Different Outcomes Require Different Choices

22:47Dave Ramsey:And that's tonight and tomorrow night. It's a two-night event. So it's hours and hours and hours of this stuff for$199, a virtual event. You can watch it from your couch. And RamseySolutions.com slash events, and click the link in the show notes if you're listening or on the podcast. Dave Ramsey and George Camel will be doing it. Dee is in St. Louis. Hi, Dee. How are you? I'm living the dream. And by the way, so happy to be able to talk to you and Jade. Well, thank you. And love you both for your ministry and the rest of the team. Thank you. I have a question that I'm dealing with. It's a struggle.

23:28My husband and I have gone through all of the baby steps. And so at this point, we are debt-free other than our mortgage for our house, which we have significantly paid off over time. Good for you. Well done. But I would also say that I have a relationship in the family, and that would be my brother and his wife. They have two kids, my nephews, and we haven't spoken in a couple years. and I think mom and dad help them out here and there just to keep access to the kids. And so I'm really struggling with whether I decide with my husband to come up with some sort of fund for the boys for college or whatever.

24:30but also I'm struggling because I don't want my brother and sister-in-law to have access to that money because I'm not sure that they'll be wise about how they use it or spend it. And I know... So what's your household income? Me and my husband? Mm-hmm.

25:02Should we talk about salary? I don't know.

25:05Dave Ramsey:What do you make in a year that you pay taxes on? That's your household income. Yeah, well, I make$350 a year. But with bonus, my target is$458 this year. Phenomenal. And my husband brings home W-2 about$68 to$70. Awesome. So you've got a half million dollar a year income. That's wonderful. And you've done very well. Yes. Congratulations. And yet these are not your children, so you don't have any legal access to them. They're minors, I take it. Yes, they are. Okay. All right. The only thing I would do is finish paying off your house and pile up cash and become very wealthy. And then if at some point that they reach college age and you want to write a check and pay for their tuition, You just take it out of your account and write a check and pay for their tuition.

26:02Okay, but you wouldn't do what you'd be. Absolutely would do nothing with anybody's name on it but yours.

26:08Dave Ramsey:Your brother is not trustworthy. Yeah. Well, that's true. Yeah. For sure, with money. Yeah. I'm not putting any money in his name. He doesn't talk to me. No way. But if those boys go off to college and as an act of love you want to reach out to them maybe through your parents and say, you know, old Aunt Dee that you heard all the bad things about is going to pay for your tuition this border? That'd be kind of fun. Well, it would be great. I just, I guess, like, I struggle from it, like, from a moral perspective because it's not the boy's issue. Yeah, but you don't need to put any money in the boy's name.

26:52Dave Ramsey:You can just take care of them. There's nothing immoral about you giving the boys, paying their tuition for them. How old are the boys? You said they're minors, but how old are they? So the boys are in seventh and ninth grade now. Are you concerned for them that you feel like you need to do something prior to college age?

27:16No, I'm not concerned in that regard. I'm more focused on the fact that they don't have any background, right? Like my parents, when they raised us, they put us on the credit cards early in age, and I would have to ask permission to spend$25, but that was to build credit history kind of. This is not your circus and not your monkey.

27:48Dave Ramsey:They're not your kids. I know. If the kids are not in physical harm, then you've got no say in it. They're not. You've got no say in it. None. It's just part of the heartbreak of the estrangement. Yeah, I agree. But there's nothing that you have the right to do or the ability to do to fix those kids' life. Nothing. unless you call child services because they're being abused. And they're not. Yes, but they're not. And they're not. So you need to quit worrying about whether these kids are raised with work ethic, whether they're raised with integrity. Not your monkey, not your circus. You can pray for them, but that's all you can do.

28:28And, you know, I feel like you can do things now that will allow you to cultivate a relationship with them when they're older. Like now you can make sure that you send them a birthday card every year or a holiday card. Like, right? There's ways that you can be part of their life so that when they are 18, you can kind of show up. And if you suddenly want to bring them to dinner or find a way to create a relationship with them, it's not we've never heard of D before.

28:52Dave Ramsey:I'd like to buy you breakfast and hand them the receipt where you've already paid for their tuition. Don't give them a check. No, don't give them a check. Just give them a receipt where you've already paid for it. And that kind of stuff. I mean, that's the kind of stuff, but they're going to have to reach adulthood before you're going to be allowed access because of this estrangement. And so Jade's right. I mean, you can send them a note, send them a letter, send them things through your parents or whatever, but just letting them know that you're there and that you care about them. But you don't get to control how they turn out.

29:27Dave Ramsey:Not your monkey, not your circus. And you just don't get to. And so even the influence that an aunt would have in a normal setting is limited. Yeah. Our kids live on top of each other. They live three doors down and a quarter of a mile away from each other. So their kids are all growing up more like siblings than cousins. But that's the most. But even then, it's not Rachel's kid. It's Denise's kid. Yeah. I mean, they don't reach over and tell them, you know, we make them all make them all behave. but that's that but that and that and we're freaking on top of each other yeah but you have more you definitely have more of those liberties when there's a healthy relationship exactly siblings and she's just i mean but even then there it's not a it's not you don't get you don't get to parent them no i mean i'm we were at the soccer game last night but i don't get to parent them i can just yell kick the ball that's the only thing i'm allowed to do you know i mean it's like that's it and so um that that's normal boundaries though and you've got even worse boundaries here because of this estrangement Lee D I think you're might be trying to fix your broken heart through the kids yeah and it's not gonna work the broken heart's just broken because of the estrangement and that's just sad and someday hopefully that'll be mended um and maybe you can do some nice things for the kids financially as you get there from your checking account.

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32:44Dave Ramsey:Rod is in Oklahoma City. Hey, Rod, how are you? I'm well, how are you guys today? Better than we deserve. What's up? Well, so to give you a little bit of background, my wife and I moved about a year ago back to the hometown where I'm from for a job. And we have had our house on the market since January. and we don't really know if we should continue to try to leave it on the market or maybe try to have a bigger investor's mind, like turn it into a rent house or an Airbnb kind of thing. And it takes up about a third of my salary, and so that could be a lot of money that could go towards the debt that we have.

33:25How much is the house on the market for? $215 ,000.

33:31Dave Ramsey:What's wrong with it? Nothing. It's four-bedroom, two-bathroom. It's a six-year-old house. We built it in 2020. And the interest rates were about 3.1. And so we paid$159 for I owe$140 on it. And excuse me, I meant$225, not$215. Okay. Is it too expensive? Or is it a neighborhood? Is it too far out? I mean, is it on a piece of ground? That's the kind of conundrum. It's right by a university and it's right by a hospital. And so I thought, you know, it's selling no time. My realtor can't seem to get any feedback. We get about three showings a week, and I don't know. I really just don't know what the issue is.

34:25Dave Ramsey:I mean, are you objective enough to say if you stand in the street, is this house ugly? No, sir. No. It's a very beautiful house. I mean, it's kind of cookie cutter. It's like a lot of houses in the neighborhood. Have other things in the neighborhood sold? No, sir. That's kind of the thing. There's a lot of other houses up for sale, and so I don't know. What city is it in again? I really don't know, to be honest. So it's on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. It's close enough. It's technically called Shawnee. Yeah, I know Shawnee. Is it freestanding or is it attached? No, it's freestanding. Huh. Is it a Ramsey trusted real estate agent?

35:06No, sir.

35:07Dave Ramsey:Okay. Or not that I'm aware of. Have you seen a competitive market analysis? When they listed it, did they show you the comparative sales in the area to give you a value? Yes. I know they showed me the report back when we priced it, and so they thought it would easily sell for$250, but I've lowered it to$225 since then. Okay, and your monthly payment is how much? $1 ,200. Okay. So every year that it sits there costs you$15 ,000 in payments? Yes, sir. Okay. So if you lower it$30 ,000, that's not smart because I'd rather sit there and wait. Okay. Assuming we've addressed anything that's wrong with it.

35:55Dave Ramsey:because the first thing I think about from a real estate perspective is when I walk up to the front door, what am I seeing and what am I smelling? And when I walk in the front door, what's the feel? And is this bad floor plan? Is the colors awful?

36:15Dave Ramsey:And a real estate agent with a little bit of experience should have the ability to kindly tell you, by the way, your carpet's ugly. I mean, they need to be able to kind of... Yeah. They need to say that to you. And, honey, you need to change this to living room carpet. This thing isn't going to sell because people walk in and see this, they start itching. You know what I mean? Whatever it is, I don't know. You said it's by university and hospital. Are they getting the ambulances screaming through there every, you know, 10 minutes? Is it the university traffic? Yeah, it's both. I mean, the university is not a huge university.

36:50So I really wouldn't think. It's connected to two major highways. So, I mean, not directly, but the neighborhood sits between where they kind of intersect. So I don't know. But when you were talking about the flooring and stuff, I mean, it's all new flooring. Like, we paid about$4 ,500. Yeah, you just finished. It's not a house that's that old.

37:07Dave Ramsey:Yeah. But, I mean, again, you said, is the highway in your background? Are you on a, you know, up against the freeway? Those are the sorts of things that I'm thinking of based on what you're saying. Yeah. Number one, the first thing I'm going to do is call a Ramsey, trusted real estate agent. or two and have them come out and interview them and look at the house and tell you why this thing isn't selling. Get somebody with feet on the ground that knows Shawnee, that knows what the market's doing. They go, look, here's six other ones just like it that have sold. There's no reason this hasn't sold.

37:36Dave Ramsey:We need to put this on the market at$219.9 with a selling bonus to an agent and let's get this thing moved. Something like that. I mean, I would take it off the market, put it back on the market with someone else. That starts a new listing number and put a slightly different price on it,$29 ,900 or$19 ,900 from your 25 number. And I'm also going to go through, do I need to put a coat of paint in this? Do we need to go in there and bake bread every morning so this smells like mama's kitchen when they walk in? What is it we got to do to market this property? And then I'm going to wait and wait on my buyer.

38:12Dave Ramsey:Because, you know,$1 ,500 a month, You can wait a long, long time before you give up$30 ,000 or$40 ,000 or$50 ,000 in price cut. And so, you know, you can decide stuff like that. And I did do one one time that I don't know if I would recommend this to anybody, but it was kind of fun. I just dropped the price$2 ,000 a month until it sold. let's put a new price in mls every time and just kept and i don't know if i recommend that or not i don't know and it was kind of weird but it's like a reverse auction you know and it was kind of fun just to mess with it just see if we could wake somebody up yeah somebody sitting around we going oh i don't know if i wait gonna wait gonna wait gonna wait you know and we finally just got we finally just got a good offer on it and sold it but yeah um yeah but i don't think that's the case here i can't tell you don't know why it isn't selling and so we don't know why it feels like for them the neighborhood was fine but for other people it's not a desirable neighborhood just based on what he's saying something going on there i don't know uh and you know i need a real estate agent to tell me what the to get feedback from showings if you're getting three showings a week you should got an offer yeah for sure that's that's a lot median days on market is 57 days in the nation right uh-huh yeah and he's been on since january yeah yeah exactly all right Aaron is in Houston.

39:40Dave Ramsey:Hi, Aaron. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm a college student, and I'm expected to graduate here this year. Congratulations. What's your degree in? Electrical engineering. Cool. Future millionaire. But after graduation, I'm looking at about$40 ,000. I'm going to be in debt from student loans. but on top of that I'm looking at a job offer that I've been interning with I'm expecting a return offer with about a hundred thousand dollars annual salary plus 10k signing bonus God doesn't that make you smile wow I mean it does you know I work really hard so if you live like a college student you'll be debt free in like six months yeah because that 10k signing bonus is about to knock out a quarter of that student loan debt and Aaron you don't get to buy a car yeah i know that part my parents have made that abundantly clear no car do you get the student loan paid off even though you got the big fancy job i'm proud of you man that's a great job congratulations yeah can you not just go live on nothing and keep living like a college student and pay off 40 grand in less than a year i mean yes you can i'm going to answer that for you yeah that was my next question do i put all this ten thousand dollars Yes.

41:01To buy student loans? Yes. Well, no, you got to cover your move.

41:06Dave Ramsey:You're going to need some for deposits on utilities and deposit with the apartment. And, you know, you got to have some gas to put in the car to load your 14 things you own in the car. Do you have any other money or this is it? I have the babysit number one where I have$1 ,000 in savings that I do as an emergency wife in school. Good. I would get moved. I would get moved, get moved in without spending any money, the minimum money. And then I'm going to throw what's left down to$1 ,000 at the student loans. And then I'm going to start. I'm just going to live like I'm not making anything. I'm just going to live on nothing.

41:41Dave Ramsey:You're used to living on nothing. Yeah. You're college too. The only question is, do I move back with my parents? No. No. This version of nothing is still going to feel like an upgrade. Like you living on this version of nothing, just because you're earning a paycheck, is still going to feel like an upgrade from being in college and being in a dorm and being on campus. But no eating out. No trips, no buying a car, no buying a bunch of furniture. Buy garage sale furniture. Live on 60. And buy some lady's couch that she's throwing out that there's nothing wrong with it. And buy it for$18 and haul it away for her.

42:14Dave Ramsey:And that's how you furnish the first apartment. And then you go pay cash for this, man. I'm so proud of you, man. It's awesome.

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43:51Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. Jody is in Toronto, Canada. Hi, Jody. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hi, Dave. I listen to you guys like every day while I'm working in the field on the farm that I work. So I'm so excited to actually speak to you guys today. We're excited to speak to you too. What's up? Oh, so I'm trying really hard. I've been listening to you guys like avidly since like the end of February, like daily. And I'm so encouraged by like the whole team's wisdom and like, you got this, you can do this. So I'm like, I've got motivation, but between my income and like what I like have available after expenses, I'm having difficulty getting my baby one or baby step one emergency fund and setting aside like sinking fund.

44:55thinking, um, like item lines, like kids, Christmas gifts. I have two boys, um, their birthday gifts, those birthday Christmas gifts, like all those little things, dental visits, like car repairs, having those set aside and working on my emergency fund. And I feel like it's a weird time of year to start this because like Christmas is in like three months time. So how do I get enough at this point for Christmas while putting enough away from my emergency fund? And I have started my emergency fund. How much do you have? How much do you have so far? At the minute, I don't have anything as far as an emergency fund.

45:36I ended up using it for the summer. Here's what I would do. I would prioritize the emergency fund before getting into a bunch of sinking funds. The number one thing you need is$1 ,000 saved. Because if you don't have it, something pops up, Jody, and you're going to be looking at credit cards. You're going to be looking at debt. You need$1 ,000. Most people get it done in 30 days. This is scorched earth. So scorched earth means I'm not thinking about sinking funds. I'm not thinking about Christmas presents. I'm not thinking about anything extra except getting this$1 ,000 saved. Matter of fact, I'm selling old Christmas presents to get it, right?

46:10I'm selling off things. So that's, I mean, your hair is on fire on this to get this$1 ,000.

46:15Dave Ramsey:What's your income? I'm about 35 ,000 Canadian. What do you do? So I'm a farmhand at a local agritourism farm. And you're a single mom? Well, no, I am married. Oh, I meant what's your household income. I'm sorry. What does your husband make? Oh, sorry. My husband's is roughly about the same. He has his own family farm with his dad. so his income's roughly about the same. So you have$70 ,000 a year coming in. So$6 ,000 a month. Technically, but our expenses are separate from one another. He's still paying child support for his children that he has with his... Why are your expenses... That doesn't mean you have to have separated accounts.

47:09No, no, no, no. We don't even have a mortgage because it's included as far as part of his salary with being a farmer here. Oh, that's fine. And there's not a hydro expense, so it helps.

47:19Dave Ramsey:But that doesn't matter. The two of you still have$6 ,000 a month coming in, don't you? I mean, you make$36 ,000 and he makes$36 ,000, right? Before expenses, you should have$6 ,000. Yeah. Before taxes. We keep our expenses separate. I know. Okay. That's problem number one. You're trying to run this like a single mom. I knew you were going to. I mean, you're trying to run this like a single mom with a boyfriend. And it's not. Do you all live together? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So the property that he is being furnished as a part of being a farmhand on his family farm is free to you all. So you don't have housing costs?

48:02Exactly. Oh, gosh. Even more. Okay.

48:06Dave Ramsey:So why are you not combining your incomes? um just we're more comfortable this way we've well it's not working it's what you called us because you're not comfortable it sounds like you're trying to do this on 35 000 and i don't know what happened to his 35 is what it sounds to me like well majority of it goes to his child support how much no he doesn't have a three thousand dollar child support payment uh no a $1 ,000 a month. Okay, so that's$1 ,000 of three. So he's still got$2 ,000. Where's his other$2 ,000 going? Oh, there's the problem. Okay, just found it. He's going over there and playing farmer with his daddy, and he's not bringing money home to his own family.

48:56No, no, he is. He lives, like, debt-free. He's good with his money. Here's the problem, Jody. He's not good with his money.

49:05Dave Ramsey:His kids are not knowing how they're going to get Christmas presents. He's not good with his money. He sucks with his money. And you guys need to put your money together and develop a game plan to develop. That's where your struggle is coming from, honey. It really is. You're saying that you're married, but you're doing this totally separate. And you're calling here because you're experiencing the symptoms of that. You sound like a$35 ,000 a year single mom to me. Yeah. Everything you described early in the call had that symptom. I thought you were making no money. That's why the very first question I asked you was, what's your income?

49:40Dave Ramsey:And you stated it as if you weren't married, and then I had to dig to figure out you were married. So we can tell from the way this is going down, you're kind of trying to pull this whole wagon by yourself, kiddo, and that's not fair. So the two of you need to sit down and say, we're going to put our money together. We have the responsibility, our first responsibility on this planet, both of us as grown-ups are these two kids we made. And we have housing furnished. So we should have some money in this house, even with$1 ,000 child support. There should be some money to be able to get$1 ,000 saved and then begin to work your way out of debt.

50:19Dave Ramsey:You can do this. But the problem is, is you're trying to, I don't know, everything is so dispersed that it has no power. Yeah. And by the way, because you said it, you said, oh, when we asked you, why are you keeping your money separate? You said, well, we've always done that. Just because you've always done something doesn't mean you have to continue to do it. And just because you've always done something doesn't mean it worked. It didn't work. This is an opportunity for you guys to sit down and truly ask yourself the question, why? Why are we doing it this way? And challenge yourselves to answer the question with real answers.

50:54And I guarantee you it's going to be a lack of trust in someone's area. Yep.

50:59Dave Ramsey:And I think you can fix this in about 60 days. By the time Christmas gets here, you're going to have your$1 ,000. You're going to be reducing debt. Your budget's going to be working. And his child support will be paid. And we're going to be able to buy Christmas for our kids. and pay for their dental appointment. All of that can be done. I don't have to pay for rent. The numbers are there with what you gave me. There's nothing here that's prohibitive. But you're trying to do it all by yourself. That's the problem. You're doing it on half your household income. That's what's going on. So you can't go there.

51:31Dave Ramsey:All right, guys. So here's the thing. Let's just cycle back on this again.

51:39Dave Ramsey:The largest study of millionaires ever done in North America, we talked to 10 ,167 of them. 89 % of them said one of the top reasons they became wealthy was that they combined everything and worked together towards one goal. When you ask the public how many of you combine your finances, it's only about 40 % and work towards one goal. And the public is broke. 78 % of Americans live paycheck to paycheck with too much month left at the end of the money Stop it

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54:12Dave Ramsey:Today's question of the day is brought to you by Why Refi. If you've fallen behind on your private student loans, you don't need more shame. You actually just need a plan. Why Refi helps borrowers explore refinancing options with a low fixed rate payment based on what you can actually afford. Go to whyrefi.com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Owen in Alaska. He says, what's the difference between an index fund, a brokerage fund, and a mutual fund? Is there a particular type that you recommend, or can they all be used for different purposes? Wow, great question.

54:51Dave Ramsey:I think that's a really good question. It's a teaching question. It is. Do you want to teach, Dave? I can teach, but I feel like this is your bag. I'll jump in, and then you can help me. All right. How's that? All right. We'll start with a mutual fund. A mutual fund, if you'll visualize, is that Jade puts in some money, I put in some money, and Owen, you put in some money. We have now mutually funded it. That's all it is. What the mutual fund buys, what the mutual fund manager buys with the money that we give him or her to invest with, tells us what type of mutual fund it is. If they buy bonds, it's a bond fund If they buy, with the money that we mutually fund Stocks in companies that are growing It's a growth stock mutual fund If they buy companies like Gerber and Nestle And Unilever, which owns Dove Soap And Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Those are all foreign companies they were started in the u.s in every case but they are now owned by people that do not live in america and so those are international or foreign stocks and so you'll call it an international stock mutual fund buying stock in companies internationally and that tells you the type of mutual fund the typical growth stock mutual fund for instance will have 90 to 200 different stocks in it.

56:26Dave Ramsey:And as that group of companies goes up in value, that's where your return comes. One type of mutual fund is an index fund. The first one you asked about, Owen. An index fund is a mutual fund that buys stocks that follows an index. An index is a representation of a market. The most famous index is the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The most accurate index is the S &P 500. Standard and Poor rates the top 500 companies on the New York Stock Exchange, the big board we call it. And those 500 companies are represented in an index fund. And so that's the baseline of what the stock market's doing. So what the S &P 500 is actually the best measure of what the stock market's doing.

57:21Dave Ramsey:So is it up? Is it down? That tells you what the stock market's doing good or not. And if you buy an index fund, you should do exactly what the market's doing. No better, no worse. You should exactly follow the market. I have some money in an index fund, and I just looked at the ticker a minute ago, and we're right at 12 % increase in value since the beginning of the year. And this is the 1st of September, so we're 8 months in, still got 4 months to go. September, October, November, December. And we'll see what the total return is on the stock market, and the S &P 500 index fund will be what the market does.

58:06Dave Ramsey:And so if the market's down for the year or up for the year, then it follows that. A brokerage fund is opening an account with a broker, a financial advisor, and you can put mutual funds in it. You can put stock in it. You can put index funds in it. You can put anything in it and run it. When you buy a 401k or an IRA, typically, and especially if you follow what we teach, you will be buying a mutual fund or funds inside your 401k. Your 401k is not an investment. It's how your mutual fund is taxed. So if it's in a Roth IRA, it grows tax-free. If it's not, you get taxed on it as it grows or when you sell it, one of the two.

58:53Dave Ramsey:So that's the basics there. And the good news is the market has done very, very well. It's setting records this year and last year. The last five years, it's just been phenomenal, unusually good. it's not been down in a long it's permanently down for the year for in a long long time and so it's a great time to get in touch with a Ramsey SmartVestor Pro some at RamseySolutions.com and find someone that's or they can teach you the stuff I just taught you and show you some actual funds and then you look at the fund you understand it and only then do you buy it do not buy it because Jade said to, Dave said to, or because a SmartVista Pro said to.

59:37Dave Ramsey:So what did I miss, Jade? Nothing other than the fact that you're going to be teaching all this at the Investing Essentials event. That's why I tossed it to you. Oh, wow. Okay, that's true. Yeah, I guess I am. I'm teaching that tonight. Yeah. In more detail. It's not too late to get tickets. In more detail. It's only$199, yeah. And we're going to do two and a half hours of what I just did in two minutes. So you'll get the details. That was a primer, though. We just went to kindergarten. Yeah. And tonight we're going to go into graduate school. So I go a lot deeper into this. But that gives you the basics and gets you going.

1:00:08And Owen, you're brilliant to ask this question because you never invest in something you don't understand.

1:00:18Dave Ramsey:So you never do it just blindly because you heard about it somewhere else and you don't know what it is. That's how people lose all their money. So go slow and always have someone with the heart of a teacher, not the heart of a salesman that's helping guide you. And that'll be a big help. And right along the same track is Davis in Montgomery, Alabama. Hi, Davis. How are you? Hey, I'm doing pretty well. Nice to talk to you all today. You too. What's up? So I have some investments, and I met with my guy the other day, and we were talking about the percentage. So I am earning probably, he said, it's about 6%, trying to get it to 7%.

1:00:56Dave Ramsey:And I hear you talk all the time about should be earning at least 10 % in your retirement funds. What are you invested in? That sucks. Yeah, well, that's what, when I thought about that, when he showed me that percentage, and I said, well, shouldn't it be 10 %? And he said, well, the market's going to get 10%, but you would never get 10%. And I said, I kind of, I don't know. You're not invested in the market then? What are you buying? Do you know? I don't know. I know it was like 60-40. 60-40 what? I couldn't tell you. I think you're in bonds. Yeah, it's probably 60 % bonds. Yeah, I think he's got you too heavily in bonds and you're getting milked.

1:01:35Dave Ramsey:You're getting destroyed. This guy doesn't know what he's doing. Get away from him for two reasons. One is his job, he failed. His job is for you to know what's going on. Yeah, yeah. So you need to get a SmartVestor Pro or somebody with the heart of a teacher. You need to know what's going on because you can't even tell me what you're putting money in. No, no, I can't. That's an epic fail on his part. He's a teacher, not a salesman. And then he goes, well, yeah, you could make that much if you were in the market. How old are you, Davis? I'm 53. And why has he got you in bonds? That's dumber than crud.

1:02:13Dave Ramsey:Well, I have reached out to one of the investor pros, and they were telling me pretty much the same thing. They were saying you might be too heavily invested into something different. But I wanted to get your opinion on that because I hear you talk about. Well, I don't know because you don't know, but that's what it sounds like. So here's the deal. Again, I just mentioned that. I just looked it up a second ago. Year to date, we're up 12 since January. If you were just in an S &P. Yeah. If you're beating the S &P, you'd be above that. And a lot of my funds beat the S &P. Now, I've got some money in the S &P.

1:02:46Dave Ramsey:Last year, it was up 18 for the year. The year before, it was up 25 for the year, and the year before, it was up 26 for the year. Meanwhile, this bozo's got you in bonds. Yeah, at 6%. I know. You're getting slaughtered. Yeah, that's what I figured. Yeah, you need to. But here's the thing. The thing you violated, you can't do anymore after today. never again put a dime in anything unless you tell me how it works and what it is and why you put it there not like my guy's not doing it no you're the guy you got to take care of you oh yeah david learning we'll take care of you we'll give you tickets to the investing essentials event tonight you need it probably and then get to it yeah as bad as anybody and then watch the thing tonight and then get to a smart investor pro as soon as possible We'll go.

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1:05:49Dave Ramsey:If you're working the baby steps, the best and fastest way to get out of debt and into wealth is using the Ramsey Plan, and it is built into EveryDollar. EveryDollar is our budgeting app that has the plan built into it to track your progress, give you personalized recommendations, and coaching for your particular situation. It's kind of like us having us in your back pocket on your phone and saying, don't do that, do that, do that, do that, don't do that. Start with every dollar for free by downloading it in the App Store or Google Play. Mike's in Chicago. Hey, Mike. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

1:06:25Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I've got a question. My wife and I are kind of in a disagreement. My son, 17-year-old, his car just kind of broke down for timing chain, and he's in the shop. She wants him to buy a new car. Well, not a huge car, but basically I get car payments. And I'm in a disagreement, so we're trying to brainstorm what the best path forward is.

1:06:55Dave Ramsey:I think the problem happened about five years ago when you guys were not on the same page about borrowing money. Yes, we're still not on the same page. Yeah. So, yeah. So you guys are still— So if you haven't been able to solve that in the last five years, how are we going to solve that in five minutes? Yeah, what? what's her argument for wanting to continue on with debt and what have the conversations looked like? Well, the debt would be... Say it again. You cut out. Yeah. Yeah, he's 17 years old, so the debt would be on him. Not really. A minor can't sign a contract. You're going to be on the debt.

1:07:35Dave Ramsey:Oh, I didn't know that. So a minor cannot get a car payment? No. At 17 years old? Nope. No. You got to be 18? Yeah, you're not an adult. You can't conduct business. But the bigger problem here is even if you were 18, it's problematic that she's teaching him to go into debt and that you have a completely opposite philosophy, it sounds like. Yes. So what happens the next time the two of you want to buy a car? You probably end up giving in and getting a car, to be honest. Well, there's part of the problem, I think. Okay. So I can't help you as long as you give in. Okay. You're saying battle battle?

1:08:19Dave Ramsey:Yeah, I mean, the deal is you know not to borrow money on a car. You know it's not smart. You know it's not going to lead this young man where he wants to be. It's a burden on him. It fixes a temporary problem of a broken-down car and gives him a permanent problem called car payments. And it's really, really dumb. And you should not be abusing your own child with a car payment. Don't do this, parents, to your kid. Now, if your wife or your husband is out there, is bound and determined to do something that's going to bring harm to your child, I don't give in. Yeah, Mike, why are you afraid of pushing the issue?

1:09:01Why are you falling back on your heels?

1:09:06Dave Ramsey:Yeah, it's sometimes just maybe not worth the fight. Yeah, okay. Well, then you're going to have a car payment. because you're going to be a wuss. So you can't be a wuss, man. You're going to have to stand up. And, you know, it is worth the fight. It's your 17-year-old son. You're taking him out in the middle of the traffic and going to dodge. Don't get hit by the 18-wheeler. You know, I'm going to walk him through the gauntlet and get the hell beat out of him because you can't tell your wife no. So, no, this is worth the fight. Of course it's worth the fight. so it because it matters because it's your child that's you're bringing harm to your child by not standing up so yeah i gotta tell you me me and the hillbilly wife we would be having a knockdown freaking drag out it might it wouldn't go good it wouldn't go good we're not going to do things that bring harm to the children in my view and um and not because i'm a bully and not because i'm overbearing um but also if i try to do something that's going to bring harm to the children She'd be all at me.

1:10:08Dave Ramsey:She'd be all on my face like a raccoon. I mean, she'd be tearing out my hair, what little of it was left. I mean, come on. I'm right there with you. I would be fighting this battle all day long. Over and over and over again, I'd be fighting it. So run down to Walmart and pick you up a backbone. They're on aisle four. That's what you're going to have to do. You're going to have to stand up and go, no, we're not doing this. We're not going to live like this. And the worm has turned. I've put up with this crap for 10 years and I'm not putting up with it anymore. No, we're not going to go in debt for a 17-year-old to get a freaking car because his timing belt went out.

1:10:47Dave Ramsey:He goes and works six jobs and puts a timing belt on the piece of crap car, or he goes and gets him another piece of crap car for$1 ,000 and drives it. That's what 17-year-olds have done since time began, and none of us died from it. I put two engines, three transmissions, and changed the brakes on my car. by the time I was 18 because I kept blowing them up because I was such a hot rod idiot. And guess what? Every time I did that, my dad looked at me and goes, you're an idiot. Go fix it. Deal with it, boy. And taught me to turn a wrench and taught me to quit driving a car like that, blowing up everything.

1:11:23Dave Ramsey:So, I mean, you know, there's stuff. There's consequences to this stuff. So, yeah, no, no, that don't work, Mike. That doesn't work, man. Sorry. All right. Sorry, not sorry. Anthony's in New York City. Anthony, what's up? Hey, what's going on, Dave and Jay? Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? So I wanted to call today. I'm 29 years old, by the way. I live in New York City, not in Manhattan proper, thank God. But I discovered you guys a couple months ago. And my whole life, basically, my parents raised me to never have a single dime of debt to my name, right? Gosh, can they call mine?

1:12:02Dave Ramsey:That's the opposite, isn't it? Can I give Mike's number? Yeah, way to go, man. Did you say you're 21? 29, 29. 29, okay, cool. Good, all right, so you were raised well. Good. Raised well, but to that point, I also stayed home a little longer than I should have under the assumption that I was saving every dollar I made, which as a young kid in New York City with a lot of friends, I did not. And honestly, I didn't start saving until I really got my first decent job at 25. Started putting a little bit away, but still was kind of spending my income, not stocking it all away and being smart. When you say stocking it all away, how much were you supposed to be stocking away that you didn't?

1:12:48Like, what was the standard? Realistically, Jade, I probably could have been, at the time I was probably making, you know, from 25 to 28 years old, I was making maybe$80 ,000,$85 ,000,$90 ,000 a year. And how much should you have been saving? I realistically probably could have saved 75 of it. Oh, gosh. And I did probably half of that.

1:13:10Dave Ramsey:Listen. So how much money do you have now? So right now, my money's spread all over the place. And I was getting there. So I have about$120 ,000 in a brokerage account that's tied between mutual funds and some general investing. but also a Roth that I was doing just because that company at the time did not have a 401k. What other money do you have? So I've got at my current job, which I started last year, which has more than doubled my income from where I was at, I've got about$30 ,000 in that 401k plus about$16 ,000 in stock. And then just the$1 ,000 starter emergency fund. So what is it that you're trying to do?

1:13:50Are you trying to get a place of your own and move out? What's your goal here? Yeah, yeah. So the last bit of context is a year and a half ago, I was getting ready to get engaged. I was engaged in ring shopping, getting all excited. And then I got broken up with because I wasn't making enough. I was at a dead end job. Anthony, what are you trying to do? How can we help you today? Hold on, hold on, hold on. So where I'm at now, moved out of my parents' house. I'm renting, paying$2 ,300 a month. And it's a great apartment. It's a great little one bedroom. But at the same time, now I'm shopping around for either an apartment or a small entry-level house.

1:14:26Okay. And I've been following the baby steps. I've paid off all of my debt in the last three, four months here. But any entry-level two-bedroom condo in a decent area around here is between$450 and half a million bucks. Then you can't live in that area with the income that you have.

1:14:47Dave Ramsey:You just have to decide. You can't live in Tokyo and Toronto and Los Angeles and San Jose either, by the way.

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1:16:56Dave Ramsey:summer is in canada which sounds like an oxymoron to me but what's up how are you hi i'm good how are you dave better than i deserve how can i help so sorry i'm a bit nervous i'm talking to my hero today So, I got laid off last year from my full-time job, and then I started my small business. And then I also started a new part-time job last year, and I also got married last year, and I'm kind of stuck knowing what to do next. My business grew from$6 ,000 last year to$20 ,000 this year. and I make about$22 ,000 for my part-time job. My husband and I have been talking about buying a house because he's getting a$100 ,000 inheritance soon, but I don't feel like I'm going to get qualified for a good mortgage when I'm only making about$30 ,000 by myself.

1:18:05So I'm stuck that should I be closing everything down and moving into a full time job or should I just continue going? Because I have I have confidence that I can grow my business next year. Why wouldn't you and your husband, your newly married husband, why wouldn't you all combine finances together and buy the home together? Yes. Yes, that is a thing that I've been listening to guys. and I have been thinking, I think it's a me issue that I, building the trust, and also I'm nervous about having someone else's money. You don't trust the guy you just married? No, no, no, it's me. I mean, it's a me thing.

1:18:42It's a me thing. I've had trust issues in the past.

1:18:45Dave Ramsey:Trust with who? My father. No, I mean, why do you have a trust issue? Who's your trust issue with now on this subject? It's me, me being nervous about what? Do you have trouble trusting yourself? Yes. I'm decent with money the facts are that you're bringing in 20 at one thing and 22 at the other that's 42 and your husband makes how much he makes about 80 to 90 thousand dollars so the facts are that you have a hundred and twenty thousand dollar household income with a hundred thousand dollar inheritance to put down those are facts yes okay there's nothing there's no distrust in any of that. That's just a fact.

1:19:28Dave Ramsey:There's nothing to trust in. It's not an emotional thing at all. Right. Okay. Now, do you have the ability to shut both of those things down and go make$80 ,000 at a job? That is another thing. I started my own business because it was hard to get a new job. No, I'm asking, can you go get a job making$80 ,000 a year? Yes or no? probably not okay because i don't have what did you use to make what did you make at the job you lost uh 55 000 55 okay now you're making 42 i'm after paying all this uh um yeah the bills off for my for my work i mean for my business i'm bringing in business has to you have to operate on net profit on business not gross but yeah i mean is the 20 the gross revenue or the net profit Net.

1:20:21Okay. Sorry, so growth income, and then net profit would be$11 ,000.

1:20:27Dave Ramsey:Oh, you're not making anything. Oh. Yes. You need to go get a job. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because you can bring$55 ,000 or$60 ,000 into the household, and you're bringing$11 ,000 and then$22 ,000 at your part-time, so you're bringing in$33 ,000, and you have the ability to bring in$55 ,000. Right. And you've been working this business two years. Yes. Yeah, it's not growing fast. Okay, okay. It didn't grow fast enough to survive. If you want to keep it as a side hustle, you can. It's a fine side hustle, but it's not even a great side hustle if you're only making$1 ,000 a month. $1 ,000 a month. I mean, it's okay.

1:21:10It depends on how much time it takes you to make that$1 ,000.

1:21:12Dave Ramsey:What are you doing? What's the business? I'm a lighting planner. okay so you're just not getting many gigs a lot of time you're not getting many gigs it sounds like it's too much time for the amount of money that you earn on it that's why i said it might not even be a great side hustle because a side hustle you just want to get in and get out and get your get your money you know what i'm saying so yeah i think the key issue here if you're really talking about trying to buy a house if you're looking about looking at employment i agree with dave you need to go somewhere and get a job probably doing whatever skill you were doing when you were making$55 ,000.

1:21:46And when it comes to the house, you guys, you need to combine your money. If you're standing here and looking at me saying, Jade, I know I have trust issues, that means you've admitted it's an issue, which means you know you need to do the opposite of what the issue is. If you know you have a trust issue, that means at this point I need to do the opposite, which means I need to trust my husband and I need to try something different. Let me try combining my finances. It's the opposite of what I wanna do, but I know what I wanna do is an issue. You just said it. So let's do the opposite. Yeah.

1:22:16Dave Ramsey:Yeah. We combine our finances. Here's the thing. I think I hear when you got fired, it shook some of your confidence. Oh, yes. Oh, I was couched out. And us telling you to go back in, you're kind of like getting creeped out right now. And us telling you to go right back into the fire again. You're like, oh, God, don't do it. Oh, let me keep the$11 ,000 where I'm safe. And I want you to go be risky. Don't be safe. It's not that risky, by the way. You didn't die from it. They just fired you. And so. That feels terrible for a lot of people. Oh, it is. It's horrible. It's like grief. It's horrible.

1:22:50I've been fired.

1:22:51Dave Ramsey:I'm not making fun. But I mean, you kind of got to keep it in perspective, though. It's like, you know, so what? What's next? I mean, I've been fired. Can you imagine the guy that fired me? What do you think I'm doing now? I mean, that's pretty interesting. You know what? So it's, you just move on. You go to the next thing and go, okay, but what's good for our life? and our life is for me to get back out there in the game again. And that's great for our life. And then if you want to keep the wedding planner thing going as a side gig and try to grow it and someday maybe it gets so big it surpasses your full-time gig and you quit, that's fine.

1:23:24Dave Ramsey:But not for$11 ,000 after two years. No, definitely not. Good question. I appreciate your call. Thank you for joining us. Robert's in Toledo. Hey, Robert, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello. Thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's up? So I'm wondering, I'm 21, and I'm wondering about employment retirement account. I've been told that whether or not I choose like a Roth, which I think is like a post-tax contribution or a pre-tax contribution, it's all about personal preference. No, it's not. It's about math, and you should only do a Roth. Okay. Because the Roth grows tax-free, and when you've got a million dollars in that account someday because you called the show today, you're going to have a million dollars without taxes.

1:24:13Dave Ramsey:If you do it pre-tax and you've got a million dollars in there, you're going to have to pay taxes on the million dollars, which would be like$300 ,000. So this is not a matter of personal preference. One's dumb and one's smart. Okay. Do Roth. It's a$300 ,000 phone call you just made. because as young as you are, you should have at least a million dollars in your retirement when you get there. You might have three million, in which case this is a million dollar phone call. Yeah. If you have three million dollars in your traditional versus three million dollars in your Roth because you called this show today, I saved you a million dollars.

1:24:50And your heirs will thank you.

1:24:52Dave Ramsey:Yeah. America will thank you because you're a productive citizen. You're not on the dole looking for universal income. You're not trying to be a socialist because you are a capitalist and you went out there and produced something. You left the cave, killed something, and drug it home. Good for you. Way to go, Robert. Way to go. Yes, always do Roth. So the rule of thumb, folks, on your personal retirement accounts is take the match, even if it's traditional, first, up to the match, then do Roth, because 100 % rate of return is better than tax-free. That's right. It's free money. Okay? If you can do Roth and take a match, do Roth and take a match.

1:25:31Dave Ramsey:But if you can't, then do traditional up to the match and then go do your Roth, whether it's an individual Roth or otherwise. So it's match beats Roth beats traditional. That's the math. And it's not a matter of personal preference. Isn't that interesting? He talked to somebody in HR. It's just a matter of personal preference. Oh, that's too bad. Yeah, you have to be careful who you're taking your advice from. Yeah, who's giving you the math coaching here? Yeah, someone who doesn't know. The broke lady with$80 ,000 in debt and student loan debt in HR. It's a matter of personal preference. I can't tell you anything because I'm in HR and we're not allowed to have opinions here.

1:26:12Dave Ramsey:Corporate HR. You've got to help you people. No, Robert, we just saved you a million dollars. And you know what? We didn't charge you a dime. It's pretty cool. This is The Ramsey Show.

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1:27:59Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. In the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Cameron is in Athens, Georgia. Hi, Cameron. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on. Sure. What's up? Well, me and my girlfriend are looking to get married in the near future. Well, congratulations. Thank you. We're looking, excuse me, we are completely on board with combining finances like you recommend. But I was wondering, is it okay for each of us to also have our own small savings account. Not that either of us couldn't have access to the other, but in order to, let's say, if I want to buy her a nice piece of jewelry and I want to save up for that rather than it coming out of our joint savings account, would that be okay?

1:28:55Or if I want to save up for an expensive truck part

1:28:58Dave Ramsey:and don't want to take that out of our joint savings. Oh, now we get to it. You led with the jewelry, but you're going with the truck there. Right, right. This is a fun money. It's really a fun money. conversation, I think, because what you'd essentially be doing is saying, okay, like whatever my line item is for fun, I'm taking that and I'm kind of putting it aside and stacking it up until I get the thing that I really want to buy, right? How expensive is a truck part? I don't have enough. I don't know. Give me an example. You got something in your head that caused that to come up. Give me an example.

1:29:32Dave Ramsey:Is that a$2 ,000 item, a$20 ,000 item? $700. My current truck. How expensive is this jewelry we're going to surprise her with in our hypothetical discussion here? $1 ,000. Good. Okay. So at our house, what we would do is Dave has an account called Jim Gas Entertainment and Miscellaneous. Okay. And I'm generally walking around with more than that in my wallet. Okay. and so if i want to buy her a thousand dollar item as a surprise out of my miscellaneous money and it builds up sometimes because i don't use it it gets a little bigger and i stick a little of it in the gun safe you know and sometimes it gets a little smaller but it's just dave's money and it's just but it's laying around in cash honestly that's what in my case in my case and so but it's not it's not a twenty thousand dollar item it's i don't walk around with that in my pocket um but but i mean at any given moment i've usually got a thousand bucks in there and i have for years it's kind of a redneck emergency fund to have 10 100s in your pocket right and so um once we got up out of being uh you know once we've been working the system for several years cameron that's kind of where we got to is we have one little line item called i paid my gas out of that my entertainment my miscellaneous and i don't have much of any of that truthfully that we aren't doing together that's on some other line item so um you know the dave's personal entertainment is fairly low i'm fairly boring so um okay well you know you just build that it'll build it's like your little personal your little personal miscellaneous account and let that build up and cover those things in cash and again if it gets to be three thousand bucks and you don't want that in your pocket stick a little in an envelope and set in the gun safe okay that makes perfect sense.

1:31:21Yeah.

1:31:21Dave Ramsey:Good question. I appreciate it. Sometimes if you look at the amount folks on something like this, it frees you up from putting together some big system for something because it's like, you know, I need$23. Okay. Well then don't open an account. It's not that big. It's not that serious. Just keep it, just keep it where you can get your hands on it and that kind of stuff. So yeah, that's a good question. And here's the thing. Listen to what he's doing. We're going to get married soon. They haven't yet set a date. They're getting ready to, he's getting ready to set the date. He's getting ready to pop the question he's trying to figure out how to be a good husband yeah what a good guy what a good guy yeah i want to i want to be i want to be able to pay cash for my truck parts and not cause problems for the family oh and get her some jewelry too yeah duke is in knoxville what's up duke what's up how are y 'all better than we deserve how can we help um i just i had a quick question I have money sitting in my 401k that's more than baby step one, but I got a lot of that from school.

1:32:25You see where I'm going?

1:32:27Dave Ramsey:Yeah, how much is in the 401k? It's not much. I've only had this job for six months. How much is in the 401k? $2 ,800 maybe? $2 ,800? Yeah, it's not a lot. Okay, I got you. Okay, and how much is your debt? 64k roughly and that's student loans yeah and and what's your income sir it's uh there's a bonus it's not always the same okay roughly what are you making i mean give me an idea are you making 10 or 20 80 100 uh 60 a year okay all right good for you what do you do medical device sales good for you oh that's a good job you're gonna be doing great okay yeah i would just leave that whatever's in the 401k alone that 2800 is not gonna change your world today it's invested i'd leave it invested but i would just work the baby steps from baby step one on up with your income is it just you or is there anybody else wife or anything like that i don't have a wife i have a girlfriend um i believe it's it's getting pretty serious though here in the next couple months.

1:33:36Dave Ramsey:What we teach is to stop your investing. So no more 401k for right now. And instead, let's start. The first thing you do, squeeze out of your 60 grand. You don't go out to eat and you don't go to happy hour and you put a thousand dollars in a little, you can just put it in cash if you want to in your underwear drawer. I don't care. This month, you should be able to do that here in September. Do that in a month. Yeah. And just set that aside. And that's your baby step one. And then baby step two is we're going to start attacking these student loans, and that's going to take a hot minute. Yeah. Yeah.

1:34:08Dave Ramsey:And so if you go sell a bunch of devices and get above your 60, you may double your income if you have a great year in sales. That's the good thing. The 60 is your base, but it wouldn't surprise me you make 120 in that world, right? Yeah. I'm an associate, and so the commission is just if I do my job and to set rate. That next step of getting paid off of doing good work doesn't really come until I have my own territory. When is that? It is. They said 12 to 18 months. Perfect. Good, good. Well, put your nose down and get to work, man, and earn that other territory. Because this is a good field you're in.

1:34:46Dave Ramsey:We work with a lot of medical device people making a quarter million.

1:34:52Dave Ramsey:So that's where you could be headed, okay? That's why I was saying it's a good field. But what it amounts to is you're in the apprenticeship stage, and you're in there to support the other salesperson, he or she, and you get in there and you learn the business. You learn how to interact with the docs and the surgeons. You interact with the hospitals and learn how to do the skill that takes you to serious business. That field, I mean, I don't know which device you're selling, but medical device field is an excellent sales field. But it's all people skills and it's working with the docs and sometimes they're tough to work with.

1:35:24Dave Ramsey:And so, you know, and the nurses and whoever else is involved in deciding which company we're going to do the device with. But he has a major upside if he can keep working. But in the meantime, you could still pick up a side hustle. You could still pick up other things to do in the meantime. If it's just you, you don't have kids, you don't have a wife. I'd be working day and night. Yep, I would. I agree. And double your income that way. And while you're waiting on your ship to come in. But yeah, stop investing in retirement temporarily. That's what we teach while we get you out of debt. And here's the thing.

1:35:58Dave Ramsey:If two years from now you're debt-free and you're making$150 ,200, you're on your way to being a multimillionaire then, Duke. So that's where you're headed. You can't think short-term about this stuff. You have to think long-term. Is the price I'm paying now going to be worth it five years from now? And the answer is yes.

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1:37:32Dave Ramsey:Well, we wish we could get to every call on this show, but we can't. And so we took a bunch of years of answers on this show, all the stuff we've ever written in articles and books, and dumped it into a data set called AI. And we have a thing called Ask Ramsey that answers questions only from that data set. So you get no filth from Tic Tac. You only get Ramsey answers. So if you want to know what Ramsey thinks, you're going to get an answer just like on this show completely free. It's trained on proven Ramsey principles. And you have to train AI because it is artificial after all. Ask your question today at RamseySolutions.com.

1:38:11Dave Ramsey:It's free or click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast. A hundred and fifty thousand people a month are asking Ramsey for free. That's kind of wild, y 'all. And it's going up every month. It used to be like$10 ,000 a month, and it's blowing up. You guys are using it. So we're glad it's there to help you. Let people know that they can ask Ramsey. Sarah is in Philadelphia. Hi, Sarah. What's up? Yes. Hi, guys. Thank you so much for taking my call. Huge fan. Sure. How can we help? Yes. So I have two questions, so I'll be brave. My first one is me and my sister are super close.

1:38:52We decided to buy a house together about a year ago. We both had excellent credit, you know, good savings. The house is following my name because we didn't need her credit. We were going to buy another house with her credit. But at the moment, we're having issues. She has a boyfriend. They're engaged after a couple of months. I didn't agree with it, so now I'm the bad sister. And it's just like, where do we go from here?

1:39:16Dave Ramsey:You don't agree with the boyfriend what? They are engaged at the moment. You don't like him? after like, no, after three months, they got engaged. I have my reservations on him. She asked for my opinion. She don't like it. Your phone is awful. Can you speak more directly into your phone? It's all muffled. Yes. Can you hear me now? Yes. That's a little better. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Yes. She asked for my opinion on it and I gave my honest opinion. She don't like it, so now things are awkward at home. Okay. But, you know, now it's messing with the people at home and I'm just considering is the time, you know, she doesn't want to really talk about anything.

1:39:53Should I wait it out? Should I reconsider putting the house up for rent? I thought the house was in your name. It's in your name. She's the roommate, right? She's just renting a room in your house? Yes, but we both went half on the deposit for buying the house and the renovation for the house. How much? Correct. How much each? I would say each maybe like$30 ,000. $30 ,000 each. And what was you guys' agreement when she moves out? does she just get the 30 or does she think that she is entitled to any other bit of equity that didn't write anything down did you no it was verbal so the agreement was we would still you know pay half of the other portion of one moved out until we either sold the property or until one got a roommate so you can't afford the property you can't afford the mortgage if she moves out?

1:40:45I can. I just wouldn't want to because it will take up a chunk of money. That means you can't afford it. That would mean you can't afford it. Okay. Okay. Sell it. Okay. It was a bad plan.

1:40:57Dave Ramsey:It was a bad plan. Okay. Now, let me say this. I think the way you do this does matter. If you, she says, Hey, what do you think about Ken? And you say, I don't like your boyfriend Ken. and then you say, well, that's it. You're kicked out of the house, right? That doesn't go well. So I think that there's a way that you can not do this throwing a hissy fit, right? I mean, she can marry whoever she wants to marry. She's a grown woman. I mean, that's not the point. The point is, okay, look, we're not getting along, and so it's not good for us to own this house together anymore, so let's get it sold.

1:41:34Dave Ramsey:That's all you have to say. You don't have to talk about Ken. Okay. You don't think putting it up for rent would be a better option? No. Why is that? It's not a better option. You still own it with somebody that you don't like and is mad at you. Well, I own it by myself. She got on the deal. Right, but you can't afford it. I know, but you own it because you did a deal, a handshake deal that said you own it together and she gets her money back out. So you can't just put it up for rent and cut her out. Right. Yeah, you got to undo this deal because you guys aren't getting along because you shouldn't have been in this deal in the first place because you guys might not have been getting along.

1:42:13Dave Ramsey:Did Ken move into your house? I hope not. I hope not. No, he hasn't moved in, but he's certainly there a good amount of time. He's always there. Okay, I see what's going on here. Yeah. That's what I was afraid of. Yeah, it's time to get the house sold. Yeah, let's just talk about, okay, guys, it looks like you guys are moving on with your life. I'm going to move on with my life, and so real good time. Realtors coming over. we're going to put the house on the market. Sister, you're going to get half or whatever we get out of this at closing because you put in half of it and I'll be signing all the papers and you guys have a good life.

1:42:49Dave Ramsey:And love you. I think we put so much into remodeling it. Listen, what I would do is if you sell... Sarah, all that doesn't matter. You called us and said this situation sucks, so don't stay in it regardless of how you got here. And if you sell it and you make a profit, split the profit too. You guys split it down the middle. You split the rent, you split the down payment. If there's profit, split the profit. Yeah. That was your deal, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you did a dumb deal, and now you've got to undo the dumb deal. Buying a house with your sister when you are not aligned on how life works is a dumb idea.

1:43:27Dave Ramsey:And so you got yourself into a barrel of fishhooks here, and the best thing to do is dump the barrel out and get out of it as fast as you can. that's going to be the best thing for your money. It's going to be the best thing for your peace of mind. And it's actually going to be the best thing for your relationship with your sister. I agree. Yeah. Because now she feels like she's like the house is in your name and her boyfriend's over there all the time and there's all this tension in the air. But when the house is sold and you know, they got to go do their own apartment and you do your own situation and everybody will be okay.

1:43:58Dave Ramsey:And all of a sudden, 10 years later, you might like Ken, who knows? That's why I said don't do it with drama, because if you just look at it and say to her, it looks like you guys are getting ready to go into a new phase of life. I'm going to let you go. This is the perfect time. Let you go do that. Yeah, that way it doesn't mess with your relationship further. Instead of like, I got to sell the house because I hate your boyfriend. That's not the reason. Yeah, that's terrible. It's just a bad idea, and we did it. And it looks like you guys need to do your thing, and we're going to let you, and I'm going to go do mine, and everybody's cool.

1:44:26Dave Ramsey:It's all good. It's all good. It's all good. No problems. and you know that though you don't have to get into trying to fix her life which is where you got into trouble yeah as soon as you started telling her who she could date that was a problem for her i wonder why strange okay yeah i mean that's she doesn't like him that's fun uh matthew's in charlotte north carolina hey matthew what's up hey dave how's it going better than i deserve how can i help good deal so um well my question mostly is what to do with all this extra money that i've kind of came across so long story short my wife and i are in baby step four now recently and that happened by paying off student loans i finished off paying a car and another good news my wife actually just landed a great new job where she's getting like a 32 % increase on her pay.

1:45:23Wow. And also within the next couple of weeks, I'm getting a promotion to director. Excellent. Life is good on Matthew's planet. It is. Well, with some bad news, I feel like I'm a little bit behind in my retirement. So I'm 35 years old. I don't think you're behind.

1:45:43Dave Ramsey:I think you're okay. You're okay. So what will you be making in your new position? About 110. And what will she be making with her 32 % raise? She is going to be up to about 85. Okay. So we have a$200 ,000 household income, give or take. Okay. Yeah. I think we can prosper at 35 and retire a multimillionaire. I hope so. If you were to invest 15 % of that because you're debt-free except the house right now, is that what you told me? Yeah, correct. Okay, so that puts you at baby step four. If you're to invest 15 % of that, that'd be$30 ,000, about$2 ,500 a month going in. From age 35 to age 65 is going to be a bunch of money.

1:46:30Dave Ramsey:Jade's going to put it in the calculator for us. So you're just fine. So you want to do Roth 401k at your place and at her place first. Get the match if you can. And so match beats Roth beats traditional. and if you need some help, go on to a SmartVestor Pro at Ramsey. Jade put that in the calculator. That'll be$5.2 million if you never get a raise and you only invest 15 % from age 35 to age 65. I think you're going to be okay.

1:47:24Dave Ramsey:Dave Ramsey here. For more than 30 years, I've been talking to folks on the air, and I can tell you that most people are broke, not because they don't make enough money, but because they don't have a plan. You need to give every dollar you earn a job, because when you do that, something changes. You stop guessing. You stop worrying. You stop stressing. Our EveryDollar budgeting app will show you how to find extra cash, pay off debt, and finally start winning with money. But most people won't do it. They'll keep living paycheck to paycheck. Keep hoping things will change without making a change.

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1:48:28Dave Ramsey:Seth is in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Seth, how are you? What's up, Brad? How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? I was seeing how I can get out of this debt I got on one income. I'm married, so my wife can't work. She's pretty much basically disabled. So just trying to get some ideas on how to attack this and then also get to a good retirement. you know gotcha money yet so how much debt do you have seth i got a this is about 74 000. on what uh 23 000 student loans i got two car loans what do you owe on the cars break them down uh 18 000 on my truck and 15 on my wife's car and then 13 000 credit card gotcha so you're kind of normal.

1:49:36Dave Ramsey:Only normal sucks, right? Yeah, it does. Gotcha. And what's your income? What do you make?

1:49:47Dave Ramsey:About$65 ,000. $65 ,000? What do you do? I make, build helicopters. Cool. Good for you. Okay. Civilian side or are you in the military? We do both, actually. But you're a civilian. Yeah. Okay. And what's the nature of your wife's disability, sir? Well, the past eight years, we've been trying to figure out exactly what it is, but it's really hard for her to walk and stand, and her balance is really off. So we've got another plan is also to move probably in Arizona because they have better care over there for neurologists and a better opportunity for her to actually get help. What would your career be in Arizona?

1:50:42Dave Ramsey:Probably the same thing, aerospace. So you think you can land a job there before you all go? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've done a little dry run and just a couple people that wanted to hire me, but I'm just not down there. So once you get down here, I'm good to go. No, no, no, no, no, no. You need a job offer before you walk away from the current job that you have because you're the only thing feeding your family. Yeah, that is the plan that's going to happen. Come on down and then we'll hire you. You come on down and then they don't hire you. You're screwed. Aside from landing the job, what other things are you waiting on to make that move?

1:51:22Well, I need some money to get down there. because it's moving cost money.

1:51:31Dave Ramsey:Has she applied for and received permanent disability? Is she getting SSI? She applied. We're just waiting on the call back. No, well, we started it about a year ago because it started getting worse and worse. The last year and a half, it just got to where she can trips over anything. and when it's cold, especially, that's the other reason. But you've gotten a doctor's write-up to be able to send to the Social Security Department to be able to get her on SSI, and you've done that, right? Yes and no, because the neurologists here, they leave all the time. We get one, and she gets unemployment, and then all of a sudden, they're gone.

1:52:19They leave because, I don't know what's up with Oregon, but they just have issues keeping neurologists.

1:52:27Dave Ramsey:Okay, because that income, that SSI income, will probably be$3 ,000 or$4 ,000 a month, so it might be very helpful. Right. And so it's very important that you follow through and get that income coming in. If she's not able to work, that's a legitimate thing to get and get going. Regardless of your location, you need to push that on through. and so if you have to chase a neurologist around the state and tackle them then let's do that and get these letters and get these forms filled out and get this done it's very important is she able to drive yes she's able to drive she can't like you know lift anything just all you know her balance just goes right to nothing sure she's safe driving yeah i mean i'm just looking at these or does she does maybe she can but maybe she doesn't drive much because i'm just looking at these cars thinking, gosh, I wonder do you need both of them.

1:53:20Dave Ramsey:She's got a$15 ,000 car debt sitting in the driveway with this disability. She can drive, you know, not problems. Like we've got an x-ray on her, and they said that she has like right where the sciatic is and the L5. This is basically like a little, there's a muscle and nerve tear and also like this little disc degeneration. Yeah. I'm sorry. You guys have been through a lot, man. Yeah, you have. So, yes, what I would do, though, is I think you've kind of been sitting in the middle, in limbo. And so if I'm going to do anything, if I'm in your shoes, it's time to start taking some action. So I think it's time to move to Arizona.

1:54:08Dave Ramsey:Matter of fact, you're a year late. So you need to call up, go down there, interview, get a job, and get your friends to load you up and help you drive down there. so it doesn't cost you much out of pocket. And just get your stuff down there and get your new job started, and let's get her landed down there and get a neurologist there and get her disability signed up. Decide whether or not she really needs to keep a$15 ,000 car debt in the driveway or not. In this situation, I doubt she's out driving around much. It doesn't sound like. And then you begin to work, like Jade said, every extra job, every piece of overtime you can, and you work like a maniac.

1:54:46Dave Ramsey:You get her income coming in from disability. And between those two things added to your new job of$65 ,000 or more, maybe it's more in Arizona, then we start working these deaths off. But the problem is you've been kind of hovering around the edges of everything because of the pain she's been in and because that medical problem has just got you all paralyzed. got you on hold, you know, and so we have to get turned loose here. And you're just going to bust loose. So it sounds like you said the cold is a problem, the care is a problem in that area. And you've got a good lead there in Arizona. If I'm you, I'm going to wrap that up next couple weeks and be in Arizona in about like by the end of the month and have an apartment there, get this one sold, get out, call the landlord, get out of this lease, whatever it is.

1:55:40Dave Ramsey:Let's get moving and get this done. If I'm you, that's what I'm doing. Monica's in Atlanta. Hey, Monica, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Good. I'll give you a little story here. I'm married. I'm 50. My husband's 54 years old. We have four kids. Two are in college and set to live good financial lives. Good. My question comes into play that we have a fourth child who is nine years old that we adopted with special needs who will not be able to provide for himself in the future. He will live on SSI and Medicaid. We did set up a third-party trust and special needs trust for him just within the last month.

1:56:21That lawyer advised us to look into whole life insurance because her thought process is that when we leave, our son will need a large lump sum of money to live off of. Yeah, that lawyer's an idiot. My older son will most likely take care of him.

1:56:37Dave Ramsey:That lawyer should stick to practicing law. That's horrible advice. I know. It's horrible advice. So I'm trying to look into... Horrible. Well... Do you want to know what the real answer is? That's what I'm calling you for the real answer. Because this is horrible advice. And don't take any more financial advice from this lawyer. They're moronic on financial things. Or their brother-in-law sells whole life, one of the two. Now, buy term life and name the trust as a secondary beneficiary. You're the beneficiary. If he dies, he's the beneficiary. If you die, and the secondary beneficiary, if both of you die, which is all we're concerned about, is the trust.

1:57:17Dave Ramsey:And it goes in the trust, and then you name that the trust goes into good mutual funds. What's the child need to survive a month income-wise? Right now, he's nine. No, I mean into his adulthood when you're not here anymore. Into his adulthood? Well, he'll need a caregiver. He'll need... $5 ,000,$8 ,000 a month? Sure. Okay,$8 ,000 a month is$72 ,000 a year. That means there'd need to be a million dollars in there. $700 to a million dollars in there. So go buy a million-dollar term life policy until you can put a million dollars worth of mutual funds in there at your death. But don't buy whole life for anything ever.

1:57:54Dave Ramsey:It's a horrible product. Way too expensive and does not accomplish your goals. Thank you.

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1:59:04Dave Ramsey:Our scripture of the day, Psalm 77, 14. You are the God who performs miracles. You display your power among the peoples. Peter Marshall said, When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds, and diamonds are made under pressure. Lynn is in Dallas. Hi, Lynn. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you so much. Sure. What's up? Well, I have a question about a consolidation loan for debt. But I am really kind of embarrassed to even talk about this because I know that I was stupid in doing it. I did it out of fear. And, you know, I've been here before, and I know the Lord takes care of things.

1:59:53But, I mean, it just overcame me because of a lot of trauma in the last four years. And anyway, I retired medical in October of last year. I was working out of pathology, and I retired because the job had gotten so much that I couldn't handle it. I'm 77, and I just had never believed in retiring. I've always done something, had side hustles going. But I got frauded four years ago, and it took me a while to recover from that. It was about$25 ,000. company representing themselves as Amazon and over$5 million worth of ID insurance. They ruled it as fraud and not ID theft. And so none of it was covered.

2:00:47And when I muddled through all of that and got over it, I had no credit card debt. Everything was cool. And I ended up this year not having a lot, and I was living off of the income from the medical, which was last year on my taxes. I made$45 ,000. When I retired in October, I was dealing with some medical things that they couldn't put a finger on, but I was healthy on. My blood panels were good. In February, I was taken to the hospital by ambulance, and they thought that I was having a stroke, and I was gone. I mean, in my mind, I couldn't think. I didn't know where I was, and they found out it was a UTI.

2:01:43It has taken me quite a while to get over this, and it was brain fog. And they said this was normal, and I've been doing everything. All of my numbers came back, and everything's good, but I've been a little fuzzy. and I have I've phoned professionally for years on the side I do high end wedding dresses and men's suits and all kinds of things like that stuff that most alteration specialists don't even touch and so my business here has been growing

2:02:13Dave Ramsey:Your alteration business has been growing? Yes So how much are you making at the alteration business? Right now because of the business I lost Last year, with the alterations and another side hustle I had, that alone was$12 ,000. And, of course, I've had Social Security for a long time, and I have another little thing coming in. So what's the debt consolidation loan for? Okay. Just recently, I put$5 ,000 on a credit card to finish a website that I am doing for holistic products, organic, holistic, supplemental type things. And it just went live the last couple of days, but it's taken much longer to get through the setup of that business.

2:03:11Dave Ramsey:So you've opened another business? You have an alterations business, and now you have an alternative medicine business. Yes. How much did you spend to do that? $5 ,000, she said. Okay. $5 ,000. No more than that. And you want to get a debt consolidation loan for$5 ,000? No. Oh, no. I have the other, I have a total of just under$20 ,000 in debt. That's all the debt I have. And you have no money. Yes, that's true. I bring in about$2 ,500 a month. That's over the last three months because I had, after the hospital trip in February, it slowed me down. I didn't lose the business, but I could not do it.

2:04:08I didn't lose clients over it. And all of that has come back up.

2:04:13Dave Ramsey:I want you to work on one business, not four. You're 77. You've had all kinds of medical issues. The last thing you need is trying to run four directions at one time. And the second thing is never again for the rest of your life be so urgent to do something in business that you force yourself to borrow money. Slow down. And let God provide you the money to build the website for a business that you might not have even should have been in. You might have should have been just working on the alteration side. But I don't want you to open anything else. You've got too much going on now to do it all well.

2:04:54Dave Ramsey:And no, debt consolidation is not your issue. Income is your issue. And so anything we can do with either one of these businesses to get them moving without borrowing money, like working like as much as you possibly have the energy to do on one or the other or both to create income and then just really dialing down your budget and just begin to pay these cards off. And, Lynn, please don't ever pick up one of them again. Just see my face in your mind saying, I don't want my friend Lynn in debt anymore. It's not good for you. It's making these medical problems worse, the stress that goes with it you don't need with everything else that's going on.

2:05:37Dave Ramsey:You need to clear this, and a debt consolidation loan doesn't get you out of it. It just moves it around, and the P is still under one of the shells. So cut the cards up, list them smallest to largest, call each of the card companies and ask for a reduction in interest rates, and then begin to work them off smallest to largest, living on nothing and doing anything you can with either one of these businesses to get your income up to attack this with. And that becomes your new focus and leaning into that. And it sounds like you've been thrown off a lot. So I sure hope that you can turn that around.

2:06:12Dave Ramsey:But borrowing your way out of debt does not work. So no, debt consolidation, it's mythology. It makes you feel like you did something and you didn't. Yeah. I also find that when you have individual debts psychologically, I mean, it's like we teach. It's nice to have them list them smallest to largest. You can see them go away. You can see them go away. You check off the boxes one at a time versus one giant debt that you have to kind of tear into. And, you know, if you have, if anytime you do something, regardless of if you're 17 or 77 and it causes you to feel shame, that's an indicator to never do that again.

2:06:52Dave Ramsey:That's good. And so I've done stuff that I look back and I go, golly, how dumb is Dave? You know, and I feel shame. I feel convicted. I feel condemned by the action. Well, why would I? Then I'm never going to repeat that action. And in this case, it's credit card debt. And so, you know, if you're going to grow your business, grow it more slowly and with cash. You have enough to eat and you have enough to pay your lights. And this is what matters. Past that, we're just trying to build a nest egg and trying to get things going. And so let's keep things in order here. Good question. I'm sorry you're going through that.

2:07:31Dave Ramsey:It sounds like it's a lot. Sounds like it's a lot. So I couldn't tell in her situation without, and a donut, we didn't have time to get into it. It sounded like she lost$5 million. $25 ,000, I thought is what she said, to a company pretending to be Amazon. Yeah, or something. Maybe that's all it was. Okay, thank God. 25 ,000. She had identity theft and fraud and everything else involved, some kind of a con. And so you've got to be very, very careful there. But the thing is just move slowly with these kinds of things and double and triple check them, folks. And it keeps you from getting bit by one of these fraudsters that are out there.

2:08:13There's a lot out there now.

2:08:14Dave Ramsey:Good time to check out Xander's ID theft insurance, too, and make sure you have that in place in case there's some kind of an identity issue going on. Didn't sound like that was hers, though. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

2:08:47You