If You Don’t Stand for Something, Your Money Will Fall for Anything

8:04Dave Ramsey:Yeah. I mean, the number of times we've launched a product at Ramsey that the prototype ever sees the light of day is precisely zero. What we think is going to work doesn't make it through beta. Right. It doesn't make it through alpha. It doesn't make it through any of those Greek letters because it is a delta. And so there you go. Yeah, you looked that one up. Anyway, open phones here at 888-825-5225.

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10:29Dave Ramsey:Steve is in Pennsylvania. Hi, Steve. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you doing, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up?

10:38Jade Warshaw:So my wife is pregnant with baby number two. Yay! Yes, we are shocked and very excited. We have about$30 ,000 in debt. We're moving for a job in the coming spring. How should I handle debt payoff and preparing for baby?

10:57Dave Ramsey:When's baby due?

10:59Jade Warshaw:End of April, beginning of May.

11:03Dave Ramsey:You're moving before a baby comes in the ninth month of a pregnancy? it's a little less than ideal yes sounds like suicide my man why why are you moving on that date what's the what's driving the date to be crazy

11:23Jade Warshaw:that's um when we agreed with my employer about making the move would be in the spring before

11:29Dave Ramsey:that we found out we were pregnant okay uh so you're being transferred with the same company Correct. Okay. Have you said anything to them about possibly coming a month later or two months earlier?

11:46Jade Warshaw:We haven't. I've spoke with my wife about that, and she said that she would prefer to be moved before the baby comes.

11:54Dave Ramsey:Okay. Yeah. Then two months earlier. I don't want to move in the ninth month. Okay. That's just, I mean. It's a lot of stress. I mean, my wife Sharon's had three children, and I can't imagine asking her to move our home in the ninth month of a pregnancy. It's tough enough to do it two months after a child's born.

12:17Jade Warshaw:I did that.

12:18Dave Ramsey:That's tough. Yeah. And so it's just a bad plan. But anyway, we're going to move in the spring sometime. So your question still stands now that I got into your business. But you called and asked, so there you go. But anyway, so and what's your household income again? I make around$100 ,000.

12:41Jade Warshaw:I work about 45 hours a week and I have unlimited available. I have unlimited overtime available. Okay. Do you have any money saved? I know you said you have 30K in debt, but I'm just asking. Yeah, we have Baby Step 1 done and we've been working on paying off the debt. I guess one thing that would be important to make of note is the debt is solar panels. So it's kind of tied to the house that we would sell.

13:06Dave Ramsey:That's your only debt.

13:09Jade Warshaw:Correct.

13:09Dave Ramsey:Okay. All right. Well, the number one, in general terms, what we tell folks to do when you know you're in a storm and I got a baby on the ways of being in a storm is to push pause on your baby steps and just stack cash. So even if we weren't talking about moving, even if we weren't talking about all the other things, we would just generally say, let's see how high a stack of cash we can build as much as we would have put on the debt, which is a lot, the same intensity we're going to stack cash with. And then if health insurance covers what it's supposed to, which is most everything, and if everything goes well, baby and mama come home, everything's okay.

13:48Dave Ramsey:The day they come home, we push play again, which means we would empty out this account that we haven't used, but was there just in case. We emptied out down to$1 ,000, and so you really don't lose any traction mathematically that way. In your case, what you're going to have is a stack of cash. You sell your house. Solar panels are cleared. You have no debt. You make the move. Your stack of cash becomes your emergency fund. You go to the new place and rent, and you start saving towards a down payment. Okay.

14:22Jade Warshaw:That's what we were thinking.

14:24Dave Ramsey:How much equity have you got in your house? I was going to ask.

14:27Jade Warshaw:I think when we sell the home, so we bought a fixer-upper, and we've pretty much completely redone everything.

14:34Dave Ramsey:I think we stand to make about$50K minimum in equity. Above the solar panels?

14:41Jade Warshaw:No, that would be not including the solar panels. If we take the solar panels out, I think it would be about$25K. That's on the low end. Yeah.

14:48Dave Ramsey:Okay. And if you stack 25K, then you, and you say, or let's call that your emergency fund, whatever you stack, if you call that your emergency fund, because you don't end up having to use it after the move, then you've got 25K to put as a down payment on the other side. If that works.

15:05Jade Warshaw:And I'm going a step deeper. I don't know when you plan on putting your house on the market, but just having that cash there also, I'm thinking two things. Moving in general is so expensive. so you're moving from Pennsylvania to where uh South Carolina yeah so just keeping in mind like start pricing that out now because when we moved from South Florida here to Tennessee the boxes alone the boxes the U-Haul truck are you going to get one of the pods are you going to all that stuff if your uh stipend doesn't cover it like that's if you're even getting a stipend I don't know but just price that out because there's a lot going on there that has the potential to creep up on you.

15:44Dave Ramsey:Yeah, it can turn into a serious chunk of money.

15:47Jade Warshaw:100%. Dave, I was shook when I saw the cost to have someone drive your stuff midway across the country. Boxes. $20 ,000.

15:56Dave Ramsey:That we're throwing away. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a big deal. Yeah. It's pretty serious. So yeah, that's be ready for all of that. Plan that out. Plan the move out and try to plan to where you're not moving with a three-day-old child or a child that's getting ready to come in the next three days. That's just the worst possible scenario from a family standpoint.

16:22Jade Warshaw:Yeah, it really is.

16:23Dave Ramsey:The further back you can dial it one way or the other outside the ninth month, either after the baby is born or before. She said she wants to move before, so let's talk about February.

16:34Jade Warshaw:Yeah, can't hurt to ask.

16:35Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Can't hurt to ask. It probably doesn't make that much difference to them anyway. So, yeah, I'm going to ask for sure. Good question. Denise is in New Jersey. Hi, Denise. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. How can I help?

16:51Jade Warshaw:Yes. So I just received a personal injury settlement of$200 ,000. And I know you don't like municipal bonds, but I'm hoping you tell me in my case it's okay to do. I already have CDs,$450 ,000 in CDs. I have mutual funds,$230 ,000. I have savings and checking. I have no debt. So I don't need to shelter the$200 ,000 because it will be tax-free on a personal injury. But I really don't want any more interest.

17:33Dave Ramsey:I don't understand. You don't want the money to grow?

17:38Jade Warshaw:You don't want compound interest? Well, it's going to put me in another tax bracket.

17:45Dave Ramsey:So what? There's not a 100 % tax bracket. So, you know, Dave, I want to make$2 ,000 instead of$40 ,000 because of the tax bracket. That's not logical, Denise.

18:01Jade Warshaw:No. Okay, so you think annuities then would be?

18:07Dave Ramsey:No. How old are you?

18:11Jade Warshaw:78.

18:12Dave Ramsey:Oh, okay. All right. So you've got all kinds of people in your ear, don't you?

18:19Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

18:20Dave Ramsey:Yeah, okay.

18:23Jade Warshaw:So I don't know what to do with the money. I mean, more than these, I don't think I can add it to my IRA.

18:31Dave Ramsey:No, you can't.

18:36Dave Ramsey:All right. So you are someone that risk terrifies you, doesn't it?

18:44Jade Warshaw:Well, not so much at my age, no. I mean, really, I think I have enough for, you know, to take care of myself.

18:55Dave Ramsey:without the$200 ,000. Well, I mean, if I put, okay, I'm 65, so I'm a little bit younger than you, but not much. And if I put$250 ,000 in a high-yield savings account or CDs and I make 3 % on it, and instead I could have put it in a mutual fund and made 13%, that means I missed out on$25 ,000 a year worth of income, which is what you've done with the CDs and what you're getting ready to do with these bonds. so you need to decide if you are willing to put more money in mutual funds or not and I would sit down with a smart investor pro at RamseySolutions.com and start to learn about the market and how the market's performing and what's going on and get comfortable with it.

19:40Dave Ramsey:I personally, you know, would take the$250 ,000 in CD's and I would put it in mutual funds and I'd put this$200 ,000 in mutual funds but I want you to get comfortable with it before you go do that. But no, I'm not dumbing it down to municipal bonds. And no, I'm not going to tell you I would do that because I wouldn't do that. That would be a lie.

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21:56Dave Ramsey:If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and feeling like you can't get ahead, join one of our free EveryDollar trainings. There's new trainings every week this month. They're all hosted by one of the Ramsey personalities, either Jade or George or Rachel. Jade, when's your next one?

22:11Jade Warshaw:Oh, that is TBD.

22:13Dave Ramsey:Ah, okay.

22:14Jade Warshaw:But it will be there when they need it.

22:16Dave Ramsey:All right. We're going to show you how to stick to a budget and even find thousands of dollars, usually up around$10 ,000 of margin using every dollar. So you get out of debt, start building wealth, and you get to ask questions during the live Q &A. So sign up for free at RamseySolutions.com slash webinar. RamseySolutions.com slash webinar. Did I mention? It's free. Tam is in North Carolina. Hi, Tam. How are you?

22:44Jade Warshaw:Hello, thank you very much for taking my call.

22:46Dave Ramsey:Sure, how can I help?

22:50Jade Warshaw:I'm getting ready to go back to work, and I would like to know, how do I save money when I go back when my husband does not want to save? So, quick backstory, we've done the Dave Ramsey. We came out of debt, and in 2021, he says he no longer wants to do that, and he wants to live for the day. and since then we are in this cycle of constantly being credit card debt of 20 to 30 thousand dollars i'm currently stay at home but i'm going to go back to work and i told my husband well when i go back to work i want us to save for a future so i just want to know how do i do that you go get marriage counseling yeah what sparked it what sparked him to about face something caused that that i don't know because we um before we got married he was a hundred thousand dollars in debt we dated i told him i can't be in debt i introduced him to the ex-ranby we got out of debt then he put us back into debt for a car and then we got out of debt for that.

24:02Jade Warshaw:Yeah, I can't help you, honey.

24:04Dave Ramsey:There's nothing we can tell you that's going to work. Nothing will work until you guys fix your marriage. You can't make enough at your new job to offset his stupidity and immaturity.

24:21Dave Ramsey:You're going to retire broke, get ready to enjoy dog food. alpo is your choice for dinner that's why i was thinking when i went back to work you can't out earn his craziness gotcha you can't make enough to do it so you you don't have a savings vehicle

24:41Jade Warshaw:issue you have a broken marriage issue gotcha yeah you guys have got to work on that and if you if

24:50Dave Ramsey:If you ignore that and you think, oh, I'll just go get a job and save my money, he's going to go in debt further than any amount you can possibly save because there's no off button for this guy, the way he's operating right now.

25:02Jade Warshaw:Yeah. And you guys were never, it sounds like you were never aligned when you paid off the first hundred thousand. It sounds like his motivation was, I got this girl. I'm going to impress her. We've just gotten married, right? Even though your why may have been something different and it may have seemed as though you were aligned, but clearly you were not. So that's one of the things that you can talk about in counseling is what do you guys align on as your vision for the future? And it can't be about today. It has to be about where you see yourselves in X amount of years.

25:30Dave Ramsey:And honestly, I'm not being mean or anything, but his behavior pattern is one of someone who's going to be broke. When people say, thank God it's Friday, oh God, it's Monday, and that's their whole planning vision is make it to the weekend, like they're freaking Huey Lewis or something or whatever. Who sang that song?

25:48Jade Warshaw:Working for the weekend? Yeah. Is that Mike and the mechanics? I don't know. Okay. I've done this before, hadn't I?

25:53Dave Ramsey:Yeah. I always get criticized by lack of music knowledge.

25:55Jade Warshaw:I knew what you were talking about.

25:57Dave Ramsey:Yeah, I mean, anyway, you're going to be broke. If your whole planning horizon is trying to get to the weekend so I can smoke and drink, and I just say that's all I want to do. I just want to live in the moment. That means you're four years old emotionally.

26:12Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

26:13Dave Ramsey:And you're not going to ever build wealth, and you're not going to build a quality, successful anything because no one does anything of high quality in five days. So you have to have a longer planning window for that, a bigger vision for your life, for your money, for your health, for, I mean, that's the same thing that leads to extreme

26:33Jade Warshaw:obesity because there's, why not?

26:36Dave Ramsey:Why wouldn't I eat everything in sight? Because I'm living for the moment. And in the moment, that donut tastes good. And in the moment, I'm going to have six desserts and four bottles of wine. I mean, and then wonder why I'm 600 pounds. It's the same thing. It's the same thing. I mean, there's just no off button when you're that impulsive and immature. And all the data points tell us it's a very sad person. A lot of anxiety. There's a lot of depression around that because there's no vision. And, you know, the Bible talks about it. It says where there is no vision, the people perish. Now, think about that.

27:13Dave Ramsey:Perish. What's that mean? Roadkill, baby. Perish. Die. don't win. That's what that means. And so, you know, in any area of your life for your marriage, your kids, I mean, think about if you taught your kids that way, I, you know, I, you know, I'm going to live, I'm going to do the easy thing with the kids. Well, what you raise is animals that will drive you bananas because they have no discipline because they have no discipline. And so, but that's all thinking in the moment that what's easy right now, I want the easy button i want the easy button i want the easy button what you're planting because whatever

27:49Jade Warshaw:you plant later on that's what you're going to reap the harvest of it's so sad it's an awful way

27:54Dave Ramsey:to live and it's such a it's it's such an indication of a lack of maturity lack of hope and so that's the stuff you got to work on tam it's not um it's you know there's no amount of i mean if you go make two hundred thousand dollars a year and you save all of it he'll he'll spend three hundred because he knows his wife's over there stacking cash so he's going to be really Hey, I need two boats. You know, I mean, really. So this is... Austin is in Oregon, if I push the right button anyway. Austin, there you are, is in Oregon. Hey, Austin, how are you? I'm doing wonderful, Dave. How are you guys doing today?

28:31Dave Ramsey:Better than we deserve. How can we help? So my wife and I, we're three months married right now.

28:39Jade Warshaw:Congratulations. Thank you. Yes, and one of the things that we decided to do when we first got married was to do your guys' Baby Step program. So we just finished Step 1. We've got$1 ,000 set aside right now, and we're about to just attack Baby Step 2. We have about$10 ,000 in debt, and annually we bring in household income of around$95 ,000. Oh, great. So we want to get this, we want to get that debt-free as fast as possible. Agreed. So I'm thinking of picking up a second job, doing a few hours after my normal job every day, just to get that extra income, just to throw out all that debt. My wife, she's 100 % bored on this and everything.

29:29Jade Warshaw:She's thinking about picking up some shifts at our local fire department. Great. We both volunteer down there. And one of the things that she brought up, and I didn't necessarily have an answer for, but I 100 % agree with her, is she wants to make sure that we still have time for us during this entire step two.

29:51Dave Ramsey:She'll budget it.

29:53Jade Warshaw:Yeah, but it's$10 ,000. It's not going to last long enough to matter.

29:57Dave Ramsey:You ought to be done in a couple months. Yeah, that's my hot take.

30:01Jade Warshaw:Like if you had said we have 70 ,000, yeah, then I would say, OK, yeah, this is months and months ahead of you of, yeah, burning the candle at both ends. But for 10 ,000, you're going to be done in two months, three months. Right. With doing all the things you said. Yeah.

30:18Dave Ramsey:You can hold your breath for two months.

30:21Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

30:23Dave Ramsey:I mean, really, it's not it's not like we're doing two years here or something. So the other thing is this. The other thing is this. Anytime you're doing anything, you're out of balance. Okay. If you have a brand new baby in the house later, you're going to be out of balance because this kid is a demanding little piece of flesh when they're brand new. Okay. They want your attention all the time. They are peeing or pooping or crying because they're hungry all the time. And so you're out of balance. You're probably not doing some other stuff like you should because you're taking care of this baby.

30:55Dave Ramsey:Right now, you're getting out of debt. You're out of balance for a short period of time. Jay just ran a half marathon. You're out of balance for a short period of time because you're training in the mornings rather than doing something else. So you're always out of balance. So just choose your out of balance. And then when you do have time together, turn off the stupid television and put down the screens and look at human beings in the eyes. That's right. And then all of a sudden, oh, well, we did spend time together. Who knew?

31:23Jade Warshaw:That's right.

31:24Dave Ramsey:Netflix is not timed together. Okay? Scrolling, doom scrolling, is not timed together.

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32:46Dave Ramsey:know just to say hey people listen to the show that you're our best marketing plan and a bunch of you have been doing that we know because our numbers are way up thank you very much for all the help mike's in dallas hey mike how are you i'm doing well dave blessed how about yourself better

33:01Jade Warshaw:than i deserve how can we help hey uh just had a couple quick questions for you um me and my fiance. We're getting married here. And we've combined finances. We've got about$177 ,000 in debt. And we net before taxes about$200 ,000 a year. Good for you. What do y 'all do for a living? So I work in construction and she's a program manager for a wireless company.

33:34Dave Ramsey:Excellent. So what's the$177 in debt?

33:38Jade Warshaw:We've got student loans, about$75 ,000 on her end,$20 ,000 on my end. We've got about$9 ,000 in credit card debt, and then the rest is two car payments that we've got. Obviously, the credit card debt is kind of the biggest.

34:00Dave Ramsey:She's got two$30 ,000 cars? Yes, sir. geez wow all right and uh so when are you getting married um friday oh wow wow okay here it comes

34:15Jade Warshaw:this must really be weighing on you for you to call two days before a wedding wow so how can we help um i'm just kind of wanted to see what y 'all think um would be best to kind of put our money towards paying down first. We've got about$5 ,000 in savings. We've got 401ks and stock options as well. So I think we kind of want to hold on to just the stock option side of things. How much is that? Stock options? In the stocks, about$100 ,000. Wow. Okay.

34:58Dave Ramsey:Is that in a retirement plan? It's not, is it? No, sir.

35:02Jade Warshaw:It's not in a retirement plan.

35:03Dave Ramsey:It's not restricted at all? No, sir.

35:06Jade Warshaw:Listen.

35:06Dave Ramsey:If you cash that out, you got$100 ,000. Yes, sir. Whose is that? We would have to pay taxes on the back end.

35:13Jade Warshaw:About$20 ,000 of it's mine and$80 ,000 of it's hers. Yeah. So the way we teach is through a series of baby steps. Are you familiar with it at all? Yes, ma 'am. Okay. So then you know the first part of this is you go down to$1 ,000 and anything above that goes towards the debt.

35:33Dave Ramsey:That's not retirement.

35:34Jade Warshaw:That's not retirement. And in your case.

35:36Dave Ramsey:That's$100 ,000.

35:37Jade Warshaw:Yeah. That's a lot.

35:39Dave Ramsey:I'm using that to clear this debt up. I mean, because otherwise you effectively are borrowing on student loans to buy stock options.

35:46Jade Warshaw:Exactly.

35:47Dave Ramsey:Right. And I'm not doing that.

35:49Jade Warshaw:Now, I asked about the money because we didn't go into how aligned you guys are on this. obviously you've started combining finances, but this whole idea of the baby steps and really what it takes to walk this plan to be successful with it. When you go back to your fiance, who will be your wife, you know, come Monday and say, here's what I want to do. How is she going to react to that? And do we need to talk about that? No, she, she supports, you know, we're, we, we try to follow the Bible as best we can. And she knows that I'm wrapping my head around this, trying to get us on on the right path towards starting a family and buying a home.

36:29Jade Warshaw:Cool. And so she's very supportive.

36:31Dave Ramsey:So, Mike, what I figured out many, many years ago and is the basis for our teaching is the shortest distance between where you are now and wealth is to be completely debt-free because your most powerful wealth-building tool is your income. And so do anything that I can use to clear that up, I'm going to use to clear that up because then I got$200 ,000 to work with, to build wealth with. So temporarily, we're going to put 401ks on hold. We're going to liquidate anything that's not retirement, including those stock options, including the four of the five grand. Now, this is after you get back from the honeymoon, okay?

37:08Dave Ramsey:We're not doing it between now and Friday, okay? But when you get back from the honeymoon, and so basically I've got$100 ,000. Now I've got$77 ,000 in debt.

37:17Jade Warshaw:I'd be looking at these two cars.

37:18Dave Ramsey:And I'm going to be listing the debts, smallest to largest, and that's the first$105 ,000 I'm going to pay off, is the first$105 ,000 of smallest debts. So credit cards, the student loans are probably broken up into several loans, are they not?

37:34Jade Warshaw:Yes, sir.

37:35Dave Ramsey:Yeah, so I'm going to get them out as individual loans, and I'm going to list every debt, smallest to largest, balanced regardless of interest rate. And I'm going to take that$104 ,000 and go as fast through there as I can. and then wherever that lands me, going to cut up the credit cards, and then we're going to probably the cars are going to be the last two things you pay, actually. That's probably where you're going to end up. And then you're going to just attack those. You only got$77 ,000 in debt, and you got$200 ,000 to work on. If you're both completely focused on that, you could be debt-free in a year.

38:06Dave Ramsey:And then you don't have any payments, and now we build the emergency fund up to where it should be, three to six months of expenses. That's baby step three. and then we restart the 401ks and now we start building wealth and um you're going to be in a really strong position to do that but the what happens is that people keep this stuff they keep tinkering around they keep trying to hack find kind of some kind of shortcut or some kind of hack like i'm going to keep the stock options because i like those i heard you say it yeah and uh and i'm just going to work on it over here no that's a hack you're trying to find a shortcut and listen The stock options are not as valuable as you being free mathematically.

38:49Jade Warshaw:In no way does the math work on that because people look over here and they say, in his case,$100 ,000. I've got$100 ,000. I'm like, you don't have$100 ,000. If you owe someone$177 ,000, you're still$77 ,000 in debt. That's what math says.

39:03Dave Ramsey:Yeah. The math ain't math. Math ain't math. There you go. That's what you say. Yeah, that's exactly right. So that's how I'm going to do it. And what we're going to do is give you guys a wedding gift, Financial Peace University and EveryDollar, the full EveryDollar experience, the paid version. And if you guys come back from the honeymoon, start going through all that together, you got to start talking this through, learning the details of what we're showing you. And you're going to see how that in 10 years, you're going to be multimillionaires. If you follow this, if you screw around with this stuff, you're going to be 10 years and you're going to look about like you look now.

39:37Dave Ramsey:And that's what most people do. All the money comes in, all the money goes out, and they're just a rat in a wheel. They just run, run, run, run with no traction because they don't execute on a detailed, proven process. And that's what we're going to beg you to do. So you hang on, and we'll have Kelly pick up, and we'll give you our wedding gift. Congratulations on your wedding Friday. That's pretty cool. I'm with you. Who calls two days before, three days before? Not me.

40:03Jade Warshaw:He's feeling the weight.

40:04Dave Ramsey:I was not thinking about anything like this. No. Not at all. He's feeling the weight. Well, he's just a planner extraordinaire. I mean, that may be what he may be the super nerd. And that's going to work to his benefit, too.

40:16Jade Warshaw:Well, he has to promise us not to mention this at all.

40:19Dave Ramsey:Until you get back from the honeymoon. Yes, please. Do not bring any of this up. And really, don't even reveal that you were thinking about this two days before the wedding. Don't tell that until maybe 10 years later. Don't reveal that. That's not going to go well for you. Yeah. Yeah.

40:35Jade Warshaw:The names have been changed in this conversation to protect the innocent. Yeah. His name's not really Mike.

40:40Dave Ramsey:His name is really Joe and he's not really in Dallas. He's really in Minneapolis. So anyway, but okay. So I hope. You never know around here. there is something unbelievable folks about the power of focus when you can choose extreme focus meaning you're not doing anything else you're only doing one thing when you choose that in a culture that has the attention span of a gnat that is so distracted, everybody's looking at their phone 2 ,600 times a day. They're thinking about 47 ,000 things at one time, and they're not good at any of them. When you choose a singular focus, you set yourself apart from the general population.

41:32Dave Ramsey:And we call those people successful people.

41:35Jade Warshaw:That's right. That's right. Listen, even Michael Jordan could only do basketball. We saw what happened when he tried to do baseball.

41:42Dave Ramsey:It was kind of ugly.

41:44Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

41:45Dave Ramsey:One of the greatest athletes to ever walk the planet. He really wasn't that bad, but it didn't transfer. No. It didn't transfer. He, yeah, it was.

41:55Jade Warshaw:Got to focus in one area.

41:57Dave Ramsey:The only thing he did is try. You got to give him that, but yeah. Focus. There's a power to focus.

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43:57Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Jade Washa, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Number one best-selling author, Sean, is with us in Tennessee. Hey, Sean, how are you? Better than I deserve, Dave. How are y 'all? Just the same, sir. How can we help?

44:15Jade Warshaw:Well, recently I just graduated from college, bought a house, and started running the race like everyone else. And figured out that's not quite going too well. So I've racked up about$125 ,000 in debt. That's between student loans, a car loan, and consumer debt. And that's not feeling great, but it feels manageable. The only problem is now my wife is going through school as well. So when she gets out, she'll have student loans. So you're actively taking the student loans out now, today? Well, yes, she took out her first one just this month. And how much further does she have to go? She'll have four more years.

45:12Dave Ramsey:Okay, so... So she went to school, you were in debt, you can't breathe, and so your plan is, Honey, you need to go back to school, and let's go further in debt to make sure we fail. Why is this a plan?

45:26Jade Warshaw:Well, it wasn't a plan until just recently.

45:29Dave Ramsey:It's not a plan. It sucks. She should not be in school. You don't have any money.

45:34Jade Warshaw:You got to stop it. I'm currently the only one with the income, and this was before I found y 'all.

45:43Dave Ramsey:I mean, you don't have to find us to go, I can't breathe. Let's go deeper in debt. That was kind of what y 'all's plan was. It doesn't even make sense, man.

45:53Jade Warshaw:Yeah, what's she going to school for? What's she trying to become? So she's going to school to become a pharmacist. I just recently graduated from pharmacy school. Currently right now at a pretty good job. It's$125 ,000 a year. Okay.

46:09Dave Ramsey:That's pretty typical.

46:10Jade Warshaw:That's good. So here's my suggestion. Hear me out because this is a big turn from what you're doing. My suggestion would be you guys are together. You're married. You've both just finished school. You realize that your student loans were a mistake. Couldn't you work for a while? Could she delay just a little bit while you guys start to clean this up? Is there something else she can do that's adjacent while you guys clean up this mess and start saving for her to go little by little? Because we don't want to repeat the same mistake twice. Right? Right. Right.

46:46Dave Ramsey:I don't have a plan that helps you if she continues in school and is racking up debt. There's not a plan that helps that. So it just doesn't, it's not logical to me. I don't mind her being in school. I don't mind her being having the goal of being a pharmacist. That's all fine, but let's just pay for it. And right now you can't pay for it because you're so far in debt you can't breathe because you bought a bunch of crap you can't afford. And now you're buying even more crap you can't afford called her education. So you guys have really got to talk about this and change this direction. I don't think you're going to, but you're going to crash.

47:18Jade Warshaw:Yeah, yeah.

47:19Dave Ramsey:You're going to crash. You're going to hit the wall, man. And it's going to be bad because you just keep buying stuff.

47:26Jade Warshaw:Well, it really is insanity. You did a thing. It caused you to feel crazy, and you're doing it again. Doing more of it. Let's do more.

47:35Dave Ramsey:It didn't work, so let's double down on it didn't work. Yeah. It's not, no, no, no, no, no, Sean. and so not for your sake, man. I want you guys to be free, and I want you to be able to live your dreams, and all you're doing is creating a nightmare that you may never get out of. I don't know how long it's going to take you guys to clean this up. So, no, I would not do that. I would stop school. If I'm her, I'm going to get a job, make as much as I can make. You take on as much as you can make. You guys live on beans and rice, rice and beans, sell a stupid car, and let's tear into this debt and get it cleared up in a couple of years, and let's try to knock this out.

48:11Dave Ramsey:And then start saving for her to go to school and pay cash for it. And then your income will go way on up and you will have no debt and you're in a position to build wealth. And all along the way have had a lot more peace.

48:25Jade Warshaw:Yeah. And by the way, now's not the time to buy a house and all those other things that people do when they enter the world. Yeah. Yeah.

48:34Dave Ramsey:You jumped in the middle of a rat race and acted like a rat. And that's not, man, it's a problem. So may even need to sell the house. I don't know. Did they already get one? Yeah, he said he already bought a house, bought a car, and already did all that. Jen is in Mississippi. Hi, Jen. How are you?

48:55Jade Warshaw:Hi, Dave. I'm great. How are you?

48:58Dave Ramsey:Better than I deserve. How can I help?

49:00Jade Warshaw:Great. Thank you for taking my call. I'm married. I'm 60. We're in our forever home. It's a two-bedroom. and started the debt snowball in January with$243 ,000 in debt. On what? It was a lot of credit cards and different loans and a car and a boat. Is any of that the house? No. I have it down now to$150. So what do you owe on your boat? The boat I owe$68 ,000.

49:48Dave Ramsey:Yes. Sell it.

49:52Jade Warshaw:Okay. Well, there's been like a curveball in our life since we started all this. I have the debt down to$150 right now since January.

50:03Dave Ramsey:But you owe$68 ,000 on a boat.

50:05Jade Warshaw:Right.

50:05Dave Ramsey:Sell it. okay so you live in a two-bedroom house and you have a seventy thousand dollar boat

50:13Jade Warshaw:well it's not a small two-bedroom but anyway my we recently last year got custody temporary custody of our three grandchildren and it's turning into permanent and we really need to build onto this house to get some bedrooms. And I don't know how to manage paying off the debt and getting this built on.

50:44Dave Ramsey:What is your home worth? $250. Okay.

50:48Jade Warshaw:I owe$100 on it. Okay.

50:51Dave Ramsey:I would not build onto it. I would sell it and buy a home that has bedrooms.

50:57Jade Warshaw:Okay.

50:58Dave Ramsey:It's not a good plan in your situation. and you have so many balls in the air, you're going to drop one. Wow. What in the world happened, kid, that you end up with these babies?

51:08Jade Warshaw:Well, there was a death. The dad died in a motorcycle wreck, and then they became homeless and living with four different people in a year. And they had no bed. They had no structure. The oldest one was eight. And she was failing, she failed second grade and was going to fail it again. So we took them, got temporary custody, and it's turning in to be full time.

51:38Dave Ramsey:I'm sorry. You just gave your life away for those kiddos, and you should because you love them and you want to take care of them.

51:44Jade Warshaw:Well, they didn't ask for any of this. I know.

51:46Dave Ramsey:You're a neat lady. I appreciate you. Sell the boat and sell the house and go get a house that holds these kids. It's we're going to focus on the kids, not on your dreams that you used to have. We have a new dream now. It's raising these kids. And everything revolves around that. You took that on, and that's – and so I'm going to – I would not do an extensive remodel and wait on that for them to have a bedroom. I'd simply put a sign in the yard, put a sign on the boat, and then let's go get a house that holds – that's got four bedrooms, sometimes maybe a different neighborhood, maybe further out of town.

52:23Dave Ramsey:I don't know, but I'm looking for a deal and let's try to get, you know, let's focus in on them, on those babies and let's see if we can get them, get them back on track. Bless their hearts. Thank you for doing that.

52:44Jade Warshaw:Dave, we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens. One day someone's healthy,

52:48Dave Ramsey:they're working, providing for their family, and then a curveball hits. You know, we hear it all the time. A car accident, a cancer diagnosis, a heart attack, and suddenly everything changes.

52:59Jade Warshaw:Yeah, and that's why you've always said that having term life insurance from Xander is essential because it protects your family if the worst happens.

53:06Dave Ramsey:Yeah, that's right. You need 10 to 12 times your income in coverage. No gimmicks, no whole life junk, just straightforward term life protection. But there's another piece that people often overlook, and that's long-term disability insurance.

53:23Jade Warshaw:Yeah, it's important to understand the difference between them. Life insurance steps in when you die. Disability insurance steps in while you're alive but can't work. So it replaces a large part of your income so the bills still get paid while you get back on your feet.

53:36Dave Ramsey:Now, if your employer gives you free disability insurance, great, take it. If it's discounted there at a better price, take it. But if not, Xander can help you find the right plan. whether you're single or married it's not optional if you're going to be out of work for a while then you need to make sure the money's still showing up and that's why zander is our go-to they make it super simple to get the right coverage at the best price no pressure no upselling i've trusted jeff zander and zander insurance for over 25 years and so has my family so don't wait it's

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54:15Dave Ramsey:Protect yourself, protect your income, protect your family.

54:35Dave Ramsey:Kyle's in Wisconsin. Hey, Kyle, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up?

54:44Jade Warshaw:Um, so my question is, uh, currently on baby step four, five, and six, um, married, no kids yet, but that is, uh, coming up hopefully soon. Um, my wife and I are currently doing 15 % investing. Um, we're debating on getting your, um, thoughts, I guess, on reducing that investing to the company match, which would free up more in our monthly budget to do on the mortgage because I currently drive 40 minutes each way to work. And my thought is if I didn't have the mortgage, I could afford to take a lesser paying job that's closer to home.

55:22Dave Ramsey:Why don't you take a greater paying job that's closer to home now?

55:27Jade Warshaw:I've looked in the area, but we currently live in a smaller farm town and I currently work in a slightly bigger city. I just haven't seen any better income.

55:42Dave Ramsey:Wife and I combine for$2 ,000. No, what do you make? You're the one making the drive.

55:47Jade Warshaw:Oh, sure. I currently make about$120 ,000,$130 ,000 a year. So can I ask, I'm going to try to come at this another way. So you're saying the difference between the match and you going full 15%, how much is that monthly for you? What's the number amount? Roughly$1 ,500 would be the less amount of investing and the extra to put on mortgage. Sorry, my voice is shaking. I'm pretty nervous. And how much time, because that's what's in question, how much time does that$1 ,500 save you in paying off your mortgage?

56:22Dave Ramsey:It's$18 ,000 a year. What's the balance on the mortgage? We currently owe$460 ,000. Okay.

56:29Jade Warshaw:So this is a long-term play. Yeah. So my question would not be about backing down your 15 % because that's so important in the grand scheme of things. That's a lot of time that you'd be losing out on compound interest. What I'd be solving for is what can my wife and I do combined that will find us$1 ,500 a month? Is it a side hustle? Is it something she can do? Is it something that we change about our lifestyle? Are there cuts in the, do you see what I'm saying? Is there a way that we can get a lot closer to that$1 ,500 without sacrificing something that's very, very important? Because I wouldn't want you to sacrifice something so important.

57:08Jade Warshaw:Do you see what I'm saying? I do. I do. I have one other bit of info, and I don't want it to come off as I'm not trying to brag or anything like that, but we do currently have about$150 ,000 invested total, and we're both in our 20s.

57:26Dave Ramsey:In the 401k?

57:29Jade Warshaw:Correct, yes.

57:30Dave Ramsey:Okay.

57:31Jade Warshaw:So my thought is we live pretty cruelly based on calculating different things. Even if I did nothing, that's still going to grow to obviously a very nice nest egg.

57:44Dave Ramsey:You're in your 20s and you commute 40 minutes. Correct. That would be called normal.

57:52Jade Warshaw:I was going to say.

57:54Dave Ramsey:Sure. Most people do. Okay. Lots of people commute an hour plus. to go to their job. Sure. I'm not sure we're solving for the right thing.

58:11Dave Ramsey:No, I would not stop putting 15 % away. And do you not like your job?

58:19Jade Warshaw:No, no, I do. It's just the drive can just, I get it's not super long. It's just wintertime and everything. It's just, it can be long hours. just different things. So I just want to see anything I can do to knock the mortgage out, but then also not having to do it.

58:37Dave Ramsey:Yeah, but no, I mean, you're solving for in your 20s, you want to drive 10 minutes, and so you're willing to take a$60 ,000 pay cut to do that once you get the house paid off. Even if the house was paid off, I don't think this is a wise thing to solve for. Okay. The tradeoff is not worth it. Now, what I might do, I mean, if that is that great a concern to you, move closer to your work and let's solve a solve the thing a different way but this idea that i'm going to plan my life so that in my 20s i can make half what i used to make so that i don't have to have a commute that's a bad trade man that's a bad trade you need to trade something else yeah there's something else needs to move in in these variables there's a handful of variables here let's turn a different knob.

59:25Jade Warshaw:That's what I'm saying. The last knob to turn is your future, which is your retirement.

59:30Dave Ramsey:Yeah, I'm going to put 15 % away. I may move or I may get peace with the 40 minute commute. But I'm not going to take a job under any circumstances in my 20s, half of what I used to make, unless I can't find a job because I and there's like integrity problems at the other the place or I hate the place or ethics issues or something like that. But none of that is up here. This is just, I don't like driving 40 minutes.

59:58Jade Warshaw:I'd just be trying to whittle down that 1500. Can I get it to 700? Can I find 700 somewhere? I'd be looking at that number creatively.

1:00:06Dave Ramsey:Yeah, but even then, the purpose of it is so he can quit his job.

1:00:08Jade Warshaw:Yeah, you're right.

1:00:09Dave Ramsey:And we're solving, that's what we're solving. That's the solutioning for it all the way through. And I just don't want to participate in that part of it either.

1:00:16Jade Warshaw:I hear you.

1:00:17Dave Ramsey:So I think I think I'm going to solve this a different way. And and I'm going to keep putting 15 percent away to your point. But even if you made more on these side hustles and you got the house paid off, then you quit your job over a 40 minute commute. I'm just I still can't get there. I can't go there with you. Austin is in Missouri. Hey, Austin, what's up?

1:00:38Jade Warshaw:Hey, guys, I appreciate you speaking into my situation.

1:00:41Dave Ramsey:Sure.

1:00:41Jade Warshaw:I have a question about a blessing I've got in my life. I'm a pastor, and my church just updated its PTO policy. So they bought us out of our PTO, and we can choose to take that in a taxed check or take it and have it put directly into our annuity. And we don't have any debt.

1:01:11Dave Ramsey:I'm sorry, you are in debt? We are not in debt. Not in debt, okay.

1:01:15Jade Warshaw:No, sir, other than our home. We own a home. We owe about$40 ,000 on it. I think we could sell it between$2 ,000 and$2 ,50 ,000. We would like to buy another home. We don't have one that we're actively working on buying, but we would like to.

1:01:28Dave Ramsey:How big is the check? I just want$8 ,600. Okay. Let's pay the house down.

1:01:36Jade Warshaw:You only have$40 ,000 to go. Wow.

1:01:38Dave Ramsey:Yeah, now you only got$30 ,000 to go. That's awesome. Yeah, okay.

1:01:43Jade Warshaw:I didn't ask. Do you have three to six months of expenses? Yeah, yeah. We've got about$25 ,000 in savings. Okay. Yeah. Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. No, that's okay. I just wanted to ask. Yes, ma 'am. Even with the tax that might come on that, you'd say just put it toward the house? Oh, yeah. Currently got it. Okay.

1:02:03Dave Ramsey:Definitely. That's where you are in the baby steps. all lump sums that unless you need it for something around the house that's the other thing we're in baby steps four five and six so we're being intentional not intense and intentional might mean you need to upgrade a car there might be a couch with a spring sticking through it you need a new couch I don't know you may need it for some of that too but if you've got it as free and clear and you don't have other needs for it before I would put it into the annuity I'd into your retirement I'd put it on the house yeah yeah and let's get that house knocked out you're heading in the right way way to go man that is so awesome that's very very good so jade um i think it's good occasionally to recap on a couple of these things um when we laid out the baby steps and came up with that process and started teaching people to follow that we ran uh that was 25 plus years ago And we ran a whole bunch of scenarios down and said, okay, what are the numbers that allow people to get their home paid off, to invest for their kids' college, and still be putting something away for retirement?

1:03:15Dave Ramsey:Right. And we ran the scenario, you know, at the time, it was a long time ago, like a single mom making$23 ,000 or a doctor making$230 ,000. Now the numbers would be different than that, but you still run the numbers out. The expenses are different than they were then too.

1:03:32Jade Warshaw:But you want it to work for anyone.

1:03:34Dave Ramsey:Exactly. And oddly enough, it wasn't a biblical exercise. It was just a math exercise. But oddly enough, that 15 % in baby step four has turned out to be the right number. It turned out because we ran like 12, we ran 17, we ran 10, we ran 20. and then the house didn't get reduced if too much was going in. Sure. Or 10%. It wasn't enough. It wasn't building up fast enough. And so, guys, these numbers work. So you're not going to catch us adjusting them very often because they've proven out over decades to work.

1:04:09Jade Warshaw:And they have to work for everyone.

1:04:10Dave Ramsey:All kinds of different scenarios.

1:04:22Thank you.

1:04:24Jade Warshaw:Hey guys, Rachel Cruz here. And guess what? The 2026 Ramsey Goal Planner is here. This isn't just another calendar. It's a life-changing tool that helps you set clear goals and build habits that actually stick. Get ready for all new monthly content from your favorite Ramsey personalities, tactical goal tracking tools, and upgrades that make this our most durable planner yet. But don't wait. If you order in the first week, you'll get the lowest price at just$35.97. Order by Labor Day at RamseySolutions.com slash store to get the deal.

1:05:09Dave Ramsey:The 2026 Gold Planner, Ramsey Gold Planner, is now available. And between now and September 1st, Labor Day, you can get the best deal ever on the thing,$35.97. This is the best deal you'll get on the planner for a limited time. These planners go really, really fast. They're very expensive to produce, and we only do about 10 ,000 or 20 ,000 of them, and they always sell out very, very quickly. So don't wait. Grab it. Buy Labor Day for just$35.95. So the way this thing is laid out, we turn our creatives loose, and they have just a lot of fun in their own little sandbox there. It's a beautiful, beautiful piece of work.

1:05:50Dave Ramsey:And Jade has written, Rachel has written, and John Deloney have written the entrance, a little devotional, to start each month with.

1:06:00Jade Warshaw:Basically, yes.

1:06:01Dave Ramsey:And so you can open up when you get each month, and then when you turn the next page, you have on the two pages face up in the spiral bound, you've got the entire month. And then when you turn the next page, you've got a week. And the next page is a week, the next page is a week, the next page is a week until you get through the month. And then you get a new devotional, a new write-up by one of them, and it takes you all the way through your year for 2026. It is a very, very popular item. It's very well done, and I think you're going to really, really enjoy this year's version as well. So get yours at RamseySolutions.com.

1:06:34Dave Ramsey:Click the link in the description. get it before the first of the month because uh after labor day it's going to be 35.97 right now after labor day it's going to go way up again this thing is very expensive to produce and we just do a limited quantity of them so get be sure you get them before they're gone and before the price jumps up as well daniel's in ohio hi daniel how are you i'm doing good uh how are you better than i deserve how can we help so last month it kind of kicked for me and

1:07:04Jade Warshaw:I just got really sick and tired of being sick and tired. Cool. I've been like this before, and that kind of makes my wife question if I'm serious or not. Last time I had a financial advisor, he actually idolized you and just everything that you did. And he was very close to being a multimillionaire before he eventually passed away, right after he was helping us with our budget. So I got real disheartened and stopped budgeting. I just stopped everything and just went about it.

1:07:34Dave Ramsey:Why did that not inspire you instead of disheartening?

1:07:37Jade Warshaw:I know. I know. And that's kind of what I'm feeling now. I'm feeling more inspired to do this. And, I mean, how ashamed he would have been, it just scares me. And so I'm starting my baby steps. I know I need to save my thousand. And I don't think I'll have an issue with that. My issue is I went to one of those stupid buy here, pay here car lots where they are the bank, so they finance you through themselves. And I ended up paying close to$34 ,000 for a Dodge Caravan. It was$19.9, but after interest, it was close to$34 ,000. Oh, boy. Um, I have been paying$175 a week for this van for the past two and a half years.

1:08:30Jade Warshaw:And, uh, yeah, I've had nothing but issues with it. Um, so next month I'm getting a check, uh, from a job, uh, for$2 ,500. Um, and I was going to use that to buy a family vehicle with no payments and give the van back on a voluntary repossession.

1:08:50Dave Ramsey:No.

1:08:51Jade Warshaw:I just listened to an episode today that said you would never do that.

1:08:55Dave Ramsey:Nope, I would not.

1:08:56Jade Warshaw:So I thought I would call. Okay.

1:08:59Dave Ramsey:So the$34 ,000 is not the balance. No. $34 ,000 is the total of payments, including all interest through the end of the loan. And so that's not your payoff balance. So what you need to get from them is what the actual payoff is. if you walked in there with a check today?

1:09:21Jade Warshaw:It would be right around$14 ,000.

1:09:24Dave Ramsey:Oh, good.

1:09:24Jade Warshaw:Oh, that's way better.

1:09:26Dave Ramsey:And what's the van worth?

1:09:29Jade Warshaw:It's probably worth about$2 ,000.

1:09:32Dave Ramsey:Who said?

1:09:35Jade Warshaw:The transmission is going out.

1:09:38Dave Ramsey:You said. Okay.

1:09:40Jade Warshaw:Yeah, I said.

1:09:41Dave Ramsey:Okay. So the transmission is struggling, and the van is. but you paid originally$20 ,000 and now you think it's worth two two years later that's a bit of drama I don't believe you

1:09:56Jade Warshaw:it wasn't in the best condition when I got it

1:09:58Dave Ramsey:I know but you didn't pay $20 ,000 you're not that dumb for a van that was worth eight and you didn't and so this van's not worth two now it's probably worth seven or eight okay you need to figure out what the van's really worth and get the drama out because if you turn this into them they're going to sell it for two and they're going to come after you for 12 plus repo fees you lose control of the sale price of the van when you do a voluntary or a regular repo because and they're going to sell it at below wholesale because it's what they do at those lots this is the scam they run so they they want you to do this so now i'm going to find out what the van's really worth i'm going to get it sold and i'm going to cover the difference with a loan at the credit union or wherever even on a credit card if you borrow four or five thousand dollars and you get out of a fourteen thousand dollar loan and a crappy van and you take take twenty five hundred bucks and go get you a little car.

1:11:01Dave Ramsey:I'm with you on your general direction that this thing's got to go. But a voluntary repo is not a good plan.

1:11:14Jade Warshaw:Okay.

1:11:15Dave Ramsey:You're going to end up owing $6 ,000 or$8 ,000 more by doing this. That's why it's not a good plan. You understand. They're going to sell it for way cheaper than you would sell it for, so the hole that you're in is going to be a lot larger. And then they're going to come after you for that amount of money yes you're gonna get sued for that amount of money if you don't pay it to them and they will this group will they'll come after you it's what they do it's their modus operandi what's your what's your hesitation

1:11:46Jade Warshaw:uh i i worry like even if i sold the van uh i worry about um not being able to get a loan to cover it. My credit is at like a 574.

1:11:57Dave Ramsey:Yeah, that may be difficult. And, you know, you might go back down and talk to them and say, is there a situation where you guys would buy this back and let me sign a note with you for the difference and just pay them? I'd rather you owe them five or six thousand dollars than owe, than have it voluntarily repoed. Right?

1:12:22Jade Warshaw:Okay.

1:12:23Dave Ramsey:So you talk to them, I talk to your credit union, I take out a credit card, any of that, because any of that's, at the end of the day, what we're doing is reducing your debt. So any of that's, we're just changing the structure of the debt and reducing it. And that's what you've got to do, man. And you can't just, you can't sign up for something this horrible, stick your foot in a bear trap and then go, oh, the best way to get out of the bear trap is chew my foot off. No, you can't do that. You've got to open the thing, heal, you've got to fix it. You're going to have to go through some more pain to fix the bad decision that you made when you impulsively did this.

1:12:58Dave Ramsey:And you knew better when you were doing it the whole time.

1:13:02Jade Warshaw:The whole time.

1:13:02Dave Ramsey:Yeah. So this is the price you pay for that. And that's okay. We've all done stupid stuff. But just don't compound it and make it worse now. Fix it the right way, the least damage to your foot after you stuck it in a bear trap. That's right. And so, so guys, um, when you have a car loan of any kind, doesn't matter whether it's pay now, pay here, buy here, whatever, tote the note people, or whether it's freaking Lexus motor credit and Ford motor credit and Chrysler credit and anybody like that, it doesn't matter. This is not a Hertz rent a car that you can just drop the thing off and say, I don't want it anymore.

1:13:43Dave Ramsey:They're going to assess that. They're going to run it through a repo auction. And I've bought cars at repo auctions and they sell below wholesale. And sometimes they run them through Mannheim. They run them through the big auctions, the auto auctions. And they, you know, they say this is a repo. And, you know, and so you're expecting some dings. You're expecting some problems with it if you're the buyer. And I'm going to discount it below wholesale so that I'm getting a deal if I'm the buyer. And so it's going to bring the least possible price in that scenario. And then they're going to sue you for the difference.

1:14:17Dave Ramsey:And you've got a repo on your credit. Meanwhile, you could have sold it. And, you know, doubled or tripled and cut the problem down. So you guys, I don't like my car anymore. So I'm going to just drop it off at the dealer. Y 'all can't do that. Okay. You're killing yourself. It's not a Hertz rent-a-car.

1:14:53We'll be right back.

1:15:17Dave Ramsey:Today's Ramsey Show question is brought to you by YReFi. If you've been turned down for refinancing your defaulted private student loans, you're not alone, and you're not out of luck. YReFi exists to give people like you another shot. Go to YReFi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Not available in all states.

1:15:42Jade Warshaw:Today's question comes from Savannah in Alabama. She says, my partner and I are engaged in living together. I have about$200 ,000 in student loan debt, and he has$125 ,000 left on his mortgage. We have separate finances, and he's supportive of me getting out of debt. The problem is that I have a hard time watching him splurge on hobbies and travel, which he can easily afford while I can't. I agree that when we get married, all this changes, and we've already talked about being frugal together. Is it fair to ask him to save now for when we get married? And if not, how do I manage this disconnect?

1:16:21Dave Ramsey:He should want to save now because he's going to have to face the piper later. Yeah. And it's going to cause him to kick the can down the road on the marriage date.

1:16:29Jade Warshaw:Well, that's my thing. It doesn't sound like there's much of a date. She doesn't mention a date. And so I wonder about that.

1:16:37Dave Ramsey:We're already acting like we're married in every sense of the word. We're living together. Go get married like this weekend. Yeah. That solves it, which is what you should have done in the first place, actually. Yeah.

1:16:54Jade Warshaw:The whole thing is weird. They're living together. It's his mortgage. It's her debt. Yeah. There's a lot of problems here.

1:17:01Dave Ramsey:Trying to do everything in the wrong order and in the wrong way. So it solves it all. Just go get married this weekend. And then both of you attack. You know, that shuts down the whole discussion. If you were living separately and he was making a lot of money and had no debt except his mortgage and the same question came up, I would expect him to want to. if he called and asked us what to do, we would tell him to save money like crazy so that as soon as he comes home with a honeymoon, he makes a big old lump sum hit on that thing, right? Yeah. And that would be the more normal way to, I don't know if normal is the right word, but it would be the more, if everything was in the proper order, that's the way it would go.

1:17:44Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Instead, we've gotten things out of order here.

1:17:47Jade Warshaw:He doesn't think that you guys are getting married anytime soon.

1:17:50Dave Ramsey:Nor does he have an incentive to.

1:17:52Jade Warshaw:No, he doesn't. So, of course, he's supportive of you paying off your debt. That's no skin off his back.

1:17:58Dave Ramsey:Yeah, and there's no reason to get married. He's got everything he needs. There you have it. Hello. All right, I'm just saying. All right. Maya is in Colorado Springs. Hey, Maya, what's up?

1:18:12Jade Warshaw:Hey, how are y 'all?

1:18:13Dave Ramsey:Better than we deserve. How can we help?

1:18:16Jade Warshaw:Hey, so I've got a debt snowball question. So I'm getting ready to start Baby Step 2, and I've got all my debt boosted out smallest to largest. But I was evicted in January, and I still owe that apartment complex about$14 ,000.

1:18:30Dave Ramsey:Why were you evicted?

1:18:31Jade Warshaw:Probably number six on my list. I lost my job due to a medical complication. I'm reemployed now and was able to get another rental place with a larger deposit. Great. What do you make? Yeah. I make about$42 ,000 a year.

1:18:47Dave Ramsey:All right. Good. All right. So you got a huge debt there, huh?

1:18:51Jade Warshaw:Oh, that's just a portion of it. I'm about 53 in total. But my question is, my ex-boyfriend, my boyfriend at the time, was a co-applicant on that apartment with me. He was in another state. He never lived in that apartment. He was just helping me out because my credit is so bad. So I'm wondering if I should get that one paid off first so that he's not screwed when his lease is over, or if I should still just follow the snowball and go smallest to largest.

1:19:20Dave Ramsey:Well, he's already screwed because he's got a judgment against him.

1:19:25Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

1:19:26Dave Ramsey:Okay. So, I mean, when his lease is over, that's going to show up on his credit bureau. Right. So, I mean, it'll either show he's got a judgment, had a judgment against him that's been paid off, or he's just got a judgment because the lease he signed got evicted. So that's going to, yeah, he's got a pretty heavy damage to him already. Most of the damage has already been done, is my point.

1:19:48Jade Warshaw:Right.

1:19:49Dave Ramsey:So whether it's paid off or not is not really going to keep him from getting something over in another city. So you got$54 ,000, you said. What's the other debts?

1:19:59Jade Warshaw:$53 ,000. Let me pull up my notes real quick. I've got some credit card debt.

1:20:11Dave Ramsey:How much? Some other small personal loans. How much credit card?

1:20:17Jade Warshaw:About$16 ,000.

1:20:19Dave Ramsey:All right. That's$30 ,000 of the$53 ,000. What's the rest of it?

1:20:23Jade Warshaw:Personal loans. How much is that? I've got about$14 ,000 on a car that was wrecked that I didn't have insurance on. And then a little over$12 ,000 to the apartment complex. And then just some other small things like old wife fighters that I haven't paid.

1:20:40Dave Ramsey:Okay.

1:20:41Jade Warshaw:Insurance I've been dead on, stuff like that.

1:20:44Dave Ramsey:Okay.

1:20:48Dave Ramsey:you are paying double and triple for a lot of things because you're paying it poorly there's a lot of things on this list that that are out of control things a car that i wrecked i didn't have insurance on other stuff i haven't gotten around to and it's piled up back there so there's a lot of different crises represented in those things that you created by not taking care of business.

1:21:14Jade Warshaw:Yes.

1:21:15Dave Ramsey:Like keeping car insurance in place. That's like a priority because otherwise you end up with this mess on a car and you don't even have the car anymore, right?

1:21:25Jade Warshaw:Correct. What kind of work do you do? I'm a dog groomer. A dog groomer. Okay. And I'm just trying to understand how this all originated, how this kind of started spiraling out, like Dave was saying, where that instability came from. Is it coming from dog grooming as a profession or is it coming from something else? No. So in November, I was diagnosed with a disease that prevents me from driving. And I'm a mobile dog groomer. Now it's managed and medicated and I'm back to work. But that's kind of when all of that happened. I wasn't able to pay the rent and the car insurance and everything just quickly piled up.

1:22:04Jade Warshaw:The credit card debt is just for me being irresponsible. And you've cut them up since. Oh, yeah. Okay.

1:22:14Dave Ramsey:All right. So, okay. Yeah. No, I'm going to work the debt snowball straight up. List your debts, smallest to largest, pay minimum payments on everything but the little ones, and attack the little ones with a vengeance and work your way straight through as fast as you can. Are you on a salary at 42?

1:22:31Jade Warshaw:No. I make around$800 a week, depending on tips and all that sort of stuff.

1:22:37Dave Ramsey:Right. Okay. Are you able to work more than you're working?

1:22:42Jade Warshaw:So the branch in Colorado Springs just opened. About two weeks ago, I was able to pick up a third day, and as it grows, I'll be able to pick up more work. A third day? Yeah, I currently work three days a week.

1:22:55Dave Ramsey:What are you doing with the other four days?

1:23:01Jade Warshaw:I doordash, take care of my kid in my home.

1:23:05Dave Ramsey:Didn't sound like it to me. It sounds like you're doing nothing.

1:23:09Jade Warshaw:Pretty much, yeah. Okay, well, that's...

1:23:12Dave Ramsey:Listen, you're broke. You've got to be working, girl.

1:23:15Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

1:23:15Dave Ramsey:All the time. Okay. How old is your baby?

1:23:20Jade Warshaw:She's three.

1:23:21Dave Ramsey:And who takes care of them when you're working?

1:23:24Jade Warshaw:My fiancé. Okay.

1:23:29Dave Ramsey:Okay, when are you getting married?

1:23:33Jade Warshaw:uh that is to be determined depending on how long it takes us to not be broke that's how no that that's how fiance works we have a date otherwise otherwise we have a promise that has not got a

1:23:45Dave Ramsey:date okay and so yeah that's an issue how long have y 'all been engaged um november being debt free is not required to get married in the state of Colorado.

1:24:00Jade Warshaw:This is true. Okay.

1:24:04Dave Ramsey:So what does he make?

1:24:08Jade Warshaw:Right now he's not working because he was in a motorcycle wreck.

1:24:13Dave Ramsey:Okay. Y 'all are a hot mess.

1:24:15Jade Warshaw:How is he taking care of a baby? I mean, a three-year-old. Yeah. I mean, he can manage. I think you both need to work. more.

1:24:26Dave Ramsey:A lot more. Yeah. Yeah.

1:24:30Jade Warshaw:That's why I asked the question before.

1:24:33Dave Ramsey:Less partying, more working. Lots more working. Money comes from work. You need money.

1:25:13Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Jade Washa, Ramsey personality. Number one bestselling author is my co-host today. Andreas is with us in Austin, Texas. Hey, Andreas, how are you?

1:25:24Jade Warshaw:Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

1:25:27Dave Ramsey:Sure. How can we help?

1:25:30Jade Warshaw:Well, I need your help trying to figure out how to retire my wife. We have, we had a baby a few months ago, and it has now, it's now time for her to go back into the office. And every time she leaves for the office, I can see it in her eyes. It's killing her to, to go to the office. And I would love nothing more than to work, you know, and just take, I mean, sorry, I I am working, but, you know, take care of all the bills and do all that. The problem is she makes more money than I do and not by a small margin. She's in software. I'm in construction. And so I'm trying to figure out, you know, I make$5 ,000 take-home.

1:26:11Jade Warshaw:What does she make? $7 ,200 a month. Okay.

1:26:17Dave Ramsey:Can you live on$5 ,000 a month?

1:26:23Jade Warshaw:uh we have to figure it out uh we got a mortgage but no other how much is your mortgage by three thousand four hundred forty one you can't live in that house you can't live in that house if she's at home that's the big picture to this that's the big key to this is you'd have to sell the house you'd have to downsize and it'd have to be something to where the mortgage is no more than 25 % of$5 ,000 take-home pay?

1:26:49Dave Ramsey:$1 ,250. $1 ,250. Half the house.

1:26:55Jade Warshaw:We do have various investments. We have about$415 ,000.

1:27:02Dave Ramsey:In what?

1:27:04Jade Warshaw:We have about, some of it is retirement, about$60 ,000 for each of us in 401ks. then the rest of it is in brokerage accounts and some company stocks.

1:27:16Dave Ramsey:Which totals what? The non-retirement totals how much?

1:27:21Jade Warshaw:So the 412 minus about 120.

1:27:26Dave Ramsey:So let's call it 300 grand, okay? So what's your loan balance on the mortgage?

1:27:33Jade Warshaw:We owe 269. We have about 200 ,000 in equity.

1:27:39Dave Ramsey:So if you paid off the mortgage with your brokerage account, you'd have no mortgage. Now you've got$5 ,000. That's better than selling it. That's extra information we didn't have early in the conversation.

1:27:54Jade Warshaw:That's a big piece of it.

1:27:55Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Yeah. I think you should probably do that anyway. You should do that anyway. The money. So is that... What now?

1:28:04Jade Warshaw:That makes sense. And so, I mean, having the money invested, that doesn't make more than, because I think our interest rate on the house is 6%, but the average return on the investment should be like 7 % or something per year, right? Sure. But you said you opened the call with saying you are looking for a way to to use your words, retire your wife. But she wants to be a stay at home mom. And you were looking at how can I do that? And we were saying here, here's the solution to what you're saying. Now, to Dave's point, we would have told you to do that regardless, because it's non-retirement funds at stock and you still have the debt of your home laying around.

1:28:42Jade Warshaw:So we probably would have suggested that to you, regardless of the fact.

1:28:45Dave Ramsey:No one has ever, no millionaire that we've ever interviewed, Andreas, has said the way I got rich was I borrowed money on my house and invested it in a brokerage account. Zero. Zero millionaires say that. Right. So that's mythology from TikTok. Okay. This doesn't work because in the real world we have this thing called risk and babies. So if we paid off your house, how much other debt do you have?

1:29:17Jade Warshaw:Nothing. We own our cars. We don't have anything else.

1:29:20Dave Ramsey:So without a house payment, sit down and do a budget with your wife tonight on the EveryDollar app and commit to living on your income and not a dime more.

1:29:33Jade Warshaw:And just to drive this solution home, I just wanted to ask, did you have any suggestions of how you could do it? Well, I mean, so here's another factor. Because she's in software, her next, she should be getting, her trajectory, she should be making$400 ,000 like pretty soon. Okay. So I'm just wondering if we can move the assets that we currently have around. And, of course, I'm going to do my best to get my money up, too. But just if we can do something here just with what we have to get to that point where she can step away from that job in the next five years or so. So you're saying can we push?

1:30:18Dave Ramsey:I'm so confused. You are so screwed up on your goals. You need to decide what it is you want, honey. You called up and said, my wife's eyes when she leaves the brand new baby she just has. I want to retire my wife. We just told you how to do that. Now you've got to work in five more years. I'm confused.

1:30:34Jade Warshaw:Well, that's the biggest question is, is this her saying to you, I want to stay at home? Or is this something you've put in your brain that you want to, like, surprise her with? She has expressed, you know, not demanded, but expressed it would be nice to have that option. Sorry, I may have not been clear.

1:30:52Dave Ramsey:So y 'all got to sit down tonight and figure out what you want to do. Does she want to work and make 400K or does she want to be at home?

1:30:58Jade Warshaw:Yeah, clearly.

1:30:59Dave Ramsey:You need to pay off the house either way. And, you know, figure out if you can live on five grand, dude. And then you work your career and get your career up. And someday she goes back to work. By then her software skills will be completely irrelevant. And she gets to start completely over. So if she steps out, you don't get to step out of that world for five minutes, much less five years. And so that world's cutting edge, bleeding edge, changes every 10 minutes. And so the number of things that the people in this building that do software engineering are doing today that they did five years ago is zero.

1:31:36Jade Warshaw:That's a good thing.

1:31:36Dave Ramsey:Nothing is the same. And so about the time I start understanding a little bit of what they're doing, it's over. It moves. And I have to start again. So, yeah, that's okay. A, but it's not a skill set that you can put on the shelf and take back off the shelf later. It's not like I'm a nurse. Anatomy's not going to change when you come back five years later, okay? And there may be a few medical procedures that are different or something like that, but nursing will still be nursing five years later. You can put that one on the shelf, keep your certs active, go back to work when the kid goes to kindergarten.

1:32:15Dave Ramsey:That's not an unusual thing. People do that stuff all the time. this one you're just saying i'd rather be home than make 400k and that's not that's perfectly

1:32:22Jade Warshaw:okay but you don't want to enter that on assumptions is all i'm saying no you don't want to go you don't want to go i'm going to do this and hope it works out you need to lay down

1:32:30Dave Ramsey:this is what the budget looks like on five thousand dollars and this is what we are both willing to do yeah and if you're not willing to do that then don't quit yeah and weigh out all

1:32:42Jade Warshaw:the opportunity costs on that because four hundred thousand dollars is a big income and i'm not saying money is everything. But to Dave's point, there's a lot to be weighed and considered there. Kind of like what you said in the first segment about you have to make a decision with the end in mind.

1:32:55Dave Ramsey:I'm pretty sure 98%, I'll make that number up, of 99.9 % of the ladies who have their first child and when they go back to work, it's very difficult.

1:33:10Jade Warshaw:Yes.

1:33:11Dave Ramsey:Now, I have a lady working here that just had her third child and she couldn't wait to come back to birth listen you did not lie dave there is no lie so it's you know like finding reasons to get out of the house it's a normal thing to have this you know have this angst um and if you're a career lady that's a normal thing and so you just got to work through what's real here

1:34:02Dave Ramsey:Many of you listen to The Ramsey Show because you're sick and tired of getting nowhere with your money. You work too hard to live paycheck to paycheck with no money in the bank. But here's the deal. Just listening to the show won't change that. If you want different results, you have to do something different. We've helped millions of people save money, ditch debt, and build wealth, and you can too. But you got to have a game plan, and that begins with our Get Started Assessment. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash start now, take the free quiz, and get your free step-by-step action plan. If you've had it with money stress and are ready to take control of your money for good, go to RamseySolutions.com slash start now.

1:34:56Dave Ramsey:Are you staying on track with your baby steps? You can take a quick quiz to check your progress and receive a personalized plan just for you. Simply head to the show notes, click the link titled, Are You On Track With The Baby Steps? and complete the free quiz, and we'll send you a personalized plan. Nicole is in Utah. Hi, Nicole. How are you?

1:35:20Jade Warshaw:I'm so good. Thank you so much for taking my call. How are you?

1:35:24Dave Ramsey:Better than I deserve. How can we help?

1:35:26Jade Warshaw:Good. Good. I'm so excited. I can't. I'm a little nervous. Okay, so I have a question. My husband and I are on baby step number two. um we've gone through a lot of uh we've got a lot of medical and credit card debt um I've hadn't really got health problems the last three to four years um so now we are just struggling to pay all our credit cards and our medical bills um I was listening to you earlier and somebody called in and you told them to stop um contributing to the 401k in those kind of cases Is that right?

1:36:04Dave Ramsey:Yes.

1:36:05Jade Warshaw:Okay. My question is, would it be smart or really stupid to take that 401k money out to help with the debts and the monthly payments? I would not take the money out of the 401k that you have stocked up thus far, but I would stop contributing to it. How much are you currently contributing? We stopped contributing about a month ago, so we're not contributing anymore.

1:36:31Dave Ramsey:How much debt have you got on credit cards and medical bills?

1:36:35Jade Warshaw:In credit cards, we've got close to$20 ,000 in medical debt. It's probably$4 ,000. $4 ,000.

1:36:44Dave Ramsey:And how much do you owe on your cars?

1:36:48Jade Warshaw:We don't owe any on our cars. We drive dealers or$2 ,000 for Toyota. Good. What's your household income? It's about$115 ,000 for my husband, and I make like$12 ,000. I just do part-time work. Okay.

1:37:02Dave Ramsey:Are you still ill?

1:37:06Jade Warshaw:No, I'm feeling better, and I'm able to work now full-time, so I'm slowly increasing that, which is helping a little. Good.

1:37:15Dave Ramsey:Okay. If you're all better now, why are you slowly increasing it?

1:37:21Jade Warshaw:Just to get my momentum up back to where I'm 100 % functioning. I had a knee replacement during knee surgeries and carpal tunnel. So it's like kind of fresh and I still have to recover from it a little bit. When did you have your knee replaced? A year ago.

1:37:41Dave Ramsey:You should be back functioning.

1:37:44Jade Warshaw:It does not take a year to do a knee replacement rehab. Well, it also depends on what kind of work you're trying to do. Yeah, I actually work as a lunch lady at this school and I also on the side do DoorDash deliveries. just to try and make money. So this for you is a lot of standing, a lot of lifting. I still agree with Dave. I feel like you should be ready if you've done the physical therapy. Yeah. What does the doctor say? The doctors, I don't say much at all. They're not my favorite people. They'll let you know if you're clear to work. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, yeah. I'm clear to work for sure.

1:38:21Dave Ramsey:Yeah, and so you need, we don't need to be door dashing and lunch lady, we need a real job and start getting some money coming in. And you guys aren't managing the 115 very well either. 24 ,000 should not be killing you if you make 115 ,000 plus your income.

1:38:41Jade Warshaw:Agreed. I think you're not on a budget. Am I right?

1:38:44Dave Ramsey:I know you're not on a budget.

1:38:45Jade Warshaw:Okay. We have a written down one, but we don't follow it very well. Yeah, it's not the same. We're going to hook you up with EveryDollar, the all-new EveryDollar. It's the best budgeting app out there. But not only that, it's going to help you walk through what we're teaching you here. Okay. So at the end of this call, as long as you open every dollar, it's going to pick up where we left off and keep you on track. Okay. But you have to promise that you're going to log in and on board.

1:39:12Dave Ramsey:No more eating out. No more vacations. And you need a full-time job. Yeah. Now.

1:39:17Jade Warshaw:Okay.

1:39:18Dave Ramsey:Now. A year after a knee replacement, you need a full-time job. Yeah. Your family needs the income, and you guys need to clean this mess up. So it sounds like talking to you that your body has recovered more than your emotions from the medical problems.

1:39:36Jade Warshaw:You hit the nail on the head there, yeah.

1:39:38Dave Ramsey:Okay. I don't blame you. I'm a wuss when it comes to pain. So my wife is like a Navy SEAL, and I get a hangnail when I'm in ICU. So I get that, but I think it's going to be really good for your emotions and everything. Your energy level will go up when you've got something to harness, to lean into, to pull. And so go do that. Go do something now. And the more activity you have, the more endorphins are released, the more some of the cloud, the fog starts to lift and you go on. And so hard work actually solves a lot of stuff in this situation. But yeah, you guys need to get that$115 barking, and then you add another$50 to it, and you guys are not only going to pay off this debt, you're going to build an emergency fund, you're going to start building wealth.

1:40:26Dave Ramsey:And that's where we're headed with this. So let's go somewhere with this rather than simply survival and trying to find some hack so we don't have to deal with our disorganization like borrowing on your 401k or cashing out your 401k. You're not going to do that. That doesn't make sense. You have enough money to get this paid off very, very quickly.

1:40:43Jade Warshaw:you should be debt free in under a year amen maybe around six months depending on what you make at

1:40:50Dave Ramsey:your new job full-time job big girl job like get up eight o 'clock in the morning go to work come home five o 'clock you'll feel better yeah real job and it's not lunchroom job go do something i don't care what you're doing customer service i don't care what you're doing you don't have to do something that's necessarily physically exerting but you've got to go get engaged for 40 freaking hours a week, and DoorDash is a cop-out. Go get her done, girl. It's going to be good for you. Cynthia is in Panama City, Florida. Hi, Cynthia. How are you?

1:41:23Jade Warshaw:Hi, Dave. Doing better than I deserve. How are you?

1:41:26Dave Ramsey:Just the same. How can I help?

1:41:28Jade Warshaw:Great. Well, I wanted to say, first of all, and I'm kind of nervous. I hope that I can word this so that it's understood, and I wanted to say thank you for teaching me how to become a millionaire. I believe in the Bible. I believe your advice, and I believe I will become a millionaire. So thank you for teaching me how to handle money now and when I become millionaire status.

1:41:47Dave Ramsey:Perfect.

1:41:48Jade Warshaw:And so my situation, I did complete financial youth university recently, and I'm doing the every dollar budget. But I'm stalled out on baby step six because I'm in a situation now where I'm a caregiver for my parents, my elderly parents. They're 88 and 93. We went through the hurricane in 2018. It destroyed my house, their house. My husband helped us put everything back together, but he passed away. And now my plate is very full of being a caregiver, and I never want to go through having to rebuild another house by myself. My question is, should I sell the house, rent, until I can make my next move and just bank the proceeds from the sale until I can get out of this state?

1:42:37Dave Ramsey:Are you living with your elderly parents that you're giving care to?

1:42:43Jade Warshaw:Partially. I'm there during the week, and then I come here to my house.

1:42:49Dave Ramsey:Oh, so you have a home separate, and that's the home we're talking about.

1:42:53Jade Warshaw:Yes.

1:42:54Dave Ramsey:Okay. And so what's your current home worth?

1:43:00Jade Warshaw:$370-ish.

1:43:01Dave Ramsey:And the reason you're selling it is because you don't want to rebuild it if there's another hurricane?

1:43:07Jade Warshaw:I'm afraid that another hurricane will come, and not only will I have damage to my house, but my parents' house, evacuating them, finding a place for all of us, going through the hell that we went through in 2018 alone.

1:43:21Dave Ramsey:You're going to do it again if you live in Florida.

1:43:25Jade Warshaw:Yeah. Most likely. Even if you rent, you're not going to escape it. How long have you lived in Florida? Your whole life? I moved in 2013. Okay. And so in 2013, this hurricane that came through last, was that your first big one? Yes and no. You know, I had lived in Florida previously, but it was far away from the coast. That was Opal. Opal was just a lot of wind and rain. Unless you plan on moving your elderly parents out of Florida and everybody sells and moves north, there's no avoiding this.

1:44:03Dave Ramsey:Yeah, I mean, moving into a rental doesn't avoid it. It just means that somebody else has to rebuild the house.

1:44:09Jade Warshaw:You still have to evacuate. You still have to do all the things.

1:44:11Dave Ramsey:You still have to go through all the issues. So, no, I don't think that's a logical fear that I would deal with. I know it's been hell, and I know you've been wounded by this, and I'm hearing the pain in your voice. I'm sorry for that. But, no, I would not liquidate a home unless I'm moving away from Florida.

1:44:30Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

1:44:47Dave Ramsey:We've all done dumb things with money. I've done them with zeros on the end. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make with money is not having a plan for it. You've got to have a plan. You've got to be intentional, and you need to get a budget. You have to tell your money where to go so you're not wondering where it went. Our budgeting app, EveryDollar, helps you do just that. It's the easiest and fastest way to make a monthly plan for every dollar you've got coming in and going out. Now's the best time to get started before the ridiculous holiday spending season gets here and sucks you in because you didn't have a plan.

1:45:19Dave Ramsey:Don't let that happen. You're done making that mistake. Go download EveryDollar for free in the App Store or Google Play today.

1:45:40so

1:45:49Dave Ramsey:buying or selling a home in this weird wild world requires facts not drama and there's a lot of drama and falsehoods floating around, particularly stuff like TikTok and so forth regarding real estate and what's really happening out there. You need real facts. We'll help you with that. We have a website called U.S. Housing Market Trends that gives you simple facts so you'll know what's really going on. Check it out at RamseySolutions.com slash market or click the notes and click in the show notes if you're on a podcast or YouTube and it'll put you right in there. Jessica is in Massachusetts. Hi, Jessica.

1:46:28Dave Ramsey:How are you?

1:46:29Jade Warshaw:Good. How are you?

1:46:30Dave Ramsey:Better than I deserve. How can I help?

1:46:33Jade Warshaw:I just have a question. It's kind of more of like advice on how to proceed from here. So just a little background. My husband and I followed your steps. we paid off all of our debt and thank you for the leadership in that way to get us through to where we are now.

1:46:57Dave Ramsey:Congratulations I'm proud of you.

1:46:59Jade Warshaw:Thank you. So we're having a little bit of an issue with interpersonal relationships now that we are in a spot where we're kind of living like nobody else like you have stated um and a lot of our friends and family members are kind of making remarks towards us when we do do something because we have the means to do it um like we bought you know my my husband bought his truck outright and you know people are like oh it must be nice who are people some of it's mostly um people like my husband's friends um he needs new friends that's that's called haterade that's haterade that's you know listen real friends

1:47:56Dave Ramsey:are exposed when two things happen crisis and success that's when you find out who your real friends are so your husband has found out that he has acquaintances yeah they're not friends yeah

1:48:11Jade Warshaw:so true yeah yeah friends know how to celebrate you yeah i mean yeah i've got i've got a friend

1:48:17Dave Ramsey:that hit you know made made an amazing amount of money selling his business the other day and the only thing i can think of to say is way to go i'm proud of you right because he's like my friend right yeah I didn't roll my eyes and go all billionaires should be taxed you know I mean

1:48:38Jade Warshaw:really yeah that's just dumb yeah so is that what they're saying must be nice that's what they're saying to him yeah yeah and kind of like making like snide remarks like that when you know when we talk about it and I mean it's not like we didn't try like before when we first started to to do your program. Well, number one, we don't need to talk about it so much.

1:48:59Dave Ramsey:We just need to do whatever we're going to do.

1:49:00Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

1:49:01Dave Ramsey:Doesn't need to be a lot of discussion. But number two, if somebody does that, they get about two of those, and third strike, they're out.

1:49:07Jade Warshaw:Yeah. I mean, if you really think it's a friend, which the behavior doesn't suggest that, but if it is something that you're like, man, I really want to see, then just ask him about it. That's what I would do. If I had a friend that I'd been friends with for years and they started with this business, I would believe in the friendship enough to say, hey, when you say that, what do you mean? Because if the tables were reversed, I'd be happy for you. And I would just ask them. And then you're going to learn a lot by their response or he will. And then you can take it from there.

1:49:38Dave Ramsey:But I think what you've got is you're not real friends is what I think.

1:49:42Jade Warshaw:Okay. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

1:49:45Dave Ramsey:Yeah, I think you're just going to find out. I mean, you know, we found out during COVID, we had a whole bunch of negative press and we found out who our friends were. And we found out when we're very successful and we get in the Hall of Fame and we have another number one bestselling book, we found out who our friends are. But the number of times I'm going to tolerate someone calling up and going, well, look at you. You know, I'm going to be going, well, look at you, moron. I mean, seriously.

1:50:16Jade Warshaw:I want to give a little bit of grace for sometimes people have moments where they do not show up as their best self. I mean, I'm just saying.

1:50:25Dave Ramsey:Yeah, but I'm saying, call them out. You're saying call them out. You're going to be a little more gentle in calling them out than I am.

1:50:30Jade Warshaw:I don't know about gentle, but I am going to call them out.

1:50:32Dave Ramsey:Yeah, definitely. I'm going to be going, hey, you know, what you're doing right there is just dumb. Yeah. Don't do that. And we're not going to be doing this anymore. So not if you want to hang around here. So, you know, and if it's family, then you just limit the amount of time you're around them. Just go, I can't hang out here. It's too much negativity. Yeah. You know, all you're doing is trashing everything I've been working hard for. It's like, you know, the one I love is you're so lucky. Oh. That one pisses me off. That's your – That's like a hot button. You're so lucky. Lucky's got work overalls on.

1:51:12Dave Ramsey:That's what Lucky's got. Okay. Lucky's got calluses. Lucky's got hours spent while you were sitting on your butt drinking beer watching Netflix. That's what Lucky's got. I got your Lucky.

1:51:23Jade Warshaw:Okay.

1:51:24Dave Ramsey:That gets me. Lucky's butt.

1:51:26Jade Warshaw:I feel it.

1:51:28Dave Ramsey:Man, that gets me going right there. You're so lucky. Luck didn't have squat to do with this, darling. It was not luck at all. God's blessings, I'll go with. Okay? And my hard work. There is some corn in the field because we freaking planted some corn. Luck had nothing to do with it, okay? Hello. I can tell this really bothers you. Yeah, this one bothers me. I can't stand it. It's like, and it's even people out there just in the comments and stuff. I don't read the comments and junk, but that, I used to get, like when I used to interface with people on Twitter when it was new and you could argue with people back then, it was kind of fun.

1:52:03Dave Ramsey:And I would just go at them, you know, because it's so fun. And then, but then, but yeah.

1:52:08Jade Warshaw:You know what I hate? It's a combination of two. when people say, oh, are you still doing your little budget or whatever?

1:52:17Dave Ramsey:Oh, yeah. It's little or whatever. Demeaning. Yeah. Demeaning.

1:52:22Jade Warshaw:Are you still doing that little business thing? You're still doing that little.

1:52:25Dave Ramsey:Yeah, I'm still, it's got, you know, I got a little million dollars from it. And so, matter of fact, I got two little million dollars. There's two of those little million dollars over there from that. And might be three soon of those little million dollars. Yeah. Yeah, but we're still working on that little. Yeah, you're right. I hate that. That's so demeaning. I hate that. It's like, pat you on the head, aren't you cute? Oh, you're doing that little. Aren't you cute?

1:52:48Jade Warshaw:Still working on that little project you had?

1:52:50Dave Ramsey:You still doing that little Dave Ramsey cult thing?

1:52:51Jade Warshaw:Oh.

1:52:52Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Yeah, that one, that's hilarious. Right? So here's the deal. The Catholics have a wonderful saying. They say that envy is one of the seven deadly sins. Wow, yeah. And so jealousy is I want what you have. Envy is I don't think I can have what you have, so I don't want you to have it. That's diabolical. It's diabolical. It's evil at its core. That is. And so that's the kind of stuff you run into, Jessica, as you start to win. But it does. It separates the sheep from the goats. It separates the wheat from the tares. And it's pretty obvious. I mean, I got poison over here and I got fruit over here.

1:53:33Dave Ramsey:And so I'm going to hang out with the fruit and the poison is going to have to go away.

1:53:37Jade Warshaw:Yeah, because they can't cheer you on. They can't encourage you.

1:53:39Dave Ramsey:Opting out of my life by being a butt. I'm serious. I mean, it's just how this works. That's right. We'll talk about it depending on how long the friendship, quote unquote, has been going on. Be how gentle we are or how much we talk about it. But if it's a casual thing, I'll just casually not be available anymore.

1:53:57Jade Warshaw:That's right.

1:53:57Dave Ramsey:I'm casually not going to show up at your next deal. I'm saying that because I don't want to hang out with a bunch of goats.

1:54:03Jade Warshaw:That's so good.

1:54:03Dave Ramsey:Not the deal. So, yeah.

1:54:05Jade Warshaw:It is disappointing, though, when that happens.

1:54:07Dave Ramsey:It does. It does aggravate you. And I'm still capable, obviously, of getting aggravated about it. But, yeah, you're so lucky. You're so lucky. You're so lucky.

1:54:16Jade Warshaw:Must be nice. Yeah, man.

1:54:19Dave Ramsey:Just line up behind that look and think about the number of hours, the number of airline miles. Oh, my God, the amount of time I spent in a jet. Flying and going through freaking TSA. And, oh, man, the stuff we've done, the stuff, the work, the hotel rooms, gross. Grotesque. gross instead of sleeping in your own bed. You know, you're so lucky.

1:54:45Dave Ramsey:I don't think so.

1:55:16guitar solo

1:55:56Dave Ramsey:This podcast features Jade Warshaw and Dave Ramsey. Washington. Hi, Marsha. How are you?

1:56:04Jade Warshaw:Hey, I'm just groovy.

1:56:06Dave Ramsey:Cool. How can we help?

1:56:08Jade Warshaw:Hey, yeah, my husband passed away this last winter or spring. I'm sorry. And I'm, yeah, it was kind of a bummer, but I'm trying to get things put together financially. You know, fortunately, I don't have a problem in that we have money, which is nice, but trying to figure out how to be wisest with what I've got. And I've been listening to you and, you know, hearing about, I think it has turned the IRAs into Ross and wondering if that would be a good choice for me. I don't know if it helps you to know what I've got going. How old are you? I am 60. I'll be 67 in a week.

1:56:55Dave Ramsey:67. All right. And how much were you left in IRAs? Well, I got 1.2 in SEP, 300 in an IRA, and then I've got right now 420 sitting in a high 3

1:57:16Jade Warshaw:.75. And debts are about$50 ,000 on our house, and that's at about$3.75 also. And then we have a rental in Huntington Beach that we use for our kids who are missionaries down there and other missionaries to live in. And that one we owe about$725 on.

1:57:42Dave Ramsey:And it does not create an income because you furnish it to missionaries.

1:57:46Jade Warshaw:Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. It's just kind of on its own. I have income. Fortunately, I wasn't at your last conversation with because we had a lot of years tell us, oh, yeah. You're cutting out a little bit, Marsha.

1:58:04Dave Ramsey:I didn't hear all that. You have an income that's what?

1:58:07Jade Warshaw:I have an income of Social Security of$3 ,700 from my husband. And then about$30 ,000 a month from our network marketing business.

1:58:17Dave Ramsey:Okay. All right. Good. Okay. So you've got a plan to live on, obviously.

1:58:21Jade Warshaw:I've got plenty to live on, yeah.

1:58:24Dave Ramsey:All right. And if you've got to be the wisest with the other stuff. Well, the no-brainer is take some of the high-yield savings and pay off your mortgage.

1:58:33Jade Warshaw:The$50 ,000. Yeah, okay.

1:58:35Dave Ramsey:Like tonight.

1:58:35Jade Warshaw:Yeah.

1:58:36Dave Ramsey:Okay, that's a no-brainer. Okay. The other two areas I do want to work on long-term, but none of them are a panic, is I want to get with your SmartVestor Pro or whoever's helping you with your investments and start talking about moving the IRAs and the SEPs gradually into Roth. Because whatever is not there when you hit 72.5, you're going to have required minimum distributions. And you make enough money from the network marketing stuff to pay the taxes that are created if you move some money over systematically every year for the next several years. because if it's all in Roth, it's growing from that point forward tax-free, and it passes to your kiddos if you've got them or your heirs tax-free and no required distributions on any of it.

1:59:28Dave Ramsey:If it's in a traditional, it's going to have required distributions over 10 years on inherited and required minimum distributions if you're alive and it's required to pay out to you. So they're going to get their tax money. It's just a matter of when and what it looks like.

1:59:45Jade Warshaw:Here's another thing I didn't throw in there on that. 300 in the IRA. That's actually from an old IRA that he had with Shriners through whatever. So I have three years to decide what I want to do with that, if I want to continue it where it is, move it into something else. I don't really understand that.

2:00:05Dave Ramsey:I don't know what it's in, why you would have anything that's three years.

2:00:10Jade Warshaw:Well, within the three years, it's in Transamerica, I think is what does it. But I got a letter, and within three years, I need to decide what my final place I want to land is.

2:00:22Dave Ramsey:Again, do you have someone that's advising you on your investments?

2:00:29Jade Warshaw:Not really.

2:00:30Dave Ramsey:Okay. So jump on RamseySolutions.com and find a couple of the SmartVestor pros and interview them in the area. We're not in the investment business. but these are people that we have vetted that give advice that sounds like we did it, like we said it, okay? And that's why we're willing to put our name beside them. And they have the heart of a teacher, which is most important, because I want you to understand everything you're doing or don't do it, okay? But basically I see two things, three things I want to do. One, I want to pay off your house today. Two is I want to begin a systematic move of the IRA and the SEP into good growth stock mutual funds and Roth IRAs, and I think you can pay the taxes out of your huge income because you're making$360 ,000 a year, and I got a feeling you don't spend anywhere near that.

2:01:17Jade Warshaw:You're right. You're right.

2:01:20Dave Ramsey:And so if you spend$100 ,000 a year on taxes out of that and you're able to move all this stuff into Roth, it's really a good move, and I'm going to begin to do that. It doesn't have to happen immediately, but put a system on that. And the third thing is I've got to deal with that$725 ,000 mortgage.

2:01:37Jade Warshaw:A rental, yeah.

2:01:39Dave Ramsey:The mortgage has got to go away at some point. And I don't know what you're going to do to make that go away, whether you're going to use some of your investments and some of your income to make it go away, or whether you're going to look at selling it.

2:01:51Jade Warshaw:Yeah. How long, I mean, what did you think? When's that going to play out until having other people stay there? Well, as long as the Lord calls their ministry to be there, They head up a ministry called Circuit Riders from Youth with a Mission down there, and that's something we've been committed to.

2:02:10Dave Ramsey:Yeah, and what's that property worth?

2:02:14Jade Warshaw:About$2 million.

2:02:15Dave Ramsey:Okay. Well, I mean, another option is find a million and a quarter property that you pay cash for and move them into that. Sell that and move them into that. That might be another option.

2:02:28Jade Warshaw:That's a great idea.

2:02:29Dave Ramsey:You know, something like, because that's not a bad, that's not exactly slumming it. So.

2:02:34Jade Warshaw:Yeah. No, no, it's not. They have, they live downstairs and then upstairs is a mother-in-law and they have four staff members live upstairs and pay rent also up there.

2:02:46Dave Ramsey:Okay. Which I don't know. I mean, I don't care how you do it, but whether you move to a million and a quarter million and a half and you pay cash for that. but I don't want you sitting there at 70 75 years old with a$700 ,000 mortgage for a missionary property I want you to pay it off okay somehow or another because that I want that stability and peace for you because you're being so generous and and I appreciate what you're doing and I'm familiar with youth with a mission very familiar and so I know exactly what's going on there and you know I think what you're doing is awesome so keep it up but let's figure out a way to do it where it doesn't leave you quite so vulnerable.

2:03:25Dave Ramsey:And it could be that we, okay, we got$420 ,000 in a high-yield savings. We take$50 ,000 out. That's$370 ,000. Towards$7 ,255, that's only$300 ,000. You may just pay it off out of your income. Reduce it by that high-yield savings and then pay it off out of your income. But I'm not going to be sitting there with a high-yield savings account and a bunch of mortgages. That money needs to be used to start clearing stuff or some other strategy. But those are the three areas, if I were in your shoes, that I would be working on. I'm sorry for your loss. But it sounds like you guys have done an absolutely wonderful job creating income and taking good care of it.

2:04:07Dave Ramsey:So congratulations.

2:04:12Dave Ramsey:And obviously, you and he together have left you in a really good spot. Yeah. So important. That's good. So, yeah, three things. Let's clean up those SEP IRAs and move them into Roths. Let's pay off your house tonight. And then let's start trying to figure out how we're going to pay off the property in Huntington or how we're going to shift it to a different property to where we end up net, net, net, debt free. And so, I mean, I don't care if you just pay it off and keep it. It's not a bad idea. I think that's kind of what I'd probably do. I'd throw$370 of that high yield savings at it. And then cash for the rest.

2:04:45Dave Ramsey:And then, you know,$30 ,000 a month coming in. I'm going to just chunk that puppy and be done with it in about a year and a half, two years. I don't want you hitting 70 years old with a mortgage. That's what I don't want. Even if you've got a million bucks laying over there, I still don't want you having a mortgage. So we've got to work towards that. That's the direction. Good question. Good question, Marsha. Thank you for calling. That puts us out on the Ramsey Show and 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.

2:05:15Dave Ramsey:Christ Jesus. Thank you.