Don’t Let Your Emotions Drive Your Financial Choices

23:12She did know. Okay. Then pay it off. Stop the conversation and pay it off today. Okay. Like you're, it's costing you all mental calories. It's going to cost you a relationship. And like, I can sit here all day and pontificate, Like, man, that was not cool to get a bill from your—but that was the handshake agreement they made with their daughter.

23:34Dave Ramsey:How much is it? Yeah. How much did she—how much did your wife go over budget on your wedding? A little over$4 ,000. Okay, and you've paid how much so far? A few hundred, maybe$500. And what's your household income? $140 ,000. Okay, so write them a check. Today. Cool. Your wife made her parents a promise. And lesson learned, we don't do any deals that we don't both know about. Yeah. Ever. Particularly with your freaking parents who are Pharisees. Got it? No more money deals with your parents, honey. Ever. Word. Yeah, because this is awkward, strange, weird, but she did the deal. Write the check.

24:32And it may be her parents are struggling, and they stretched and did whatever. Nah, they're just weird.

24:39Dave Ramsey:It's four grand. Who sends a bill their kid for four grand? I mean. I know. I'm trying to be generous. I'm not. I've done we've had three of them get married and the budgets were horrendous and they stuck to their budgets and we laid out the budget ahead of time we agreed to fund it and if it went over that they came out of their pocket with it we didn't come out of our pocket they didn't go over they stuck to the budget it was generous they had a great wedding we had big parties we love doing it I love big parties I love weddings and babies and grandkids and all the things that happen when you have weddings it's all awesome go do all of it but parents seriously.

25:20Dave Ramsey:And kids, don't make a deal like this and not tell your spouse, your fiance, oh, I promised my dad$40 ,000 back. Oops, I forgot to tell you. Thank God it's only four. Right. Shoot. And you make$140 ,000. Write the check today. Yeah. Say sorry it took so long. Not worth it. It'll never happen again. And I promise you'll never happen again because we will do no more money deals with you people ever. Yes. Because you didn't bother to include me and you should have in that discussion. That's the parent. That's on the parents. You think so? I think it's on the wife. Oh, absolutely. They should have included her.

25:50Dave Ramsey:I promise you, if I'm looking at Rachel Cruz going, if you go over this, you got to pay, I'm going to look at Winston and say, and oh, by the way, she's going to be your problem. That's fair. It's going to be y 'all's problem. I'm going to man up, right? I did tell him that, but it wasn't about money. Yeah. Winston, she's going to be your problem now.

26:10He reminds me of that occasionally. Yeah, sometimes Winston's sitting on my front porch and he's like, man, it's my problem. I'm going to see Dr.

26:18Dave Ramsey:Deloney. Randy's in Shreveport. What's up, Randy? Doing good, doing good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so to give you kind of a backdrop, so I retired last year in March at the age of 63, and my mother passed away in May of that same year. Oh, man. And she willed her farm to me and my sister. There are no other names within that will other than my sisters and mine. So now I'm just beginning to get on Social Security. She's been on Social Security for a long time. And with the earnings cap and Irma and everything else, Can we secure the farm in a trust so that we don't get hit with capital gain tax?

27:14Dave Ramsey:Are you going to sell it? More than likely, yes. Okay. Well, your basis in the property is its market value at the time your mother passed away, one year ago. Okay? Okay. So what was the farm worth a year ago? Okay, so Mr. Clark was recently reappraised by the county. No, the county doesn't count. What do you think the farm's really worth? The county's a tax assessment. That's not an actual value. That's just assessment for taxes. It's not an appraisal. What do you think, if you were going to put it on the market, what would you put it on the market for? Probably around$1 million. Okay. Was it worth more than$1 million last year when she passed?

27:59Dave Ramsey:Probably not. probably not yeah probably wasn't it wasn't worth 700 ,000 went up 300 in one year right yeah actually the appraisal went from 300 ,000 to 700 ,000 in one year that's the tax assessment it's not the real estate market that is not a real appraisal hear me okay your tax assessor does not give you accurate values zillow does not give you accurate values you have to get an actual appraisal on the property. And you could do that based on a year ago. So here's the thing. Let's pretend for a second that the farm a year ago was worth a million dollars and the farm today is worth a million dollars and you sell it for a million dollars.

28:44Dave Ramsey:You have zero taxes.

28:49Dave Ramsey:You've had no gain because your basis in the property for purposes of calculating capital gains and the gain is over the amount over the basis. Your basis is the value, the market value, not the tax assessor, not Zillow, the real appraisal at the time of death. And it's only been one year. And it's a farm in Louisiana. It's probably not gone up in value hardly at all in one year, maybe a little bit, but not much. And if it did, it's probably going to get eaten up with selling cost anyway. way. So you need to see your tax professional. And if you don't have one, just go to Ramsey solutions.com.

29:28And, uh, and what I would do is sell it.

29:32Dave Ramsey:And I would claim that it was sold for market value and there was zero game. If you're ever audited, you'd have to go back and have an appraisal done at the time of death and compare that to the actual sale price to prove that there was no actual gain. But I don't think you're having any gain. If you had a hundred thousand dollars gain it's only fifteen thousand dollars worth of taxes it's not that big a deal and i this is news to me i'm glad you're you're teaching me this so if she had sold that farm right before she passed she would have had to pay taxes capital gains on all the growth from when she got it exactly but if she held on to it and passed it it's step it's called a stepped up basis okay so you you when you inherit a capital asset stock property anything else the the basis goes from mom's old basis to zero, which was all the way up to market value basis.

30:22Dave Ramsey:And if so, if you sell a stock, you know, grandpa left me a million dollars in Exxon stock and he had only$20 ,000 in it. You pay zero tax if you sell it within a few months of grandpa's death. Wow.

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32:30Dave Ramsey:Jane is in North Carolina. Hi, Jane. How are you?

32:36Dave Ramsey:Well, let's try again. Hey, Jane, how are you? I'm doing good. Hi. Good. What's up? What's up? Hey, so my question today is, how do you decide when it's worth spending money to improve your quality of life versus staying in a situation that helps you reach your financial goals faster? So my boyfriend and I are credit card debt free. Been working on that for a while, and now we're trying to save for our future. And we currently live at his mother's beach house. Originally, we were supposed to stay there for free while we paid off debt and saved. but his father passed away and we started paying the mortgage instead.

33:16The payment's pretty reasonable. We could probably pay about the same to rent elsewhere, but the problem is it's a revolving door. It's constant. Family is coming down to visit. It does not feel like home, and I'm over it. So to move out to a rental, we have to spend thousands on deposits, moving costs, which feels like setting our goals back. But so financially, it's smarter to stay. But emotionally, I want out.

33:45Dave Ramsey:You sound like someone that's married, but you're not. Yeah. Yeah. And we're talking marriage. It's really tough. We've been in a very like paying off debt mindset. We don't need to be doing anything. We aren't married. Yeah. Like this is a weird thing. you've locked yourself in a cage, but the lock is on the inside. Yeah. Like, we don't need to be paying off debt. You need to be paying off your debt. He needs to be paying off his debt. And you don't need to be putting up with his family and his drama. You get what I'm saying? We aren't married. You have a roommate. Yeah. No, you do. And his family comes to visit all the time.

34:34Dave Ramsey:Legally and morally, you have a roommate. yeah but okay and i i agree and you know we're we're moving towards marriage it's just it's hard to it's hard to even comprehend a wedding or like a ring or anything when we've been like you know we just paid off thirty thousand dollars in debt and we have our one thousand dollars saved which just we don't you don't understand honey you're not married you don't have anything Here's the other side of this. You have a, you're paying off debt with your roommate. You are so vulnerable and so unaware of how vulnerable you are in this situation. That's it. He just pulls up stakes and leaves.

35:16Dave Ramsey:You know what you are? Screwed. Yeah. Or if he says, this is my family's house, I'm never going to leave. I don't care how you feel. Hit the door, babe. Yeah, get out. And you're screwed. You've been paying off his credit card debt, calling it we. There ain't no we. You've been paying down his family's beach house mortgage. Yeah. You have nothing. So he, so, okay, and this is the way we set it up. So he pays for all of our living expenses, including the mortgage and all of that, and I pay the debt. His debt. His debt. You're paying your roommate's debt while he pays his mother's mortgage. You are so exposed right now.

35:54That's what I'm trying to say. Okay. And you're very in a very compromised position.

35:58Dave Ramsey:And you really think I've lost my mind when you have. what do you recommend that i do i recommend y 'all quit acting like a wee unless you get married this weekend i'm dead serious you are so vulnerable honey you're scaring me to death for you if you were my niece i'd come get you out of that house and tell you to put bozo on the street till he puts a ring on it you are so vulnerable you think about how much money of his debt have you paid off um well i'd say we were about like 50 50 we had about 30 000 um like 15 of you know rough numbers 15 of that being mine 15 of that being his okay he puts you on the street you know what you get nothing honey zero yeah zero you catching this is this is vulnerable and listen dave and i would not have jobs if everyone's magical plans always worked out yeah you know what i mean and so i i don't want to wish y 'all ill i hope it all works out i hope he marries you this weekend that'd be awesome but i only have a job because it never works out like that or that's not true it it sometimes does but it often doesn't well yeah all the times that it doesn't is why we get to do what we do which is sad for us yeah and people that we love like you we were scared for you and so um yeah so what you all need to do is you need to have different housing arrangements and you need to separate everything in your lives until you're married because you're completely vulnerable.

37:36So you think I should move out? Yes. Here's why. You started this call by saying, I can't do this anymore. Yeah. And guess what? He didn't call. You did. Yeah. Yeah. Like you calling and telling two guys who care about you, hey, I'm not okay, and the man who says, I want to spend my life with you, we'll just do it later, doesn't have that same care for you, that's a flag for me. That's a big red flag for me. Yeah.

38:04Dave Ramsey:And, you know, so even if you're going to shack up, folks, keep everything separate. Don't sign leases together. Don't buy cars together. Don't pay each other's bills. I mean, just decide who's going to buy the mustard. That's it. You know, okay, the lunch meets mine, the mustard jurors. We'll share that. Okay. But I mean, but everything, you know, do not get on these deals together because the number of times someone has called in here and said, oh, well, you know, I can't find my old boyfriend that I used to live with after I bought him a car and I'm on the note and I'm the notes in my name and the cars in my name, but I can't find him or the car.

38:40Or I paid off all of his debt and then he left me. How do I get that money back?

38:45Dave Ramsey:I got pregnant and he didn't like that. So he left me with a kid. Oh, that one we get all the time. Right. Yeah. You are so vulnerable. Yeah. Y 'all are just acting like you're married. You're not married. And so legally and relationally, you're not prepared to be married, but you're paying his debt. I mean, when you just say this out loud, it sounds cray cray. Right. And to answer your bigger question, multiple times and me and my wife working to get out of debt, we took steps backwards for not debt wise, but we did say, hey, we need to move to this place. And here's what that cost is going to be.

39:26And here's what the ROI on that move is going to be. We did actually do that twice. And so I didn't see that as a step back. I took that. I saw that as a necessary move to get us where we wanted to go. Right. So sometimes that's part of it.

39:38Dave Ramsey:So this Beach House, if you were married and you called with the exact same call, this Beach House didn't turn out like as promised. Yeah. Because sadly, he lost his dad. Yeah. And so now your mom, your mother-in-law, your future mother-in-law, maybe, is in trouble and probably needs to sell the Beach House. Right. Because you guys aren't going to pay the payment anymore. Right. And so she's going to have to. And then all the other people who are coming and visiting all the time are going to have to and all that stuff. But the deal changed, and so the deal changed. The deal changed. Yeah. So I had a roommate in college named Jeff.

40:12Dave Ramsey:We're friends to this day. I talked to him last weekend. I never paid any of his debt. No. And I like Jeff. Yeah. He's a good guy. I mean, I'm still, like 40 years later, we still talk. I like Jeff. But I never paid any of his debt. Correct. This is the rule. Don't pay Jeff's debt. That's the rule. on your uh 40th anniversary of total money makeovers gonna be a new chapter called don't pay jeff's debt that's it that's good what we're gonna call it and poor jeff's gonna get thrown under the bus but i'll call him i'll call him and tell him to watch for the bus it's coming yeah so uh bus tracks i i had friends and roommates in college that helped me out when i was in a hard spot who might cover the rent for a few months who might be like dude i'll don't pay me back for dinner tonight that's called being a friend but we never got into hey dude i'm gonna buy you a car and i'll just put my name on the note but you drive it just pay me back later and you pay the rent and i'll pay for your car yeah yeah we don't have those discussions with your roommate because you're vulnerable that's why but when you're married the law says everything is combined.

41:20Dave Ramsey:And morally, legally, spiritually, everything's combined. It's ours. We, we, we, we, we, we. But when you're not married, there's no we, we. That's not happening. You're not French. It's not we. We, we. It's not French. Okay. You're not married. So you guys are getting yourselves in so much trouble, all of you out here doing this. And I know I'm pissing all of you off because you always write all these hate mail to me. Don't tell me I need to be married. Well, then don't listen to the show because I'm going to tell you to be married because it's the best way you end up with a strong net worth and a high quality of life.

41:56Dave Ramsey:You live longer. Your life is better. Kids have a better outcomes. Everybody involved wins.

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43:37Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Karen is with us in Orlando. Hi, Karen. How are you? Hey, I'm great. Thank you for taking my call. I'm just going to dive right in. My mom has been in skilled nursing, and she's going to need to go into a nursing home, and she doesn't have any assets other than a fully paid for home. I'm working with an attorney for Medicaid eligibility, and in Florida, certain types of property are not counted towards Medicaid eligibility, including her home. and attorneys have some really unique creative options to protect that asset.

44:15My mom has asked me not to let the system take her money and I should do what is best for myself, husband, and little boys. And at the same time, she doesn't have an opinion on what avenue to do for her assets. I would love to hear your perspective on if I should sell her home to pay for her care or do what she asks, which is Medicaid, and I use the asset to do what is best for my family. And then if the latter, I'm not really sure what would be best from a Ramsey perspective.

44:44Dave Ramsey:Well, you need to understand that Medicaid is welfare. Yes. It is nursing home, in this case, provided by the welfare system for people that are poor. Mm-hmm. And if you go visit a Medicaid-provided nursing home and you go visit a different nursing home that you might buy with cash, you will see a different experience. Just like if you go visit subsidized housing and welfare or you go visit a private residence, you will experience something different. Okay. Right? I understand. This is the DMV of nursing homes. And so if you can't do anything but be on the street and it's the only way she can get care because she's poor, that's fine.

45:29Dave Ramsey:But if it was my mom, I would use her house money to take care of her at a higher quality of care. Okay. Even if it goes against what she's told me to do. Well, she's under the illusion that the system is taking her money. It's not. If you go to a restaurant and you buy a meal and you give them money, the system didn't take your money. If you go to a nursing home and you give them money to take care of you, the system didn't take your money. You bought a service. the system. And she's also under the illusion that her quality of care at Medicaid is the same level as it is in private care, and it's just not.

46:10Dave Ramsey:It's the difference in welfare or not. And so if you go visit these nursing homes, I think you'll come to the same conclusion. Okay. Okay, I got it. How much is the house worth? The house is worth about, after realtor and closing fees, she'll net about$250 ,000. Okay. That's not going to go a long way. How's her health? Well, she's 75, so she's in average health or challenges in mobility, so she'd probably outlive that. Is this all she has? Yeah, this is all she has. Yeah. So, you know, the average nursing home stay once someone goes into full care is two and a half years. That's the average, which means that some go longer and some go less, obviously.

47:00Dave Ramsey:Right. And so a lot of people are there six months and they're gone. But but it's also in that case, their last stop and their health was already on the decline more than hers. That brings the average down. You follow me? So, you know, you probably have a three - or a four-year exposure, something like that. And so that means you've got a maximum of a$70 ,000 spend per year. I understand. Yeah, so go shopping and look at this. The good news is you're in Florida, and there is a wide array of options. Yeah, it's almost overwhelming. Is she in need of full-time live-in care? Yes. Where she is at right now, she needs two people to assist with even transferring from a bed to a wheelchair or from a wheelchair to the toilet.

47:58Yeah. Yeah.

48:00Dave Ramsey:So it's interesting that somehow, and this is just something for you to consider philosophically, and you can mix this in the bucket with my answer. but somehow in your mom's mind and in a lot of people's mind in America that the nursing home, when I go into a nursing home, they steal my money. Like it's the system took my money was the phrase your mom used. Don't let the system take it all. Okay. As if nursing home care would just appear at the end of a rainbow somehow magically without paying for it, you know? And so it's like any other service. If you want your car to be worked on, you pay the mechanic.

48:43Dave Ramsey:If you want someone to provide care in your home or clean your home for you, your maid service, you pay them. And no one looks at those people and says, the system took my money. But if you own a nursing home, you're evil and you're taking old people's money.

49:02Dave, this is just a loanee. I have a nagging fear in my spirit. I'm hearing more of these calls where there is this reckoning happening. I'm 71. I'm 72. I'm 81. And I'm staring down the barrel of 10 years, 20 years to go, and I got nowhere to live. Or in this case, I've got family members who they don't want me to move into their back bedroom, but there's no other option. It's either that or a... Or that we use up$250 ,000 for a repair, which we're going to do. But it's a, I just thought this thing would happen, and it's not. Well, it's, you know, yeah.

49:50Dave Ramsey:If you got a million dollars in a mutual fund, all of a sudden the problem goes away. In other words, is what you're saying. Because you've been investing in your 401k for the last 25 years. For this exact moment. Yeah. Just so that you can retire and not have to have your daughter have this heart-wrenching decision. Okay, am I going to burn through the 250 and she's still alive? That's what's running through her mind right now. Absolutely. And so, you know, if I do 70 a year, I got three and a half years. Yeah. And then we got to look at what we're going to do. Now you may have to go to Medicaid.

50:18Yep.

50:18Dave Ramsey:Because you're broke. But that's what I would do. And so, yeah, you're right. If you're 22 and you're listening to this call, this is why you get out of debt and invest money so that you've got options in these situations. We've gone so far. I never even thought about it that much because in our world, it's almost like assumed that at some point you're going to spend some time in a nursing home. You kind of think about that. And I never thought about it one way or the other, you know, but now that I'm getting old, it's starting to come to me. You know, I'm 65. So what do I do? And so Sharon and I, we just figured it out.

51:00Dave Ramsey:We don't have to go. Just hire them and bring them to your house? Well, I got a pile of money. Yeah. So I'm just going to hire like a medical butler. Just live with me. Move in the spare bedroom. I got a spare bedroom. I already got one of those beds that leans up, you know. So that's just for the snoring. But the, you know, I mean, so all I got to do is have a really like a 24-hour schedule. and have a nurse. And so if Sharon's out of it, I'm just going to put somebody in the house and take care of her and I'll be there too. But I don't have to care for her by myself and lift her when I'm not able or vice versa, you know, that kind of stuff.

51:33Dave Ramsey:I don't have to deal with all that. I'll just hire somebody. Just put a butler in there. We'll just turn the place into Downton Abbey, you know, and ring a little bell. You know what I mean? Why not? It's cheap. It's actually going to, I've actually run the budget out. I think it's cheaper than a nursing home. Yeah. And I can buy medical equipment too. You can buy it. It's for sale. I mean, what do I need? Just put me one of those little drip things in there. I can put it in there. You know? You can just sell it after you pass. We're just going to turn the Ramsey house into a little nursing home.

52:01Dave Ramsey:Sell it on Facebook Marketplace. Yeah. Why not?

52:08Why not?

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53:40Dave Ramsey:Our question of the day is sponsored by Y-Refi. If missed private student loan payments are keeping you from making progress toward your goals, Y-Refi may be able to help you explore refinancing with a low fixed rate and a payment you can manage. Visit YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Carissa in Washington. Carissa writes, my husband and I have been married for 10 years. I earn$90 ,000 a year and he makes about$50 ,000 a year. We have joint bank accounts and we owe less than 220 grand on our mortgage.

54:18I want to put our extra money into a savings account to prepare for a future family, but he spends thousands of dollars each month on fast food. He has a binge eating disorder and ADHD. If we can't agree on a food budget and he's unable to make changes regarding how much he spends on eating out, is this justification for splitting up our bank accounts? I love him dearly, but fear that contributing my paycheck towards his eating out every meal enables him to make poor choices and takes away from planning for our future.

54:50I guess, Dave, where I would start with this is the word she writes, he is unable to make changes. That's where I would pause. And I would say he's unable or unwilling to go get the help he needs to make the changes. and that to me is the big red flag um but yeah if you have somebody in your family who's who is for any number of reasons is out of control putting your family at risk or harm yes you have to protect yourself you have to protect your family but that's because that's not because

55:25Dave Ramsey:we're going to separate the accounts so i don't so i can act like this doesn't happen no no it's separating the accounts because i'm getting ready to divorce you yeah or i've got to protect myself and protect each other. By the way, if he truly has disorders and emotional or psychological dysregulation and he, quote unquote, you say can't control himself but is unwilling to go do the work he needs to do, he's going to start racking up debt. You taking the money away is not just going to stop this problem. There'll be other ways he's going to go get it unless he goes and gets the help that he needs.

56:05That's the real question here.

56:08Dave Ramsey:So separating your accounts to not deal with your husband's problems is not a plan. Or to try to get him to do something different. Yeah. No. Instead, deal with the problems. Right. I'm going to force you to deal with these problems. It's a condition of us staying together. Right. You can't continue to do cocaine and be my husband. Yeah. In this case, I'm not going to watch my husband. I can't sit here and watch you die. Yeah. And so I love you enough to say, let's go invest in the help you need. But yeah, you've got to keep yourself safe and you got to help him have an opportunity to make choices.

56:41Dave Ramsey:Okay. I got to be honest and you can call me out on this for my lack of compassion. Okay. Correct. But I do believe that there are binge eating disorders. Yep. I'm positive that that occurs. This is the first time I've ever heard of a binge eating fast food disorder. Yeah. I'm calling BS. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm calling old boy wants to go by and get him some Chick-fil-A every freaking day, every morning and every afternoon and on the way home and a big slurp or whatever he's getting. And he just refuses to stop doing whatever the flip he wants to do. And she's calling it a disorder. That's my name.

57:17Maybe. You know, binge eating disorder is very, very real.

57:19Dave Ramsey:100%. Oh, completely real. Binge eating fast food disorder. That's a nuance I've not run into. Yeah. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. She may have just said this is where he spends thousands of dollars. Thousands? Yeah, that's a lot of money. That's a lot of Chick-fil-A. Yeah, it's a lot, a lot, a lot of fast food. It's a lot of Jesus chicken. Yeah. I can't get it. I mean, it's expensive, but I can't. And Carissa, I'm talking about a big, man. If you're talking about thousands, plural, of dollars on cheap, inexpensive, processed food, I would sit down and want to know. I'd want to detail accounting of the money.

57:56because this makes me wonder if there's other stuff going on. Something else is happening. Is there other things going on? Is he have other struggles? Is he struggling with other addictions that you don't know about? That's a ton of money, a lot of money.

58:08Dave Ramsey:Yeah, I mean, yeah, I come out there. I mean, I don't go to fast food, but I come out. I do go to Chick-fil-A. But, I mean, you come out there going, wow, that's a lot. And I went to the new one over here. What's the burger place? In-N-Out. In-N-Out, yeah. They just moved their headquarters across the road from us over here. And so they've got one of their stops over here. So we went over and got one of those because they're like famous for all you California people are freaking out. It's so good. It is good. But I can't imagine spending thousands. Yeah, it's a lot. Thousands with an S. Yeah. Yeah, that's, you must be as big as a house.

58:45Dave Ramsey:Stop. Why? Well, how could you eat that much and not get that big? Well, that's what she's saying. Okay. All right. I don't know. Okay. This is, I'm, like I told you, I don't know anything about this. It just feels weird. All right. So either, either way. Yes. But either you're overstating this disorder and it's just immaturity and an old boy doing whatever he wants to do and it's bowing up or he's actually got all of these disorder things going on. And, and that's very possible. We're not saying that's not happening. It's just, I never run into this one. But either way, you've got to deal with him, and the way to deal with him is to help him and not to segregate the money off and hope that's going to fix it.

59:31Dave Ramsey:Correct. Because if you push somebody that's in your home and in your life over to the side, they're going to deteriorate. And they're already struggling with— They're not going to get better. No, yeah, yeah. Because if they could get better, they would have already gotten better by themselves. That's why I say he's got to go get the help he needs. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. All right. Buck is in Nashville. Hi, Buck. How are you? Hey, Dave. I am 22 years old. You just on the last call, you said if you're 22, listen up. So I just wanted to say that. But I am in the I'm in the military. I'm deploying.

1:00:07And my wife has decided she'd like to go to grad school in Europe. And I think it's a great idea.

1:00:15Dave Ramsey:And I just want to get your ideas on the best way for us to pay for it. You're deploying to Europe, I take it. No, she's not going with me. I'm deploying to not Europe. Recently, Buck, I decided that I want to get a thousand acre hunting ranch for me and my friends and my family. The only problem is I don't have that much money. Okay. I think I do have that much. I do have enough money. I just want to see the best way to. where to pull the money from. Okay. How much will grad school in Europe cost? It's$30 ,000. Okay. And what is she studying? It'll be diplomacy from a very high caliber university.

1:01:06Okay. What does she want to say? She wants to work for the State Department.

1:01:10Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Okay. All right. And to be able to say you graduated with your master's from Cambridge or whatever is a big deal. Okay. I'm with you. I made that up. You didn't say that. But the, all right. And so you have the$30 ,000? Yes. So I just graduated college last year. I have$130 ,000 in a brokerage account. Okay. So you write a check and pay for it. And then what? Yes, I could. So I also have a car that's worth$25 ,000. I own it. and I think we might just sell it since we're both going to be gone. We don't need it. Okay, that'd be okay. And then my Roth has been maxed for the last five years.

1:01:59Dave Ramsey:No, we don't need to touch that. We have the money between the car and the brokerage account to pay for this easily. So she's going to be in grad school how long? One year. And you're going to be deployed how long? Twelve months. Where, can you say? No, I can't. Okay. All right. And I'll be – my paycheck will be – for the next 12 months, it'll be$100 ,000 untaxed. Okay. Combat zone. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it sounds pretty cut and dry. What's the question? You have the money. She wants to do it. You're going to be separated anyway. This is her desire. It apparently has value. It adds value to do it there, according to her, and I don't doubt that, actually, the way you're describing it.

1:02:44Dave Ramsey:What's the question? I guess, is it smart to pull money from a brokerage that has made almost 30 % per year the last half decade for that? What's your other option? I guess I have the car to sell. Yeah, sell it. You don't sell it anyway. Or I could just cash flow it. All of that's okay. Yeah. Anything's okay. You're overthinking it. But before you borrow any money, we definitely cash out brokerage, car, any of that's fine.

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1:04:50Dave Ramsey:You're going to win a game. You have to play offense and defense. In the money game, offense is investing and defense is insurance. The right insurance acts as a shield around your loved ones and your wallet. Our free insurance coverage checkup helps you figure out if you've got the right coverage or if you're getting ripped off with a bunch of the garbage that's out there. It'll help you put a personalized action plan in place with clear steps. It's RamseySolutions.com slash checkup and take the free coverage checkup. RamseySolutions.com slash checkup. Matthew is in Tampa. Hi, Matthew. How are you?

1:05:29Hey, I'm doing all right. How are you guys doing?

1:05:31Dave Ramsey:Better than we deserve. What's up? So I'll just get right to it. Somewhat recently, my wife informed me that we would be getting a divorce. Ouch. And it's, yeah. How long have you been married? Going on six years. What happened?

1:05:53Kind of a layered question. It kind of came out of the blue for me.

1:06:00She has been kind of unhappy for some time, and we've gone back and forth trying to figure it out, and I really thought that we did have it figured out. I was checking in to make sure if we needed to go back to a counselor, this, that, the other. The answer was always no, And then one day it's just, hey, I'm done.

1:06:18Dave Ramsey:Wow. Okay. Sorry, brother. That hurts. Pardon? I'm sorry. That hurts. Yeah. So how can we help today? So my question is, when we first got married, we purchased a house with cash using inheritance of hers. Um, now that things are kind of coming to a close, I'm trying to understand what the, um, kind of moral settlement to ask for would be, um, considering I didn't contribute financially to the house itself. Now, every bill since, everything I've covered, she hasn't worked for some years now. She's been going to school, and I've supported her through that. But just basically because of the method that we used to buy the house, I'm just curious what's the most honoring way to her, myself, and God for me to proceed as we try to figure out a settlement.

1:07:17Dave Ramsey:In a lot of states, they will return her inheritance to her and then split the overage with you. And that would be fairly normal. So what did you pay for the house when you bought it? $500 originally. Okay. So she'd get to$500 back. And then what will it sell for now? Probably$740. Okay. and so there's$240 ,000, so$120 ,000 each minus expenses, that would be normal. I did have a consult with an attorney who said that the remainder of her inheritance would be entirely blocked off. I would never dream of going for that anyhow. But she said that the house, having been in both of our names the entire time, that would be an even split.

1:08:11Dave Ramsey:Okay. All right. Like I said, some states. I don't know Florida. Sure. But that's, you know, and you also didn't ask what the legal was. You asked what the moral thing was. If it's me, I would return to her what she brought in, and whatever you spent on her schooling or her sitting on the couch watching Oprah all these years or whatever, that's just part of being married that didn't work. so personally I'd take$120 ,000 out of the house let her take$120 ,000 out of the house and her$500 ,000 goes back to her if it was me and if she's got other inheritance money laying over the side the lawyer's already said that's going to her anyway in return though like have you got a big 401k?

1:08:55I have about$95 ,000 I would ask that she leave that alone

1:09:00Dave Ramsey:of course but she doesn't have to by law But if the attorney says by law in Florida you're due half of this$500 portion on the house, then obviously you've got some negotiating points, right? Sure, but I would never dream of going for half of the value of the house. No, I wouldn't unless she went for half of my 401k. Of course. Okay, that's what I mean by negotiating. I hear what you're saying. So I'll give you your 500 back and half of the value above that. You leave my 401k alone. I'll leave your balance of your inheritance alone, and we go on our way. Does that work? And, you know, that makes a lot of sense, and that was my initial gut reaction.

1:09:50Essentially, the holdup was, you know, based on her decision, do I need to move towns? Is that fair? But I hear what you're saying, Dave. Let me throw something out. But I'm trying to think if she called me and asked me this same question, I think I would have a different response to her, which is, hey, you're bailing on your husband. When y 'all got together, like y 'all's money bought this house. Yes, you brought this money into the marriage, but y 'all bought a house. You put both your names on it. I don't know.

1:10:23Dave Ramsey:I don't have the same hang up, I guess. I'm not going to hang up about it. But you just asked me what, you know, the way you posed the question, I heard in the words, I'm trying to be gracious and I'm trying to be thoughtful. She brought this money in. What would be fair? What would be moral is what you asked, not what's legal, not what's hardcore negotiating and what can I get and what should I demand or anything like that. This doesn't sound like it's extremely contentious.

1:10:57I'm just not that sort of person

1:11:01Dave Ramsey:Okay, are you saying it is contentious But you're just not being contentious? There certainly have been some contentious conversations Regarding the money itself I just refuse to take part in that Okay Well, I mean We obviously, based on the law If we want to dance you could go after that half and she could go at half of that 500 and she could go after half of your 401k. And that's, you know, because it's a balance sheet issue at that point, everything's on the table and your attorney's telling you her, her other inheritance is off the table. Okay, that's fine. Then I'm going to go half to half in order to get my 401k released.

1:11:44Dave Ramsey:And if we got a dance, we'll dance. But if you want to just say, what would, what could we end up with that would feel fair. That feels fair. It's not killing me if you end up splitting on the house. I'm not dying over it, but it, you know, it wasn't money you brought to the table and I wouldn't take half of it as an offset for her having been at home or going to school while you were married. That's just part of you were being married and had marriage. It didn't work. So I'm not, that's just off. That's just, you know, you're not, we're not splitting the food cost. You provided all the food too.

1:12:15Dave Ramsey:She wasn't working. You know, you provide the gasoline for all the cars for five years or six years, but she, cause she wasn't working. But I, that, that's not the, you know, I think that's just part of being married and that that's water down the drain. And I always tell folks in the situation to also calculate, and this is not a quantitative number so much as calculate a soul tax. Like if this woman's broken your heart over and over again, and you thought things were great, she led you to believe they were great. And then she sat down and said, I quit. I'm leaving. Part of me would say, I got a good job.

1:12:49I've got a good life. I want nothing more to do with you then. And leave me my retirement. I'm out of here. Have a good life. And part of me, there's a soul tax to, there's a cost to your spirit for fighting for this stuff.

1:13:04Dave Ramsey:Yeah. But if she wants the house, she's got to write me$120 ,000 check and leave my 401k alone. Yeah. Or we're going to sell the house and you get 500 plus 120 and I get 120 and you leave my 401k alone. There you go. Or I'll come after all of it and make you leave my 401k alone. Right. You know, so that I can be nice to you. Yeah. Let's just, you know, if we have to dance, I can punch to make you dance. But I don't want to. That's not what I'm trying to do here because I'm not contentious. Yeah. I like that. That's good. I think it's solid. But the thing that's hard to remember, and Matthew, you're doing a pretty good job at it for you folks out there.

1:13:38Dave Ramsey:when there's a divorce, there's always high emotion, always a drama, always all this stuff. But when it comes to the financial part of the transaction of a divorce, a divorce turns your life into a business transaction. You're just going to sit down and go one for you, one for me, one for you, two for me, one for you, three for me, five for the kids, six for the marriage, whatever, alimony, whatever. And there's just, it just becomes a numbers transaction. And then you've got all the emotions and all the brokenhearted and the rage. But just like business, the more you let emotions get in business decisions, the messier they get, right?

1:14:14Yep.

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1:16:09Dave Ramsey:Pete is with us. Pete's in Boston. How are you, Pete? Hi, Dave. This is pretty cool. Good to have you, sir. How can we help? Thank you. So I work for a company, a semiconductor company outside of Boston, and I bought their stock through employee stock purchase program. And fast forward a little bit, I got laid off about two years ago, so I don't really have any emotional attachment to the company. However, since I worked for the company, the stock skyrocketed. That's just kind of the nature of the stock market today. My question is, I'm asking what you would do to sell this stock off to minimize my capital gains taxes, but also to diversify my portfolio a little bit because it's made – this stock ownership has made up about 40 % of my overall net worth.

1:17:18Dave Ramsey:Yeah, that's dangerous. Yeah. So we call spreading the money around diversification. I'm sure you've heard of that. And money's like manure. It grows things when it's spread around. Left in one pile, it stinks. And so that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to spread it around a little bit because you've got too much risk associated with that one company. It might go to the moon, and it might go in the ditch. And as such, 40 % of your net worth does. So that scares me if I'm you. So, yes, I would begin divesting. You said you've been gone for two years? Yes, sir. Okay, so all of it is going to be on long-term capital gain.

1:17:59Dave Ramsey:Correct. And so what's the value of the portfolio of stock today, the whole pile? As of today, it's about$170 ,000. Cool. Good for you. I'm so happy for you. And do you know what your basis is in it? Have you called and asked for them to calculate that? Yeah, so every six months they would give you a different basis that you'd buy the stock at, and it ranges anywhere between$79 from when I first bought it to around$264 when I got laid off. But the total basis in the total portfolio is a single number of all of those averages. Do you know what that number is? I just did a rough calculation. If I were to estimate, it's around$180.

1:18:52Dave Ramsey:And there's how many shares? 260. Okay. So 260 times 180 is what? That's your total. Okay. So that's the thing. So that's what I want to do is that, and then the difference in that and 170, 170 ,000 is your gain. It's about 47 ,000. Okay. So we'll call it$50 ,000 because we don't know. You actually can call the company that's handling the stock. So you've got that stock sitting somewhere, right? Yes. You can call them. They'll tell you what the basis is or send them an email. They'll send it to you because they've got it on file. So anything over that basis is going to be taxed at 15%. So if it's$50 ,000 is your basis, then you've got$120 ,000 gain, and so your taxes are going to be about$17 ,000.

1:19:43Dave Ramsey:Okay. That's how you do it, 15 % of your gain. Yeah. Okay? And that's not a big deal. So given that that's the number, and it's probably going to be very close to that number, okay? Because I think you're probably pretty close on your basis. And so given that the whole, you know, we can take$170 ,000 out of a risky position by paying$17 ,000. I'm paying the$17 ,000 straight up, and I'm going to cash it all in. I'm going to put it in mutual funds or put it on my debts or wherever I am in the baby steps. I'm going to get completely out of this stock. Yeah, it's, you know, in the past three months, the stock has pretty much tripled.

1:20:30So with the semiconductor—

1:20:31Dave Ramsey:If you want to play single stocks, then I'm not your guy. That's the problem. It's sitting at the blackjack table, dude, and you're like, yeah, but the last three hands, I've won. You're right. You did. No. I'm definitely the kind of person that puts my money into a mutual fund, which I have separate from this single stock portfolio. And, you know. It may triple again after you sell it, but it might triple down if you don't sell it. So I don't know what it'll do. But a single stock is infinitely more risky than a mutual fund with 90 to 200 stocks in it because you spread your risk around. and so on.

1:21:11Dave Ramsey:So I don't, you know, I didn't buy SpaceX for that reason. It might end up being a good investment. I don't have, I haven't invested in Apple, which has been a wonderful stock, but I don't buy single stocks. I don't like the risk. And so I've got enough risk in my life without that. So I'm good. And if I make a little less than some of the guys that are players, well, so be it because I'm not a player. I'm a guy that builds wealth. There's a difference. Dave's a player. I'm trying to get rich, not impress somebody on the internet. And so that's the thing. And so that's what I buy. I buy things in very predictable environments, sickeningly boring.

1:21:56Dave Ramsey:And so I don't play single stocks. You know, the worst one I've ever had was a lady came in for coaching 30 years ago when we first started doing counseling and coaching. and she had just retired, 70 years old, and she worked for a huge company that we all know the name of. And she had 100 % of her 401k in company stock, and it was 1.7 million at the high point. And she retired and the stock went down hundreds of thousands of dollars in four months. Because that company got in the tank. It got in trouble. And I mean, and she was just, I'll never forget just sitting there with her and she's 70 years old.

1:22:49Dave Ramsey:She's just crying. I mean, she had lost$700 ,000 in three months. Dude, I had friends and family growing up in Houston that worked for that little company called Enron. Yeah. And they woke up with zero. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And they were notorious for their incredibly generous stock buying program. Yeah. Right? It's just, you know, there are obviously good companies, and we want to be in those, but the way I'll be in them is with the whole batch of them, not a singular thing. I just don't do karate kids. Stand on one leg and hope I can kick. You know, I'm just not doing it. And so that's what you're doing.

1:23:30Dave Ramsey:And it's very dangerous. And I have had to learn this, like just messing around. Like if I go to Las Vegas and I have some silly fun at a table, I can't get mad. I can't. I just have to hold loosely. I'm playing with house money. And if I could, I could have made more. Great. But I'm leaving with what I got and I'm happy with what I got. And I'm going to walk away. So if you do sell this, brother, which I hope you do today, never look at the price again. Because you're only going to make yourself nuts. You're going to make yourself feel superior if it goes down. You're going to make yourself feel bananas about what I could have had.

1:24:10The reality is here's what you have. I'm going to be grateful for the gain that it made. It's awesome. I got extra money and I'm good to go.

1:24:16Dave Ramsey:And it does remind us of a lesson we teach around here very often called cost analysis. Yeah. And that is if you had$170 ,000 in the middle of the table stacked in cash and Benjamins, would you go buy this stock? Well, it went up three times in the last three months. If you had$170 ,000 in the middle of the table, would you go buy this stock? No, it's just too much risk. Then sell it. Sell it. Yeah, sell it. That's the thing. No, I wouldn't. Yes, I would. If yes, you would, then keep it. Yeah. You know, that's what you're going to do. But, you know, I don't do that stuff. And that's why, you know, why I'm okay.

1:24:52I don't have

1:24:53Dave Ramsey:I'm not counting on crypto or DraftKings to bring me through you know I'm going to be okay I don't have to swing for the fence on every swing I'm good with triples I'm good with singles I'm good with doubles a team that hits a single every time somebody goes up to plate wins every World Series every single time every time I remember a football coach said that if I get four three yards on every play then we win every we win every game yep 100%. It's boring, but we'll win every game. Ground and pound, baby. Yeah.

1:26:04Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, Dr. John Deloney. Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Derek's in Chicago. Hi, Derek. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Yeah, so I'm an engineer and my wife is a veterinarian. We recently became debt-free by paying off over$120 ,000 in student loans in the last 11 months. Way to go! Yeah, thank you. Thank you. So we have aspirations of starting a veterinary clinic in the next one to three years.

1:26:45Cool. And we'd love to just get your advice on what we should be doing now to prepare for starting this business.

1:26:51Dave Ramsey:Excellent. I love it. Way to go. Well, I'm pretty sure you could do that for$120K. And you did that in 11 months.

1:27:02Right?

1:27:03Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Okay. But let's break it down and think about how I would go about it from day one. The thing I have learned in business are the three rules. and the three rules are it's going to take twice as long as you think, cost twice as much as you think, and you're not the exception. And I run into that inside Ramsey all the time with something we're doing that's new and different that we've never done before. It's harder than we thought. It's going to cost more than we thought. And it turns out we're not smart enough to beat that. We've got to go do it anyway. So what I would do in your situation is I would first admit that what you think this is going to look like when you actually open the clinic is wrong.

1:27:45Dave Ramsey:But we're going to try anyway. Okay, but be ready for some ideas you have about this and your wife has about how this is going to feel, how it's going to look, the way the wallpaper is going to be in the waiting room or whatever is going to be different than she has it in her emotions. So be prepared for your dream to be reformed and pruned as you go along. It's almost like young people leave their parents' house, and they think they should buy a house the exact same size as their parents left. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like, hey, you actually got to buy a 900-square-foot starter house, and over time, grow into this amazing thing that you'll want.

1:28:29Dave Ramsey:So what I'd do then, with that in mind, is I would lay down what I think my square footage is that I need, what the location is going to look like, and I would start talking about what the rent is going to look like to open the practice. Then I would start talking about the equipment, and I have a strong recommendation that you buy slightly used equipment from the last veterinarian that didn't do a good job and went broke because they didn't do what we're talking about doing. Okay? Because 100 % of the equipment she's going to use and the equipment I'm using to speak into called a microphone right now is obsolete in 18 months after you buy it.

1:29:15Yeah.

1:29:17Dave Ramsey:An 18-month-old technology item is a doorstop. There are no 30-year-old X-ray machines except in third-world countries. Okay. You follow me? So the x-ray machine, the MRI machine, the thing she thinks it's going to save puppy's lives or whatever it is, and some salesman with equipment is going to get you so far off kilter on what you've spent that you will never ROI. So the rule we use on equipment purchases around here is minimal functional. Minimal functional. What's the least that will get the job done? And then we might go two notches above that. We don't want the best and brightest. We don't want the shiniest unless it's just$2 or something.

1:30:08Dave Ramsey:But most of the best and brightest in your world is$200 ,000, and you're trying to save the life of a cat. No. Right. Okay? No. And so you've just got to be wise about your equipment purchases and then look at your staffing. And so what's it going to take us and how long is it going to take us to get some business built up, get some new clients and so forth. And those are your costs. The number of days that you burn money until you make money, that's cost one. Your setup is cost two. Your rent is cost three. Your staff is cost four. And you lay those things down, and then that's going to tell you how much you need to save.

1:30:48Dave Ramsey:But I think you could probably get it. But I'm just a wild guess. I'm not a veterinarian. I love veterinarians, and we do a lot of work with them. A bunch of them are being coached in entree leadership. But my guess is if you went minimal functional, you can do a whole lot for$150 ,000 to get this thing off the ground. Yeah, that seems pretty consistent with what I've seen. Can I ask you a question about how to save for this? Because we're kind of investing in our Roth IRAs and doing some investing through our work. But should we stop our investing in Roth IRAs and just kind of pile cash in like a high-yield savings?

1:31:24Dave Ramsey:If it's the only way you can get there in three years, but I think you might be able to do both. Okay. Based on the fact that you paid off$120 in 11 months while putting nothing in retirement, we need$150, but we got three years, not 11 months. Okay. So, you know, you probably can do both. If you want to tighten the timeline up and say, I want to be ready in one year and I want to save$150 ,000 and you want to hold on, push pause to get the business open and pay cash for it in one year, that's fine. I would not do that for three years. Okay. I would not do zero investing for three years while I save for this, but I would for one.

1:32:05Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Okay. There's a high likelihood that with the start of this clinic, there would also be a move. And so another part of that equation is potentially saving up to buy a house wherever we move, things like that. You own a house now? There's a lot of different. No, we rent currently. Okay. Well, then decide which is which. We want to move and buy a house or we want to move and start a clinic? You might not be able to do both. You might have to choose for now. You might buy the house out of the money you make on the clinic. But beware of creep, of scope. Yeah, scope creep. Because, man, the next logical is, well, what if we just built our own?

1:32:46And what if we just bought our own place? And that might ROI. We'll put a business on the back of it, and that will also help pay for it. And there's a new AI machine that says they can do laser MRIs through – you get what I'm saying? Like it's so easy to sit down and all this thing becomes a million-dollar project without even sneezing.

1:33:05Dave Ramsey:Yeah, it's really just start it as raw and make it make money. And when it makes money, grow the business and grow the equipment list with the money you make, not with anything else. What does she make now as a veterinarian? She's only one year in, and so she makes$115. Okay. Yeah. I mean, if she's got a two-year-old practice and is successful, she'll make$200. Okay. Yeah, we have aspirations to start this one practice and grow it into a healthy business and then start to duplicate that over a region that we want to live in. And so we have high hopes and dreams for this. The first thing is get the home office straight.

1:33:48Dave Ramsey:Yeah, if I'm you, I'm probably going to go whole hog on this and say I'm going to take one more year off of investing. I'm going to save enough. I'm going to move and I'm going to rent and I'm going to open the clinic and get the clinic profitable. And then I'm going to talk about buying. And then I'm going to grow the clinic and grow the clinic and grow the clinic. And she'll be making a quarter million dollars pretty quick in that world. And it'll be worth the investment. And it's a great field she's in. It's a great field. Just start small. Not only do we love animals around Ramsey, but, you know, it's just you guys just have the ability to make a lot of money.

1:34:22Dave Ramsey:And veterinarians, all of them I work with, they're just really smart. Yeah, they're smart and they're great people. Yeah. Don't run into any of them. They're jerks.

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1:35:41Dave Ramsey:If you're thinking about conducting one of the largest purchases that people make, like a house, you should have a pro in your corner, not someone who got their license three weeks ago that you met at church. No, you want a real estate agent that gets a lot of houses sold, period. And you want high octane, high protein. If you want a Ramsey trusted real estate agent that we have vetted for their professionalism, their effectiveness, the amount of volume they do, and so on, they follow the Ramsey plan. You can connect with a Ramsey trusted agent who has your best interest at heart for free at RamseySolutions.com slash agent, or click the link in the description if you're on YouTube or podcast.

1:36:27Dave Ramsey:Dave is in Chicago. Hi, Dave. How are you? Hi, Dave and John. I hope you all are well. We are. How can we help? I have a question in reference to long-term care. I'm currently 62, and I started working with a fiduciary earlier this year to assist me with some of my investing and increasing my investing. But one of the products that she talked about or one of the investing opportunities, so to speak, that she talked about at my age was a long-term care annuity that would guarantee a certain income during up to seven years of time if I was ever unable to work. My plan is to retire when I'm 70, so I've got eight years to retirement planned anyway.

1:37:20Dave Ramsey:What's the size of your mistake? Well, right now I have approximately 375 in a traditional IRA outside of my 401k. I have about$80 ,000 in my 401k because I did an in-service rollover into the IRA outside of my 401k. Then I back up to$80 ,000 in my 401k. I've got$80 ,000 in a high-yield savings account, and I've got$70 ,000 in my checking account. So somewhere around$500 ,000 or$600 ,000 total. Gotcha. Good for you. So I'm hoping, and I just started investing in my 401K and stuff probably about 14, 15 years ago. And you're 62. Yes, I'm 62. Okay. And the average nursing home stay is two and a half years.

1:38:14Oh, okay.

1:38:15Dave Ramsey:And the average cost is$100 ,000 a year. Okay. So your exposure is$200 ,000 to$300 ,000. Okay. Are you married? So that's not, no, I'm single, don't own a home. I stay with my parents to help take care of them because they're both 85 and don't get around too well. So I stay with them. And my only other expense really is just my daily expenses plus I rent an office for work outside of my home. And that costs me about$500 a month. So really I don't have many expenses. So if you leave the 600 alone and it's invested in market rates, and let's say it doesn't even do as good as market rates and it only makes 10%, it will double in seven years.

1:39:03Dave Ramsey:At 69, you would have 1.2. Okay, great. That's without adding anything to it. My God, putting 16%. And so I'm going to self-insure through my nursing home needs. If you want to buy a nursing home policy, you can. They generally only cover about two years. No, I would never combine them with an investment or with an annuity under any circumstances. 100 % of the time, that's a bad product. I don't like your investment advisor. Right. Okay, that's what I thought, and I appreciate that. One thing about the investment. I currently put 16 % plus my$11 ,200 that I can put in until I'm 63 for catch-up contribution.

1:39:52So I'm hoping that I'm going to actually be over that$1.2, hopefully.

1:39:57Dave Ramsey:Yeah, you will be because you're adding to it. I'm talking about just doubling what you've got without adding anything to it. But yeah, you'll be way over that. You should be$1.6 or so. Oh, good, good. So I'm pretty well covered for my retirement age. Assuming you're not putting this in something other than mutual funds. If you're putting in good growth stock mutual funds and you're averaging market rates of return is what I'm going with. Now, I don't know what this advisor, this supposed fiduciary, this sells insurance crap that you've got here. I'm worried about that. Walk me through your disdain for annuities.

1:40:32Okay.

1:40:34Dave Ramsey:It comes from two sources, okay? Number one, there's two types of annuities. There's a fixed annuity, which is not what he's talking about. A fixed annuity is simply a savings account with a life insurance company that has really bad terms. Never under any circumstances do that. Run. The variable annuity is fine. A variable annuity is a mutual fund inside of an annuity. Okay. Okay? So it's going to grow without taxes on it until you cash it out, just like a 401k traditional. Okay? It's a tax-deferred growth in an annuity. That's what it gives you. It gives you tax-deferred growth. They also have a couple other features.

1:41:08Dave Ramsey:You can name a beneficiary so it goes outside of probate. It's nice that way. And some of them will give – most of them these days will give guarantee minimums on the rate of return and a guaranteed return of principal if the market goes down, most of which if you leave it alone the seven years that they require, 99 % of the times in the stock market's history you would have gotten that anyway. So it's a false guarantee, but it's real. It's a real guarantee. It's not needed. If you just left it alone, you'd be fine. Same thing. so you're paying an annuity fee as a commission and you're paying the mutual fund fees not just the mutual fund fees so if you just bought mutual funds you wouldn't have the fee and so they're okay the the variable annuity is because you're in good mutual funds and you've got a couple other little features that are nice they're not the end of the world but unless you have your house paid off everything paid off and you're scared to death of risk and uh this is all after retirement investing and it's only an annuity, it's not tied to long-term care, it's not tied to other crap, which his was, then it's okay.

1:42:13Dave Ramsey:What's the business move for somebody to try to sell you an annuity attached to? They make more money. The bundling, it just becomes a re, the math is horrendous. Gotcha. If you bought the two things separately, you'd come out light years better. Gotcha. The insurance company, when insurance company, the only thing that insurance companies bundle together that end up being to your favor is homeowners and car. Right. Home and auto. Yeah. Yeah. But if they bundle savings inside of an insurance policy, like whole life and universal, it a hundred percent sucks. Anytime they start putting stuff together, it's for their benefit, not yours.

1:42:46Dave Ramsey:Gotcha. Run. Okay. Run away. Then the second thing is the only way you can sell a mutual fund if you're a life insurance agent, you're not licensed to sell securities, is you can sell a variable annuity because it's got mutual funds inside of it, but you're life insurance licensed. Gotcha. And so most of the time when I hear someone pitching that my financial advisor is selling me, is wanting me to get a variable annuity, it's almost always a life insurance agent, not a financial advisor. Gotcha. And they call themselves, we're financial, we're fiduciaries. Yeah, yeah. They're financial advisors.

1:43:27Dave Ramsey:No, you're not. You're a freaking life insurance agent. Yeah. That's all you are. You just don't have a securities license. This is the only way you can sell a semi-decent product. And so instead of going to get a securities license and being a real financial advisor, you're just over there with the whale with Pacific Life. Gotcha. You know, you got a little splash going, right? And there we go. And it's just bull crap. It's just bull, you know, New York Life, Prudential, Pacific Life. These are all whole life life insurance companies that sell variable annuities and call themselves fiduciaries.

1:43:57Dave Ramsey:They're not fiduciaries. They're life insurance agents. And they're old whole life agents is what they are. They used to sell cash value. And some of them have gone to index to universal or indexed annuities or bull crap. You know, just go buy an index fund or sit down with a real advisor like a SmartVestor Pro. And they'll sit down and show you. And you don't have the fees. Yeah. You only got half the fees that you would have had otherwise. You have fees, but not anywhere near as high. And they're not going to sell you crap like trying to bundle your long-term care insurance for nursing home with your investments.

1:44:33Dave Ramsey:Can you think of a possible reason that that's even logical? It's not. I mean, this is like Sesame Street. None of these things is like the other, you know? So that's my disdain for it is it comes from knowing how the business works inside the dugout, how baseball works inside the dugout, and it pisses me off. But the actual product itself, the variable annuity as a standalone, I am not against them in most circumstances. I'm against how they come up and who sells them most of the time.

1:45:34The problem with online investing advice? You hear so many different opinions and you're left wondering if you're even doing it right. And that's why we created Investing Essentials. Join me and Dave Ramsey at this two-night virtual event to learn Dave's playbook for investing and wealth planning. We'll break down 401ks, mutual funds, passing on wealth, and more. So join us September 1st and 2nd. Tickets start at$199. You can get yours today at RamseySolutions.com slash events or just click the link in the show notes.

1:46:13Dave Ramsey:Hugh is with us in Wichita, Kansas. Hi, Hugh. How are you? Dave, I'm just about as fine as frogs here. How are you doing today? Just the same, sir. How can we help? Yes, sir. So I was listening to the show a while back and heard Dr. DeLong talking about some of the research he's been doing on married couples and everything and how they tend to do a little bit better, be a little bit more wealthy. and that got me thinking. I lost my wife in December. Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry. Yes, sir. How long were you married? 20 years. What was her name? We were married. What was her name, brother? I just was...

1:46:56Summer. She's pretty awesome. She was great. She was the best. Sorry, man. No, I appreciate it. But, you know, I just... I'm not looking to go out and do anything, But I was just kind of curious, you know, what, for somebody in my situation, what's that kind of mean? I mean, am I kind of just stuck where I'm at or what? So anyway, I just was kind of curious.

1:47:23Dave Ramsey:Did you lose the marriage advantage when you lost her? Is that what you're asking? Yeah, I guess that's the question. So how old are you? I'm 46. Okay. And how are you doing financially and in your career and health-wise? My health is fine. Um, financially we're, well, I'm finishing up baby step two, um, getting ready to start on, on three and, uh, career wise, I'm, I'm doing pretty good. Okay. So, all right. I can, I can tell you, brother, I, if I was to look back and have lost my wife of 24 years in December, uh, I, I don't know that I would still know what day it is. Yeah. You know what I mean?

1:48:09It definitely sucks. You know, we've got four kids. Yeah. And honestly, if it wasn't for them, I don't know where I'd be at. Sure. How old are they? I have one that's 19, one that's 17, one that's 15, and then one that's 12. And our 12-year-old is special needs. Yeah. So I, this is going to sound strange, but my guess is in 18 months and 24 months is when you'll start to not see the pain won't just go away or anything like that. No matter what nonsense people tell you, but you're still in the thick of the black fog of grief right now. and you're such a good man and you got four kids, like you don't have an option other than to get up and to plow through the next day.

1:49:07What I want to challenge you on is spending as little time right now on big existential what does it all mean questions because that's like asking, it's like being in the dark, lost in a forest and thinking about what's the meaning of life. Like what we need to do is get back to the road. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. And so the marriage advantage right now is you have four amazing kids that have a picture of this amazing woman named Summer. And y 'all built something together. Y 'all have got this legacy that's going to outlast both of you. And anything beyond honoring her and getting up the next day and doing the next right thing for us a long time.

1:49:51That's where you need to spend your energy. Does that make sense?

1:49:56Dave Ramsey:So the marriage advantage is a series of averages over a large set of data. Over a long period of time. Over a long period of time. And so if you're not married today because you lost your wife six months ago, you are not at a distinct disadvantage. Okay? But the marriage advantage points out that over the scope of life, those that are married over a 40-year, 50-year period of time live longer, report better life satisfaction and happiness. They report higher levels of wealth, way higher levels of wealth over a long period of time. That's the marriage advantage. There's a whole set of data and a whole set of research, a bunch of research projects that back all of that up.

1:50:50Dave Ramsey:But also there's a piece of data that says this. If you are 19 years old and your parents got divorced and you marry someone whose parents got divorced, you are much higher likelihood statistically to get divorced than two 19 -year-olds whose parents stayed together if you get married, right? But that doesn't mean that just because both of your parents got divorced that 100 % of the time you're going to be the same statistic. It's not deterministic. It's correlative. It's not causal, right? Exactly. It doesn't cause that to happen. And so, you know, but so what behaviors are, you know, what do you have to solve for in that?

1:51:31Dave Ramsey:Well, you solve for the things that some are brought to the table. Right. And you keep living your life that way. And then you've still got that portion of the marriage advantage. Plus, you don't really have a choice. You're here. And so you've got to, you know, you're solving for, I'm not going to be the average. I'm going to be the one that beats the average and causes the average to come up. And that's what those two 19-year-olds with divorced parents prove. We're going to have to do different things. The statistics are if you've been married, if you've known each other for three weeks and you get married, you know, 90 percent of those marriages don't last.

1:52:07Dave Ramsey:OK, but you do meet people that were married, that knew each other three weeks and were married for 40 years. And they got up every day and decided. And they just but so they beat the odds, so to speak. The main, if you distill all the way down the marriage advantage, two people doing a thing over time together, us two ride or die, gives you margin. It gives you the ability that when one of you can only carry 20 percent, the other person's carrying 80. It is two people pulling in the same direction. And that's what you did for 20 years. And that's what you've – that's what the hole in your life is.

1:52:38Dave Ramsey:That's exactly right. That's what you miss. Right. But that doesn't mean you're, quote, deterministically doomed at all. Not even close. That's the point of this. Dude, we're sorry for your loss, brother. Very sorry. Very sorry. You're going to make it, and you're not going to miss out on the marriage advantage. You've already had the advantage. But again, spend the least amount of time thinking about those big picture things. That kind of stuff, yeah. Honor your wife. Write her a letter every day. Get up and do the next right thing for your kids. You're a good, good man. Anna's in Los Angeles.

1:53:09Dave Ramsey:Hi, Anna. How are you? Hi, I'm great. Good day, Dave. Hey, what's up? Yes, just a little background. I'm from Silicon Valley and work in a healthcare industry. I'm 54 years old, plan to retire in two years, married. I have two kids that just graduated from college. And my question is, is it a smart idea to buy short-term rentals for tax purposes? Just because this year our combined salaries will be around$750K. And the only short-term rentals that create a tax advantage are those that lose money. Okay. So your depreciation on the property, your depreciation schedule is larger than your income, which it would not be on a short-term rental.

1:54:09So the bonus depreciation and the cost segregation won't help at all?

1:54:14Dave Ramsey:No. If you actually lose money, then you save money. But if you want to do that, just give it to a charity. It's the same write-off. Okay. Don't lose money to save on taxes. If somebody's telling you to do that, get away from them. They're dumb. No, and short-term rentals are a nightmare, Anna. I mean, you're talking about buying Airbnbs to save on taxes while you're making all this money because you're smart people. And now you just turned yourself into a hotel maid because every time somebody screws up the sheets over there at your Airbnb, you're over there changing the sheets. Yeah, find something that you and your spouse really believe in and donate to that.

1:54:53Dave Ramsey:Yeah, much easier. Don't go losing money and turn yourself into a hotel maid when you're making a million dollars a year just to call, just to say, you know, I'm in the short-term rental business. Oh, God. Gross. Yeah, there's - Talk about high maintenance pain in the butt to operate. Airbnb. I mean, it's like running a Motel 6. Can you imagine? Leave the light on? No. Yeah. The light's off. Killing me, Tom. lights off. Tom Bodette. You remember him? Oh, yeah. Leave the light on. We'll leave the light on for you. Yeah. That's because we don't know how to turn it off. We have a lockbox on the front door.

1:55:31Dave Ramsey:We'll leave the light on for you.

1:55:53Thank you.

1:56:09Hey, George Camel here. We often talk about how being normal sucks when it comes to your money. But guess what? Normal isn't so great when it comes to your job either. Normal is staying in a job you hate, dreading Mondays, and working for people you don't even like. Sound familiar? Well, the good news is you can break free from normal because Ramsey Solutions is hiring, and we refuse to settle for the ordinary. In fact, we are anything but normal, and we are proud of it. And right now, we're hiring for technology, sales, marketing, writing, copy editing, and creative roles. So head over to ramsaysolutions.com slash careers and apply today.

1:56:58Dave Ramsey:Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 25, 21. If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat. If he is thirsty, give him water to drink. Ben Franklin said, love your enemies, for they tell us your fault. for they tell you you're false. I've never heard that one. That's good. Maria's in Atlanta. Hi, Maria. How are you? Hi, Dave. This is Maria. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so I read your book, and I'm planning to save$1 ,000 in 401K, and I've already included it in my budget, and I also need to take about 262 taken out of my paycheck every month for medical and all that stuff because I'm a civil engineer and I recently graduated with my master's in engineering and I'm also planning to live rice and beans and then I have an electric car so you know my My charging is going to be budgeted to like$40 per month.

1:58:09If I can't make that, then I'm going to have to take the bus.

1:58:14Dave Ramsey:How can we help you, hon? Yeah. What's going on? Okay. My situation is that I'm a civil engineer, and I recently graduated with my master's degree. But I've been fired at nine different civil engineering jobs since I graduated with my BS back in 2017. why do you keep getting laid off what's happening um i have this uh i was immature you know um over time i realized that um it's like corporate so corporate is very strict stringent like kind of like military style um because i work in like different projects government projects and all that stuff and they want you to stay calm under pressure and I wasn't able to do that at my at the nine different jobs um so that's why I got laid off or like let go fired so have you done the work on emotional regulation because it sounds I mean it sounds like like if you went and got a degree as a nurse and every time you saw blood or had to put a needle on somebody's arm, you passed out.

1:59:28That's a critical part of that job, right? So a critical part of your job is staying calm and regulated. Right. So it may be that you've reached a point where you say, I either A, can't make the leap to do this thing, or I don't have it in me to go put in the work to go learn these skills of emotional regulation so that I can do this job?

1:59:53Dave Ramsey:Have you sought some professional help, like a therapist to help you? Yes, I've gotten therapy help, and I've also joined the union at my last job and realized that, you know, it's the corporate system, and within that corporate system, You have to basically make it through in order to make it through the corporate world. Yeah, but corporate is just like this amorphous word. Just don't use that word anymore. Think of it this way. If I agree to do a job for a company and I shake hands with them and they say, we'll give you this amount of money for this job. A, they have to believe I can do the job both in temperament and in skill.

2:00:40and in social ability. Like I'm a person that other people can work with. And then I got to show up every day and do that job. That's not about corporate. That's not about every job on planet earth, whether you're a lawn person or you're working for a company with 10 ,000 employees is going to say, here's the job. And there's a social component. Here's how we do this job here. And then I get to choose as the employee, whether I do that or I've got to go get some additional training so that I can meet these needs. You know what I'm saying? It's not this, this thing called corporate out there. It's when I sign up to do any job anywhere at any time, I'm signing up for a particular culture, a particular vision, a particular set of values, and a particular job skill.

2:01:22Yeah.

2:01:23Dave Ramsey:How long did you see a therapist? I started seeing a therapist back in 2020, 2023, right after COVID. And because I was unemployed for about a year and a half during COVID. So it's not a problem for me to get another job. The issue is me keeping a job. Yeah, that's what we're talking about. How long did you meet with the therapist from 23 to what, now? As to now. And how often do you meet with him? I meet with him weekly. Okay. Is he explaining for you how to maintain your composure and your calm in the middle of working on an engineering project with other people? I didn't realize that up until now because I've been seeing, I also saw, you know, different therapists because I couldn't afford it.

2:02:24So I kept switching therapists. So I want you to sit down with your therapist after you've been seeing the same person for a couple of years. I want you to say these words. I would like to run some scenarios, do some role playing in here so that I can practice. And a good therapist will walk alongside you, set you up in situations, and then we'll practice whatever we got to practice for these social interactions so that you can improve a skill set. Just going in therapy and talking about it over and over and over again isn't going to help you. At this point, we need some real skills that we can practice in the real world.

2:03:01And so continue putting that work in.

2:03:05Dave Ramsey:Yeah, there's an old book that came out years ago called EQ. And the author makes the point in the book that that's called emotional quotient, that the ability to manage your emotions and manage and interact with relationships positively. positively, is a higher indicator of success than IQ, than intelligence. So the ability to play well with others is a bigger deal, but your ability to do that, he measured on EQ. And so if your EQ is low and your IQ is high, you're very smart, but you're horrible with relationships and regulating, managing to keep your emotions under control and pressure, then you're going to struggle in any career.

2:03:53Dave Ramsey:Correct. There's not a career that keeps you from doing that. Even being 17 years old, working the lunch rush at Burger King, it got overwhelming, right? And everybody has to keep their cool. So any job anywhere is going to have those inflection stress points. Yeah. And so working on your EQ makes you maintain your employment, which gives you the income then to start talking about, you know, getting the electric car charged, getting your budget going, getting your 401k going, getting your emergency fund in place, and all of those things. But getting and keeping a job is dependent upon you managing your behavior differently than you have in the last nine jobs.

2:04:32Dave Ramsey:Right. And it sounds like you're putting the work in, but let's get real tactical now and start practicing social exchanges. Hey, Doc, I want to play pretend how this is going to feel. Right. And then see if he can get you to lose your cool. Yeah. And walk with you through. If you lose your cool in the therapist's office, then you can learn how to not lose your cool. That's right. And get back in control. That's a good suggestion. Very good. Yeah. There is a. And that's why, you know, at the core of that is why getting a degree, getting a four-year degree as a promise of success is a lie. Correct.

2:05:11Dave Ramsey:because if your EQ sucks and you got a four-year degree and you graduated thank you laudy or magna cum laude, either one, you're still going to suck at your job. That's right. You're not going to be able to pull it off because you always have to do this with people. A lesson somebody taught me of all places, a casting agent back when I was 21 years old in Los Angeles told me this wisdom and it stuck with me when I was 21 years old. They said, there's about 10 people in this town. This was back when Hollywood was buzzing in the late 90s. There's about 10 people in this town that can run roughshod over everybody and kind of get away with it because they're super mega ultra stars.

2:05:49He said, but most casting decisions are made on this question. Do I want to spend the next three months with that person? Do I want to spend the next two months with that person all day, having dinner with them, waking up in the morning in the makeup trailer? And most decisions are made because there's a lot of talented people. Most decisions are made. Is this a good person I want to be around? And that stuck with me. Do you play well with others?

2:06:12Dave Ramsey:Be a good person to hang around. Yeah. 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.

2:06:37Thank you.