Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the car rental studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show where debt is dumb, cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Boloney Ramsey, personality best selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones, a triple eight eight two five five two two five. That's triple eight eight two five five two to five.

Mike is starting us off this hour in Buffalo, New York. Hey, Mike, welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Hi, John. Thank you very much. Thank you. How can we help? So my parents got divorced about 15 years ago. Since then, my mom has been paying for a whole life policy insurance plan on my father. She's done paying for it. She's offered to kind of transfer it to me. It's one hundred thousand dollar policy. There's fifty five hundred dollars cash value at this moment. And I believe the annual premiums, about three thousand dollars.

I'm not sure what to do. Why would you do this? My wife and I were talking about it, and if we he's 74 years old, so I realize it's kind of like shorting a stock and talking about the life of my father.

But if we only were to, quote unquote, invest five or ten or fifteen thousand dollars into it to get a hundred, in the end, it seems like it might be an OK idea. Won't be if he lives 20 years. That's true. How's health if we're just going to get cold and short, your dad here? He's he's 74 and he's had diabetes for about 30 years and he's had a double bypass heart surgery. We're not that close.

Yeah, I hope so. I love them as my father. But I you know, we're not that close. And you were you would become the beneficiary.

I'm currently the beneficiary. Oh, you currently are. Yeah, but she's my mother has decided to start paying. So she's offering for me to continue being my wife or just take the cash value now and and do something with it. OK. Well, you know, the thing about personal finance is it involves more than just mathematical analysis. We have to consider emotions and relationships and conscience and morality and behavior, all of those things enter into a wise answer to your question.

Mathematically, I think you might come out. Yeah. But do you really want to do that? I don't I don't want to do that. Yeah, I mean, we're joking around a little bit of being a little bit sarcastic about it. You shorten your dad or whatever, that kind of thing. But, I mean, it's just not you know, I don't I don't I don't when I'm 75 years old and I'm on my deathbed, I didn't want to I don't want that going to cross my mind that I did that.

I don't think you're doing anything morally wrong.

It's just weird. Would you agree? Yeah, I think that's why we're having yeah, a little bit of it feels for Weeder about it, it feels weird. You know why it feels weird? Because it's weird.

And Mike, what you're going to start doing in your how long you've been married? Eight years. OK, so you're still in a young marriage, what you're going to start doing, you and your wife are going to start counting this hundred thousand dollars, you're going to start leaning into this hundred thousand dollars? Well, we can get this kind of house or we can not deal with this. Oh, yeah. You're going to start making life decisions as though this is a sure thing.

And what happens is it's going to further press on that relationship with your dad. And I get that it like like they said, I get that the math may work out, you may make some money on this deal. And he said you didn't have much of a relationship with him, but it's just the same.

I just don't want I don't I just I. I wouldn't do it, and it has nothing to do with the math. I wouldn't either, and I'm the same way I just did. I think you might win the math argument, but I. I don't think at the end of the day, I don't think at the end of your life you're going to be proud.

Now, if my dad came to me and said, I've had this. No, still no. I just don't want to short my dad.

No, I, I just generally it's just straight up what we're doing here and it's just whether you like him or whether you don't.

Right. I mean, maybe even spoken to him in 30 years. I don't know. But it doesn't matter. I don't it that's not the it's just it's. I'm not going to touch on shorter stranger. No, I wouldn't do it, is what I'm saying. But again, I might if my dad came to me and said, hey, I've been working on this deal, I got a scheme for us, but me and my dad are.

He's a homicide detective. He talks about. That's just wrong. No, I'm talking about what your dad did that I stole wrong, OK? Yeah. You can't short your old man even if you don't like him. In fact, I would say especially if you don't like him, man, you once you start leaning into spending that money, that's hard to come back from.

Yeah, you can do it if you want. But you called us and I asked. And again, the answer here is based on the.

Whatever scarring that this event does to your conscience, that's causing you to ask the question and this will leave a scar and I don't want that scar in your spirit, love.

That's what I'm trying to avoid.

Dalton is with us in Waco, Texas.

Hey, Dalton, how are you? I'm pretty sure that still better than I deserve. How can we know? So I've got a pretty interesting situation here. My wife and I were doing this financial piece and we were doing pretty well. We paid off a little over 30 grand in a year. Good.

And now my my career situation, my career. But my job is changed. So instead of working a consistent schedule, basically what I do is I go where where I'm needed, different nursing homes. So essentially, I don't have a steady, consistent income, you know. You know, I might make a thousand one week. I might make another. So the issue we're trying to figure out is how to go about getting our budget back on track.

How did your overall income go up or down?

Oh, it's hard to say because this is a brand new thing. I've only been doing this for a couple of weeks. What do you think? I think it has the potential to either stay the same or go down, because I'm also going back to school, so my days are limited.

Why are you going back to school if you've got financial problems? Well, I was furthering my nursing is what I was doing.

Yeah, but you weren't doing that before when you were paying off debt. Now you added a variable to the situation after you lost the stability of your income. Why? Well, frankly, I've been an Elvan for over seven years now, and I I'm really chasing and trying to push to get the bachelors from nursing to go get into a hospital and be able to do that after you get out of debt.

Well, that's a good thought, too. Yeah, nothing changed here except you decide to go back to school at the exact time your income became unstable. Bad choice. So I probably put off the school a little bit and let's get this mess cleaned up first. As far as how to handle the irregular income, just run your what you think your low average is going to be and then make a list of things you want to do with money when you come in with more money than you thought.

And so if you think it's going to be an average of about a thousand, run your run your budget on five hundred or seven hundred. And then when more comes in, have a list of things that it automatically goes to that are your next priorities. It's an irregular income planning sheet if you want to do it analog in the back of your Total Money Makeover book. Free at last, it was one of the best decisions of my life. That's what Neil M.

said about using time-Share exit team to get out of his timeshare after the resort refused to let him out. Listen, I've said it before. If you've tried selling your timeshare and can't. If the resort refuses to take it back, call, share, exit team. The people I trust call eight four four nine nine nine exit or time-Share exit team dot com.

Dr. John Dulaney Ramsey, personality best selling author, is my co-host today, open phones at eight eight to five five two two five. Join us next Tuesday night, January the 12th at seven p.m. for our Free Reset Livestream event to kick start your money goals for twenty twenty one, I'll be joined by Chris Hogan, Rachel Cruze and Craig Groeschel.

We'll give you the motivation, the guidance that you need to hit the reset button and say goodbye to money. Stress for good. Twenty needs to be in the rearview mirror. Text reset to three three seven, eight, nine right now and sign up to take the first step towards lasting financial peace. Or you can sign up at Dave Ramsey Dotcom slash reset. And if you're in the Oklahoma City area, you can join us live and in person at Life Church as part of our studio audience.

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Text reset, two three three seven eight nine. There's over 100000 people already registered for this live stream. It is going to be a major American event you do not want to miss out on this. Bill is with us. Bill's in Toledo, Ohio. Hey, Bill, how can John not help?

Hi, Dave. Hi, Dr. John. I got a pretty easy one for you when or where the baby steps. Should I maxed out my contributions to health savings account?

Unless you have ongoing health problems, chronic health problems, seven. Baby steps seven. That's easy enough for me now, because you're doing 15 percent of your income into retirement at four kids college at five, you've got an emergency fund, you probably got some money already in the HSA to cover deductibles and stuff.

I'm guessing with the way you described it, I use my HSA and baby step seven is an additional investment. I've never used it for health knock on wood and it's ended up being basically another retirement plan. I got a couple hundred thousand bucks on it.

Nice. Yeah, we just finished up our baby step three this month. Yeah. So just let's go on with four, five, six, get the house paid off and then you're looking for anything you can do to keep the government's hands off the money and the one method to do that.

Hey, thanks for the call me, Dave, do you know off the top of your head, if there is a cap for what I can put in annually for now, just say yes, it will depend on your HSA policy, but it'll be up to about 75 hundred somewhere in that range, whatever your deductible is.

And usually the deductibles are five to seven somewhere in that range.

And so I don't even remember what ours is here. I think it's 2500 here per person. Per family. That's right. About that family would be seven. And so, Sharon INOMAX ours every year. OK. And just like we do a Roth IRA, a back door Roth, you know, and Sheila and I were just having just having this conversation the other day.

And so that's a good way to think of it, is to think of it as an investment versus I got my emergency fund to handle that stuff.

Now, you've got a benefit here as a team member to get a 500 dollar match. So at least want to do that. Yeah, yeah. Take the free Ramsey money. Right. Take my money. I'll take it all day long. That's right.

Take my money, please. Yes. Yeah. That would be the wise to go and get the 500 dollar match at your stage because you're four or five, six. That's right. And you know, I got to get the house you just bought paid off. When we get that paid off, then we'll go on and get to the other, but I'll take the match.

But beyond that, there's no reason to use it. I would use retirement plans. I used to run at the Roth 401k here with a match. You want to take advantage of that?

And I just never considered an HSA retirement plan. Yeah, if you're not if you if you end up with a ton of money on it, it ends up being that, especially if you've got health insurance.

There you go. Like I mean, if something happens and we have a half million dollar medical event at the Ramsey's, I'm 7000 bucks out of pocket. There you go. Right. And I can handle that. Right.

A lot of different ways, right. Certainly out of your emergency fund.

But the because it's got a max payout when we have a hundred percent payout after the deductible on our right. Most either that or they got an 80 20 with stop loss after 15 grand or something like that, they're usually not going to break you. Wipe you out. Yeah, they're not going to wipe you out. You don't need five hundred thousand dollars in your HSA. Cover your health. Right. Unless you wanted to become self-insured later.

Got you can do that. You could just say I'm going to self insure health wise, like after retirement or something along those lines. That would be another thing you could use it for.

But that's a good question because it's tax free when you use it for money, for health, really use it for health. If you use it as a retirement, it's going to be taxed as you take it out, OK, it'll be treated like a traditional IRA would.

Hmm. So look at me. Learn and you're getting smart. Look at that. Look at that. It can happen every day. Every day. It's Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Hey, Melinda, welcome to the show. How can we help? Hey, how are you? Great, how can we help? So I have a question about how to possibly care for my mother in law and her later years, and I currently I'm my baby steps to my husband, I have paid off just under eighty thousand so far. That's awesome, Mom. Yeah, we learned a lot from you guys. I really appreciate it.

His mother does not really have that kind of financial sense. She's almost 70 years old, lives in a mobile home, has seven thousand dollars to her name. And we both stay up at night thinking about what her future is going to be. My husband has talked about we own about an acre and a half, making her a granny suite and having her live on our property. I feel that's a little too close for me, but it's his mom, so I don't really know what to do.

So are you asking a money question or a marriage question, because it sounds like those are pretty tangled up in your and your and your question, I guess.

Yeah, that's fair. So mom lives in a mobile home. She owned the mobile home to she on the land. No, they have to pay. I think it's like in a community every month and then you have the mobile home paid off. Yes.

OK, so she's paying the payment, though, out of her water. Social Security. She's collecting Social Security now and then she does on her own. It's a service based business. So when she, I guess, retires, she's just going to live on Social Security. OK, country. It might be time, the other tricky part is we've been talking about starting a family and she lives about seven hours away and she said, when we have grand baby, she wants to move down here.

And that's the other scary part. So it sounds like you and your husband need to have a bigger conversation in addition to the money, which is what are your obligations?

What are what's the spirit behind how you are going to care for his mom? And you'll get get on the same page there.

And when you're using words like scary and frustrated, I don't know if you're being funny about it because we're all funny about our mother in laws or if you legitimately have concerns. And I know a lot of mother in laws that I'm just going to move closer to. They're not going to they don't have the money to. They don't have the means to is not going to happen. And so you and your husband got to get on the same page with what your emotional, psychological and familial obligations are going to be to that mother in law.

If she stays where she is, she could probably almost make it on Social Security.

And if you decided you wanted to supplement that a little, you can I wouldn't, quote unquote, stay up at night about how I'm going to take care of her. I don't think it's going to be that difficult. You're going to be out of debt. You're going to have an emergency fund. You're going to be living on a budget. You've got a decent household income, and you're going to be able to support her a little bit. If you want to throw a couple hundred bucks a month on the table right now, you can't do that.

But later on, you'll be able to do that if you wanted to to the tune of five thousand dollars a month.

You're not going to be in a position to do that. But she doesn't require that either. OK, unless you sign are up for it. But no, granny suite would not be my option here, granny suite. Sounds like a. It sounds like there's a lot of reasons not to do that. So what's really keeping you up? Is it the money? A lot of it is the money, he's our biggest fear. You always hear so many talked about the mom that she's eating dog food and that's our biggest fear, is sure something like that happening or if she's got Social Security, she's got a Social Security check coming in and you're looking over our budget.

She's eating dog food. It's her fault.

She shouldn't be OK because she can make the payments on what you outlined. There was a Social Security check. I don't want her to I don't want anybody to be in that situation. But it sounds like she's going to be so. But you and your husband have got to get on the same page with what the future's going to look like emotionally. How are you going to take care of this together? Yeah. Two hundred dollars gets rid of the dog food issue.

Right. That's not so. It's not a money problem. It's a it's an alignment issue. My co-host today here on the air, Dr. John Deloney Ramsey personality celebrating some kind of anniversary to your twenty ninth birthday. How many anniversaries every twenty ninth birthday is it? Yeah, we've had a few. Twenty ninth birthday is coming up here. That's right. No, this is the anniversary of your 29th, meaning it's your birthday. How old are you?

I'm 43. 43. OK, the 14th anniversary of your 14th anniversary. That's right. That's a good way of saying it. It's good. Just a pup. Just as just a youngster. Just a just a little child. Socks older than you. Yeah.

Happy birthday. Thank you, man. Open phones at eight eight two five five two two five. Our Question of the day comes from Blind's Dotcom. Find out for yourself why Blind's Dotcom is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code Ramsey to get the best deal.

So today's question comes from Bridgette in Connecticut. How can I prepare my children currently teens to early 20s to handle their alcoholic father when he comes to them for money when they are adults? We have been divorced about seven years because of the alcoholism. He's currently unemployed and running through an inheritance that will eventually run out. I'm working hard to raise my kids and put them through college debt free. I know someday their father will come to them for money. How do I prepare my kids now when they are still young to handle this when it happened so they feel comfortable turning him down?

That's a mess.

So, Dave, here's my thoughts. I'd love to hear what you have to say. I think I got several challenges here. And again, I'm going to rattle this off top my head. No. One, I don't like it when people negatively forecast against their X, their X.

So that said, there is a reality here. Bridget knows this guy probably better than anybody.

Well, but I'm telling you, in the in the wording dripping between the letter. That's right. Some still latent anger and bitterness. That's right. And so she's still pissed. Right. And you don't want to plant seeds of that anger in the hearts and minds of your kids. And alcoholic father sometimes will knock on the door for their kids for money. That's a reality. That's a reality. There you go. So she's right. She's right.

And be careful. So we're walking a thin line here between being honest. Your kids are in their teens and early 20s. They're not young kids anymore. You can talk pretty boldly and directly with a teen, with somebody in their early 20s, especially about their dad. The reality and you can honor the man while still being honest about what living with an alcoholic is like. And it says you're working hard to raise them and put them through college debt free.

Part of raising them is teaching them about boundaries, teaching them about honor and integrity, and having a budget and teaching them how to say no. And here's the deal. Will any kid ever feel comfortable telling their dad who needs help? No, never. So instead of a psychopath, right. So instead of teaching your kid how to handle it, so they feel comfortable turning him down? No. You want to teach your child to be resilient, to do the right thing, even when it's really hard and how to reach out to friends, to you, to a pastor when they have to do something hard and then they need to go get support of their community.

Right. So you're not trying to to teach your kids that, hey, we're going to turn into robots and not have to not feel bad? No, man, it's always going to be uncomfortable, but we're still going to do the right thing and then we're going to deal with our discomfort in the right way.

Yeah, I think that's wise. They're teenage, right? They were in the house when he was in the house, so they were so they are children of an adult alcoholic and they've been dealing with her venom for this many years, too.

Yeah, I think it would be advantageous.

For them to hear how to deal. With the same exact issue from maybe a coach, a counselor. Absolutely my hope here and here, maybe she doesn't teach them how to handle this.

Maybe the coach does. The counselor does. That's fair. If she's unable to yeah, yeah, well, I mean, even if she's able to, I think that I'm hearing it from someone other than their mom makes it less crazy to tell your dad. No, because when you tell your dad, I know you feel crazy, you feel right. It's going to feel weird. It's always going to feel weird. No matter how crazy it is.

You're always going to feel like you did something wrong. Yeah. You feel like you did something wrong because he's going to be you know, one thing we do know about all addicts is their master manipulator.

If he's a good alcoholic man, he'll make he's a master manipulator travel agent for guilt trip. That's right. Yeah. So that's going to come up. And so it's going to be good for them to. Just kind of learn that in the process of learning maybe what has happened to them as children, adult children of an alcoholic, right. Because you have certain things that you're going to exhibit in your future, potentially exhibit to one.

It might be to an extreme, even future relationships. That's right. So, like, you know, when your daughter, who's 15 someday is 24 and is dating in a serious relationship, thinking about getting married, there's going to be stuff boiling and boiling in that cauldron. That's real. That's right.

And Mom, if you want to, one of the things I get questions from parents like this all the time is what do I say?

What book do I get them? Never forget this, Bridget and every parent dealing with hard conversations with their kids, you can quote unquote, teach them all day long.

But they are watching you. They are listening to you.

That's way more of a teacher. So you want to teach them how to say no with grace? Yeah, you say no with grace. You teach them how to honor their dad and still respect themselves. Then take this venom Bridget out. Go deal with your hurt and pain, which obviously is still here, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And that's why that's why it's invalid. I think it's to try to teach them. I think it's wise. Well, I always I don't want moms completely. Right. There we go.

We the only teacher. That's it.

Like if I hear this from someone who has a an axe to grind, it's one thing when I hear it from an independent third party. Right. The exact same words. They have more impact on me.

That's right. That's right. A disinterested, so to speak, emotionally disinterested. Right.

And what I'm trying to and Dave, I just have this conversation with somebody yesterday. I'm trying to navigate what I'm seeing a broad picture is this outsourcing of parental insight into the lives of our children.

We don't wanna do that. Right. I'm just saying that I think you're right. You know, that there's a there's an advantage to having several people around. Absolutely.

No, I can tell you that, like, when my kids were teens and in a quasi functional household, you know, that them having a a trust, a youth pastor that I trusted and that they trusted. Right. To go and bitch about their dad. Right. Is a good thing. Yeah. And I remember when my dad quit being a detective and became a minister at a large church, he said something and in it stuck with me all these years.

And I didn't realize how wise it was at the time. But he said from this point forward, you're not going to hear me say, I want you to find somebody in this church. I want you to find somebody in this community that you can lean into.

Yeah, because now that's not he's not saying I'm not going to parent. He's not sure I'm going to try. But, you know, you've got this fog called hormones that is really always going to be dad.

I'm going to be here in this role. So, yeah, I think there's absolutely some wisdom there. But I think I want it to be both. And I want to model this being a good parent.

Right. But it's a really good question. It's a great question. That's right. And I appreciate her thinking about this. Yes. There's a lot of tension here. Don't forecast don't forecast bad behavior and ill will on somebody into the future and prepare.

Right. I know why Dr. Henry Cloud has now sold ten million boundaries books. It's quintessential, right? Yeah. Boundaries are just it's like it's something that no one escapes having to deal with. And none of us are taught this when we're young. None of us are taught. It's not a relational skill. No. In most households it's really not. And it's not a cultural skill we have anymore now.

And instead, we pretty much model the destruction of boundaries all around us at all times. Just melt people as a sport.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. You know, great question, Bridgitte.

Very, very good stuff. Very good stuff. Good, good, good question.

Open phones at eight, eight, two, five, five, two, two, five. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Remembering that our reset event is coming up. It's a free live stream. Over 100000 people are already registered for it. It's free this coming Tuesday night, January the 12th at seven p.m. If you want to register, text the word reset. Two, three three seven eight nine. That's three three seven, eight, nine.

Dr. John Dulaney Ramsey, personality, is my co-host today here on the air, open phones, a triple eight eight two five five two two five. Jamie is with us.

Jamie is in Sarasota, Florida. Hi, Jamie.

How are you doing? Well, Dave, how are you and John doing? Great. How can we help? Wonderful. John, by the way, happy birthday to you, my friend. Thank you so much for everything that you do.

I appreciate you. Good man. Thank you. Absolutely. All right, guys, want to go straight to the point. I'm thirty eight married, have a child. One on the way. Yeah, baby. I know. Thank you, baby. Step six. We owe our mortgage thirteen thousand. We have about twenty seven thousand in savings. So we're going to pay that bad boy pretty soon. Like today in the next like in the next few hours.

Yeah.

Right. Congrats.

So yes. So I have a two part question with that background. Number one, first and foremost, this is not a forever home. In fact, we're probably going to be here probably another two, I'm assuming two, three years tops before my job moves me again. And I'm wondering, first and foremost, should I invest into this home, say, like gutters and fences and all that? And my second part of this question is that now that the home is going to be paid off now.

Mm hmm.

OK, well, now what is you max out our retirement and you begin to save outside of that towards your next purchase. And I've been doing this show coming up on 30 years. It's only in about the last five years that I've heard the phrase forever home because most people know there's no such thing.

You will never have a forever home. You're only forever home is heaven, because no matter where you move, you're going to move again.

You're not going to say your life changes, your phase of life changes and everything else. So anyway, it's just not a house you're going to stay in and you're going to move in the next two to three years. That's awesome. That's cool. So what what repairs or enhancements do you do to it?

Once there are two types, ones that are small enough that you can live up the enjoyment. In other words, whatever you spend, if you spend, you've got two little babies and you spend a couple thousand bucks on a fence in the backyard and it helps, you know, that your little baby is playing in the backyard, are safe and not running wild out in the neighborhood or something, then that's probably worth that, even if the fence doesn't add value to the house, OK.

So that's one type of thing you would do, you know, it's a small enough investment that when you move, you just burn that money and it was just for the good of the three years of enjoyment, OK? The second that type of thing you would do is you would talk to and help one of our real estate endorsed local providers and just say, OK, I'm thinking of spending this on the kitchen.

I think I spent seven thousand dollars on a kitchen in a house that's worth X. Do you think I'll get my money back? I don't think so. Well, you might.

I mean, some things you might know. How about your kitchen is OK, but, you know, does it increase the value dollar for dollar or more than you're spending?

Does it mean if you spend seven thousand increases the value of the home ten? That's probably a good thing. Right. So you would do those kinds of things that increase the value equal to the thing you want to do or more especially if it's more you would do some stuff like that. So Gutta sounds like normal repairs that should have already been done. We've been here in the House for about two plus years, so, yeah, that was probably going to be my next project.

Yeah, I mean, it's the roof is leaking.

You got to do that regardless, because it's just a repair has to be done. Yeah, right. I mean, we bought the house brand new, so we weren't.

What does it need. Gutters after three years if it was brand new.

Well, that's really what I'm asking is, is it even worth investing in?

Now, why does it not have gutters? Oh, he just didn't come the gutters, it's a I mean, I don't put anybody on blast here, but it's a home.

The type of home you bought to the price range about just the standard model didn't have gutters. OK, so then the question, of course, you ask yourself is you get a bit on gutters and you ask yourself about increasing the value of the home by that, or am I going to get enjoyment of that much either one? The good news is going on a basic guttering system or something like that, a continuous flow. They bring the trucks out.

It's a pretty cool thing they do. And it's it's not very expensive. So it's not it's not a super high item. But my guess is you've got a neighborhood that no. Some have gotten. So it's not devaluing the house unless it's causing damage or something else.

So you just got to look at all that and just kind of go, OK, is this a repair that should be done anyway or am I doing something that's not done in the neighborhood? An example, an extreme example would be if there are no swimming pools in your neighborhood and you put in a swimming pool, you're going to lose 80 percent of the money you spend on that.

It is not going to increase the value of the home, but about 20 percent of the cost. And so most of that you've got to do a lot of women in three years to come up, you know, to make to make that make sense. Right. You can't be out there every day, so otherwise it just doesn't make sense. But that's that's the thing you look at is am I increasing the value more or at least as much as I am spending.

Jak's in Atlanta. Hi, Jake. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Great, man. What's up?

My wife and I are here. We have just a couple of questions about next steps. So we've been following your plan for several years, led us to being debt free in twenty nineteen. Way to go. Was thank you. Which is good timing considering 20/20 happened right after that. Yeah. So currently where we stand, I'm in the film industry. My wife is a marketing director for a real estate company. So our income fluctuates from time to time.

You know, there's years that are really, really good, the years that are decent and know the bills paid. And we have a little bit of extra savings.

Probably having a great year. And you're not.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, all of I was on unemployment, so they're kind of obviously big wrench in our our plans because we were looking to buy a home come February of last year. We actually found out we were pregnant. So we have a brand new daughter. Oh, right. Is born in October and we are stuck in a one bedroom loft right now. So the space is very tight. But we have done definitely the best we possibly can considering where we're at.

And we'd like to buy a house. We'd like to, you know, get into the steps of like a possible five twenty nine, you know, investing, you know, doing everything that we can do to maximize where we're at right now. And we kind of don't know what to tackle first. I'm back at work.

OK, so you are debt free 100 percent because you're renting. You have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. We do we have about 10K, you know, good, OK. And are you putting money into retirement yet? No, because we put that on hold so we could pay off all the debt.

OK, and now are you going to keep it on hold to save up for a down payment on a house? If you do, that's OK. That's one of our plans.

We were thinking about that. But I you know, I'm thirty five. She's thirty two, so.

Well, you're not going to say for ten years. With that, you're going to say for 10 years or so, for 10 months, correct? Yeah, for a house. Yeah.

Yeah, that's what I mean. You're not going to stay out of retirement long if you do. But if you want to go out and start retirement and save for a house, that's fine. Or sometimes people pause on retirement just a little bit and do what we call baby step three, be save for a house. So for is 15 percent of your income into retirement, five is kids college or six is pay off the house that you haven't yet bought.

Correct. And that's the baby steps. And if you'll just walk them that way, you're going to get to everything. You're going to have a baby. Your baby is going to have a college fund. You're going to get there. You're going to be putting money into retirement. You're going to get there and you can either do all of that and then save more slowly for a home or you can save faster for home and put everything on hold temporarily and do it, baby.

Step three B and that'll get you there. So it's here's what I hear. Here's what I hear. His voice, Dave.

I know that we're supposed to do this in order, but we want a house right now. Can we go ahead and just put one percent down and do it? No. And you may have to go to a two bedroom apartment for another year. Right. And it's nobody wants that. It's not really fun.

But I've got to if you can't live where you are. That's right. You're gonna have to go rent something for another year while you save up your down payment. And it's moving twice and all that. Yeah, that's OK. It's better in the long run. Oh, definitely. Definitely. Definitely. Oh, I'm sorry I missed the check. All right. That puts us our show on the books. Thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener.

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