to throw a flag on the play.

As long as we get back to what he said, I got to get that part.

What's your flag? My flag on the play is everything is you towards him. Yes. I think that this is just, again, all I can tell you is how I would do it. I feel like, and I know the lupus plays into it, but I feel like when you're talking about our money and our finances, everything's got to be a we conversation. Everything's got to be, Okay, we need to earn more. What does that look like for us to earn more? I think that's just approach-wise. Can you complain to this? But there's something about, and this is a little bit old school, but there's something about when you come to somebody, it almost feels like an attack. Well, there's a question. Yeah. We have to- Even if you don't want it to be, and come for me in the comments, but even when it's like a lady coming at a guy about what you're making, you have the right to question it, and you have the right to want it to be different. But it's almost like there's got to be some tactfulness getting in there because it's almost like he's probably the ego part is feeling it.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, and.

He becomes defensive. He gets defensive first and you can't get anywhere.

Okay, so here's what we have to focus on. You're giving him the what he should be doing, and you need to be focusing on what is keeping him from doing anything else. That's what's holding him back. What is his language? What are the words? What are the things that he's saying back to you?

Well, he's saying, Well, I applied for that higher-up job before, and they told me that they needed to see more from me. I went to college, but it was really easy. I don't think he has a very good self-esteem.

He doesn't. No, he doesn't. What I'm trying to help you understand is, as a spouse, and Jade's right, but you've got to understand what he's dealing with. He's not lazy, he's lost.

Yeah.

It presents as lazy. I'm not saying you call him that, but this guy is, he's afraid to stick his hand back up because it's been slapped before. He's got bad self-esteem issues, which, by the way, go deeper than just what we're talking about. There's a couple of things. I'm not saying you got to walk around building him up and saying all these compliments, but to the extent that you can as his spouse, supporting him in the area of what is holding him back. You're no longer idea person. By the way, I'm not saying your heart's in the wrong place. It's not. But ideas aren't the fix. You know what the fix is for him? Him having a vision for his future that he actually believes that he can get. Right, I don't think he has one. No, he doesn't, but he can't. He can't have an idea about the future when he's clouded about the present. He doesn't believe in himself. He doesn't think he can do much more. Maybe he thinks he missed the boat. Maybe he thinks he's failed too many times. There's something going on. In the moment, it's like driving a car and you hit a patch of fog, and he's hit a patch of fog.

The only thing you do when you hit fog is slow down, pull over, and wait for the fog to clear. The only thing you can do is speak love into him, belief into him. I believe in you so much. I hate that it happened to you. Hey, let's have a dream night where we dream together. Instead of dreaming about his job or dreaming about the career path that he needs to be on, why don't you get him talking about the life that he longs for with you? When we can get his head into that, then you go, Okay, what must be true? What do we need to do collectively together? Yeah, I can.

Because that's the big one for me on this. I'm not coming for you at all, Tiffany. I'm just telling you what I heard, okay? Sometimes it's good to have an impartial person because they can tell you what you heard and say it back. When you initially started the call, because I want to make sure the talk in the house feels right, when you initially started the call, it made it seem like I've got my anesthetician thing, I've got my own room, I'm making $3,500 a month. It made it sound like, Hey, I got this going on, and this is the one thing I know how to do, and this is what I do. But then when you started talking about him, it was like, And heneed to do this and he needs to do this, and he needs to do that. He probably thinks what he's doing is the one thing he knows how to do. I feel like there definitely needs to be a little bit more balance in how we talk. When you finally have this conversation, it's what both of us are doing to improve. Because even though you're doing well, there is something that you can do to improve too, and that's how you keep it balanced skills and not just you pointing a finger at him.

Real quick. When a.

Person is clear, Tiffany, they can be confident. I'm going to give you two tools. I want to give him the get clear assessment. Will you please give it to him and say, Hey, I think this will help you see more about who you are and where you want to go, and giving the book from Paytech to Purpose and then just love him and support him. This is The Ramsey Show. I get.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by Jade Warshaw, and we are here for you, triple-8-825-5225, taking your money calls and your work-related calls today. Triple-8-255-5225 Our question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Fall is a great time of year, but nothing can get you down faster than plumbing problems. Neighborly brand, Mr. Rooter, can handle plumbing, emergencies, as well as repairs and drain cleaning. Visit neighborly. Com/ramsie to find a Mr. Rooter near you.

Awesome. Today's question comes from Madison in California. She says, I work in L. A. As a self-employed fitness model. Okay, I have worked for the same company on 1099 for seven years. No contract involved. They just keep booking me. The company is looking to hire a full-time model, which would kick my position out. Would you recommend I start looking for other clients at a higher rate to diversify my clientele? Or work as many hours at my current company to make the most money possible and pay down my debt?

Both. Next question.

Moving.

On. Yeah, it really is the situation here that I'm going to do both. I'm starting to look, no question. You want to have your head on a swivel, looking for many opportunities. By the way, she should be doing that as a self-employed 1099 anyway. 100 %. You are living and breathing off that. You and Sam understand that. I mean, that's essentially your world. You guys were running a company. You were the musicians plus you were booking. That's right. You're always looking for that next client that... Again, what's your max? How many gigs can you do? But I would absolutely be looking and getting new gigs, but I would stay with them until the last possible day when they go, Hey, we hired the newer, younger model.

That's true. I took.

Some liberty with that one. I don't know if that's what they're actually doing.

Well, I mean, as an artist, you do have to diversify. That's the name of the game. You should very rarely ever sign anything exclusive. It sounds like there's no reason that you can't start looking for diversifying your clientele and building up your thing. Yeah, I mean, doing all that, you're paying down your debt. I don't see why there's a downside to that.

No, not at all. I just got a good idea. In fact, no, it's not a good idea. It's a bad idea, but I'm going to share it with you. Okay. I wonder what the market is for the dad-bod fitness model.

There's a market for everybody.

Because I'm not in great shape, but I'm not in bad shape. Maybe I could do some of that. Just like, here's.

The regular guy. Look at most of the commercials on TV.

They're regular guys. There's got to be a spot for me to sell, like pickleball equipment to middle-aged guys.

Yeah, you got the one pack, not a six pack. Not a six-pack.

That's.

Hysterical. Just got.

A pack. I'll tell you, one thing you're not going to do is ever see me modeling this shirt. I see it on camera now and I go, I can't pull that off.

I feel like you're modeling it now. You're just.

Wearing it. Nobody thinks that I would ever wear this shirt in the woods with an ax.

No, you're like- Thanks. You're like Hallmark. You're a Hallmark movie.

Yeah, that's a stretch. All right, Milwaukee, Wisconsin is where Turner awaits. Turner, how can we help?

Hey, I am looking for, I guess, advice on how to utilize my wife and I's savings to attack some debt we still have while expecting our first child in April.

Great. Lay out the debt for Jake.

We have $47,000 in student loans still and a $15,000 auto loan.

Okay, cool. How much do you have saved?

We have $45,000 saved right now.

Okay, I like that. You've got this baby coming along. I probably would just honestly push pause on the baby steps until the baby gets here. Knowing that you've got this debt, knowing that you've got this savings, keeping in mind, okay, once this baby gets here, we're going ham on this, what I would do is stack up as much money as you possibly can between now and April, magically getting to the number that allows you to pay off your debt. But we're just sitting on it just until the baby gets here because I just want you guys focused on that. Then when the baby gets here, everything's all good. You've paid your deductible, you've paid for the baby to get here. Then take that savings, take all the money you've saved up with it, and knock out every penny of this debt. Sound good?

Yeah.

Then you're going to build up your 3-6 months of expenses after that. Sure. How much money do you think you could save between now and April?

We could probably save, I don't know, probably another 3,000 to 4,000 before then, I'd say.

Okay, yeah, then I'm doing that, 3,000 to 4,000. Your wife, when she has a baby, she does her leave. Does she plan on going back to work or what's the plan for that?

I guess our plan right now is that my income would be all we'd be living off of, and she actually is not going to be getting any paid leave, so we'll have to account for that as well. With her income out, it'll be between 45 and 48. Pre-tax is what we'll have to be working with.

Interesting. I'm a little worried about that because right now with both of you working, there's only 3-4 months. There's only 3-4,000 that you're putting aside to pay off this debt. That's not going to help you clear it by the time you have the baby. Then you're taking this pay cut, and I'm worried that you won't have margin to continue paying off the debt. What's the plan to create that margin?

Right, yeah, I guess it would have to be limiting our expenses a little more than we have. I guess my thought was potentially paying off the rest of our auto loan to free up some more income each month. But I guess I'm not sure if that's advised or not, but that's something I thought of to try to free up more of my income for when that would happen in spring.

Well, that's going to get paid for first anyway, right? Because you're listing the debt's smallest to largest. Unless the student loans are teeny, tiny ones and you're doing those first.

No, the auto loan is going to be smaller than the two student loans combined.

Okay, so that's happening regardless, right? When the baby comes, that 15,000 is gone, and then the rest coming out of your savings and the three and 4,000 is paying off, I don't know, another 34,000 of student loans, right?

Yeah, give or take.

Okay, so you've got 15 or 17 left of that. That's the money, that remainder of debt, that $17,000 or so of debt, that's what I want to make sure you guys have the margin to pay down and keep that intensity and go quickly.

Sure, yeah.

When your wife stops working, what chunk of money are you losing? What was she making?

Forty.

Yeah, that's a big... I mean, that's half your income right there. What would make me feel better is if tonight or whatever night this week works for you guys, sit down and really play out these numbers and see, okay, how is this really, honestly, not just in our minds because we all have the fantasy of we have a baby and now I no longer work anymore. For a lot of women, that's what they want to do. And so you really have to look at these numbers and see if they work because it might just be, honestly, just that tweak of going, hey, after your maternity leave, even though you don't get paid or whatever, after your maternity leave, is it possible to go back and work just for a little while till we get this debt cleaned up and then we transition to that lifestyle? Because that's going to save you a lot of months.

I would also like to suggest, Taylor, that if you and your wife have this conversation, Jade's right, and we go, Okay, what's our reality? One of the options is for you to step up and go, All right, baby's going to be little. I'm going to be there. Mama's more important than you are right now, bro. Let me just lay that out for you. Look, come on, Ken. I got three. They want mama. I know, that's right. As teenagers, they still. My wife knows everything about what's going on in this kid's life. I don't know anything. It's not because my head is in sand. They just tell her everything, Jade. Mama is more important, Tana. In this season specifically, here's what I'd be thinking. How many hours can I work? Look, I'm not mad at that. Can I make some extra money to accomplish the same thing Jade is saying? I just think you got to consider, Do I bust it? Work some crazy hours knowing that I'm making life better for little one and mama? That's right. It's a season. It's a season. I just have to push that.

Well, regardless, and sorry, we're belaboring this, but regardless, there is something that needs to happen, whether you decide to work more, she decides to go back to work to pay off this debt. There's still this long-term picture of, okay, you still got to put three to six months. We still are saving for kids' college. I'm challenging this 48,000 income long term, not just with a side hustle, because you're not going to want to side hustle until you pay your house off. We've got to look at what it's going to look like to get this core income up over the long haul. Is it just you or is it you guys working together for a short term.

To accomplish that? Yeah, great advice. Congratulations, young man. Exciting. Hey, go ahead and let me get a little extra naps between now and when the baby comes because you also are going to be sleeping, whether you're working extra or not. Just part of the deal. No sleep. It's going to be okay. You'll make it. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Colman, James Warshaw joins me. The phone number for you to jump in is triple-8-825-5225. If you're new to the program, yes, we talk a lot about money, but a big part of your money life is your work life. It is your greatest wealth building tool that is your income. I help folks win in their work life. We'll take those work-related calls, anything you want to talk about on that issue. I promise you, Jade's got an opinion on that too. You get plenty of advice on that. Let's go to Mark now in Portland, Oregon. Mark, how can we help? Hello? Hello, Mark? You're live. What's happening?

All right. So I have a weird, multifaceted question. I am a 100 % disabled veteran, but I'm still total impermanent and I'm still allowed to work, though. Okay. I have pretty much all my GI Bill, and I have minimal student loan debt from getting my degree. I got my bachelor's in mechanical engineering. But the big crux to what I'm wondering is I get a one time federal student loan forgiveness because of the nature of my disability. I'm from being in the Navy. So I'm trying to see, is it worth it to just go to grad school and then just max out the student loans and just get them forgiven? It seems that sketchy to me a.

Little bit. Hold on a second. Hold on. It's legal. Hold on. What would the masters be in and why would you get it?

It would probably be a masters in mechanical engineering focused more on building science and built environment. That's what I'm doing now.

So would that set you up for growth financially through promotions?

Yeah, it would.

So what's sketchy?

Because he has the GI Bill.

Because I can use my GI Bill that pays for the entire tuition and I get a housing stipend. If I were to be going, staying in Portland, I would be getting 2,300 bucks a month tax-free while in school. And then on top of the... Sorry, go ahead.

I had one more question, but go ahead.

And then on top of that, if I were to take out student loans, I could take out up to 65,000 a year for the two years. So to do that to offset the loss of income that I have now. And then another weird aspect to this, too, is if I were to do that, that would be more than what I'm making now with the GI Bill and those loans because there's no taxes associated with that. And my wife is also in medical school right now, too. The money is fungible because we're married, but realistically, a lot of the money would probably end up going towards reducing her loans.

Let me make sure I got my head around this because I'll be honest with all the military payments and stuff like that, sometimes it gets confusing. You've got a little bit of existing student loan debt. How much is that?

10k.

10k. Will the GI Bill pay for that? Pay that off?

No, but I could get it forgiven right now if I wanted to.

Okay, so just one thing at a time because I want to help you, but I also want to make sure that people listening understand.

Why won't the GI.

Bill cover that? Because he's already done that. But the GI Bill would cover you going to grad school, correct?

Yes.

My question is, why can't you just use the GI Bill to go to grad school if that's what you want to do? Why can't you use the other piece that you had the federal student loan forgiveness because of your disability to pay off the 10,000? What's wrong with that?

Yeah, that's what I'mthinking. But to me, and this is where I'm the moral and ethical dilemma. I could do all that, but then I could also take out more student loans and then those would get forgiven because it's just a.

One-time deal. Oh, so what you want to do, you want to takeout extra student loans knowing that you can get the federal government forgiveness?

Yeah.

And not use those for education?

I mean, it would be covering my housing expenses and all that. That's where I...

I thought I heard you say... Hold on. I also thought I heard you say that would go towards paying off some of your wife's medical loan debt as well. You're talking about taking out a student loan to use personally.

Well, you can use student loans to cover your housing expenses.

But did you say the GI Bill already gave you a stipend for the housing?

That's just for living expenses in other... Portland is like a more expensive city.

But hold up. Okay, hold on. Because I'm hearing you, but I'm also feeling a little... The fact that we're going back there is a shady quality to it because the GI Bill covers what we would call living expenses, whether that's rent or other things that goes along with living, but you're saying, I would take out student loans to continue to do that. My problem with that is the GI Bill saying, Hey, we have a stipend for that. That's what money is intended for. The Federal Student Loan Forgiveness, student loans, by definition, should be to pay for education. It does.

Bother me. And related expenses.

Well, no, not necessarily. I mean, related expenses, yes, but are you living on campus to go to school?

No, I have a house and a mortgage.

And a job.

That's what I'm saying.

Currently, I would stop working to go to school.

I feel like that's a little weird. It's not like you're going to school, you're taking out student loans. This is covering room and board and dormitory and that. They are student loans, which by the way, I wouldn't tell somebody to take out student loans anyway, but in this case, they're forgiven. I just...

Wait a second. Pardon us. We're not trying to be dense. No, we're not. It's just the way you set this up. No, I know. It's strange. Well, it's strange because you know it's not right. That's what I think. Yeah. It's not a student of mine. Hold on. You agree that you just said, Okay, we finally got it. I didn't mean to lead you there. It's my first lawyer moment. You don't feel this is right. Uh-uh. I don't feel like it's right.

It is sketchy.

Well, then why are you calling us, asking us if we think you should do something sketchy.

Because free money makes you do funny things, Ken. Well, it.

Ain't free. It's all the taxpayers back.

It's not illegal.

With my friend, listen to me. First of all, two things. Since you called, now I'm going to tell you what I think. It's sketchy because it's wrong. It's wrong because you're taking out money. That's all taxpayer funded, my friend. I'm paying for that. Jade's paying for that. I could go around the room. We got some nice people out in the lobby. I don't think they would like to pay for that either. They don't feel good about it.

I mean, I'm paying for.

That, too. I know, but that's so fine. But my crux.

Of.

It, the crux of it for me, the reasoning behind it, because I feel like we do have to point out the reasoning, for me, the reasoning is student loans really should be for education. And I don't think in your case, I don't think the living expenses are an expense of you getting your education. If you were going to live on campus, if you were staying in a dormitory, if you had to get an apartment in another city to take the classes, then I could see, okay, maybe. But in your case, because this is your situation, I don't see how your personal mortgage has anything to do with you choosing to go to grad school. And for that reason, I think that's where the ethical barrier is for me.

We're agreeing with you. You said it was sketchy. We think it's sketchy. Let me just say this. You're a great American. You served our country disability because of it. You're a great American. You're a great American, and you know it's sketchy. This is up to you, my friend. I don't think you can rationalize this for me or for Jay. No, I'm trying to in my.

Head, and I haven't been able to.

Well.

Then your gut. Look, if you had said something, and I'm just trying to come up with some scenarios. If you were like, Hey, when I was in the military... I don't know, I'm just trying to come up with a way that maybe this might... If you inquired a bunch of other debt because of school, but I just don't see that. This just doesn't hit right. You're a good.

Man, a great American. Thank you for your service. Your gut's right. We agree with your gut. You've got a bright future in front of you. You don't need this. Wife's going to get through medical school. You guys are going to be fine. Don't try to shortcut it. You guys are on the right path. Thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. Here at Ramsey Solutions.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by Jade Warsaw. We're here for you taking your money calls, your work calls today, triple-888255, 225. Okay, so you said, I'm going to do this.

Yeah.

I guess we do it in the comment section. This is when we need a.

Poll feature. Is this real?

It's real.

It's happening.

Okay, this is happening. I didn't clear it by James, and he'll talk to.

Me about it after the show. I like this. This is hard-hitting stuff. I like it.

Hard-hitting stuff. He likes it. All right, so here it is. I'm going to set it up quickly. I don't want to eat up a lot of time. All right, let's go. That's my little friendly ask.

Well, you're eating it up now, Ken. Come on. All right.

Here it is.

Fair.

Point. I see what you did there. Last call, okay? Last call, gentleman served our country, was in the Navy, disabled, and has the GI Bill, has 10,000 in loans. The GI Bill won't cover. But then he also has the ability to get as much as $65,000 in student loans. He was thinking, Hey, should I just take that out, live off of that while I'm getting this master's, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Wife's going to be a doctor, all that.

Yeah. He said he felt sketchy about it.

We told him it was sketchy because at the end of the day, he wasn't using the money for education. He was using it for other stuff.

But during the commercial break, you said it does feel sketchy, but as my portion of being a taxpayer, because of his service for our country, I would be fine with him doing it.

I said- No, I said I'd be willing because the forgiveness is taxpayer dollars, $65,000. I said as a taxpayer, I would be willing... This guy served our country to the point of 100% disability. I would be willing to give him my portion, which is 0.00011.0001 of that 65,000. My question was, if enough other folks in the chat say, I'd give them my portion too, then that means it's like, hey.

All right, so what say you? In the comments, have at it. Would you give your percentage? Would you give them your %? I'm happy to go on record as saying I am a bleeding heart conservative. Let me.

Define that. Ken, don't make me give you the.

Side, I Ken. That means that I feel really, really bad for his situation and plight, and I'm so grateful for his service. But- Ken! I am not going to donate my tax dollars to his... It's less than one cent. This is such a silly argument. It's about principle, not actual percentage. Oh, write.

That down. Can you sound as stingy?

No, sounding principled, and it gets called stingy. Principal works whether it's stingy or generous. There you go. Comment away. That's all we got. Let the.

People speak. Wait, people in the audience. You're trying to sway the audience. There's a couple of in the audience. They're with me.

They're with me. Look at this guy.

They're 100% with me. Wait, it's less than.

A penny. Stop. It's a principal. Thank you, Diana. Diana is with me. Oh, man. You all are funny. Look, there's no right or.

Wrong answer. She's a whole other situation. I know, but there's- That doesn't even count. What does that mean? I don't know. We need to move on.

Move on. You all put that... Drop it in the comments because I really want to know. Would you give your hey penny for this man's 65,000?

That's not the point. You reframed it. It's should taxpayer dollars go to him living off of student loans? No, you should not. I don't care how much the amount is.

Let.

The.

People speak. I'm saying if someone wanted to be generous.

It could-.

All right, we'll see.

-that's all I'm saying. It doesn't mean generous versus stingy. You've reframed it. Christina is up in Salt Lake City. Christina, how can we help?

Yeah, well, I'm totally with you on that. You who? You.

Ken, you.

Support.

Ken.

Thank you very much. Appreciate your vote, November folks.

Yeah. I have a mortgage. It was originally $295, it's about $280 right now. I have PMI because we really needed to move back to where we were. And it was... Anyway, we also have $30,000 in student loan debt. And when my husband and I went to college, it was three %. So we were in a good time, right? Yeah. So the question is, should I pay off my mortgage to get rid of the PMI or should I pay off the student loan? My PMI is about $43 a month.

The short answer is no, I would not pay off your mortgage first to get rid of PMI. I would walk the baby steps, which is paying off all your debt except your mortgage. So it's almost the complete opposite. And there's good reason for that. Your student loans are debt and it's costing you money every single month. And there's something to be said for when you get on a plan, walking the plan the best way. The way that the baby steps is constructed is the most efficient way to paying off debt, saving money, and building wealth. And it's not just me saying that this plan has been around for over 30 years, and millions of people have walked it this way. The thing about it, Christina, is everybody out there goes, My situation is a little bit different. Because my situation is like this, I think it would work better if I did it like this. Now, the fact of the matter is you can get off this phone, you're grown, you can do whatever you want, and I'm not going to be mad at you. We're both going to sleep good at night. But if you're asking my opinion, I do think that the best use of your money is to get these student loans off your plate free and clear.

I think this 20 % PMI thing, it's just like a bad song that won't get out of your head. It's cool to save money on things, but in your world, it's really not that big of an important thing, because once you get this debt paid off, once you get three to six months saved, once you start investing 15 %, you're going to be on such a great trajectory. And by then, probably the amount of money that you've paid off on your mortgage, I don't know what your payment is, I don't know what your interest rate is, but you might be close to knocking that PMI out anyway. Because once you hit it, it's off. Once you get to that 20 %, it's out. And if you're not there by then, then you will be sooner than later. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Well, we hit the interest rate at 4.8, and so it's not great. But we just thought that $500 a year was high. It is. It's a P. M. Pmi.

It is. But you're going to be there again. Everybody's got that why I'm the exception to the rule. My point is if you walk through the plan, ultimately you're going to have more money to throw towards this, and you're going to have the peace of not having debt, having your savings. Do you have any savings? Three to six months?

We have about 7,000 in savings.

Exactly. My point in this is I think you're trying to do the right things, but I think you're trying to do the right things in the wrong order. At the end of the day, you still have debt, you don't have quite enough savings, and you got PMI, right? Let's start doing this stuff in order so that we're not... It's almost like, I put a little money here, I put a little money there, I put a little money there. You look up and it's like, Yeah, but I still have debt and I still don't have savings. You're not accomplishing what at the end of the day we all want, which is that piece with our money. You get that piece when that debt's paid off, when you've got the right amount of savings, because for you guys, 7,000 is not enough. Then at the end of that road, the final thing is we're paying off the mortgage with intentionality. If you want to go intensely for a while to get rid of that PMI, that's your business. But does that make sense for you?

Yeah. No, that's fine. I just wanted to know what you guys thought because we aren't full disclosure. We're not fully following the baby steps, but all of our cars are paid off, our campers paid off.

Look.

That's awesome.

That's awesome. But I do think that... I have an analogy in my brain. I don't know that it's appropriate.

Oh, I'm intrigued now.

Well, it's like if I'm married, and I got this from my pastor, if I'm married, I'm 100 % committed. It gets real funky when I say, Hey, I'm committed on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, but Sunday is when I get into it, that doesn't work. He'd be like, This is not a full commitment. We would not be able to have the marriage that we should have because I'm not fully committed. I think it's the same way with this plan when it comes to your money. When you commit to this plan and you go all in on it, you get the full benefit of the plan, and it's all that it could be and all that it should be. But when you take Sundays and you're like, On Sundays, that's when I, I don't know, use my credit cards. On Sundays, that's... It's like you get some of it, you're paying off the cars, you're doing that. That's great. I would love for you to go fully committed to this plan and see what happens next.

Great stuff. You said in that call, it's like a bad song. You can't get out of your head. My nomination, you can't touch this. Let's see the hammer. Great hour, James. James, our fearless leader. And you, the people. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win with your money and with your work and with your relationships. All of those somehow are very interconnected. We want to help you win in all three areas because that means you're winning in your life. Triple-eight, 8255, 225, triple-eight, 8255, 225. That's the phone number to jump in. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warsaw joins me this hour, and we are here for you. Let's get to it. We're going to... This is always exciting. I always love when they tell us on the screen where people are from because it gives you an idea like, The world is a really big place. We've got Janay on the line, but I think this is Missoula, Montana. Is that right, Janay?

Missoula.

Montana. Yes. But also a little bit of a hard S, not a soft S. Missoula.

Correct.

I got it.

Missoula, Montana. It's like a Z.

Yes.

How can we help?

I am a relatively new widow, and I had a series of unfortunate events this past year, and I resorted to racking up credit card debt, which I knew was a big no, no. But I'm living on half of the income that my husband used to bring in. And now I'm back pedaling because I can't pay the debt off. And so I am either contemplating credit card, like debt consolidation, or just closing the accounts out and just seeing if the credit card companies will work with me. I'm very limited on the income that I can make. And so I just don't know what the best option to do is.

What happened?

So my husband was ill and had a very rare tumor that the NIH was studying and he develops COVID and essentially died from COVID. But he had. I'm sorry.

So sorry for you.

Yeah, I was a state-home mom. He was the breadwinner for 21 years of our life. We had four kids.

Wow.

I'm sorry. Any life insurance? Yeah.

No life insurance, no savings, no 401(k).

I'm sorry. Oh, my gosh. I do want to say that we hear this a lot, like something traumatic happens, and there is more spending that happens in a lot of cases after that, whether it's just out of emotional spending or whether it's truly like, I haven't figured out how to make life tick without this major breadwinner. In your case, because there was no insurance and because you've got four kids, that does put a wrench on it. How old are the kids?

My oldest is 20, and so he's in my household, but not directly in my financial household. I have a 17-year-old son, a 12-year-old daughter, and a 10-year-old daughter. I don't have a traditional income. I rely on death benefit. The reason my two girls have health issues, and so one of them takes a medication that's like $9,000 a month, so I have to rely on Medicaid. My income is very limited as to what I can bring in.

To have her.

Medicine.

Covered. Yeah. Let's dive into that. What is the limit in order to get the medication covered via Medicaid? What's the limit on you financially to what you could actually earn?

Twenty-six thousand a year.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah, it's keeping you in poverty.

Let me ask you this. The two girls and their health issues, is that also keeping you at home? It would not allow you a traditional, let's say that we could get childcare, we got a great job with great benefits that help with that. Let's just assume all of that. Is that even possible for you to be able to work outside of the home?

It is possible. I do clean homes, so I have a couple of homes that I clean a couple of times a week to get some cash. But you're keeping it low on purpose.

Yeah, but.

You're capped. I am capped. I am capped out to what I can bring in. And so my kids go to the doctor quite often. I'm multiple times a week. My schedule has to be flexible. But if I could find a job that I could get this all taken care of, that.

Would be amazing. Well, can we play out some real numbers to see what it would take? Absolutely. Have you done that? I mean, I don't want to do work you've already done, but what if we sat-.

I'm 11...

Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say what if we sat? So one child's medication is 900, did you say a month?

Nine thousand.

Nine thousand. Oh, 9,000. Girl, okay, I feel it.

That's 9,000 a month. Then do you have a mortgage?

I do not. I rent.

Can Itell you where is your rent?

It's currently 950, but it's going to be going up in the first year to 1250.

Can I ask a question again about this medicine? If you had regular insurance, what portion of the 9,000 would the regular insurance cover? Sure.

So whenever we did some research, because my husband was offered a great job offer years ago in marketplace and stuff like that, we could not find an insurance company that would cover the medicine because it's human growth and she takes a lot of it. And so it's one of those tricky medications that's... I don't know the ins and outs of it. I just know whenever we contacted health insurance companies about three years ago, we could not find one to where the raise that he would be getting would even be beneficial for us.

I.

See. What was he making before he passed?

A 48,000 a year.

How did Medicaid allow that?

That's what I'm wondering.

My son was in our home and he was a minor, and then my husband was in our home. They go by how many people are in your home. Now that my son is no longer a minor and my husband is deceased, my family went from six people in my home to technically four people in my home. They deduct about $10,000 per person who is no longer considered under your household.

I see. Okay, I get it. The math maths.

This is so maddening to me that you get penalized, you get some help, and then you get penalized because $9,000 is extraordinary. Even if you were making 150,000 a year, that's- Of course, yeah. -that's almost all your take-home. It just eats up so much. You've got debt. How much credit card debt have you racked up?

Just under 20,000. I had a master move at the beginning of the year, and that went septic and that was a domino effect—and I was not able to do my normal house cleaning for about five months. I just started, I was like, Well, I'll just use the credit card and I'll just work extra. Then that just was too big of a problem for me to get my feet back under. I have not been using the credit card for months now.

Does Medicaid cover the entire amount of the medicine?

Yes. My two daughters both have open heart surgeries, multiple ones. They cover 100% of all of their medication, surgeries, even if we have to travel to Seattle for their surgeries. Theyalso provide travel assistance. I'm out of pocket for my children's medical needs is zero. I pay nothing.

I would want to look into other, even if they're outside insurances, anything else that might have the ability to cover this? Because you living on $26,000 a year with four kids, I don't see how that's sustainable long term. I would just want to get as much information as I can. At the very least, can we connect her with Xander and see what the heck could be out there that could help offset this $9,000 a month that you're paying? Hey, I wish we could have been way more help to you. I feel like we spend more time learning than helping.

Here's what we're going to do. We're going to get you connected for free to our flight, one of our best financial coaches here in the building, and they're going to walk you through what you can do. Hang on the line. We'll take care of you. All right, let's cut to the chase.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw joins me. Hey, if you're new to the program or you've been listening for quite some time, we would love for you to help us spread the word. If you're enjoying the program, like the videos you're watching on YouTube, give us a follow on podcasts and then a five-star review and share, share, share whatever platform that you listen or watch on. We would be so grateful. We want to help as many people as possible. Get out of the system, the matrix, if you will, where they just think they're broke and working a sucky job and having an okay or crappy relationship is just, Well, that's just life. We want to help as many people as possible, so do help us do that. Let's go to Houston, Texas, where Kristen awaits. Kristen, how can we help?

Hey, glad to be on. I have a question, we need to talk about four and five primarily. Okay. Really, I'm how to actually make them both happen at the same time.

Okay, is it just baby steps four and five or baby steps four, five, and six?

Four, five, and six. But I mean, we can't afford to pay off our home early yet, so we're working towards getting up to 15 % reach. Right now, we're doing about 11.5 % of our income for retirement. We're also putting some for the kids. And we're worried that we're not going to have as much as we want saved up for the kids because we had our kids really young. Right. So we have a lot more time before retirement versus when the kids are going to go to college. I mean, our daughter just turned seven and she's going to graduate high school at 17. So we have 10 years left of that, but we still have 35 plus years.

For retirement. Let's work through these percentages a little bit so I can understand where your money is going. So you're completely debt free except the mortgage. Let's say there's 25 % that's going to your mortgage. Is it that or less or more?

I think it's just under... With the mortgage, property taxes and insurance, I think it's about 28 %.

Okay, so that's a little higher. That's okay. Then let's say you're giving 10 %.

Yes.

Okay, so there's 35 %, and let's say 15 % is supposed to go to retirement. So we're at 50 % of our income, in your case, 53 %. What's happening to the other 50 % of your income? Because that's assuming you're investing.

I'm getting the house going. Well, groceries and the kids.

How.

Many kids? Activities. And we have two kids.

Okay, two kids. So four people in the house. What's the combined income for you and your husband?

I just started a part-time job. We don't know how much that'll end up being over the year, but my husband makes 1.15 a year.

Okay, what I'm going to propose- And that's.

Reported just a few months ago. What I'm going to propose.

Is that something in your budget, the other 50 %, something there is inflated. Because essentially what you would have if you're not... I think you said you're at 11 %. So the other 54 % of your budget is inflated somewhere. So are you on an every dollar budget?

Yes, we've been meeting every dollar. And I do know one area is inflated and it's just our property taxes because we just bought this house and they didn't value. And so that should be going down a few hundred.

Dollars a month in a year. Oh, okay, so that's good. So that's going to help you get from 20-25. And that's the one I'm looking forward to.

Yes. And so in January, how much of this should I dedicate to actually getting 15 % to retirement? What do I do? Do 13 and a half and then have a little bit more for the kids' college fund.

I would do the 15 % no matter what because their time is going to come no matter what when you have to retire, right? What I would start talking about with the kids, how old are they?

We have an almost six-year-old and a seven-year-old.

Okay, so you've got a little bit of time there. And it's not to say that you can't put any money aside because again, with Baby Step 5, we're not saying it has to be this specific amount. I mean, if you can get $50 and $100 in there every once in a while, that's something. But I want you to get to this 15 % as quickly as possible. And then as things start to change with your property tax or whatever the thing you said that was inflated right now, you're going to start to see a difference. That $300 to $400 is a big deal, but I really want you going through your budget with a fine-tooth comb because there might be some other areas that for you seem normal. But when you really start to peel back and go, Okay, what's a bigger priority for me to do this or for me to make sure I'm getting at least a hundred bucks a month into a 529, right? And then the thing with the mortgage, right now, again, it's about being intentional. There doesn't have to be a layer of intensity to that whatsoever at this point.

So if you had ideas that you were going to be paying double payments in this season, maybe or not because of the age of your kids, but there will be a season where you will be able to do that. But I really want you to look at this in term of percentage because this plan works for a reason and it works because of those percentages. You got to really look and say, okay, what's the 50% going to? Is somebody in private school? Is there something about your budget that feels like, oh, maybe that's what it is, other than that property insurance for three or four, 300 more?

Well, we had a three-month emergency fund for a long time, but we have been working towards this full six months. There you go. Right now, we're at about a four-and-a-half months, but we are still contributing a few hundred dollars every month to the emergency fund. There it is. We have been putting $100 between the two kids every month.

For- Wait a second. Wait a minute. This is it. This is the money. This is where your money is.

You're doing the most.

You're.

Doing all of it. I'd pull back on the emergency fund then and be okay with the four and a half months?

No, I mean, if you guys want to- I don't do what you think is- If you use some of it and you need to replenish it back to six months, go on and replenish it. I want you to get back to 15 %. Whatever it takes you to get to 15 % investing, and if you want to replenish your savings back to six months. And if you're putting a hundred dollars a month in your 529, that's great. The biggest thing with that 529 is projecting out to the future and really understanding what's actually going to be there when your kids get to college so you can start having those conversations right now. But I think you're doing better than you think you are. I think the couple hundred that you're putting aside to try to replenish this emergency fund plus the overage that's going on with the property tax right now, I mean, that could be $600. That's a lot of money. Right?

Yeah.

It just seems like you're in this limbo phase. Once that fire goes out, then you're going to be like, Oh, there's the money. That's where it went.

Yeah, I'm hearing a mindset, Kristen, where you're just feeling almost guilty that you're not doing as much as you'd like in each step. The steps aren't a taskmaster. They are a guide, and you move within the steps when you need to. It feels like you're beating yourself up a little bit and you shouldn't be. You're doing enough. You're fine. If you want to replenish or boost the baby step three, then do that. To Jade's point, we just want you getting on a consistent investing. But don't be beating yourself up over this. You're not doing anything wrong.

You're doing right. You're just doing a lot.

Does that help?

Definitely. It's always nice to have another perspective because when you're in it, you see all the flaws and not the strengths necessarily.

That's it. I just want your mindset right now to go, We're doing a great job. Bro, you're ahead. We're ahead of just about everybody in America. Have you seen the data? So give yourself a break, focus on the priorities, not the productivity part of this. I think we get hung up on, Well, Dave says, Jade says, Dave's at 4:5 at 6:00 at the same time. Wait a second. Life happens. The steps are there for a reason. There's a reason why 3 is.

Before 4. Yeah, in the point of 4, 5, and 6.

Obviously- That was brilliant, what I just said. I just heard how silly that sounded. What did you say? There's a reason why 3 is before 4. But the point is the emergency fund is more important. Yes, thank you, Big Bird. Thank you, Big Bird. I know, but the emergency fund is more important than the 15%.

That's right.

There's a reason why we have it there. That's right. If you feel comfortable with six months, then that's what you do, then pick it back up. I guess that's the point.

There's not a wrong- Method to the madness.

Yeah. Don't get hung up on how well I'm doing in each thing at the same time. It's what matters most to me within the steps. Yes. So, Kristen, deep.

Breath, get.

Off this phone call going, I'm doing great. I'm going to continue to do great, and I'm going to be fine. Yes?

Yeah, and I'll have to have my husband hear that, too.

That's right. You all are killing me. You know what's.

Great about this?

It's more critically than I do. Okay, so this is great, Kristen. You know this is on YouTube right now, right? Yes. You could just have him get to this moment and go, Look at what Jade said. Look at what Ken said. Look at the guy in a goofy shirt. You got to listen to that guy. Doing great. What's his name? His name.

Is.

Michael. Michael.

You're doing fine. Relax. Yes, Michael and Kristen.

Take Kristen out for a.

Steak dinner, man. I know.

That's right. You all been working hard. Come on.

You guys are crushing. All right, don't move. Quick break. We're back with more of your calls. This is The Range.

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With your money, your work, and your relationships. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warsaw joins me. The phone number to jump in is triple-88825-5225. Diana is on the line in Providence, Rhode Island. Diana, how can we help?

Hi. I just have a question about a car lease.

Okay.

I amy lease is up in May. I owe approximately $18,000 on it. I was wondering if I should go trade it and buy a car.

In.

May? Or sell the car back and go buy and take a hit for $2,000 and buy a car for approximately $8,000.

Okay, walk through that again. One option is to buy it at $18?

Correct.

The other option is to come out of pocket for two grand and just get out of the lease? Yes. Then you go, Do you have some money set aside? Because you said buy a car for eight grand, so that means you've got the eight grand set aside if you do that?

I was going to do a home equity line of credit.

Well, now.

Okay, let's see. Let's look at this.

Do the entire advice singing, please, like it's a musical?

You don't want me to do that, Ken. Well, maybe you do, but I'm not going to. The first question is, do you have... What other debt do you have?

I have about $38,000 in credit card.

$38,000 in credit card.

And I own a home and I owe about $230,000.

$230,000 on the home. Do you have any money set aside? Do you have any cash that you could get your hands on? Stocks, some money? No. Nothing. What's your income?

I take a lot of my retirement.

Well, no, don't pull out of your retirement.

$105,000 a year.

$105,000 a year. You've got some money coming in. It's just you. Are you married? Do you have kids?

I have a kid.

10 years old. Okay, so here's the thing. I'm not opposed to you getting out of this car and taking a hit if I felt like you could take it without going into debt to cover another car because you need a car. It's you and your 10-year-old. You've got this 18,000 that if you turned around and bought the car, and then you've got the 38,000 of debt. Correct.

All right, so let me just jump in really quick while you're thinking here. How would you come up with the two grand out of pocket? Or in other words, how long would it take you to scrape the two grand together so that when you did turn in the lease, you had it?

Probably two months. Okay.

How's your credit?

That's the problem. I just did a debt consolidation.

Program.

And they hadn't paid any of my credit card for approximately six months, so my credit just dropped classically. Yeah.

In some cases, it's like if you have $18,000 car loan and you're trying to get out of it or a car loan in general, we might tell you to get a small loan for the difference so you can get out of it and get just a cash car of $5,000, something like that. At least your debt's going from 18-5, right? In this case, that might not be the case because of your credit.

Do you drive a lot in that car?

Yes.

Here's the thing. The 18,000 car with your income, the fact that you have an $18,000 car that you would purchase or that you'd be trying to get the lease off of doesn't bother me as far as the price of it. But because you've got this other almost $40,000 in debt, I hate that for you. How quickly could you pay off... Let me look at this. Your credit cards in the debt snowball, how many are there? Is it just one or two, or is it lots of little ones?

There's eight.

There's eight. Are they all less expensive than the $18,000 car? Pay the $18,000? Combined? No, individual. Are they all less expensive? Yeah. Okay.

Are they in the debt consolidation program, though? That's what I'm not understanding.

Yes.

But I was.

Going to try to get a personal loan and pay them off.

Okay. I think we're trying to look for an out, but at the end of the day, you just and you're just going to have to pay it off because you don't have the money to get a less expensive car. You don't have the way to get a loan to do that, and you don't have the credit to do it.

That's my question, Jade, so I got a question for you and Diana. If it's going to take you two months, give or take, to come up with the 2,000 to get out of the lease, how long would it take you... I mean, is it fair to say that you could, let's say, 6-8 months from now have about 6-8 grand? If you started working extra hours, you started doing everything you can. Here's where I'm going.

That's right, because how much time do you have before you have to make this decision?

It's due in May.

Oh, you've got time.

Okay, so here's where I'm going. Okay, there you go, Ken. I'm working like a maniac. Yes. I'm going to save up money. I'm going to get out of the lease.

Yes.

I'm going to fork over the two grand. Plus, I'm going to have about six grand, and I'm going to get myself a decent car. That's right. It's not great, Diana. It's not great, but it'll get you from A to Z while you get out of this situation.

Yeah, crucial piece of information is you've got time. I'm thinking we're deciding today. You've got time.

To get 6,000.

As much as you can.

Save up. Yeah, because watch what happens. What's the lease right now? What are you paying every month on that lease? $375. We get a $375 raise in about six months. Now, the $375 goes into paying off. You can get out of this with $105,000. Listen, you can find a way, Mama Bear. You don't have a baby. You got a 10-year-old, so we figure out some super cheap childcare or whatever. You're working like crazy. Let's see if we can make an additional 50 grand. I'm going to put that challenge out there. Could you make an additional 50 grand in 2024? I think the answer is yes. If that whole 50 grand, minus taxes, of course, goes toward getting out of debt, I think you're free quick.

Well, at the very least, if she has 105 income, they can live on-.

Oh, they're 50 of it. That's exactly. Where are you cutting expenses? What are you selling? How much are you working? I think you can get out of this, but I would definitely get out of the lease. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, that's good.

All right.

I appreciate it. I'm happy with that.

You helped greatly.

I owe you guys. You're awesome. By the way, I love that Rhode Island accent. Can I just say that?

Yeah. I'm going to.

Pock the car. When she started talking about the car, I was like, Yeah, I wish I talked like that. I get this goofy southern thing going on. I like that Rhode Island accent. That's good. It's good stuff. Hey, how about our backyard? We take calls from local. Ashley's calling from Nashville. What are you talking about? You have no idea what he's talking about. Folks, I try to keep her on her toes. Let's go to Ashley, who's calling from Nashville.

Hi.

Everybody. Hi.

I'm very excited. Hi. So quick question. My fiancé, his company just decided to give a 12 % contribution directly to the Form 1 case so that.

He needs to contribute.

The additional 50 % or just the three or additional three % with that.

Is it a continuous match or they just did this one-time thing?

No, they're going to.

Continue doing all he has.

He's working there for 12 % every single year. It's not a match.

When it comes to baby step four, and for those listening, Baby Step 4 is putting 15 % monthly into retirement. The reason for that, and I want to get to the reasoning first, and then it'll inform why my answer is what it is, the reason for that is we want you building the muscle of investing your own money into retirement because he's at this job now. But let's just say on down the line, he decides to go work someplace else, and they don't do that match or they don't do that contribution over the course of the year. You want to know that no matter what, you've built it into your lifestyle and you've built it into your budget that we just invest and we invest 15 % and this is off the gross number and that's just our habit in life. Yes, all of that to say yes, I still want you investing your 15 %. Think of any match or additional contribution or anything like that. That's just icing on a very delicious cake, you know what I'm saying? Making me hungry now. That's great that they're matching that much or that they're contributing that much.

It sounds like even regardless of what you put in, so that's really good.

Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much, Ashley, for the call. All right, so we got to do these things called commercial breaks, but hang on because we have another segment coming your way with some great calls. She's Jade Warsaw. I'm Ken Coleman, and this is The Ramsey Show.

After these messages, we'll be right back. Welcome back to.

The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is with me. The phone number is triple-8-825-5225. Our scripture of the day comes from Proverbs 21:31. The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the Lord. Then our quote from the Iron Lady herself, Margaret Thatcher, You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. Love it. Isn't that true? All right, let's go to Irvine, California. Bonnie is waiting. Bonnie, how can we help?

Hey, Ken. Hey, Jade. It's such an honor to be speaking with both of you today. Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me. You bet. I'm a little nervous, so sorry.

You're doing great. That was quite an intro. You're crushing it.

What's up? Thank you. I have a question regarding completing a bachelor's degree. I have an associate's degree, which I earned in 2020, and I've been working full-time in insurance since then. I recently applied to a lawyer university, and I got accepted, and I'm just having gold feet, and I think it's not the right decision for me to go based on my finances.

Okay, let's see if there's any evidence to back up your gut. How about that?

All right?

Absolutely. All right. So you don't think it's a wise decision because your finances paint the financial picture for us?

Well, overall, my husband and I are doing really well. We make roughly about 125 before taxes. The only debt that we have is 3,000 in credit card, which is just mine. Then we also have about $33,000 left on a loan from his parents that they provided down payment on our home for. Paying them back for that, and then roughly about $323,000 off on.

A mortgage. Okay, so $36,000 of consumer debt. How much is the schooling going to cost if you were to do this?

It'll be about $16,000. Total? That'll be going full-time for the next two and a half years.

Total, yeah. That means you're not working in the insurance job?

It would be, actually. Oh, you could. Yeah, I would be working full-time. I'm sorry. Only 35 hours a week trying to tackle both. Okay. Yeah, the reason that I'm getting cold feet is because there are personal reasons that I want to complete this. But ultimately, I just feel guilty spending $16,000 to complete school when I don't know if it's necessary or going to get me ahead.

Of life. Well, that was my next question. I love the personal reasons, not going to question those at all. Because of that, I'm going to say, I think you should do it, but I think you should do it later, not now. Absolutely, yeah. I don't think you should feel guilty about considering it. I don't think this is ought to be about guilt. This just ought to be about, You know what? It matters to me to get the degree one day, but I'm going to do it when I can. When I can is certainly after we pay off $36,000 in consumer debt and then get to the point where I can cash flow or I have saved it up to then be able to do it. I think the degree is always going to be there, and I think you should put it off. That's what your thinking and feeling, and I couldn't agree more with your feelings here.

Yeah, it's definitely coming from wanting to plan ahead and set things right for the future. My husband and I really want to start a family in the next couple of years. But I'm just reverse engineering it and going, Well, if I'm going to put all this time and effort into complaining school, I could be spending just a certain amount of time getting a part-time job, maybe making $20 an hour. I was doing the numbers and I'm like, I could... I could earn $16,000 in one year versus paying it over two and a half years.

I would just press pause. Not the delete button, the pause button.

It's.

Going to be there. I like that. You good with that?

Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah, you're awesome. I think it's simple. Press a pause button. Yeah, you bet. Thank you for the call. I love it. Let's go to Mel in Salt Lake City. Mel, how can we have you?

Hi.

Hi. How are you, Mel?

I'm good. Okay, then. My question is pretty straightforward. Should we sell our current home to pay off the debt that we have and move into my parents' home, who are going on a church mission for a couple of years? Or should we keep it and rent it out? We're feeling a little bit tight because we're about negative 1,400 every month. Earlier this year, we cut out all of the extras.

Why are you negative 1,400 every month?

That's just basic needs. I mean, these are basic necessities.

Okay, so you aren't making.

Enough money. Yeah, what's the income between you and your husband?

About 100,000. He makes about $85,000. Wait a second.

Okay. And how much debt do you guys have?

Total.

180,000.

Okay, $100,000 bringing in- Yeah.

What would- Hold on. She was about to give us something. $130 what?

Well, I was going to say the monthly payment for just loans, we have about $60,000 student loans, $53,000 in car loans, and $60,000 in credit card. Okay, I'm looking at this- The monthly payment for all of that is.

$26.87. Okay, the cars, $53,000 in car loans? Yes. We got to get out of these cars.

I mean, we owe $26,000 and 27 on 2016 cars that are 125,000 miles, one of them. That was one thing. We had car problems all year. We just put into that car almost $10,000 this year. We had the transmission had to be.

Completely rebuilt. So they're not worth anything? Is that what you're telling me?

No, they're worth. I mean.

We could. So if you sold the 26,000 one, what's it worth on Kelly Blue Book?

It's in the low 20s.

Okay, like 21, 23. So are you like maybe 3,000 upside down? Probably. Okay, and then what about the 27,000 one?

That one's in good shape. We could break even.

On it. Okay, break even on that. How quickly could you scrape? Could you guys live on one car for a while?

We have five kids.

You've got five kids? Okay, that's something in the.

Equation here. Here's a super quick question. I'm going to get in and get out on this one. If you all sell your house, clear off all this debt, and go live rent-free with mom and dad, or not at their house while they're on this mission, it may bail you out, but it's not going to change your life if you guys don't fix what got you into this mess. You guys are living way out of bounds.

Yeah. I think that you guys can make this happen. I think that whether or not you live in mom's house for a while or not is besides the point. I want you to look at this situation and see where the problem is. The problem is you keep taking on debt. You've got student loans, you've got cars you can't afford. I think you're going to need to feel the pain a little bit on this thing. I would get rid of one of the cars. I'd take the hit on the 3,000, scrape up $3,000 as quickly as you can and get out of that one and scrape up a little bit more money. One of you is going to be driving a Beater for a while. Then I'm going to look at this $100,000out an income that you're making, and I'm going to look for any way that you guys can add to that income over this period of time. Because I don't really like the idea of you guys renting out your personal home. I don't know how long your family is going to be on the mission field, but if they should come back sooner, suddenly it's like, Oh, okay, we got to take these.

Folks out. Either sell it or stay.

But don't rent it. Exactly.

That's creating more problems for.

You guys. Your house, what's it worth? $800,000?

Yeah, $200,000 equity.

$200,000 equity. When did you buy it?

About two years ago.

Yeah, I- What does your husband want to do?

He doesn't want to sell.

The house. I would not sell it. I wouldn't. I would work through this debt. I think you guys can do it. I think it's going to teach you a really great lesson at the end. I think there's going to be some pain involved here, but I think that you guys have the ability to get your income up. $100,000 with $180,000 of debt, I think that there's some real moves that you guys can make to even this out. The average person is getting out of debt in two years and under. I think you guys can be done with this in three years maximum if you guys work hard. This is up to you guys how quickly you work this thing. What can each of you guys do to bring in some extra money?

I feel like I maxed out, honestly, with time and I'm going toget it sent. He also does a bunch of side hustle. He does music work, he does voice-over interpreting. That's aside.

From his job. Getting these cars cleared out and you each getting a couple of beaters is going to be the ticket to you guys cleaning this up super duper fast. That's thing one on the list. Then we're just gone through those baby steps, man. Hey, thank you.

For the call. Jade Warsaw, great show. Thanks to everybody in the booth keeping us on the air. Thank you, America. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney here. Mental and emotional health challenges, broken relationships, it's all just part of life, but they don't have to define you. The Dr. John Deloney show is here to help. It's a collar-driven podcast where you can get practical advice on dealing with anxiety, loneliness, depression, relationship challenges, your kids, and so much more. Listen to questions from our callers, or if you're walking through a tough situation and need some help, give me a call. You were never meant to do life alone, and that's what this podcast is all about. Follow along on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or the Ramsey Network app. Remember, you're worth being well.