Change Your Habits, Change Your Life

27:52That's great. That's awesome. You can start every semester, you can put that semester on a payment plan with the school and not take out a student loan and you can pay it monthly. And so maybe y 'all are able to help in that way. I don't know how it all trickles down if you got six kids there, but, and what your life expenditures are and your cars and your home. I don't know all that y 'all, you and your husband have to figure that out. I'll also tell you this. Here's what I do with my kid. I have a 16 year old who's a junior. My wife and I sat him down this summer and his mom and I, my wife and I are nerds.

28:24Like that's no surprise. We made a pretty complex spreadsheet that basically laid out, here's some schools I would love you to go to. And here's what percentage of those schools I'll pay for. And, but the big thing I put in his lap was, if you get X, Y, or Z on the ACT or the SAT, which by the way, that testing of itself does not matter, but that score has a dollar amount to it. That's just part of playing this game. I will pay for prep courses. I will pay for tutoring support. But if you get this particular score on this test, I'll write you this big of a check on your graduation day. Right? And what I'm doing is I'm putting some of the onus on him.

29:10You're going to self-select out of certain schools. And there's certain bands of schools that my wife and I told them, you can go to them. We will pay$0. Right? So you're going to be earning every bit of this on your own. But we were real clear, just laid it out. But I wanted to give him as much responsibility as possible. And what a junior can own right now is making their full-time job outside of school, studying for one of these standardized tests. Yeah. The other thing to think about is not every kid may want to go to college. Right. Have that conversation too. There could be trade schools, associate degrees, certificate programs.

29:48They might be entrepreneurial. and so that's the good news is we don't have to figure this all out today so let's just kind of like the debt snowball we're focusing on the smallest debt let's let's just focus on the oldest kid see where their heart is what their mind is when it comes to further education and then let's make a plan around that and for that 11 year old you may set up a 529 and go hey we got seven plus years to fund this thing we can invest the money and have it grow for us let compound growth do a little bit of the lifting and you might have some state tax benefits as well with that.

30:20So there are a ton of options, but the homework I would give to you guys is do like a family movie night and go watch Borrowed Future. This is our documentary on the student loan crisis. And what will it do? It'll open their eyes to what's actually happening in higher ed and open their eyes to all of the possibilities and solutions there are to avoid what is this 1.7 plus trillion dollar crisis where everyone's going, nobody told me. This is you telling them. This is your way of opening up that conversation to where you don't have to start it. That will start it for them. They'll be asking questions by the end of it.

30:53And you'll see our friend, Dr. John Deloney in there as well.

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32:48Hey, if you're a new listener to The Ramsey Show, every answer we give is rooted in the seven baby steps. So if you want to know what those are, take a few minutes to learn the plan. You can get a whole lot more out of every episode if you know them. So we'll drop a link in the description of this episode if you want to learn more about those baby steps. All right, Jake is down the road in Nashville. What's going on, Jake? Oh, not too much, man. How are you guys doing? We're doing great. How can we help? All right. So I am about$45K in debt and some of that personal loan, some of that credit card, and a$15K car loan.

33:22So with my new income, I've just picked up another job, and I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm just going to ask you guys what priority, and I'm thinking about selling my car and when I should do that. What's the car worth? so i owe about 15 on it and i could probably get 11 5 to 12 from a dealership um as far as private sale goes i know that the brakes might need to be replaced soon so it's more of like a personal like i don't know if i want to sell this privately and have it come back to me later well when you let them know or you fix it before you sell it i would be completely honest yes i just sure when i kind of avoid that whole process okay so you think you could get maybe 13 or 14 out of this even after the brakes get repaired.

34:09Yeah, if I did that and sold it, well, if I sold it private sale right now, I'd probably get like$13 ,500 or something. Okay, cool. And how much do you make? Well, right now I make probably between$110 and$120. I picked up another job. I make about$60 in sales, and then I also film weddings full-time and make about$60 a year doing that. Nice, way to go. Oh, okay. So can you keep this up for another 6 to 12 months and knock out the debt? Yeah, yeah. So that's the thing. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm making great money, but the thing is I have a – on one of the credit cards, it's a$9 ,200 balance at 0%, but in January 2027, it goes to 29%.

34:54So that's obviously top priority. I've got to pay that off before that interest kicks in. Disagree. I disagree. You disagree? I disagree. I don't think interest is your problem here. You need a mind shift shift. Oh, well, I haven't added to my debt since probably April. So I've changed my habits. Let me change it this way. That going up is annoying and it's going to be frustrating. It's going to cost you a few bucks. But if you just start busting your butt and do it in a way that will also not only get you financially out of debt, but it will shift to you psychologically as well, the way we've taught millions of people to do it, you're going to be out of debt in a year or less anyway.

35:40Exactly. So it doesn't matter. But I promise you, chipping away at a$9 ,000 debt instead of getting the momentum of paying off the$1 ,000 debt, the$1 ,800 debt, the$2 ,200 debt, there is a momentum that begins to pick up, and you're taking all that money and dumping it into that$9 ,000 one versus just with an ice pick out there at the bottom of a mountain and just slowly chinking away, like, dink, dink, dink away at it. Man, like, that's a recipe for folks who just get burned out and they give up. Yeah. How much is the personal loan? So I have two personal loans,$11 ,000 each. One's at 6%, one's at 7%.

36:16My car loan's 15 % at 9%. So your next smallest debt is the credit card, or is that on multiple cards? So that is the smallest one. So you're going to attack it first anyways, but we're not doing it because the interest rates come in. I'm going to insert my foot in my mouth. So here you go. You've got to get your ice pick and start trying to take this mountain down. And to your question, nothing about this is screaming you need to sell the car. It's far less than half your income, which is our parameter for all things with wheels and motors. You're going to pay the car off within a year. So if you like the car, just keep the car because it's more hassle to cover the amount you're underwater on, go buy another car, and then you're going to yell at me if it has one issue and go, Well, now I've got to cover this repair on this$5 ,000 car.

36:59So I would just keep the car, fix the brakes on it. Don't be driving dangerously out there. If you need to pause your debt snowball to save up and cover the brake repair, go for it. You have$1 ,000 right now? Yeah, so right now I have$8 ,000 in the bank. Jake, you hold me. Lead, man. Lead with that, dude. No, no buts. No buts. Have this credit card paid off this time next month. Period. End of story. Yeah. He's going to be like, I have a life-saving surgery I need next month, John. That's why I have the money. No, no, no. I just want all of this paid off by the spring. And so my mindset is, you know, if I were to sell the car, get rid of half of that debt, and then have that extra$400 payment a month.

37:47Dude, you're doing some Benson Boone backflips over here when you don't need to. You have the money to knock out the credit card next month. you just freed up a huge payment there a huge chunk of the debt now we're attacking the personal loan the next personal loan and the car is coming next if you can you throw four thousand a month at these debts you're bringing home like what seven a month well so you know as a wedding videographer a lot of my income is seasonal so next month i'll make about 8k in that but then i don't have any more until next year so good gosh jake nobody's getting married until next year Well, that's just how my schedule works.

38:23During the wintertime, it just kind of drops off. I might pick up one or two through the winter. Okay, but hold on, hold on. You're telling me you have$8 ,000 in an account right now. Yeah. You're going to get another$8 ,000 on top of your regular paycheck next month. Yeah, but I have bills and a family, so I can't take it. I know, I know. I know you can't take all of it, but I'm saying you've got money coming in. Yeah. Can you pretend like that wedding gig money is just debt payoff money? Like you don't touch it. So, yeah, so that was my intention. But we just had a baby five months ago, another baby.

38:56So we have two kids. And I'm taking up a lot more of the slack on, like, the daycare cost, just the cost of living expenses. My wife's a teacher, so her dollars are kind of allocated to certain things right now. But you're making$120 ,000, and she's making another, what,$50,$60 ,000? $50 ,000, yeah. So you guys make$170 ,000. What are you talking about? Jake! We should have no issue paying this off. It's more about how quickly can I do it? Hold on. I don't like the language you're using, dude. What is her money allocated for? Oh, she just like with her, with our specific bills and stuff like that, we, she doesn't make that much.

39:35And so. She makes$50 ,000 a year. I want y 'all to take all of your money and put it in one big pot. That's as much debt as you have. If you just took her income, you'd be out of this in a year. Yeah. So here's the thing. You've been talking about my mindset, my plan. It's y 'all. Are you willing to try a different way? Yeah, so this has been an ongoing thing for many years. And so we've talked about it. So you guys have separate finances? No, no, no. Okay. No, but when it comes to my debt, I try to do that on my own. Oh, so you don't want to bring her into this. You're like, hey, this was my debt.

40:12You don't worry about it. I'll stress about it. yeah basically is what what that's come down to and i know that goes against your principles well forget our principles for a second you didn't hurt our feelings yeah we just want you to win for a second just rest assured you you trying to macho up and i'm gonna cover my debts and i'm gonna work extra all weekends whatever to try to protect your wife from having to participate i promise you brother she's wearing it oh i know we just we talk about it all the time okay let's Let's stop trying to be a hero, and let's actually solve this problem. Y 'all make a bunch of money.

40:47This whole thing can be done in seven months, max. Yeah. If y 'all suck it up and just have a pretty real tight budget, and y 'all allocate, and you take a couple of extra wedding gigs, and you get out there and hustle and get this stuff knocked out, you will be debt-free before you know it. All right. So don't sell the car. No. No. Okay. Don't sell the car. Think about this. You got$8 ,000 right now. If you took seven of that, threw it at the debt, you're down to$38 ,000 total, right? Yeah. Now, John said seven months. So that's$5 ,400 a month come hell or high waters going towards minimum payments and extra on the smallest one.

41:21That's what you're committing to out of your what? $10 ,000 take-home pay between the two of you? Yeah. That's what we're working with here. So now we need to figure out in the budget what's feasible. Okay. We bring home 10K, daycares, 2K, plus, plus, plus, we have the rent, the mortgage. Add all that up with a budget tonight for the both of you with both of your incomes in there and you will see a very clear path to how quickly you can do this and you can you can shake hands and say we're not going to go out to eat until june june one is when we're going to go on a date because that's we're going to hit hit send on on the final payment make that commitment to each other just to be done with this stupid thing man y 'all make too much money to be living like this how old's your other kid you got a five month old and how old four four okay dude think about that by the time you have a one-year-old birthday party with a smash cake, you're debt-free.

42:11That's the picture I want you to have in your head. So get out of your own mind and work this plan, dude, and call us back. We'll celebrate with you. I'll even get that one-year-old a birthday gift.

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43:53Welcome back to the Ramsey Show and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm George Camel here with Dr. John Deloney taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Courtney is in Columbia, South Carolina up next. How can we help, Courtney? All right, so my question is how do I get my husband to save for retirement as a small business owner? I can give you some back story. Yeah, what's stopping him? It sounds like you want him to. Does he not believe in it? So he thinks that the business is the retirement. Okay. So it's a family business. He just took it over three years ago. It's debt-free. We own the property.

44:39We own all the vans. We own everything. And so his long-term goal is that we will sell that, and that's what we will live off of. I like his confidence. How old is he? He is in his 50s. I am in my 40s. I'm a schoolteacher, So I've been, instead of doing the pension, I chose to do the optional retirement and put my money in the stock market. So I do have about$300 ,000 in my retirement. Good. And he did, I will say, he did start his guys on retirement, but he only puts in like 3%. What kind of retirement plan does he have? He has the simple IRA. Okay. So does he have to put in as much as the other guys are getting?

45:32Yes. So he matches himself. So he puts in 3 % and he matches 3 % with the business. Okay. And he's not doing any investing elsewhere. Correct. So he's investing 3 % of his income, and then he thinks this business could sell for how much down the line? so um when his dad had it appraised you know 15 20 years ago it was about three million dollars when we took it over that was not what the assessment came back at but he has grown it um in the last three years he has a whole nother leg of the company that he has grown what's the business um it's commercial refrigeration okay that's good we're gonna need fridges in the the future, I hope.

46:19So that's a solid business. But has he played out a scenario where the business isn't as worth as much as it is today and he needs a backup plan because he can't work anymore, let's say? I mean, I don't think he's ever thought of that. I think it's been like it's a 35-year-old business that even with just the property and the way that our town has grown up is like he, if the business had nothing, we would still have those assets. I, the thing that's coming to mind, and again, I, I, I'm overly biased here. So hear me say this. Um, but I was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and there was a company, I think at the time was the fourth, fourth largest company on planet earth.

47:05And that was called Enron. And I had friends, I had family that worked there. And one of the magic things they gave their employees was 100 % buyback for stocks. Why would you put your stocks in the market? You can just put them back into this big giant, the biggest company, fourth biggest company in the world. And it's growing at 5 billion percent a year. Right. And I have a lived experience of people who went to bed, millionaires who woke up with zero dollars. Nothing. Right. And so for me, it feels like that at a much smaller scale, which is if you just think of this as his retirement plan, he's putting every single egg he has in one 30-year-old basket.

47:52But does my income in my retirement offset that? Oh, you're saving the day. If you think about our stuff as a portfolio. You're saving the day right now, yeah. And that's what you're doing. You're hedging your bets, and diversification is key. I mean, even Dave Ramsey, the Ramsey children, they all invest outside of the business, even though they are owners of the business. And so it is wise to diversify just like you would if you wanted to buy some real estate as another diversification. And so I would encourage him that while the business is worth a lot of money, let's also save over here to split it up.

48:28And that way you have options. That's really what you're giving yourself. Even if you started fully funding Roth IRAs, if y 'all fall within that bracket. Yeah, what's your household income collectively? So he doesn't pay himself the market wage of a CEO. He pays himself actually less than my teacher's salary. So together we make about$150 ,000. And why does he do that? Because he grew up, as he says, dirt poor, and his dad has over a million dollars sitting in a savings account. That's just how they grew up. So they're just kind of scarcity-minded and frugal. Yes, yes. Okay. and what kind of future do you guys want as a couple?

49:09It sounds like you have a different picture. Well, I mean, he listens to you guys, and so that's why he got his blue-collar guys to start investing, which none of them had ever done before. That's awesome. So I don't know. We live in our dream home. He's one of those that he will work harder to make more, to make it happen. And I guess, A, I mean, I've got so much respect for this dude. I love it. I love the hustle. I love the, and as a fellow scarcity minded guy, I get that. And by the nature of me and George's job, our whole job is predicated on one thing. Somebody's plan didn't work out. and so when i hear the type of work he's doing man he's one one accident away from a lawsuit that's going to bury that small company he is one of the vans falling apart in a driver right you know i'm saying so i i see so much risk here but i love the hustle and i love the intent and also i mean i can't imagine what even the dirt how the dirt is appreciated in columbia everyone and still live in Columbia right now.

50:19I get that. But pretending that's going to be the case 25 years from now, who knows, man? Think back 25 years ago. There was no such thing as a podcast, YouTube, smartphone. None of that existed 25 years ago. He says AI won't take over his job. Wonderful. Great. I would be careful because the overlords, every time they hear that, they're like, all right, hold my beer. I'm going to take over that one too, right? And you know what? They probably won't, to be honest with you. That sounds like a viable bet. But I want to, like George said, I want to have some risk spread out a little bit. And you are doing a fantastic job as a teammate here.

51:00And if he looks at you at the end of the day and says, I can't, I can't, I won't, I can't, then I want you to continue doing what you're doing because all you can control at the end of the day is you. And he sounds like he's a great guy. He's just really – not struggles, but he's really committed in this area. Maybe you max out your own retirement. That's it. Exactly right. And that might be 40 % of your income. And then I guess our next goal of a couple is to pay off our house. So that would still – that's like another big thing. So you still have a mortgage. How much mortgage do you have left?

51:30Yes. Well, we just bought our dream home, so about$500 ,000. I would love to see him pay himself an actual wage of what his job is worth and draw from his company and get his house paid off. Well, and that's what we did talk about that because our accountant, who we really love, she changes to an S-corp because she knew he wouldn't pay himself more. And she says, if you need it, it's there. He can take a draw from it anytime. We have talked about doing that. The sooner you get that house paid off, the more you're going to be able to invest. There you go. So that would be the game plan. Invest 15 % of your household income right now.

52:09That might be mostly you, a little bit of him with his 3 % into the business. But outside of that, let's get the mortgage paid off, get him paying himself more. Then we can really batten down the hatches and save big for retirement. And you guys will be okay in the end if you diversify. More than okay.

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54:04Mike is in Baltimore up next. Mike, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. How can John and I help? I have two kids, 23 and 25, both recent college grads, and we have about 150 ,000 left in their combined 529. Wow. Nice. How much did you save up for them? I'm curious, as someone who's actually done this, and it sounds like you cash flowed both of their school all the way through? All the way through, I did. and I really just contributed the minimum in my state to get the tax credit. But I started it immediately. When they were like zero? At birth, basically, and just caught some massive gains a bunch of years.

54:48Wow. Way to go. Okay, I just want to let people know that this is possible. They're like, I can't save enough. It sounds like Compound Growth did a lot of the heavy lifting, and you started early. It did a lot. It did, and then also they received some scholarships, And at that time, I could have taken money, the equivalent out of the 529s, but I wasn't really sure when they were going to graduate and all kinds of uncertainty. So I didn't do that. Yeah, that's a good note for people out there. You can withdraw against scholarships that come through. You will owe taxes on it, but there won't be any penalties.

55:21So there'll just be income taxes. Okay, so you're wondering, what do you do with$150K sitting there? There's no more kids in the picture. What are my options? Right. So I'm looking at the options, but of course maybe I've missed them. So one would just be leave it, keep it invested, and maybe it's something they inherit or it's like a retirement parachute for me. But then I'm looking at like a 40 % taxes and penalties to get it out. Yeah, there's a 10 % penalty on the earnings portion, and the earnings will be taxed at your ordinary income as well. Right. Plus my state will then claw back the credits they gave me.

55:59Ah. Yeah, I don't love that. That to me is like a worse, worse, worse case option. There's a lot of other things you can do. Number one, you can roll up to$35 ,000 to a Roth IRA. Up to the annual limits. Right. So I'm looking at doing that, but I'm not yet even retired myself. Okay. And that seems a little for me to now be funding their retirement. But I understand that then that money in their vault, now that can hopefully explode for them in the next 30 or 40 years. I could roll the dice. They don't even know that they're going to have kids. Even if they want kids, are they going to have kids?

56:40And there's no other – anyone in your immediate family, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, that could use this money that you'd want to give it to? Correct. Correct. Mike, I got two kids. If you want to just change the beneficiary, brother, I got you. We can start a little kind of GoFundMe for the Ramsey audience. And as happy as I was to fund their undergrad, I don't necessarily want to fund grad school. I want them to be able to do that on their own terms. I don't want them to go because someone's offering their money. I don't want to feel like they have to go or can't stop because of that. I just want them to go figure that out.

57:12So I'm leaning towards funding the Roth. But again, it just seems a little, I guess I had this nagging feeling that that could have been a parachute for me because I know that it could become a million dollars in 20 years. Now, how much do you have in retirement? I have, I'm going to retire in two years and I have about$3 million. Oh, what are you concerned about? Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike. You're like, I don't want to give them seven grand. I only have$3 million. Well, I'd be giving them, you know, 70, or it's 150 grand that I know I could turn into another million. Am I going to regret that? What's the actual regret?

57:54That maybe three is not enough. Okay, there we go. That's the real question here. What's your current lifestyle? How much do you spend in a given month? I am spending probably, let's say,$4 ,000 a month. Okay, that's$50 ,000 a year. I own my house. I own my cars. Yeah. That's it. So let's say you doubled that. Would that be balling out if Mike doubled that number? Absolutely. $100 ,000 a year. Do you want to know how much that is of your actual$3 million? I know. I mean, I've done the 4 % of it. I guess I just worry that you can never have enough in retirement and that I'm passing on money too soon.

58:37Well, what if you reimagined it? Because I think I hear some of the struggle. Like, this money was already designated. All right. Good point. You gave it away at birth. And now I love two things you can do with this. One, the thought of putting getting them that far ahead with fully funded Roths at 21, 22, 23. I mean, you're talking about transforming your potential grandkids that you may never meet. You're talking about transforming their life. And I like the idea now where you're in the driver's seat when it comes to one of your kids decides to go, I'm making something up, man, get a graduate degree in engineering or go to med school or something wild.

59:22And they come up with the first year and all of a sudden at Christmas you surprise them and you say, hey, I'm taking care of next year. I'm proud of you. yeah and they'll still be a little left because if i give them the 70 over the next combined over the next five years they're still it's going to keep growing over those seven years yeah man so think about that this could be a generational endowment well do you want to go down saying i could have had three and a half million and said i had three or do you want to go down as the guy who said my great grandpa covered our college funds generationally that's a pretty cool legacy That's the other thought is just to keep it invested in a 529, but I just don't know that they're ever going to have grandkids because it could be a million-dollar college.

1:00:07I don't know if we're all going to be here tomorrow. So there's a lot of things we don't know. I'll tell you this, Mike. With how you've set your kids up and how you have loved them well, the data tells me those are guys that are going to go have their own families. They have a lived experience of what the good life is. Yeah. Are they working full time? Yeah, they're both working full time. Upstanding citizens? Yeah. Okay. That was a little bit of hesitation there. I'm just going to note that. Nobody's an upstanding citizen at 21, Mike. Okay. I'm just saying they're not entitled kids. These are not people who are like, well, dad, it's Bank of Mike over here, and we're just going to go to him.

1:00:48If they got work ethic and they want to pursue higher education, I'm going to just cover it. that's a worthy thing to to cover and bless them with so they don't have the stress in their early adult life because you remember being 23 yeah now picture being 23 in 2026 with current prices and how the heck am i ever going to own a home so the way that you can set them up now is far better than anything you can leave to them as an inheritance when they're in their 60s and don't even need it yeah but once it's in the raw that's kind of taking grad school off the table Why is that? You're still going to have a lot of money left over.

1:01:27There'll be some money, but not necessarily, you know, grad school for both of them. I think I could help with it. Do they want to go to grad school, or is this another story you're just wrestling with? No, they're figuring it out. But again, I'm sort of the, I don't want them to go because there's someone paying for it. I want them to figure all that out and also not start it and feel obligated to finish something they don't want because I paid for it. I want them to do that on their own. I get that, but you're also wrestling that up against them. You might have trained them really well to be diligent with their money, and they're 23 working a job they don't super love, and they have an opportunity to go to grad school and up their skill set and up their earning potential.

1:02:08And you've got this pot of$75 ,000 for each of them on the side that they don't know about. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I'll help them, but it will be, I am going to, I think, prioritize getting the money into the Roth and whatever's left certainly can go to grad school. Yeah, I think that's a good plan. Or future grandkids. I mean, I don't know many people who are going to grad school for fun. It's not like you're financing a party in Vegas for them. It's grad school. There's a lot of people who go to grad school to avoid the real world. Yeah, who kick the can down the road. Yeah, not these two guys.

1:02:37Yeah, all right. So I wouldn't... Even at 55, I'm not crazy to be funding someone else's Roth. No. I think you're – crazy is too strong of a word, but I want you to make sure you have something to do the day after you retire at 57. Yeah. Because all the data tells me that when somebody retires and they don't go to a thing, their body checks out. And their mental health and their physical health falls off a cliff. and so have a service orientation have a new job you've always wanted to start a new a new group of people you want to help have something you're going to in these two years when you retire so that your body will continue the funding itself in in in pursuit of a purpose right

1:03:37Thank you.

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1:05:16Everyone needs insurance, but it can be hard trying to find pros who aren't just looking to make a buck and agents who know their stuff. Well, Ramsey Trusted Insurance Pros are vetted and coached to make sure they're market experts who have your best interests at heart. So go to RamseySolutions.com slash coverage to find the type of insurance you're looking for and connect with a Ramsey Trusted Agent. Kayla is in Charlottesville, Virginia. Up next, what's going on, Kayla? Hey, can you hear me? We got you. Okay, great. My husband and I are at about $49 ,000 of consumer debt. Um, and we own our former home and are renting it.

1:05:54Um, and it cash flows about$692 a month. So we're just trying to figure out if we should sell it. He really doesn't want to. Um, and just like how to get out of this debt. Are you guys renting right now in a different home? Um, we own our current home also. We tried to rent, but have pretty big dogs that It made our rent go up really high, so it made more sense from a mortgage standpoint to buy here also. Yeah. What's that other rental worth? It's worth about$505 ,000, and we owe about$380 ,000. We also really love the home and would maybe retire there one day. It sounds like you're attached to this thing.

1:06:35You're not willing to sell it. Well, my husband is definitely attached to it. Is it close by? No, we are about two states away from it, but we have a pretty good management system. We have friends that are helping manage it and great renters there right now. All right, let me ask you this question. Yes. If you are where you live right now in Charlottesville, Virginia, you and your husband are$46 ,000 in debt? Yeah,$49 ,000. $49 ,000. Okay, you're$50 ,000 in debt. would y 'all look at each other on saturday morning and say you know what let's buy a half a million dollar house in two states over and start renting it out um no probably not okay there's your answer okay so as in sell it i personally would based on what we know now let's get into some more details here what's your household income um he makes about $5 ,554 ,000 a month.

1:07:37His salary is$82 ,000 a year. Okay. And are you working outside the home? Single income. No, I have four young kids that are all at home with me. Okay. What kind of debt is a 49K? Half of it, about$24 ,000 is a car and the other 25 is credit cards and they're interest free until July of next year. Well, don't tempt me with a good time. Okay. What's the car worth? About$28 ,000. And you said how much is on the loan? $24 ,000. Okay, so you could sell it and walk away with$4 ,000 and knock your debt in half. Yes. How about this as a compromise? I'll give you two paths and you can choose which one you guys want to do.

1:08:18If you desperately want to keep this rental, I can't force you to sell it. That's the easiest path. You sell this thing, you're going to net$100 ,000, you're going to pay off all of your debt and have$50 ,000 in savings. All in one fell swoop. That would change your life, wouldn't it? Yes. Or we sacrifice, we sell the car, and for the next several months, we're trying to throw two grand at this thing for the next, you know, 12 months in order to pay off the rest of the debt. Those are your two paths forward. Neither of those are fun. Can we agree? Yeah, definitely. Which one is actually feasible?

1:08:50Out of the$5 ,500 income, can you guys throw two grand a month at this thing? Oh, I don't know. We're pretty tight. What if you sold the car? What's that payment? um the payment is 600 a month the problem is is that we just bought it and um because we sold my car that we had paid off because it kept breaking down on me with my four kids why why is that a problem that you just bought it no it's not a problem that we just bought it it's just i just sold car we had paid off yeah so now what you're going to do is turn around take that four grand and whatever savings you have and go buy a different car that's going to be not as nice of a car.

1:09:28Let's put it that way. Yeah. So those are the two paths that I see out of this. Otherwise, you're going to stay in the same spot a year from now, two years from now, because you just told me you guys don't have any margin to pay off this debt. Right. So something's got to give. There's got to be sacrifice on either side. Personally, the easier one, as much as it's going to hurt, is to sell that other rental that your friends are managing. Yes, you'll lose$600 a month, but you're going to gain all of the payments that you are sending to lenders every month. Plus, what did you say? You have$170K in equity in it?

1:10:01Yeah. What we owe$380. $125 in equity? Yeah. What do you owe on your current mortgage now? We just moved here six months ago, so I don't think we've paid much off of it. I know, but what do you owe? It's$321 ,000 that we paid for it. And let's see what we have. We're paying, I think,$319 ,000. Okay, so imagine that—to me, there's two separate issues. One, you have a debt problem, which George gave you a path. And B, you have an out-of-state landlord issue. And so I would sell the house regardless of the debt, just simply because it's going to give you peace in your home. You're a mom with four kids.

1:10:43Your husband's working his butt off. And you'll have zero margin. I would sell that just simply for the stress. And there's two ways you can look at this house. One as this fantasy that one day we're going to move back. You can keep that out there. Or you can look at this house as what an extraordinary glitch in the matrix blessing this is. That we bought this house. We rented it out for a while. And it's about to knock$100 ,000 off our primary mortgage. Bring us down to$219 ,000. It's also going to pay off our debt and fully fund an emergency fund. yeah you know what i'm saying like you're talking a game changer in the peace and freedom of your home i i overstated that a bit it's probably you're probably gonna end up with 75 grand to put towards your house but still like man you're talking transformation inside your house yeah definitely so how much do you guys have in savings now um we have 76 well we have like cash right now that we can get to is about$2 ,000, but my husband has$76 ,000 in retirement.

1:11:48Oh, okay. Let's not touch retirement. No. That is untouchable. So you have$2 ,000. What is the chances of that changing drastically if nothing else changes? Are you going to have 10 grand in there soon? 20 grand? Are you going to pay off extra debt? No. So have you ever had$50 ,000 sitting in a savings account ready to protect you from life? Definitely, definitely not. With four knucklehead kids running around? Right. You know what I mean? No, we have not. Yeah. If you guys were just like a newlywed couple living your life, I'd say you could probably stomach some of the risk. But with four kids, I'm trying to solve for peace.

1:12:22I'm just going to give me some peace. I don't want to see him working 90 hours a week to sacrifice for the next 12 months. I'd rather have him home. And if that means, I mean, if this rent money was changing your life, you guys would be debt free by now. Yeah, for sure. So instead you're using it as sort of an excuse to hang on to this thing as if it's some magical investment that's supposed to change your finances. It's not. And so I would sell it. That's a harder conversation to have with him. It sounds like he's less willing to sell it than you are. Yeah, definitely. By the way, that conversation can't be about real estate.

1:12:54It can't be about the dollars and cents. It has to be. That conversation is a wife sitting down with her husband saying, I want to choose peace in this house. And we have one switch we can flip that will, A, take all the stress outside of the state off our shoulders, B, fully funded emergency fund. C, for the first time in our marriage, drop our primary mortgage with a two in front of it. D, pay off all of our debts. So would you, you would say take the money that we made, profited from it and put it into the equity here? No, I'm saying pay off all of your debts first, that$49 ,000. Right. Then you can keep the car.

1:13:31That's a nice perk. Then whatever's left, you then put an emergency fund. And then anything beyond three to six months, you can throw at the mortgage. I'll throw that at the mortgage. So that's the filter. Okay, gotcha. It's consumer debt first, fully funded emergency fund, and a high-yield savings account. And let's say that's$30 ,000 for you guys and you have 25 left over. You can chunk that at the principal on the mortgage. Okay. So if you walk away, like after fees and stuff, if you walk away with$140 ,000, you're taking 50 of that to pay off your debts. You're taking 30 of that to – or 50 of that, whatever number you feel comfortable with, like for your emergency fund.

1:14:08and with four little ones, I'd probably go more closer to the six-month mark than the three-month emergency fund. And then you're talking, what, 50, 60 grand against your mortgage, 70 grand against your mortgage. And suddenly you go from 319 down to 275 to 265 to 250. And you'll have margin to keep at it. Have you guys ever been debt-free since you've been married? Yeah, probably about five years ago. So you know how good that feels. A different time, a simpler time. Let's get back to that. You've got a cheat code to get there with this rental property. You've got a big, you've got a, like a do not pass go, do not collect$200 pass, man.

1:14:47This is incredible.

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1:16:27Today's question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi. When private student loan payments start getting away from you, it can feel like you're paying for decisions you made years ago. Y-Refi helps borrowers explore low fixed rate refinancing options and payments designed around your current situation. Visit YRefi.com slash Ramsey. May not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Carly in Oregon. Carly writes, We are aggressively paying off debt in Baby Step 2, and we recently became grandparents. We don't want to wait two years until we're debt free to visit those babies. We travel very cheaply in our paid off car, but we'll have to stay in an Airbnb.

1:17:03A week-long trip could cost us up to$1 ,000. Would it be okay to cash flow or create a sinking fund to take a couple trips every year? This is a main question, Carly. You hit our soft spot with the grandbabies. I know, bring grandbabies into this. I don't know how old they are, but I don't know how much debt they have, how long Baby Step 2 is going to take. If Baby Step 2 is going to take you five years, you've got to see the grandbabies. Two years exactly. I don't know. This feels like... Two years until they're debt free. A couple trips a year. Again, there's some vague language here. Is this like three, four trips a year?

1:17:42Now it's four grand a year going towards this? That's my question mark. And does it have to be a week long? Right. Because that can cut down if the Airbnb stays, what's crushing them here? Right. And so one of the things, George, and you and I, and we talked about this off the air, The principles are like everybody knows somebody in their life that plays the credit card game like a xylophone, right? And they're always moving. And that's the life they've chosen to live and they figure it out. And so I couldn't sit here and say I don't personally know somebody that plays that game and is not doing fine financially.

1:18:21I know one person in my life that that's what they do. It's like that's their video games or skateboarding or whatever. similarly, the reason we tell people just go bananas on this is because of the question you just brought up. Can you, can you limit yourself to two trips and could you stay three days instead of five? Could you do a one bedroom? Could you stay in a hotel where it's cheaper than an Airbnb? Like once you start, once you crack that door and that's what the principles, why we're so dogmatic about the principles is what we know about human beings, myself included, George included, all of us included, is once you crack certain doors, the flow of water is so powerful coming from culture, coming from businesses, coming from just comforts.

1:19:07It's almost impossible to stay the course. Carly, you and your spouse may be the one, right? Y 'all could create a sinking fund while you're aggressively paying off this debt. And I can't sit here in good conscience and say, don't go see your grandkids. I can't do that. I would love for my parents to be around my kids all the time, right? On the other side of it, you and your spouse have to be very specific about we are still in sacrifice mode. And that means if we do this trip, here is the absolute end-all, be-all budget. Here is the compromises we're going to make on where we're staying, for how long we're staying.

1:19:47We are going to be overly sacrificial if, cause we got to go see these babies. I get that. And we can't let that crack the door open to, we're going to make five trips. We're going to go ahead and stay in a really super nice Airbnb and pick up all the meals. And, and man, you're talking meal prep. You're talking, you know, you're bringing groceries on the road with you. How much could you contract this thing? How much sacrifice are you willing to put in on these trips? And so that's, that's my, my thought on it. What do you think, George? My thing is always, what are you willing to do to make that happen?

1:20:19And if you're willing to cut your expenses down by a hundred bucks a month to create that sinking fund, cool. If you're willing to work extra to make this trip happen on top of your debt snowball. Oh, so you're saying keep your debt payments fixed. If you can stay on your debt-free plan, if we're doing this in two years or less, and get found money from working more or spending less, that makes me feel better about it, that I'm not derailing, I'm not having to let go of one to get the other and then I'd feel real good about taking this trip without guilt. Okay so let's I like that because let's that's a little bit of um that's some Missy Elliott uh slap it up flip it and reverse it so instead of you Carly looking at the baby steps saying the baby steps aren't allowing us to go see our grandkids I like George's tack which is look in your budgets and look up every singing every single streaming service every single um cell phone plan ability y 'all have and then say, no, it's not the baby steps keeping you.

1:21:15It's no, we want to keep all five of our streaming services. We want to keep this. We want to keep the lawn service. We want to keep these other things. And we want to keep buying fancier groceries or whatever on our grocery runs. That's what's going to keep you from that. I like that because that puts the ownership back on you. That way you can't look in the mirror and blame us for not seeing your grandkids. Go see them. But what sacrifices are, how deep are you willing to cut to make that happen? I like that, George. That's good. And maybe they visit them. Once the baby's a little older, easier to travel with, they get one visit where they go to Oregon.

1:21:45Maybe, yeah. During the holidays. And that way they cut their visits down to two per year for the first couple years. And this is a short season. The babies won't remember. That's the good news. It's your own memories that you're foregoing. I know, but still. I tried. Grandparents need to be around the grandbabies. Jennifer is up next in New York. What's going on, Jennifer? How can we help? Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Can you hear me okay? Yep. Okay, great. So my question is, I have a relatively high income and I'm looking to purchase my first apartment. I'm calling to ask if the numbers that I have laid out are prudent or if you think it's a bad idea.

1:22:24So basically, I want to purchase a$1.3 million apartment which has$1 ,800 a month maintenance costs. My plan would be to put down 20 to 25%. I've already been pre-approved. And so my two questions are, would you recommend that 20 % to 25 % is a healthy amount to put down? And once purchased, is it smarter to pay the mortgage down fast given the current interest rates? Or should I keep investing aggressively since I can out-earn the mortgage interest in the market? Great questions. And great use of the word prudent, by the way. Very impressed. Oh, thanks. George doesn't hear that word that much.

1:23:03That's awesome. How much do you make? pre-tax or after tax you can give me both that'll help okay um let me just look here uh so 2025 um i made just over a million pre-tax after taxes about 600 yeah god bless new york taxes yeah oh yeah it's a killer i cry every three months are you debt-free and uh sorry are you debt-free? I am debt-free, yes. Awesome. How much do you have in savings aside from the down payment? So I have$400 ,000 liquid and then$1.2 in investments. Wow. Those$1.2 are non-retirement?

1:23:51About 40 % is non-retirement. Wow. Are you willing to give some of that up for this house? i kind of don't want to um i don't know if that makes sense i don't want to pay capital gains sure no i understand that okay so what is your actual monthly take-home pay on average after just after tax monthly income about 50k oh fantastic because i'm crunching the numbers here on our mortgage calculator and based on 25 down i even did a 15 year fixed which will give you a lower interest rate. You're looking at about 11 grand a month for a payment. Yeah, I saw even lower, actually. I was looking at around like at nine.

1:24:34But I guess my fear is that like, what if something happens and I'm suddenly making a lot less money? That's a legitimate fear. So I was going to ask you, how consistent is this? Because here's my parameter is 25 % of your after tax monthly income going toward that payment. So if you can tell me, hey, I know I can get 40K through the door with a 10K payment. I would feel good about you going for this. But if you're saying, hey, there could be a bunch of months where it's only 20, I would be a lot more nervous to lock yourself into this payment. Yeah, it's consistent month to month. And from last year, every year I've made more than the previous year.

1:25:11I haven't had one that's decreased. But I think I'm very cautious and it's just me. So I'm just scared that, you know, what if something were to happen? Am I setting myself up to, you know, be house poor or to be in a really bad situation? Well, can I compromise with you? What if you just sell some of the non-retirement investments and you put 50 % down, bringing your payment down to like$8 ,000 or less a month on a 15-year? That would be pretty cool because now you have a lot of wiggle room. Yeah, the offset of the capital gains, though, it wouldn't be silly. Is it long-term capital gains? I don't know.

1:25:50It probably would be if you've held the assets for longer than a year. I would crunch the numbers on the tax hit and go, all right, I'm willing to pay 50K one time in taxes to have this condo that I really want. You're trading stress one place or the other. You're trading stress from pulling it from the market or you're trading stress from the stress you feel that I've got to earn a million dollars every single year or I go underwater. So pick your stress, but you're doing great.

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1:27:35Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney, and we are taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Lee is in Tallahassee up next. What's going on, Lee? How can we help? Hey, how you doing, fellas? Great. So I am a single father of a 14 and 6-year-old currently going through a divorce. And I am trying my best to get out of living paycheck to paycheck.

1:28:12I had to leave a job to maintain my 50-50 custody. So I took about a$30 ,000 a year pay cut.

1:28:21Tell me about that. Why did you have to quit your job? So I was traveling on the road the past several years making better money. And when the divorce process started, I got 50-50 custody awarded to me. So I had to leave that and come back to a municipality job that I had once before. I want to tell you, I'm proud of you for making that choice. Well, thank you, sir. That was hard. And it has a true financial cost, a true stress cost attached to it, a true identity cost attached to it. And you prioritizing those kids and the limited time you're going to have with them, you're going to be a laser beam focused on them.

1:28:59That's pretty impressive, brother. is your um is your 50 50 custody is it every other week or is it part of a week how does it how's it broken up it's every other week uh sundays to sundays um and how old are they again uh 14 and 6 okay and currently also trying to get um a majority custody okay what is um how much debt do you have? So debt, I'm sitting at$11 ,573. Okay. What kind of debt is that? Credit cards that were racked up while I was away from home. Okay. And that's your only debt is 11 grand in credit cards? Yes, sir. Okay. And what are you making? Currently, I am making$30 ,000 a year.

1:29:48Man, that's a big pay cut. When you said you were making$30 ,000 less, it cut in half? In half, yes, sir. Okay, but Lee, you could, in Tallahassee there, you could go work at a Starbucks and make that. Why have you chosen to take this job? It comes with state retirement and benefits, medical, dental, vision. My check is taking a hit because I've added the kids to that. And it's a different, you know, the municipality pays for mine, but not the kids. and the ex is not contributing to her portion of half of the expenses for the kids. So I hear this all the time, especially with my friends who are in government jobs, is there's a golden handcuffs, if you will, to the benefits.

1:30:35But right now, that's killing you. You've got to make more money. Because you're bringing home like two grand a month? $2 ,400, bring home. What's your rent? uh i own a single wad and two acres that i'm on okay what's the cost of that every month um so total like expenses for the house is about 900 i'd say is that with utilities and everything yes sir groceries okay so when you don't have the kids do you have the ability to go and just work like a madman extra i'm currently searching for now is a job that will work with me after hours in my full-time job and then as much as they will on the weekends that I don't have the kids.

1:31:19Even if you have to go sign up driving back and forth to the airport via Uber or doing food delivery or pizza delivery or something and where you're kind of in control of your schedule and you're flipping switch on and off to say I'm working or I'm not working, I want to challenge you to expand. You're settled in. You got health insurance. You got the kids covered. And by the way, let me stop myself. When is your divorce finalized? Um, it's an ongoing process right now. She's not currently participating. She's actually been held in contempt a couple of times. Okay. Is there a point when the judge is going to come in and just sign it off?

1:31:55I'm sure hoping so. Okay. I, George, tell me if I'm wrong here. I want to see you stack cash and get through the divorce. Are you paying an attorney right now? um i did have uh excuse me i already have paid him up okay um and um just waiting like i said waiting out this process right now okay because the goal is to not go into any more debt so i don't want you trying to tackle the debt but then going to other debts on the side because the divorce isn't finalized but i don't even know if that's your problem i mean you're the the water you're trying to swim in is so shallow 30 000 bucks man that's so tough yeah i feel like i'm I'm barely keeping my head afloat.

1:32:34Yeah, you are. What do you do for work? What kind of line of work are you in? Natural gas utilities. I was going to say I have just went bare minimum on everything I can to cut out, and I was able to save like$300-something that way, and I also got through one of y 'all's insurance people that helped me lower my vehicle insurance and saved me some money that way. Okay. Now, I mean, you're cutting down to the bone on the expense side. and so the income side is the lever that we can really hone in on and that's your ticket out because if you pay a thousand bucks a month towards these credit cards you're out in a year okay so that's the that's the easy math i can do with you on air the hard math is you coming up with an extra thousand dollars a month and that's what i'm saying the week that you don't have the kids you're coming up with an extra thousand bucks that week gotcha yeah that's the goal that's the process right now i put in applications left and right all these past two weeks are you a handy guy?

1:33:33Yes, sir. I can work any piece of equipment that's got a key in it. I mean, if you just started a little handyman business on the side, you could make 50 bucks an hour doing that. Or if you went and just joined up with a construction company for a year or two, and I know you might have to make some concessions on benefits and stuff, but man, oh man, you have too much of a skill set that's in such high demand in certain places. And you're a guy that I'm rooting for so hard because I could tell you're a good man. I can also tell you're trying to defend your wife, right? You're trying to not say negative things about her, which tells me you're a man of high honor, even though she's blown your life up.

1:34:08And you are struggling just to take gulps of air, man. And so here are two guys that aren't in the middle of it. Like you are, we see a guy with a ton of potential and it's hard for you to believe in yourself when you look in the mirror, cause you're so freaking tired. Know that George and I believe in you know that everyone listening here believes in you. Okay. Thank you. And it It might be you stepping out on a limb and calling some local construction companies, some local builders, some local whoever. And whether that means you're just running a front end loader on weekends, doing dirt work for folks just on the side, or you're getting off work and then you're going straight to a job.

1:34:44Like whatever that looks like, just know, okay, for one more calendar year, I'm going to be exhausted and then I'm going to be free. Yes, sir. So the short term is let's get a side hustle. Let's clear the dust on this divorce. Let's knock out the credit card debt, get a little bit of savings. Once you have that and you can up your income full time, now we can breathe a little bit. So there's a short-term version of this, which is the next year, year and a half. But then long-term, we don't want you side hustling forever. That's not a sustainable future for you. So that's why we're saying this government job, as stable as it is, and the benefits are great, may not be the thing for you for the next 20 years.

1:35:20And I want to say it one more time before we let you go. George and I believe in you, brother. I sure appreciate that, guys. I spend a lot of time talking with men that I think need to step it up, and it's an honor to talk to a man who is laying it all on the line for his kids. Hang on the line, Lee. We're going to send you some resources. One is Every Dollar, the premium version. You can list out that income, those expenses. It'll give you a real clear picture of how to get the most control of Every Dollar, and I'll also give you my book, Breaking Free from Broke. I hope it's an encouragement to you, and that way we can walk with you through this, hopefully, year-long journey, maybe even less.

1:35:56You're one of the good ones, man. Stay on the path.

1:36:24people ask me all the time George, what's your number one money saving hack? I'm glad you asked. Nothing makes me happier than helping another frugal friend. So here's the hack. Get on a budget. Seriously, how are you supposed to save money if you don't know how much you're spending in the first place? And that's what makes the EveryDollar budgeting app a game changer. With EveryDollar, you'll get a clear picture of your spending, and from there, it's easy to see where you can get more intentional, cut back, and save more money. How much money are we talking? Well, the average EveryDollar budgeter frees up$395 in their very first budget.

1:36:56And if you ask me, I think you're way above average. So why are you still listening to me? Go download EveryDollar for free and start saving more money right now.

1:37:24Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool that's built and trained on proven Ramsey principles. And today we're going to break down one of those questions we received. Here it is. If I'm a stay at home mom, How much life insurance do I need? I love that you didn't ask, do I need it? You said, how much? That's fantastic. So to start, every stay-at-home parent absolutely needs life insurance, even though they don't bring income into the home. I'm putting that in huge air quotes. The work you do has real financial value that your family would have to replace. So estimate how much it would cost to actually replace that role for a year.

1:37:55What would childcare, daycare cost, housekeeping, laundry, meal prep, cooking, transportation, errands, all of that. So as a baseline, I like to say, let's put that at a half million dollar policy because we tell people 10 to 12 times your annual income and let me tell you in today's world it's going to cost you at least 50 60 grand plus to cover that kind of role especially depending on where you live so 400 to 500 000 plus would be a good starting point for a stay-at-home parent on a 15 to 20 year term policy and zander insurances who i have all my term life insurance through and john my wife stays at home and we have a policy on her.

1:38:30Same with the same with our family, me and my wife. Yeah. So that's exactly what we do. We don't tell people to do things that we wouldn't do or haven't done ourselves. So if you're unsure about your next step, your specific situation, check out Ask Ramsey. It's going to give you very personalized advice. You can go back and forth, have a conversation and get answers just like you would on this show. Ask questions today at RamseySolutions.com and click on Ask Ramsey. We'll drop a link in the description of this episode as well. Jess is in Columbus, Ohio up next. Jess, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me.

1:39:03How are you? We're doing great. How can John and I help? Yeah, thanks for taking my call. So I just had a quick question. I stepped away from my career last year to stay at home with our three young children at home. And so we're currently living on just my husband's income and we are new to the program. So we're working through the baby steps right now. We're currently on baby step number two, working to pay all about$114 ,000 in debt. And we're kind of struggling with what to do. So I worked for the state and I still have money in my retirement account from there. From the previous years I was there, I was there about eight years.

1:39:39And now that I'm staying home with the children, I'm just kind of struggling with what to do if it would make sense to withdraw that retirement and use it just because we have such a significant amount of debt to try to make a dent in that. or if you think I should leave it alone, if I possibly decide to go back in the future to state employment or kind of what I should do with that? I will beg you to not touch that retirement account. And here's why. Okay. Number one, you're unplugging all of the future growth. And if you pop that into an investment calculator, you'll see this is not a$40 ,000 decision.

1:40:12This is more like a$400 ,000 decision. And on top of that, when you take that money out, because it doesn't sound like you're at retirement age yet at 59 and a half, you're going to pay a penalty of 10 % plus taxes. So that's like taking out a loan of 35 % interest to access this money. Okay. So you're far better off using any savings you guys have, any non-retirement investments you can liquidate, things you can sell plus future income. So it sounds like you guys, you basically said, we're doing this at all costs. It's a priority, but the math wasn't mathing quite yet. Yeah. Yeah, and we just kind of got started with everything, and I only had like$54 ,000.

1:40:52That was the account value that I had. I know with the federal tax and the early distribution tax, I think it was looking at like$33 ,000. So it wasn't a huge amount anyway. How old are you? I am 33, and my husband's 33 too. So let me just play it out for you. From$33 ,000 to$63 ,000, if you just leave that$54 ,000 alone, are you ready for this? Yeah. 30 years of growth is what we're talking about. It would be a million dollars. Okay. That's a 10 % rate of return on average. Which you're not going to get. That's what you're giving up. You're not going to get from the pension it's in or whatever return for the state retirement.

1:41:28You might need to move that with a smart investor. So if you forgot the password to your retirement plan and you just left it alone, you would open it up at 63 to see a million bucks in there most likely. That's what you're giving up instead of, well, it's not that much. Yeah, I'll get 30 grand out. It'll help with some debt payoff. It is not worth it. So how much does your husband bring home? So he just got a new job, so he upped his income a little bit. So he's making about$130 ,000 a year with some bonus potential. Good. And what kind of debt is the 114? So it's a little bit of everything, some credit cards.

1:42:00We both have student loans that are about$50 ,000. Between both of us, we have a car loan and just like a personal loan. So just a little bit of everything. And that's really eaten up a lot of like our monthly budget. That's probably a couple thousand dollars in monthly payments right there. It is. It's about like 21, 22, and it was important for me to stay at home, but it's just been kind of a struggle each month with the budget. And we're getting used to using every dollar and trying to stay on that budget, but it's just been difficult to do that. So I was just kind of thinking like, well, maybe I could put that money towards it, but that is not – So is there a possibility – and here's the beauty of being an adult, okay, is you get to change your mind.

1:42:41and could it be that you staying home is an incredibly important value to you to your kids to your husband to your whole family that's a thing y 'all are striving for and yeah because if we're just if we're just trafficking in reality for a minute we wanted to to um grade our yard but we dug a huge hole over the last 5 10 15 years before we do that we're gonna have to before we grade the yard and plant all new sod and make it beautiful like we want it, we're going to have to spend some time filling that hole back up. And so could it be that you made a huge jump, you walked away from your job, noble, awesome, and then y 'all did the math and realized we can't even afford to do this.

1:43:21And so you're going to have two competing values. One value, I want to stay at home. And another value is you and your husband want to still like each other and y 'all want to have peace in your house, right? And so let's, it might be that y 'all get in a room and say, okay, I've tasted how much I want this. I've tasted how important it is, what a big deal it is to our family, but I got to go back to work for 18 months. And you want to talk about, you want to talk about somebody who's going to be committed to a budget? You, because every dollar you spend is another hour away from those kids, right?

1:43:52And so we're going to just go bananas, getting this thing paid off. That would, that would be the conversation I think I would have to have in my house, which is we set our, we, this is a huge value for us, but we set ourselves up to where we can't live into our value yet until we clean up past messes. Yeah. Okay. What's left on the car loan? The car loan is, it's worth about like 23, 24, but I still owe 27. So that was something I was trying to, maybe I could get rid of the car, but I'm kind of upside down on that because it's a huge, it's 672 a month. So it's a big chunk of our money. And that was something I did when I was still working.

1:44:30So it wasn't a huge deal, but now it's, you know, that's a huge chunk of our money eaten up every month. So I've tried to look at maybe getting rid of that, but I'm upside down on it. So I'm not really sure what to do. Well, there's a couple of things to do after you get off this call is look up the private party value on Kelly Blue Book, not the trade-in value, not the dealership, what they're going to give you, because that's going to be a way low ball. And once you find that number, now we have real figures on if we sold a private party, we'd be underwater by three grand. Okay, now how do we come up with that three grand?

1:44:59We can do that through our future income and set that aside and make minimum payments on our debts in the meantime, plus how much we need for a car to get us from A to B for now. Or you go down your local credit union and get a loan for the difference plus a little bit for that car. So that way, instead of being in, you know, 24 grand of debt, you're in 10 grand of debt. So that's one solution to get rid of that car payment, which will then give you a little breathing room to attack the next smallest debt and the next smallest debt. And this also might mean he's working extra in the meantime. Yeah.

1:45:31So there's going to be sacrifices on either side, like John mentioned. So you guys just have to choose your heart in this case. But this is a lot of debt comparatively to your income. So this might be a two and a half year journey, but knocking out that car loan, you're going to get under that six figure mark. You're going to gain some momentum. And with every debt you knock out, you free up a payment. And can I put one more thing out into the ether, Jess? Yes. A common conversation I have behind closed doors with women who were ballers professionally who choose to stay home is a total loss of identity, a sense of loneliness, and this nagging feeling that I'm not contributing because I can't attach a dollar amount to what I'm bringing to this household.

1:46:16Yes. I cannot identify with that more. I can't free you from it, I want to free you from that. Yeah. Right. Y 'all have a real math problem on your hands, but beyond the math problem, I want you to know like you bring immense, almost unmeasurable value to your home. And that's not attached to a dollar amount. You are not your net worth. You are not your salary. You are the people who love you and the people you love. And that's your family. What you're doing really matters. And it's very, very important.

1:47:09You've heard from me and the Ramsey personalities for years, but nothing beats actually getting together in person. That's why we created the Live Like No One Else Cruise. For seven days, we're vacationing with you and 2 ,500 Ramsey people in the Western Caribbean with live shows, us, new content, us, and more. If you're on Baby Step 4 or beyond, come spend the week with us next March. Choose your cabin at RamseySolutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes.

1:47:58so ramsey is taking over an entire cruise ship if you haven't heard it's called the live like no one else cruise it's happening in 2027 march 14th through the 21st seven nights in the western caribbean bahamas jamaica grand cayman cozumel and this is more than just a vacation this is a whole week of ramsey experiences we're taking over the entire cruise ship you heard that right so it's all our fans, people who have lived out these principles, they're debt-free, they likely have their home paid off. I mean, I feel like over half the crowd is Baby Step 7. But this is for those people who have made it through Baby Steps 1, 2, 3.

1:48:32They're out of debt with an emergency fund. We want to mark the moment, celebrate with you guys. You're also going to get new wealth building teachings from Dave. We're going to have the world's largest debt-free screen, live tapings of your favorite Ramsey shows, and a lot more surprises. So if you want to join us, All-inclusive pricing starts at about$2 ,100 per passenger. That's cabin food, entertainment, taxes, tips, the whole thing. So click the link in the show notes or go to RamseySolutions.com slash events and book your cabin. I am pumped. Shay is in Richmond, Virginia up next. What's going on, Shay?

1:49:02All right. How are we doing today? Doing great. How can we help? All right. Yeah. So I'll give you a brief rundown and then the question. So I'm a 20-year-old college student at Liberty University. My girlfriend also goes here. I'm studying aviation to be an airline pilot, and she is going to go to law school. And we have plans to get engaged next year, then married. But there is a lot of student loan debt with all that, and it just seems like it's growing continuously. So I just want to know what you think the best course of action is in our current state and how you feel about us wanting to get engaged and married at this point.

1:49:44I love y 'all getting engaged and married. I think that's fantastic. When you say you have a ton of student loan debt, are you projecting into the future that you're going to have to borrow money for flight school, she's going to have to borrow money for law school and just doing that math, or are you guys already underwater with your undergrad? Well, already underwater. So I'm in flight training right now. So right at the moment, I am accruing a lot of student loan debt. But she, I mean, she does have a bit, but it's going to be a lot more in law school because she's finishing undergrad this year.

1:50:16Okay. So the challenge before you is not whether you should get engaged and get married or not. The challenge before you is you're worried about a problem that you are consciously choosing to engage in and you're planning to engage in even more in the future. Yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? yeah i just i just don't see how there is personally like any other way because for me flight school is just it's way too expensive for for anyone to pay out of pocket in this in this moment is there only one flight school there um yeah yeah how much is it it's well it depends on the on the course it's it's a whole thing with like depending on it it's a four-year school, but I am at a four-year school and it's, uh, it's about like 10 to 15 ,000 per, um, semester.

1:51:12Okay. And so if, I guess I just want to challenge you on that. It's a, you said a magic word in this moment, right? So you're right. You might have to slow down a little bit. It's going to disrupt your imaginary plan for what you're going to do and when you're going to do it. That's just It's called being an adult. Like it's just called, like I want a hunting ranch and I want it to be really nice. I just can't afford it right now. I could go take out a loan right today and go get it. I could do that today and a bank would give me a loan for it, but I don't want to do that. Right. So I'm delaying the thing I really, really want in exchange for peace and making sure me and my wife are still connected.

1:51:48Right. So A, that's the choice. B, a thousand bucks a month or 2000 bucks a month. You can go out and get a job and get to work. You could do that. It would suck. And it would not be pleasant and you wouldn't be able to live your college experience. But you could make that happen. And here's how I know. I was just talking to two different private pilots. One is commercial, one's private, because my son's expressed interest in flight school. So I dug in and what does it cost? And both of them reported back to me, there is as many paths to a flight licensure as there are students. And so it sounds like you've got an idea for a way you wanted to do it.

1:52:27and a college counselor said, here's how you can do it, and you just follow that path. And when you lock yourself, same with law school. Dude, I was a dean of students at a law school for six or seven years. I know a lot of students that, man, they were, talk about exhausted, but they went and worked, or they scrounged scholarships, or they went to the law school I was teaching at, I think that was a part of, because it was the least expensive of a bunch of other options, and they got scholarships, et cetera. You can do that. if you have it locked in your head i have to go to this school at this time at this date yeah i mean it's like walking into a car dealership saying i will leave with this fancy car that i want somebody's going to sell it to you instead of saying i'm going to wait two years and save up the money and get the the car that i want and it's going to be mine i'm not going to owe anybody any money yeah yeah it just seems it just seems hard because like i'm i'm almost yes i'm almost done since I'm a year out and she's just about finishing undergrad.

1:53:23So you're saying just, you know, what are the options of having other, you know, the priority of getting married financially stable and having another job if we need it at the moment? Well, you said it's going to be hard. Yeah. And I want to tell you every decision you make moving forward as an adult, it's going to be hard. It's choosing which hard path is going to get me where I want to be. and so if you and your wife want to get married i want dude run to the altar go do that man like as soon as you can and start building a life together but do it based on shared values and if one of your shared values is as a couple we do not want anyone no bank no federal program we don't want anyone telling us what how we're going to live our life which means we're not going to owe anybody any money make that a core tenant and then live with the consequences of i really want to go to law school this year but i'm gonna have to stop and earn money like crazy and save up and save up and say, I'm going to go in two years.

1:54:18Or you say, I'm going to get through flight school and I'm going to go get a job adjacent to, instead of going to get my hours because I want to get this debt paid off. Okay. Right. What I don't want you to do is just, you're resigned to this thing. As though there's a wave coming at you and there's nothing you can do about it. And I just want to shake that up a little bit and say, dude, there's so many things you can do about it. None of them will be pleasant. And I will tell you, being a newlywed, owing 500 grand after law school, flight school, and undergrad school, that will not be fun either.

1:54:49And staying single so both y 'all can rack up a bunch of debt, that's going to be hard, right? Right. All of it will be hard. Choose the hard path that's going to get you where you want to be. And I hope you choose the thing that will accelerate health, finances, everything, and that is having a good or great marriage. Yeah, no, that actually helps a ton. I appreciate it. Does that make sense? And we hear too many stories, Shay, where people call in and they're 28 and they're married and they're going, we got 600 grand. We didn't realize what life was going to be like carrying all this debt. And now we just had a baby and she wants to stay home, but we have all this law school debt.

1:55:24And so it's an impossibility. And so we're trying to give you the most options. And that means front loading the sacrifice. so if you guys say we're taking debt off the table we're going to take it slow we're going to do this in an affordable way go to the most affordable path we can to get to the goal that means you're going to actually get there and not be stressed with$4 ,000 in minimum payments on the other end and I can tell you this I'm not a I've never had to call big law or anything like that I've had to engage with attorneys multiple times as an adult zero times have I asked them where they went to school right zero Zero times.

1:56:00And I don't know where any of my pilots went to school. I just assume if they're letting him fly the plane, he's probably good for it. And also tell you, hey, let me say, I want there to be great pilots in the world. I really do. And I really want there to be great attorneys. They do an extraordinary service for humanity when they're good. So I want both of y 'all to go do those things. I really do. But it might not happen at the same time. It might be you finish flight school, you get a job. Now, boom, green light. She can go to law school because you have an income. What won't work is both of you just piling on debt to cover your living expenses so both of you can pursue the dreams at the same time.

1:56:35That's the part that worries me. So I would caution you to do more of a baton pass with this. Okay. But getting married is going to help. Yeah. So combining your lives together, combining finances, combine your goals and vision, it's so much easier and better with another person, a ride or die, as John would say. So, Shay, here's my last piece of advice. Don't wait a year to get engaged. This weekend, call it, brother. Quit waiting. You already know. You already have a plan. You have a roadmap. Get engaged this weekend. Go ahead and call it. Let's get this thing going, baby. Ring by spring, John.

1:57:05That's the liberty promise. That's the liberty promise. I just made that up. But I'm sure it is. Ring by spring. Married by graduation or your money back. That would be fantastic.

1:57:38So

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1:58:29Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 13, 11. Dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow. I love the ESV version of this, John. It says money gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. That's some get rich quick right there. Yep. Andrew Carnegie said, if you want to get rich, think of saving as earning. Nice. All right, Andy. Good stuff. Ryan is in Georgetown, Texas up next. What's going on, Ryan? Hey, what's going on, gents? I appreciate you guys having me on. Thanks for calling, brother. What's up? So I didn't grow up with the best financial examples, and now that I'm making a little bit more money, I want to be a better steward of it and then build a solid future for myself or if the Lord ever decides to turn me into a family man.

1:59:20And I'm contributing into my 401K. But beyond that, not really sure what the next smart move is, whether it's paying off the house or investing it in other means and what that looks like. Wow. How old are you? I am 29. Great. Well, you figured this stuff out early. I know it feels like you're behind, but man, a lot of people don't get this kind of financial literacy until way later in life. So you're investing currently. Do you have any debt? I do. I have a good bit of it. I have 377 in a house, and then Dave's favorite, 21 in a truck. 21 in a truck. Okay, you scared me. So 377s and a mortgage.

2:00:02Are you married? No. I am not. It's just me and my dog. Well, what forced you into this house? That's a big purchase. Nothing forced me into it. I just figured I'm going to be in the area for a while, and I liked the house that I saw when I was just out and about. Okay. How much do you make a year? After taxes, it is$9 ,200 a month. Nice. Okay, solid income. What's the mortgage payment every month? $2 ,150. Okay, and that's on a 30-year, I imagine? Yeah, and I pay an extra$300 to$400 every month. Okay. Why aren't you paying extra on the car? Why are you hanging on to that debt? I do pay a little bit extra, but yeah, not nearly as much as I guess I should be.

2:00:52How much do you have in savings? $12 ,000. Okay, good. So you got$12 ,000 in savings. Any other investments outside of the 401k?

2:01:05I don't think you guys would consider it, but I do have a few vehicles that are all paid off and whatnot, so it's kind of like a fun emergency account. Tell me about these vehicles, brother. You buried the lead on us. Okay, so there's a classic Mustang, a couple trucks, a few bikes. What does this all add up to, the value?

2:01:39Probably about$90 ,000. Goodness gracious. And 20 of it is debt for the truck. Okay, so you have 90 ,000 things with wheels and motors. And our parameter is half of your annual income being tied up in that. And so right now you violated that principle. Yeah, violator. That's a lot of your world tied up in things going down in value, maybe outside of that Mustang. I don't know if any of the stuff is, you know. Tell me about the trucks. Okay. The truck is a 2024 F-150 and a 2005 Tacoma. Oh, man. Both of those are awesome. Do you need the truck for work? George, he's a Texan. No, it's more so just for hauling the vehicles and stuff.

2:02:28Tell me about the bikes. Okay. There's a 22 Indian FTR 1200 and then an adventure bike and a Harley. Gosh, dude, you have all cool stuff. All the toys before you're 30. Yeah, but these are cool toys. I got to give it. I got to, like, shout out, Ryan. You're not, like, buying ridiculous. Like, you don't have, like, 14 jet skis. And also. Thank you. Also, you know what I'm going to tell you? If you sold just a couple of these things, you'd clear up everything, man. Mm-hmm. You'd clear up everything. What would you be willing to sell? I'm not even going after your Mustang. thing. If I said you had to sell stuff to get rid of the 21K on the truck, what would you sell?

2:03:13Probably one of the bikes and then the Mustang. Oh, you're going to sell the Mustang? I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt to hang on to it. What's the Mustang worth? I could probably get$25 out of it. So you only need to sell that. You don't need to sell everything. I was just saying if you could sell just enough to get rid of the truck payment. Does it have sentimental value? you not too much anymore it's kind of just eating up too much money and i mean it's it's very easy just to sink more into it sell it today put on the market and have it gone this weekend and be debt free by sunday okay i like this plan and by the way you have 12k in savings so you could use 11 of that and knock your debt down to 10 and just sell one of the bikes and be done so there's a lot of ways to go about that one a lot more and then you just stack then your next goal every single piece of margin you have every dollar in margin from those paychecks goes towards building an emergency fund of six months of expenses six months okay now you've reset right you got no consumer debt you got six months of savings in the bank and you have enough margin to now invest 15 and you're making nine grand a month so now you're you're dropping three or four grand a month towards your house payment that thing's gonna just start to dwindle right underneath you that would be be amazing yes okay so i want to um how do i want to do this i'm gonna challenge you on two things okay okay thing number one is i want you to also do the math and i want you to see it all laid out in front of you what the registration and the insurance and the gas and the maintenance on all keeping all of these vehicles is costing you every month okay my guess is it's going to be six or 700 bucks for the privilege of these paid off things sitting in your garage.

2:05:03And I want you to ask yourself, is 600, let's say 500, is$6 ,000 a year to not do any, not to drive them, not to play with them, just to simply for the privilege of owning them, is that worth it to you? Okay. That's thing. That's thing. Number one. And here's thing. Number two, you ready? when you started this call you said if god blesses me with a family one day i want you as a 29 year old making great money who's a homeowner who's actually thinking through future stuff i want you to get out of your house and go meet people go on dates and go get after it okay i want you to think where do you go out to meet people i don't drink anything or anymore dude join every join leagues go to a local church go join a bowling league join a chess league join a book club join a karate class go take yoga go do stand-up comedy there's like 14 clubs there in the austin area go out and meet people i want people in their 20s and early 30s to only be at home to sleep wow okay that's the opposite of me i know i know and that's why i'm leaning on you a little bit.

2:06:17Here's why. This is the grossest reduction of marriage I could possibly make it, okay? But if you look at marriage simply from an ROI factor, having a good or great marriage amplifies your net worth over time, your health over time, your overall happiness and joy, like health outcomes, recovery from health, like it just is a magnifier because you're anchored in with one other person doing this amazing wild adventure called life together. And so when you're thinking about optimization and where I want to be down the road, I want people who are like you, who are going to be a great catch for somebody.

2:06:58I want you putting yourself out there, being awkward, getting rejected, going again and again and again, making, doing all the uncomfortable things so that you can put yourself in the best position to meet somebody and build this amazing life together. Okay. Got it. I, I will flourish in being awkward. Yes. Hey, that's one of my spiritual gifts. I mean, being awkward. And, but here's the thing. I, I think I, I think George, I think we see value in you that you don't see. Okay. Well, I appreciate it. Okay. If my, let me put it this way. If my daughter comes home one day, she's 10 right now. so don't even think about it.

2:07:39If my daughter comes home one day and says, hey, I met this guy. He's a good man of faith. He's bought his own house. He's making a great income. He actually has an old Tacoma that he paid off that he takes out on adventure trips out in Texas. I'm going to be like, dude, I got to meet this guy. Right? And he's debt free on top of that. And he's debt free. You know what I'm saying? You're a catch, brother. You barely need a personality at that point. We're all awkward. Get out there and go meet people. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.