Live from the headquarters of Ramsey's Solution, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz this hour. It's a free call at 888-825. Com. 5225. You call us, and we'll help you take the right next step for your life and your money. Welcome back, Rachel. You've been on the road doing book signings for your new book. I'm glad for what I have. It's good to have you.

That's right. Yeah, thanks.

It's good to have you here.

I'm I'm glad to be here, George.

Glad for where I am in the studio with Rachel.

I know. So, yeah, the kids' book was great. I'm glad for Where I am launched. We were in New York, LA, Phoenix, Dallas, heading to Atlanta this week to finish it out. It's been great. Then it was good to be home, and I thought, I'm glad for where I am.

We did Smart Money Happy Hour yesterday. She's also my co-host there, my co-host today on The Ramsey Show. Let's get to it. Marco Awaites in Greenville, South Carolina. What's going on, Marco?

Oh, not much. I just have a question about the advantages of renting long term, like 15, 30 years instead of a mortgage. I'm not really interested in building wealth long term. I'm more, I guess, interested in a quality of life now and not taking up my time with house repairs or my money with house repairs, but just having a life that's different through renting. I'm not so interested in the the building wealth.

How old are you?

I'm 40, and my wife is also 40.

She's also not interested in building wealth?

No. We have retirement accounts and we're saving and all that, but in terms of real estate wealth and that long term, we feel like the peace of mind that comes with renting, knowing that there's no surprises, expenses, and things like that. Is there an advantage to to rent in long term over mortgaging?

Yeah. I think one of the big things is just the diversification piece. So if you have all of your money in the markets, in a sense, to a degree, all your eggs are in one basket on that side of investing. And then real estate is the next way that we look at investing because of the long track record that it has. And for you to have home ownership gives you a level of not just diversification, but I think overall just power. And I understand that you're, or when you say, I don't want to build wealth. And just to be clear, we don't encourage people to build wealth just to build wealth, right? I mean, it's building wealth, I think, to a degree that you have a level of options in your life. You have a level of peace that you're not living paycheck to paycheck. So your wealth building that you don't want to do, quote, unquote, may look different than another listener that's watching this or listening to this. But I think one of the biggest pieces of this, Marco, is just that idea of diversification, and that eventually, renting ends up being more expensive because you end up throwing money away.

It's a good short term It's a long-term situation for some people financially, but long-term, it's better that you're almost paying yourself because you'll end up building equity.

I hear a lot that, obviously, housing market prices are not coming down. When you say it's better to rent short term and then buy long term, the longer every day you wait, prices are going up. How long, realistically, would you rent before trying to actually buy something?

I would wait till I'm in a position where you're in a position, regardless of what the market's doing, that you're in a position to buy. For us, our parameters that we have is to say, Yeah, we would love for you to have at least 5% down for a down payment on a 15-year fixed rate mortgage, and that your mortgage is no more than 25% of your take home pay. So it's a quarter of your income. That way, you have 75 % of your money that you're making going to things like investing like you're doing for retirement and to be able to enjoy your life like you want to do.

Got you. That makes sense.

Marco, I appreciate you guys will help. Yeah, the big piece here is we're not saying get a mortgage and hang on to it for the rest of your life. The goal is to pay this off. And what that does is it lowers your expenses when you go to retire. The problem is if you keep renting, rent could be double what it is by the time you retire, and you're stuck with that expense for the rest of your days. I wouldn't be as worried about maintenance and repairs as I would be about the increasing cost of rent. Instead, I'd rather see you get the mortgage, get rid of it, get rid of that fixed expense to where you're only paying property taxes and insurance. Because right now, you're paying that already through your rent to the landlord. They're covering their costs through your rent. The key is when you're an owner, you own that asset, that home will appreciate, it becomes part of your legacy. Regardless of if you want to build wealth or not, that's fine. That's a different discussion. I think it's wise financially in the long term to own a piece of real estate.

Yeah, because, Marco, if this is encouragement to you, too, people that do the baby steps. Baby step two is get out of all consumer debt, but your house, and people do that on average anywhere from 18 to 24 months on average. Then when we see Baby Step 6, which is paying your house off early, people are paying it off in seven to nine years on average. To George's point, you'd only have a mortgage if you're doing all of this stuff, maybe for 10 years, not 30 years, like a 30-year mortgage says.

Do you have any debt, Marco?

No. My wife and I are debt-free, and we have a couple of retirement accounts. I guess what you're saying is that long-term owning a house isn't just about wealth creation, although that definitely is a piece of it. It's It's also about future expense reduction, which it would be rent would be a big piece of that. When you're not paying rent, when you're retired, it's a lot more comfortable of a life than having a more paying rent when you are retired.

Exactly. You don't need as much in a retirement because if you have rent to pay for the rest of your life, you need a lot bigger nest egg. And so there's a nice trade off there when you go, All right, I'm not going to have a mortgage payment. And at the same time, we want you investing 15 % until that mortgage is paid off, then you can increase that. So how much are you investing right now?

Right now, we're right at about 15 % of our household income.

Do you have money and savings?

Yes. We have about six to seven months of expenses and savings. And then I have a 401(k) through work and two Roth IRAs.

You guys are doing great. You're at the step where I would say, now that you have all the foundation laid out, let's start to get that down payment. I don't know what the housing markets like in the Greenville, South Carolina area. I imagine it's pretty hopping, but I'd begin to go, All right, let's get in the game. That might even condo or townhome, and maybe eventually a single family home, get something reasonable under the parameters Rachel said, and get that mortgage paid off as soon as possible.

Okay. That sounds like a great plan.

Thank you so much for the call. Great question. I want to call out to all the renters out there, Rachel, that renting is not a sin. It's not a waste of money. There's such a hot debate on either side. There's people saying, You should always rent. It makes so much more sense. You don't have all the liabilities. You get more flexible. And that's all true. And the homeowners are saying, Stop renting. It's wasting money. And we hear this from the older generations to the younger generations, and they're going, Yeah, I'd love to own a house. It's just impossible right now. It's just so expensive. And so I want to be the referee flag on the playing board. Everyone's right and everyone's wrong. That's right. Settle down.

Yes. And renting is a great option for a season of your life, right? While you're getting yourself in a financial position to go and buy. Because let's be honest, when you buy a home, for most people, it is the largest financial investment that you make. I mean, it's the largest purchase you make. I mean, it's so much. And so you want to be making sure that this is wise, that you've done it really well. And renting for a lot of people is that medium step, which is great, which is great. But to Marco's point, what he was asking, that doing that forever and ever, Amen, ends up costing you. 100 %.

So whether you're a renter or a homeowner, the goal here is to minimize expenses in retirement, to build wealth, to live the life we want. And that's what he was really getting at. Marco was saying, I want to have a quality of life now. I believe you can do that and be a homeowner and be renter. The key is to be on a budget, living on a lesson you make and staying out of debt, and make home buying a part of your wealth building plan. More of The Ramsey Show coming up. Don't go anywhere. I saw some recent financial statistics, and There was some pretty troubling news. When families were asked how long it would be before they faced financial hardship, if a spouse died, nearly one-third said they'd be in trouble immediately. Another 44% said they'd be financially within six months. People, it does not have to be this way. Term life insurance plans are just plain cheap, and companies have made it even easier by not requiring exams in many cases. There really is no excuse to leave your family in this situation by not having life insurance. This is why I talk about Xander Insurance every day.

They're committed to protecting families with the only products that I recommend, and their team keeps the entire process simple and affordable. Go to xander. Com for quick online pricing or call 800-356-4282. This has to be a priority. If your family is in this situation, you need to get this done. I'm George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz this hour. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Call us and we'll help you take the right next step for your life and your money. Jennifer's in New Orleans up next. What is going on, Jennifer? Hi, how are Doing well. How are you?

Great.

How can we help today?

I have a 17-year-old son, almost 18, and we've pretty much raised him on FPU principle since he was about six or seven years old.

He is in a pretty serious healthy relationship with a young lady that we do really like.

I know it may seem like too early to tell or anything like that. We're not the parents that's like, Oh, my God.

But I know you have that feeling like- Or you're hopeful she might be the one. I'm pretty sure. Not anytime in the near future, but she is set on being an orthodontist. Sounds expensive.

Exactly.

That is my question of how to approach this with him.

We have talked to him just briefly.

The conversations have just started.

He does think it's dumb to take out student loans. She's I briefly said that she's totally fine with having $250,000 of student loans that might take her 20 years to pay off because that's what usually what also Dawn does have. I briefly said that you guys may not even be afford to eat. I just don't know how to approach this besides maybe getting them to watch the Borrowed Future, take foundations and finance. But it's just starting.

Yeah. Well, a lot of this stems from how she grew up with money and what her parents believe about money.

Right.

This is a money values conversation that your son will eventually need to grapple with as they head toward maybe a marriage.

Right. That's what we've been talking about with him.

Yeah. I think he's getting to the age. He's 17, almost 18. Again, I don't have kids that age, but there starts to be that level of letting go, right? That eventually, they're going to be off in college, they're going to be making their own decisions. There is that. That season of life is is coming soon. And so it always begs the question. It changes a little bit because he's still under your roof, in my opinion, but it always begs the question of if no one's asking advice, when do we give it and what can we control? Because the truth is, you can't control what she chooses to do. And it gets to a point, too, that eventually soon, they're going to just be making their own decisions regardless of what you guys think or not, right? So if anything, it would be a conversation with him. I don't know what you all's relationship was. Obviously, they've been dating a while, but you're not her parents, right? But you are your son's parent. And so I think having that relationship of being able to have the conversation of, Hey, this is what life will look like if she chooses to go down this path.

And then we get people in the medical field call us all the time, Jennifer Pharmacist and all this, and they have $200,000 in debt, but they're making $160,000, right? And so usually, the hope is is that you have a bigger shovel if you're choosing to go a path in this medical-type field. It doesn't always happen. They could get married, she gets pregnant and wants to stay home, and then all of her options are gone, right? Because she has to go pay the step back. So there's a lot of life in there. But I don't know. I don't know how much you can control it, right?

Until they're married, he doesn't really get a vote in her life. He may have influence, but he doesn't have a financial vote as to what she does or doesn't do. The worrisome part was how flippant she was about it. Well, she's 17, though. I'm just saying, Well, this is normal. I'll just pay off my 300,000 over 20 years. I think we need to give her a dose of reality. I think you're right. Sitting them down and saying, Hey, would you guys watch this documentary called Bored Future? Yeah, but if it's not her daughter? Well, if she's over the house a lot.

But if they're not engaged and stuff, I don't know.

I mean, I'd probably pop on Bored Future because I am that dad.

Just to have it on in the background.

Just to have it on.

Yeah. I mean, I guess if it's in a very organic conversation, but I don't know. It I don't know.

I don't know. It would feel like overstepping boundaries. Do you feel like that? If you brought this up, it would be overstepping your boundaries?

Well, I have brought it up to my son, and he said that he would- To your son, yes.

He would watch it with him.

He has brought it up to her.

And so we do plan on doing that this summer. Okay.

And as her family- Okay, Jennifer, is he about to buy a ring? Like, when you say they're serious. No. Okay, so honestly, too, and you know this, Jennifer, at 17, you're 17. I'm like, I knew multiple friends that were dating in high school. They go to college within nine months or so. They're off on different schools. I mean, you change so much in that season.

But also, Rachel got married in college.

So it could happen. I had a semester left. Thank you. Winston had been graduated in a year. I had a semester left. Thank you, George. So it can happen. But what I'm saying, though, is I do wonder if you're ringing your... I don't want you to worry about something that's not your problem right now. Do you know what I mean? It's not like they're getting engaged this summer and getting married, and then she's choosing to go in at 18 years old, right? I don't know. We may have different opinions, George.

No, I just think it's one of those things you cross the bridge when you get there. And if she ends up in a bunch of debt and they do end up getting married and she's aligned on the values of wanting to get out aggressively, then they'll be okay. Their life's not over. You can still have a great marriage, but it is going to add a wrench in whatever their plans are.

Yes, that's right. It just adds that weight, which we all know.

It's going to hold them back, building wealth. But the long term hope is that she gets on the same page with money and goes, You know what? I'm not waiting 20 years. If she does end up taking this debt, it's, I want to be done with this thing in three or four.

Yeah. Jennifer, you do this after school, too. I know people, majority people change their major, right? Like, halfway through. I'm like, She may not even end up doing it anyways, right? That's what I'm hoping. Yeah. They may not even be dating.

I mean, I don't know. That's a tough one.

There's no easy answer here. I don't want you to worry, Jennifer, because I just don't feel like the reality is happening. It may happen in four years, but a lot of factors have to play in for this to actually happen. But I really do appreciate you looking at, obviously, for your son. That's what I'm thinking. It's for your son. What she does, though, is, I don't know.

Well, keep us posted. Call us back in a few years. Yeah.

Okay. Okay, so tell me this. Let's split the tables a little bit, George. Okay, let's say Mia comes home. Oh, my goodness. We need a different...

Okay, let's go- First of all, America, Mia is my eight-month-old daughter. Just for context.

She comes home, and this is not picking on Jennifer, but it does raise the question- Where was she? If she wasn't at home. She was at her boyfriend's house, okay? Okay. And her boyfriend's... I was going to use health. I don't want to use money as the example, but health, okay? And she comes home and she says, Yeah, I mean, Brad's mom set me down. She's dating a Brad? She has to date a Brad in this scenario. She's dating a Brad.

I already have feelings about this.

And she says, Oh, my gosh, Brad's mom... You know what? You're not the mom. You're the dad. You may feel differently. Brad's mom set me down and told me, The way you've been feeding us gluten free, all this stuff is actually really harmful. I actually need gluten and dairy and all of this that you've deprived me of, dad. Because of this Brad's Mom, I'm choosing to say, Would you be like, Brad's Mom, what the heck? Stop teaching me about- I'm trying to put myself in a place where there's a contentious argument about gluten.

I'm trying to make it to an example. I'm trying to put it in my world.

I'm trying to put it in your world.

I think as an adult, I would have an adult conversation with the other adult and come to a compromise.

Okay, so you would reach out to Brad's mom and be like, Hey. Okay, so that's what I'm saying. The blurred line with Jennifer and this girl who's not her daughter, is it overstepping boundaries? Is it parenting another person's child when the girl isn't asking? You know what I mean? Sure. Yeah.

And it's not a fiancé. It's just a girlfriend.

That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I feel like future mother-in-law's give unsolicited advice all the time. It's just a part of being a potential future mother-in-law.

I guess so. I don't know.

They may never get along.

I'm so glad you call it Jennifer. That's a really good... It's an interesting scenario to be thinking about, for sure.

I would love to hear from the girlfriend's parents.

But I also, and I'm thinking about little Charles now, my son. If he was, yes, dating a girl and she was going to go, I would be like, Y'all, don't. Stop. No. I would feel that, that tension. I'd feel that way, too. Of like, you're about to enter into something really hard that you don't have to enter into right now.

Yes, because the damage hasn't been done yet. That's right. We're going like, We can prevent a lot of this. Is there another way? Right. I don't know. Did the girlfriend and parents save for college at all? Did she just on a whim decide, I want to be an orthodontist one year before going off to college? Yeah. There's a lot of further questioning that we don't have the answer to.

A hundred %. But yeah, if Mia starts eating gluten and- She meant we have had that discussion in the Camel house.

We're like, Will she eat gluten one day? I don't know. We don't have it in the house.

Where will she get it?

If she dates a Brad, we're on the look out. It's like alcohol. It's like she's not drinking in our house. I'll tell you that much.

That would have been a better one if you're a family that doesn't drink.

That Save that one for next time.

Yeah, we'll do that next time.

Hey, more of your wonderful calls coming up. Always a great conversation. 888-825-5225. This is The Ramsey Show. Guys, it's no secret that the real estate market is weird right now. So go with a mortgage company you can trust to have your back. Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted because they're stable, reliable, and focused on you. At a time when a lot of companies are being bought out or going out of business, count on Churchill Churchill Mortgage to stick around. They've been doing things the right way for over 30 years, and they'll keep doing them the right way for 30 more. Get started at churchillmortgage. Com. This is a paid advertisement. In MLS ID 1591. Nlls consumeraccess. Org.

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Brentwood, Tennessee, 37027. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz. She's my co-host today, also co-host of Smart Money Happy Hour, where it's not a call-in show, but still very fun conversational show about money and pop culture and what's going on in the world with a lot of laughs. So be sure to check that out if you enjoy this one. Well, Rachel, we've got a brand new event coming up, and this is one that I don't have to travel far to because it's right here in this building. It's a virtual event that you can join from anywhere, and it's called Dave Ramsey's Investing Essential. So at this event, Dave and I will deep dive into investing. And for the first time ever, he's going to unleash his personal playbook on investing, including how he buys real estate, which he has amassed quite the portfolio. So you want to tune in for that alone. This is a two-night virtual event happening May 21st and 22nd. And because it's online, you can watch from the comfort of your own home. And you guys are always asking us, we want a deeper dive on that Baby Step 4, investing for retirement, investing beyond retirement, investing in real estate.

We get a lot of questions around that.

I know. And when I heard you guys were doing this event, I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm so glad. Because for a lot of people, as they are doing the baby steps, and for some people listening or watching, they've been doing this for 10 plus years. I'm like, They've been following. George, I want you to talk about, because we don't do it a lot on this show, but backdoor Roths. There's options out there, other retirement things out there.

Beyond your normal 401(k) in I.

Yeah, for high income earners, too. I get a lot of those questions on social. People really do. They want the detailed plan of, Okay, what exactly do we do? Mega backdoor Roths, all of it.

For folks that are self-employed and they don't have an employer 401(k), there's tons of options for them, and they don't know about it.

That's exactly right. I'm so glad you're doing that, George. It's going to be fun. Way to step up to the plate.

Someone had to do it.

Give the people what they want.

I'm pumped for this. Join us. We're going to, of course, start with the basics, but we will quickly get into 201 and 301 and into formulas and stuff that will blow my mind.

I'm so excited, George.

Well done. Dave's going to go full Goodwill hunting on the board and crack some Pythagorean theorems and stuff. It's going to be a good time. Tickets are $249 for about four hours of content over two nights. It's Well worth your time and money. Go get your virtual ticket, ramseysolutions. Com/events. All right, Tarek is in Seattle. Tarek, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi. First, I just want to thank you guys so much. All the work that you do has completely changed my life, and I just really appreciate it.

That means the world. We didn't do much, man. You changed it, but we're glad and honored to be a part of it.

Yeah. So my question is, I'm really struggling with grappling with car insurance and auto insurance. I think my case is a little special because I've never had a car and I've never been put onto car insurance. I know you guys always talk about buy a car in cash. I'm totally down with that. But once I started looking into it, I tried to get a quote for insurance. If I bought a car for, say, 4,000, I might have to pay thousands more for the insurance premium. I just don't know how to plan for that. Also, whenever I call insurance and tell them I'm trying to plan ahead to save up for car insurance, they immediately hang up. So I just literally have not been able to get any progress on this. And I don't know how to fit this into the baby steps. I'm just wondering what your guys' insight is on that.

Sure. So how old are you?

I'm 23.

Okay. And you're going to purchase a car in cash. Do you know what the budget is right now? Do you have that cash saved up?

Well, right now, I'm in baby stuff, too. Okay.

So you have a thousand bucks in your starter emergency fund. You're Starter Emergency Fund, you're tackling debt. How much debt do you have?

I have $10,000 left in student loans. After that, I will be debt-free.

Oh, good. That's awesome. How much do you make a year?

I make 138.

Oh, good for you. That's great. For the car situation, what's the change all of a sudden that you're like, Oh, gosh, I really do need a car?

What's driving this decision, pun intended?

Yeah. So right now, I've been living in Seattle, and I haven't had a car for the past two years. I just take public transportation anywhere, or I take a Uber if it's time sensitive. But I am going to be getting married soon, and we're going to be moving to an area where I might have to start commuting by car to work. And if this is going to make sense for me to get a car based on my girlfriend's schedule, who will be my wife soon. She works as a nurse, and so our hours are just going to be different. I'd like to get ahead on that so that I'm prepared when we need to sit down and think about our transportation options.

When's the wedding?

Next spring. We don't have a date yet, but next spring.

Okay, so we got a year to get our ducks in a row.

Yeah. I mean, if I were you, I think I would pay off that $10,000. My next step would be to build up an emergency fund, and then I would have… Yeah, you could have a goal of $10,000, maybe set aside for a car and all of that. Because honestly, right now, and most people know this, car insurance is insane right now. I mean, everybody is feeling the increase. And it's been so dramatic is what it feels like over even just the last six months when it comes to car insurance. So honestly, this time next year, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. It could be a change the other way, right? I mean, we just don't know. That's such a long amount of time for something that's been so volatile recently. So if I were you, I would just plan on having a car fund after my emergency fund. And it's almost like your baby's at 3B, and instead of a town payment for a house, I would just do a car.

Well, should I do that before investing into retirement?

Yeah, I probably would, because it's going to be a necessity, I would assume, if you guys are moving and you know you're going to need a car. In your 23. So, I mean, retirement, even if you have to hold off for a few more months of retirement, you're going to be okay.

Even if you start at 24, with your income, you're going to be unbelievably wealthy without I'm in debt. Okay. Have you tried to check out our independent insurance brokers at ramsey solutions. Com?

I have. I actually talked to a trusted insurance broker, and what's interesting is that he told me, Of the 15 insurance companies he covers, Only three of them would even offer me insurance because I don't have any previous auto insurance. We did do your discussion, and he said, What was probably the best case would be to go on to my girlfriend's insurance, which she got from her parents. But that's She's paying 350 a month, which he said is way above the average. But I haven't even... He wouldn't give me a quote because I'm playing too far ahead.

So again, I haven't even- They'll need to actually know what vehicle and all the conditions and all that.

That's a really good point, too, on his end, that once you guys get married, things that you can combine, and maybe it is cheaper. Oh, that's true. Maybe it is cheaper to go on her insurance after you guys get married.

Because both of your names will be on all the cars on the insurance. Yeah. That could solve your problem.

That could be helpful. But yeah, I think I really appreciate your planning, but I do think, yeah, you can't really nail down a number just like they're saying, because it is so far ahead.

In the short term, if you want a car before then or need one, you might need to just budget and go, All right, it's going to be 700 bucks a month for the short term to get insurance, but you got to have it. So not That's not something you can skimp on, unfortunately. Do you have parents that have insurance that you could jump onto temporarily?

Not that I could in Washington because we're a different state.

Got it. Okay. Well, I like this plan. I think you're thinking the right way about it.

I would just have a pile of money, and then when it's time to buy the car and the insurance, there's just cash there, and you can budget from there.

But if you're having a good time commuting in Seattle, keep it up.

Yeah, for sure.

That's the city life right there. I know. All right. Let's try to take a quick one here from Jared, who is in Denver. What's going on, Jared?

How are you doing, Jared?

Doing well. How can we help?

Long story short, I was a law enforcement officer for about seven years. I was injured in the line of duty and forced to medically retire. So now I'm on a fixed income of $44,000 a year. I'm a stay-at-home dad now as my wife is doing real estate, and I cannot decide decide or figure out what type of remote jobs I could do that offer the flexibility I need for my 18-month-old son.

What does the childcare situation look like for the 18-month-old?

All three of our children so far have stayed home with my wife until they got into grade school. We have two in elementary right now, and the 18 month is home with me.

Okay. You're looking for a job that you could do while caring for the 18 month old all day? Mm-hmm. So something pretty flexible where you might be able to get in a few hours during nap time and log off and log back on. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of those jobs exist now, especially in a post-COVID world. I'm going to hook you up with our friend Ken Coleman's GetClear Career Assessment, as well as his new book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. It's all paired together because I think right now you're in the research dreaming phase. I want to get you something that you actually enjoy doing versus just something that you can do. I think with your background, there may be something in the law enforcement world that you could do remotely. I would look at- That is actually the curious part, and I'm open to your suggestion, but the curious part is due to my disability coverage, I actually cannot do anything first responder related in my life.

That will limit you a little bit. Yeah, that'll give you a boundary. But yeah, there's a lot of options out there, Jared, but I think George is right. If you can find something that you love and you're passionate about, get some hours in, bring in extra cash. It's awesome.

It doesn't take a degree in statistics to realize this one stinks. 93% of undergraduate private student loans are cosigned. So when you're delinquent and drowning, mom or papa or uncle Joe is stuck in that financial stress along with you. But there is a way out. Whyrefi? Whyrefi offers a custom refinancing option with a fixed rate loan based on your ability to pay. The average interest rate YreFi offers is 3.9%, which can significantly reduce your monthly payment and decrease your total cost. Contact Yrefi at 8442 Ramsey or go to yrefi. Com/ramsey. That's 8442-Ramsey or the letter Y, then refy. Com/ramsey. Whyrefi is not licensed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. Whyrefi is not authorized by the New York State Department of financial services to service any New York loans. Funding may not be available in all states. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz. The number is 888-825-5225. You call us. We'll talk about your life and your money. And while you're hanging out enjoying the show, do me a quick favor and do something. Share the show, subscribe to the show, hit the follow button, leave a kind review, share it with a friend, maybe send them a link to a clip that you particularly enjoyed or show you enjoyed.

That helps us reach more people. That's the goal. It's not for personal information, although it does give that to Rachel, or validation. It just helps us reach more people with the algorithm. That's right, George. It's all about the algorithm. It's all about feeding the algorithm because we need to reach more people.

Because word of mouth is one of our... It's how most people find out about the show.

Yeah, we don't have a massive marketing budget sponsoring stadiums. You know what I mean?

We're not that people. I know. But you're sharing the love out there. We're appreciate it.

You are the marketing plan. You're the billboard, so thank you for that. All right, Kevin is in Pensacola, Florida. What is going on, Kevin?

Hi, George, Rachel.

How are you guys doing today? Doing great. How can we help?

You're good. So I just have a bit of a question. I've been watching your show for a while now, and regarding combining finances. And so I'm going to be getting married next month.

Oh, congratulations.

Oh, thank you so much. Church. Me and my soon-to-be wife have taken... Sorry, I'm a little nervous. We have taken pre-matteral counseling, and so we're on board regarding the financial portion of our pre-matteral counseling. But regarding my situation, we're actually going to be doing a long-distance marriage. To give you a bit of a context, I'm actually active duty military. I have about four years left until I retire from the military. I'm living in Pensacola, and she's living in the United Kingdom. The plan is that after I retire from the military, I'm going to be making my move over there to the UK. But in the meantime, we're not sure if we should just keep our finances separately just temporarily, until I retire from the military, or perhaps I was thinking maybe another option is possibly getting a bank account that can support the UK and the US because the bank that I currently have charges international services. And, of course, then you have the fluctuation of the currency conversions between the US dollar and the British pound. So I was just trying to see what would be the best option for me to go.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know, George, what your thought is on this. I mean, mine, and I'm all pro-combining money. You know that about me. That's one of my number one things. But there are some caveats on why you wouldn't. I don't know, Kevin, this may be one of those for me. I mean, if you're in completely different countries, different levels of- If it's a logistical issue. Yeah. I'm like, Yeah, at that point, I mean, you guys could have different checking accounts, but you just communicate about it. You obviously, I guess, promise each other that there's no secrets or you guys look at stuff together, maybe once a month, and you have a plan. You guys still have the same goals. But logistically speaking, where your actual dollars and cents are for the time being because you are in different countries with different banking systems, yeah, you may have to have separate ones just for the ease of complication.

Is she working full-time?

She is, yes. She is working full-time.

I'm guessing it's not an option for her to move to Pensacola and be near you?

Well, she's not opposed to it, but I'm actually going to be transferring to another location, so I'm not even going to be in I've been scola for very long. Where are you transferring? She's not opposed to moving to the US.

Say again? Where are you transferring to?

I'll be moving to Virginia.

Okay. Yeah. I think more of my concern is not necessarily the checking account, Kevin. It's being away for four years with your spouse.

A marriage surviving like that is just tough on its own. Have you guys been long distance for a while?

Yes, we have. We do go back and forth. She'll come visit me and I go visit her. We actually do go back and forth and visit each other.

Yeah. I mean, if she's unable for all the reasons that I don't know of why she can't move to Pensacola or Virginia, then combining finances may just be a logistical issue. There are accounts out there that help you avoid these international fees. I know one of them, this is not a sponsor, we're not affiliated, but Charles Schwab has an investor checking account that you can use internationally with no fees whatsoever. You probably have done more homework than I have on this, but there may be, I'm sure these these kinds of accounts exist that will allow you to do this and switch currencies and all of that with little to no effort.

Yeah, and I think the point of the combined account, too, Kevin, is not just the logistical side is definitely a pro when you're living under the same roof, right? And you start having kids and life starts happening. You're just functioning out of one account. It just makes communication just so much easier. That's one pro. But the other pro is that piece of unity and seeing yourself as one. I think for you guys in this season, you can still, to a degree, accomplish that. It's the idea that your money, you guys are on the same page with it. But if you can't, from a logistical standpoint, figure out how to do this with currency taxes, all of that, then for a short period of time, I mean, I would be okay. Yeah.

She's covering all of her expenses. You're covering all of your expenses. Is that the plan going forward?

Yes. That is the plan going forward. Like I said, once I retire from the military and move over there, then we're both on board with combining our finances together.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Again, I never want to be legalistic with stuff, so it's not this like... I think the spirit behind it is what is the most important right?

Is that- And your values and your goals.

Yes. That unity perspective, I think, is really important. If you guys have a time frame with all of this, and then that's the end goal that you both agree on, then I think that's great. But Kevin, too, I I would really encourage you guys to look into her moving. It's different when you're dating and all of that, but when you're married to somebody, it's more enjoyable because I'm sure... Obviously, you love her, you want to be with her. So I'm like, being away would be so It's so bad. It would be so hard. I can't imagine. Yeah. And again, I know we thank you for your service, too, because there are so many people that are deployed for nine months a year, right, overseas and all of that. A lot of sacrifice. There's so much sacrifice. But if you can avoid some of that unneeded sacrifice, just meaning that she could be here with you while you're here, I think is going to be helpful for you guys as you start out.

Yeah. Well, that's a first. I've never taken a call like that. So thank you for enlarging my brain, helping me think a little deeper today. Hayden is in Denver. What's going on, Hayden?

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. I was very excited. I've never called into a radio show before, so I'm a little nervous.

No, you're great.

Thanks for calling.

The purpose of my call is I'm looking for some advice on what to do with the next move. My wife and I are currently trying to sell our house. We've been Dave-ish for a little while. We've been listening to the show, and we want to commit to being debt-free, so we're selling everything. Selling our house, selling our cars, all that stuff.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, we're going all in. The problem is that my wife is from the East Coast. I'm from Colorado. All of my My family lives here in Colorado. All of her family lives on the East Coast. We have a two and a half-year-old son, and my family has not been… They're not very involved. They're cold and distant, and it hasn't been very enjoyable for my wife, and she's really missing home. She would like to use this opportunity of being debt-free to move back to the East Coast. What I'm struggling with is I work as a firefighter Colorado, and I have great pay, great benefits, and I love my job. If I were to move to the East Coast, transferring medical certs and fire certs is not very simple, and the pay and benefits are significantly less. So I'm just concerned, even with our new debt-free lifestyle, of just not having enough. I'm not too concerned about not liking East Coast. I'm sure it will be great. Having her family be more involved would be phenomenal. I'm just really torn with the idea of starting completely over and.

There's a trade-off here, Hayden, for sure. It's not going to be easy. You're going to have to figure out the search. You're going to have to figure out how to get your income up, hopefully faster, and maybe find out if there's other opportunities there that could increase your income versus taking a notch down.

I would do a mock budget, Hayden, of what life would look like over there on the salary that you would have and see you guys feel. Because that's the part of being debt-free. It gives you options. You can say, You know what? We're going to lower our lifestyle to live where we want to live, and that's great. Or we want to have a higher standard of living and live somewhere else like Colorado, where you guys are. It's really a choice you guys have to make.

That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the Books. We'll be back before you know it. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm Ramsey personality, George Campbell, joined by best-selling author, Rachel Cruz, also my co-host on Smart Money Happy Hour. And this is your show. This is where you call in and we'll talk about your life and your money right in front of you and in front of all of America and across the world now. We've gone international, thanks to YouTube.

And podcast. Here we are.

And podcast. So appreciate you guys tuning in and calling in. The number is 888-825-5225. All right. Hayden is calling from Houston, Texas, to kick off this hour. What's going on, Hayden?

Hey, so I got a job opportunity to own and sell my own tools. I would own my own truck and everything, but the only thing is I would be going into a ton of debt. I'm thinking maybe $170,000 worth of debt.

Oh, my gosh. For what?

To own my own tool truck. I'd be like a franchisee.

This opportunity comes at the cost. You're basically buying into the franchise to the tune of $170,000? Yes. This feels like a great deal for them and a terrible deal for you.

Well, the thing is, I can make $180,000 a year doing it.

Why don't you do it by yourself on your own?

I mean, because I wouldn't even know where to start at that point.

But I was talking to them.

I have to put 20 % down out of pocket on the table, and they'll help me finance 80%.

I bet they will. I don't like this concept at all. What are you actually selling? What's the business?

I would be driving around to different shops and selling tools.

And to buy into it, you need to have the tool truck?

Yes, I would have to buy my own tool truck. And I was looking at prices for those. It range anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 because it has to be newer and it has to be low miles.

Hayden, what are you doing now? For work?

I work at a tire shop. I make 15 an hour. But the thing is, I'm only 19 years old, and I'm just- I think you were sold a dream, Hayden.

Can I say that? Because sometimes in these positions, and I'm not going to say that this company is immoral or lying to you, but it's a sales position. And so if you're not good at sales, you're not going to make 180, you're going to make 30, if that, right? So there's a I understand that you'll probably get a commission, a percentage over all your sales, and they're probably saying, You could make $180,000. But that's probably over a course of a long time of being able to have clients in long term relationships. I mean, there's probably a lot that goes into that. I don't think it's just a light switch situation. And so they're probably selling you on something that sounds really good. And usually, if things are too good to be true, sound too good to be true, They usually are.

With a quick Google search, Hayden, I'm finding some very interesting information about people who are also inquiring about this, young guys who are thinking they're going to make a lot of money, and there's a lot of wisdom on the internet. I would do some deep research and homework into this. Here's just a quote. This is not for me. Basically, they get you into a debt trap, force you to buy stuff you may not want. Then they make it hard for you to support your customers with warranty claims and service. They said, Some people are making good money. They have good territory, serving older clients. But with the internet and the next wave of mechanics coming through, it could be phasing out these trucks for the most part. That's my worry is you see other people making money, you think that could be me, and then here you are sitting with 180 grand in debt and not making as much as you thought. If this was a degree, I would also tell you this is a bad idea.

Yeah, but I think that you're on the right path, Hayden. You work at a tire shop. Mechanics, understanding that world, you're probably really good at it, right? I would look to see what other positions are out there to move yourself up. I don't know. Being creative with what you know and what you have, I think it's going to serve you a whole lot better than jumping into something That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money.

And also it's a sales job. So why not go apply for a sales job in that world? If you applied at Ramsey and we said, Hey, you got the job, but you have to pay us 180 grand, you would laugh in our face, right? Yeah. I would hope you would. I'm glad you called us before you made a bad decision and called us saying, I went 180 grand to debt for this snap-on tool truck. What do I do now? The business failed.

Yeah, that will equip you with what you need to succeed. And it's not all the risk is on you, Hayden. They don't have any risk. It's all on you. It's your personal loan that you're taking out to go deep into debt. So they have no risk. And yeah, I wouldn't play that game. And the 180,000 a year, man, that's a sales pitch. And again, I'm sure people make that, but that's over years and years and years and years and years Wouldn't do it. Okay. Good to know. I know. Sorry to bust your bubble. But I do think there's other great opportunities out there that you can... Yeah, you're making 15 an hour. I think you could be making more. I think that the trades is something. It's a lost art these days. I'm like, there is something there that you can make great money doing this stuff.

Do you want to go into the trades, Hayden? Would you actually want to become a mechanic, or do you want to stick to sales?

Well, I've talked to other people that I know that are mechanics. They said it's great for a hobby because right now I have a '91 vet.

The motor just blew up. I'm putting a new motor in there.

I mean, I've worked on my own cars before, but I don't know that I could do that for a living.

My dream is to- You're talking to full-time mechanics, and they said it's a fine hobby, but don't get into it professionally?

Right.

That's very strange. Sounds like they don't want the competition from Hayden, giving them the smoke. But I would look into it. I'm going to help you out because I want to help you take the right next step. Our friend Ken Coleman, also Ramsey personality, has some awesome tools to help people find the work they're wired to do. I'm going to hook you up with his GetClear career assessment and his book, From Paycheck to Purpose. So hang in the line, and I hope those resources help you figure out that next step, whether it is trades, sales, whatever it may be. But at 19, now is the time just try a lot of things out, but the key is don't go into debt for any of it.

That's right. Thanks for calling, Hayden.

Hayden is not pleased. We appreciate that. He's not pleased with our advice. But you know what? I did my good deed for the day if I steered him away from this 200 grand franchise quote opportunity.

Okay, what did you do? You just googled the- Here's what I googled, Hayden, in case you're wondering.

I googled- On DuckDuckGo.

Thank you.

Tooltruck Franchise Cost Reddit, because Reddit is where they tell you the truth Rachel. And so there's a bunch of- I never go on Reddit. It scares me. There's a bunch of subreddits under tools and forums, and people are just sharing their story. People like Hayden saying, Hey, what do you guys think about this tool truck franchise idea? And so I go there just to see what the conversations are like.

Yes, and I don't like when all the risk financially is on him and the company's not taking any.

It's not an MLM, but it is similar in the sense that there's an upfront, Hey, you got to pay to get in. There's a startup cost. You got to pay us for the tools. And then, oh, my gosh, the upside of how much money you can make. They're always promising you. They're showing you the testimonials from the 0.001% of people who actually made good money.

And the percentage people that actually quit and then are left with all the debt, high percentage, too.

There's the story. And we've seen that narrative happen. And so we speak out of love for Hayden and his future.

I know. Good luck, Hayden. We believe in you, though.

We're wishing you the best, man. More of your calls coming up. 888-825-5225. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell. She's Rachel Cruz. This is The Ramsey Show. Give us a call at 888-825-5225. Let's go to the phones. Christina joins us in Phoenix, Arizona. Christina, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Thank you. Thanks for taking my call.

Absolutely.

Okay, so my question is, my husband and I are looking to buy our first home, and we see a lot of these auction and foreclosure homes, and we were wondering if you recommend buying them as well as it looks like auction, you might have to have 100% cash, which we do not. But just wondering information on auction and foreclosure, and if you guys recommend one or the other or the details of it.

Yeah, they can definitely be great options. Usually for people, if you're doing investment real estate, this is a great option to go down because you just get the best deal on the front-ends, right? You get built-in equity automatically. But there are some I'm on Parameters. I'm going to be honest, Christina, I'm not an expert on this. I wish my husband was here because he does this a lot and knows the ins and outs probably more than I do. But I do know you want to look in and make sure you have title insurance. You want to make sure the deeds are clean, titles are clean. There's definitely some hoops to jump through to make sure that it's a good deal for you. And like you said, sometimes the person that bids and wins does have a lot of the cash up front I know that's an advantage there. But yeah, what do you think, George?

Is it required?

It's not always required? I haven't heard that it's always required. I think you can get it on a conventional 15-year fixed. What I would look into is doing your due diligence to see exactly what happened here and what the condition of it is. You need to be extra cautious to make sure that you're not buying a lemon where you're going, Oh, we thought it was going to be 20 grand to do the improvements. It's going to be 100.

Yeah, because for Some people, as they're getting the auction, they'll just say site unseen or no inspection required, right? Just to get their up on it, if you will. I wouldn't want that for you when it comes to your primary home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you If you had a ton of money and you were like, Yeah, if it's bad and we could fix everything with cash, that's one thing. But I wouldn't recommend that unless you just have a ton of cash.

The process can be slower. Here's my advice. I would choose your home based on the home that's right for you that you can afford. If it happened to be a foreclosure, that's okay. But I wouldn't just seek out auction foreclosures because you're in a tight place financially. I want you to move from a place of strength.

Yeah. Okay. That's great advice.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Christina.

Thank you so much for the call.

Yeah, but those that are looking to invest in real estate for a lot of, and I know for Dave even, a lot of what he bought early on, and even with my husband, once in helping him with stuff. I mean, it was a lot of going to the courthouse steps and doing real estate auctions just get a good deal on the front-end, because if you have the margin financially to be able, whether it is to go fix it and all of it, it is a great deal. But to your point, especially your primary home, you don't want a lot of hiccups, and there's a cleaner way, faster way to do it, to buy a home.

But with a foreclosure, if you can get it at 80% of the appraised value minus the cost of repairs, we generally see that as a good deal. Dave said you make your money on the deal, on the front-end. That's right.

That's when you get it.

Yeah, for sure. Not with all your fancy renovations that you go to resell. As you even do renovations, if you are investing to resell, you want to think about what's actually going to increase the value when you go to resell. A lot of times, it's cosmetic stuff. It's not the super expensive behind the scenes stuff. They just want a nice-looking backsplash.

Yes, that's all they want. But Christina, make sure to check out our real estate ELPs there in the Phoenix area. We have some great ones out there, and they can really help walk with you through that process because then having an expert with you through it is is tremendous. So make sure to check out one of our real estate ELPs.

It's a good call. Ramsey solutions. Com is the place to go. All right, David is in Columbus up next. What's happening, David?

Hello. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure.

I have a question. It's a mixed bag, but I'm somewhat new to the baby steps, and I'm really just trying to figure out how I can make more money. I have a full-time job. I'm single, I'm 37 years old, and I have quite a bit of debt. The job that I have right now is I'm very grateful for my job, but I'm looking to try to figure out how I can get into something that makes more money and something that I really love. Right now, I have about 56,000 dollars in debt, and I've thought about maybe getting some certifications, but that takes a lot of time and money. I'm just trying to figure out how can I transition into a new career or try to find something It pays a little bit more. I have my thousand dollar emergency fund. I just did Baby Step One last month. I'm on Baby Step Two now, and I have a side hustle that helps me. That's actually how I got through Baby Step One. Most of my debt is student loans. I have a car loan. I have some medical debt. I have some debt to the IRS.

I just feel like if I didn't have all this debt, I could maybe pursue what I really want to do a little bit easier. But since I do have this debt, I need to keep my full-time job and be able to keep lacking away at this debt.

How much do you make a year?

About 67,000 a year.

Okay. What do you do?

I work in the public sector. I essentially work with educational grants and administering an educational program. Okay.

What do you want to do? What's the thing that you're like, Oh, my gosh.

You said if I was out of debt, I could do what I want to do. Do you have that thing your mind?

That's another problem is I'm not entirely sure, but I have some ideas that are all over the place. I've thought about becoming an audio engineer. I've also thought about becoming a voice teacher, and I've also thought about going into technology of some sort. Right now, my main focus, outside of doing something that I really love, like something with music or the art or technology, is really just trying to make more money.

Yeah. I think if you found something that was a salaried position that you wanted and it was more income, you could totally make that move during this Baby Step 2 process. I just wouldn't gamble on something like, I'll just make something up, voice lessons that you're going to have to have a lot of clients, and you're going to have to supplement, and it's not there yet, but you really want to try it. So you're going to actually, to your point, make less at the beginning. All that, I think that will put you behind on the debt side of paying it off. I would stick to what you're doing, doing your side hustle, unless another salaried position comes in front of you and it pays more and you feel like, Oh, yeah, that could be a great step. I'm just curious, how much do you owe in your car?

About 8,000.

Okay, that's great. Well, I'm excited for you, David. You sound like you're hustling, and I think that's awesome. I would just keep grinding away at the work side of it.

I would add these side hustles and make it on-ramp to whatever the next thing is. If you can find any opportunity, even if it's running the audio board at a local church, for example, and you're just volunteering on the weekends, that will give you some great experience that you can go, All right, I got my feet planted here. What else can I be doing? Have you looked into any opportunities to start doing some of this stuff you're dreaming about?

Yeah, I have, actually. It's funny that you say that because just this past Sunday, I went to a church and shadowed their sound and learned a little bit about what they do, and I'm looking to do that at my own church soon. I'm trying to connect with people and network and see if I can find people are doing what I'm interested in doing and just learn more and see if that leads to some opportunities.

That's amazing. Very smart. We'll help you with that. It sounds like you're living out Ken Coleman's proximity principle of getting around the right people to do the thing you want to do. We're going to gift you that book as well as Ken's Get Clear assessment, and that's really going to start to sharpen what this next thing looks like. And along with that, his new book, Coming Out, Find the Work You're Wired to Do, has a free assessment there. So we're going to send you a copy of that because it'll help you actually make use of the results you get from the assessment and hopefully start to narrow down what that thing is. It may be a mix of all of them for now. Audio, voice, technology, they're all very interwoven. And maybe you have a little studio and you help young people get their start, whether it's vocals, music, engineering. I think there's some great fields there. And we've got lots of audio engineers here. Yes. It's largely Ben running the board right now. We love them. One of the best audio engineers, one of the greatest musicians I know, and James Child. So they did it, and they're not that great.

And if they could do it, anyone could do it.

If they could do it, I'm kidding. They're the smartest people I know, and they can turn off my mic at any time, but they've chosen not to out of kindness and grace. Thank you, guys. More of The Ramsey Show coming up. This is The Ramsey I'm joined by Rachel Cruz. I'm George Campbell. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Alyssa joins us all the way from Alberta, Canada. What's going on in Alberta, Alyssa? Sorry, what was that? What's the vibe in Alberta?

Oh, it's actually pretty nice out right now, so all right.

Wonderful. How can we help today?

My husband and I are wondering if you guys think it's okay if we stop investing for two and a half years in order to pay off our mortgage.

Whoa, why the aggression?

Because we want to be mortgage-free before we have kids so that I don't have to work if I don't want to.

Aha. Okay, how old are you two?

23 and 25.

And what's left on the mortgage?

167,000.

All right. What's the household income?

Gross annual income is about 150,000.

And that's with you working. So your goal is, Hey, you're not pregnant, but once we start to go down that path, you want to be able to stop working? That's right. Okay. And you would not be able to do that today with the finances?

No, I don't think so. We would have to be getting it pretty tight.

Okay. Well, I don't love the idea of you guys pausing investing and unplugging that growth and those contributions because you look 30 years from now as to what those will turn into, and you'll go, Oh, gosh, that hurt my stomach a little bit. Because you guys have no debt in the emergency fund already, right?

Right.

Okay.

Yeah. Gosh, Alyssa, I'm actually leaning because you guys are so young, and you want to have this lifestyle change of staying home. I may be okay. I would make it a goal to say, maybe we do it for a year, maybe we pause investing for a year. And what would it look like? Because the truth is, too, by the time you get pregnant, it's nine months. You'll have maternity leave. What's your maternity leave situation with your work?

Twelve or 18 months, I get to choose.

Oh, wow. Paid? Yeah. Paid. Okay.

Well, there's- Not full salary, but a portion of it, yes.

Okay. Well, I would factor that in to this scenario as well.

Because if you're doing 15% of your household income, that's 22,000 that you would not invest but throw at the house. So either way, it's not going to knock out the mortgage years sooner by pausing the investing. So I'm just curious what's stopping you. Let's say you guys wanted to have kids now. Could you do that, take your maternity leave, and then see where the mortgage is at, at that point?

Yes, it just wouldn't get paid off for another five to seven years from my calculations because I was using a Excel spreadsheet and put in all of the potential lump sum payments that we be able to do over the next two and a half years, and that brought the payoff date to September, 2026. But yeah, it would be quite a bit farther- I don't know why it would take seven years just by- Yeah, that doesn't make sense.

I don't want you to not invest for two years straight. If this was on the cusp of this, Hey, just a few months of not investing, we can get there. But right now, we're talking in theoreticals and hypotheticals. I would keep on the path you guys are at. I would aggressively attack the mortgage. I would get that budget down and also make a mock budget and see what life would be like living off of just his income.

Yeah. How much is your mortgage payment a month?

About 18, 20.

Okay.

And what's his take home pay?

Together, our take home pay is 110. I'm not sure. His gross annual income is about 90.

Okay. I'm just wondering, if we can get him to take home about seven grand, but 7,500, that would put your mortgage right at about 25% and still give you margin to throw extra at it.

Yeah. It just all depends on how busy his work is, really, because he has months where there's not enough for him to make that much.

Can he find another job to do when it's slow times?

Possibly, but he would have to be able to go into work whenever his boss needed him. He's an electrician, so it's just if they have projects on the go, then it's crunch time. If not, then, yeah, he might be able to get a second job, but then you would have to...

This job would have to be a priority. Have something flexible.

Yeah.

I'm leaning. Alyssa, I would make it a goal for just a year, but I would be okay because of your age, because you guys are such planners. You know what you want. You don't want to be working when you have a baby. There are these life-big things. If you have to pause for a year for investing in order to make these things happen, I would be okay with it. I would. But I also would say we do find people, Lisa, that they pause investing, and then they look up, and it's been five or six years because that 22,000, well, we needed to go on a nice trip. So we said, We'd wait another year. We had to upgrade the car for the baby. That's right. Yeah. You start bringing in the stuff. And I don't want these years to go wasted for you guys financially because you put yourself, you work so hard to be in such a great position to gain so much momentum. But I also understand life choices in the moment, you want to be able to have that piece, too. And then I'll throw this out to Alyssa. Everybody's story is different with babies, right?

I mean, some people, it does take an extra year, even longer than that, right? So also, we have some of this with an open hand, and we never want people to not have a baby or not get married because of where they are financially either. So I do want that for you guys. I want you to be able to start that family. But I do understand the value that you have of wanting to be home, which is understandable, too. Yeah, not having $1,800 go out helps with that.

That's serious. I like the idea of the mock budget and just seeing how tight you can get things and still have a life while you're at it. Because Baby Step 4 is intense to intentional. You don't have to go full throttle, but you also have a pretty intense goal of wanting to stay at home and go down to one income. Yeah, exactly. A lot to think about there. Gavin is in San Antonio. What's happening, Gavin?

Hey, I'm calling in because I'm basically in a situation where I owe more on a car than what it's worth.

Welcome to America. It's about every call we get with a car loan.

Well, actually, this one's a little different. I got a private car sale, and I purchased it in cash. Good. I made the foolish decision not to get a pre-purchase inspection. Effectively, everything looked good, right? Everything appeared good, but I took it to the mechanic just to get, had it looked over, just to ensure everything's okay. It came back that it turns out it has about eight grand worth of repairs on a $5,000 car.

Oh, my gosh.

You bought the car for five grand in cash? Yeah. You didn't do the pre-purchase inspection? You did it after?

Yes. That was- You did a post-purchase inspection?

I did. It's like getting your house inspected after you lived in it. You're like, Well, I bought a limit. Let's see what's wrong.

Let's see what's wrong with it.

Yeah, that was definitely not my proudest moment. Like I said, I looked over it and I was like, Everything looks fine. There's nothing glaring, but come to find out- What's the issue?

There's a lot of- What is it? Is this a new transmission? Yeah.

What's going on with it?

Well, apparently, something about the front and weird catalytic converters, which are expensive. The passenger side front, the actual.

Okay. How is it driving?

It It drives fine. You really wouldn't notice. I mean, there's some squeaking from under the axial. There is a check engine light on, but it's always- Sure.

Have you gotten a second opinion, Gavin? I've yet to. Okay, I would do that. I probably should. Sometimes, and I may be speaking as an ignorant person with cars, but I'm definitely one of those people. You go into the mechanic and like, Oh, my gosh, you got this and you got this. It's like the dentist, and you got this and this, and then you got to do this, you got to do that.

Wiping the sweat off their brow. I haven't seen something like this since 1987, man. Holy crap.

I do all this stuff. And then you go get a second opinion from just a good old guy who's been doing this for 40 years. And he's like, No, you really just need this. And you're like, Okay, I can do that. Right? So some of this may not just be urgent. I don't know. Or I don't want the car to blow up or something, right? So I'm like, We want to make sure that you're safe. But I would go get a second, even third opinion, because this is such high pricing that they have for you before you go and do anything. I would ask around.

But I would not pay eight grand to fix it.

I see, and I feel that, too. So that being said, let's just say I get a second and a third opinion, and the repairs are still worth more than the cars were. I was thinking, and I don't know for sure, but I was thinking maybe best case scenario to salvage this from here is either resell at a loss, right? Because I'm not unethical to do what they have to me.

No. Yeah, we weren't doing that.

Or use it as a trade-in to purchase a car from maybe a lot in cash.

Yeah. Either of those options would be better than what you got right now. And it stinks. It's a stupid tax you pay. Hey, guys. Are you ready for The Secret to help you reach those money goals that you've been dreaming about?

It's simple. You got to get on a budget. With our budgeting app, EveryDollar, you'll get intentional with your money and build the habits that will make those dreams a reality.

And we'll be with you every step of the way. From your first budget to that retirement home on the beach, download Every Dollar for free on the App Store or Google Play. Remember, today, download EveryDollar for free on the App Store or Google Play today. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Well, Rachel, before we get to the lines, we've got an exciting announcement that we launched last week, the Live Like No One Else Cruise.

It's back, you guys.

I petitioned to call it the Rachel choose and have you as the headliner.

Thank you, George.

They didn't go with it. But I'm bummed. It's fine. So this will be Dave Ramsey. All the Ramsey personalities, including myself and Rachel, will be there seven days at sea, March 22nd through the 29th of 2025. Special guest Yes. We got a lot of musicians, magicians, songwriters, restaurant tours.

I'm sure we've talked about this before. The original one, you guys, was set to set sail March of 2020.

Great timing, Rachel. I told you.

I know. So we are bringing it back, though. It's a comeback. And it's been almost five years. Isn't that crazy? It'll be five years from when it was supposed to originally happen. But we've had so many people, like, randomly be like, We are signed up for the cruise. When are you going to do it again? When are you going to do it again? Yeah, there's a lot of you guys out there that really wanted to do this. So we're here for you.

Back by popular demand. Yeah, the last one in 2020 sold out in just a couple of weeks, and the cabins are already booking up real fast. I've been loving getting the DM saying, We're going to be on the cruise. We're joining you guys. Fun, fun. So this is going to be an awesome time. And let me tell you guys, this is not for everyone. This is for those that are in Baby Step 4 and above. This is a debt-free celebration. So if you've become debt-free, you got the emergency fund, you have budgeted for something fun to celebrate, the cruise is a great way. We're going to go to Turks, Caicos, St. Thomas, San Juan, The Bahamas. Book your cabin, ramseysolutions. Com/cruise. I got to work on my tan. I got one year to get a base tan. You can get a spray tan.

I'll give you my spray tan girl, her name.

I don't know if that's going to look. I'm going to look real orange.

No, no, no, no. They're very natural-looking.

Sure. Okay. Look out for that.

I have one. Mine's a week old right now, so it's fated. Oh, yeah.

They're very nice. They're very nice. It shows. It's fine. We'll have a good time. It'll be a blast. Ramseysolutions. Com/cruise.

Which are your sunglasses on? See George? You're going to be like, Oh, my gosh. Is that the sun?

I'm so pale. No. It's George. Let's get to the lines. Susan is in New York. New York, aptly named. What's going on, Susan?

Hi there. I I am 58 years old, almost 59, and I have been a public school teacher for 37 years.

Oh, wow. Thank you, Susan.

What a career.

Thank you. To have kids in public school. We appreciate you.

I appreciate that. So my question to you is, can I retire in about a year as I hope to?

Oh, this is a fun game. All right. Are you married, single?

I have been divorced five years. Okay.

What does your nest egg look like?

That's part of my I have a little over 500,000 in various investment accounts, including a 403(b), so about half of it is post-tax dollars.

Okay. So this is in Roth 403(b), a Roth account?

There's a Roth IRA is a small portion, but most of it are investment accounts in the market.

Oh, I see, like a brokerage account outside of retirement. Yeah. Yes, sorry. Okay. I didn't know if you had post taxes, and you've already paid taxes on it?

Part of mine was from the sale of my marital home. So that's post, and so is the Roth IRA that I have. Okay.

And then you have your home?

No, that was sold after the divorce, so I have been renting since then.

Okay. And is there any other assets, or is 500K, that's about your networth?

That, and I do have a pension when I Well, yeah.

How much will that be?

That will come to about… Well, it depends how long I teach because each year, it bumps it up just a bit. Right now, if I did retire next year, it would be about $82,000 a year.

Okay.

Pretax.

The question becomes, what will your expenses be in retirement? You can start to calculate that. Of course, there's going to be some variables with health care and cost of living, and you're going to be renting for the foreseeable future, I imagine.

Right. That's another part of my. And you're in New York area?

Yes. I imagine rent's not cheap over there.

Will you move from the area?

Well, right now, my youngest child is still in college, so just two more years, and I do not have any debt at all. I have an additional side job of tutoring that I use to supplement my income in order to do her tuition and to have fun because that's it. That's my only extra money. Okay.

What's your income?

120.

Awesome. Well, based on what you laid out for us, I mean, I don't know. With the pension coming in at 82,000, that really helps because I was looking at just your nest egg. It made me nervous to go, I'm going to retire next year with half a million because you could deplete that at the ripe age of 59, and you could live to be 100. We got to look at what a game plan looks like for the next 40 years, potentially, to live. With the pension there, it gives you a base.

My real hope is that between my pension and then when I do start to take Social Security, that I do not have to touch the nest egg.

Yeah.

Have you run those numbers for you, just like your lifestyle and everything?

Yes, I have. And the only wild card is inflation. I don't own a home, so that's not a stable expense right now, my rent, but it's manageable right now. My lifestyle is manageable for the foreseeable, I'd say 10 to 20 years. But after that, if I do live into my '80s or '90s, I am nervous about that.

Sure. Yeah. And at that point, it may require moving somewhere cheaper, right? I'm like, you think about New York, and it is one of the most expensive places. Yes. But yeah, that would be down the road because I don't want you to just go in and get a mortgage and have to pay off.

How much do you have in the brokerage account, non-retirement? I'm sorry, say again. How much do you have in that brokerage account in non-retirement funds?

What do you mean by non-retirement? I'm a little confused by.

You said the post-tax account?

Yeah. About 200 is in my 403(b), which is a retirement fund. Then I've got about I have $270, probably, in just brokerage accounts. Then I've got a beneficiary IRA, which I do have to… That was from the death of my mom. That was $44,000 that I need to withdraw within 10 years. Then the Roth IRA is $28,000, and I do contribute.

The brokerage account is what I'm looking at. I'm wondering if it would be wise for you to cash out the brokerage account and buy something like a condo for your retirement so that you don't have that expensive rent to worry about. You've covered your largest fixed expense, which then lowers how much you would need in retirement. Yes. That's something to think about.

Yeah, it is something I do think about. I have no idea where I want to go once my youngest has flown.

I would just wait. I would just keep working until your youngest is out of college and you know what the next step is and just keep socking away as much money as you can into retirement until then. Right. Yeah. That would be my game plan. I don't know that I can tell you one year from now, you can retire. But I would say once you know where you're headed next and if you can purchase a condo there to limit your expenses, That would make me feel a whole lot better about what the long term looks like.

Yeah. Because there's a reality that, yeah, that 270, which in two years will grow even some as well, could get you a great townhome, even cheaper in Green Will, South Carolina or whatever. You know what I mean? You could look around and decide where you are because that's a good next move versus trying to tackle something probably in Manhattan or something.

Yeah, but I would start to do your research about where you would go. Would you want to follow the kids? Is that the plan?

Well, they're on the opposite Coast, the oldest two. I have no idea. I think my youngest will stay nearby, but I don't know. Yeah. Of course, I'd love to follow them if they all would stay near each other.

Absolutely. Especially when it comes to grandkids down the line, it's fun to be near them. That's something to think about as well. I love that.

It's just so much unknown right now. Teaching is a tough gig, and I've been doing it, like I said, 37 years is a long time. I would like to give back to my community and become an EMT. That's one of my retirement goals. Very cool.

I would still tutor and work part-time, so I would absolutely still be bringing in some income in addition.

Yeah, you're You're the type that you just like to be out there doing something and serving your community, and we so appreciate that. So thank you for the call. Really interesting conversation. You've done a great job. And so keep it up and call us back when you're officially retired. Let us know what happened. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the Books. Thank you to my co-host, Rachel Cruz, all the folks in the booth, and you, America, will be back before you know it. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do that they love and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz. This is your show, America. Call us up at 888-825-5225, and we'll help you take the right next step for your life and your money. Megan joins us up first, or maybe let's go to Sarah first in St. Louis. How's that? Sarah, how are you doing? I'm very well. How are you? We're doing great. How can we help?

I have a question as far as involving children children in the household finances when the father loses their job.

When did that happen?

My husband lost his job. It's been a year in March, and we had gone through Financial Peace University a year... Well, we went in in 2019, I think is when we took the class. We were in a pretty good situation, and the job loss just came out of nowhere. We have been stacking up credit card debt, I guess, for about six months now. He had cashed in an annuity to help pay for current bills. But just to get to the point of it all, I have basically three adults living The kids are three adults. The oldest son is 26, daughter is 22, youngest son is 18, full-time college student. Just wanting to use this really as an educational point for my kids to show them what really happens when you lose a job and when you are looking at digging into your retirement. And I'm just curious, is that a bad parent call? Good parent call?

Sarah, why hasn't he worked in a year? Has it been a year?

Oh, my gosh. He has been interviewing, and you think he's got two and three interviews, thinks it's a done deal, and we think it's going to go back to normal. And it has been truly devastated.

But have you guys had no income at all? Like, he He hasn't even done Uber or there's been no income? Correct.

Well, I work part-time. We have savings.

Well, yeah. Okay.

Why aren't both of you working full-time, doing anything?

Well, that is what it's pretty much come to now. I have been looking for a second job for probably two and a half, three months now. What do you do for work?

I work part-time for a financial advisor. Okay. And what was he doing? He is in sales and has been extremely successful in sales since he graduated college.

So this is just completely not in our… Just completely unexpected. And he is just going down this rabbit hole of what in the world are we going to do?

Sales are largely commissioned jobs. So it's like you get the job and then let's see what you got.

Well, it's salary plus commission, but yes.

What selling was he doing?

Is what he's looking for so high up income-wise?

Yeah, it's 150 to 200,000.

Plus commission on top of that? His base is that?

His base is 150 to 175, yeah.

I mean, I would take 75 over 175.

I would take 75 over zero.

Can he go do something for that and work his way back up?

He has had two different companies say that they didn't want to hire him for what he wanted, but they said anything lower than that, they did not want to hire him because he is overqualified. They would not even consider him.

Okay. I think for you guys, Sarah, you and your husband, regardless of the kids or not, I think you guys are coming to that point of realizing Oh, my gosh, we got to do... We have to do something, right? We have to do something. We have to do something. And that I hate that it's taken a year and cashing in retirement and all of that. So almost my conversation with the kids is, Hey, Mom and Dad messed up this year, right? I think that you guys both can look... And then that's not a shameful thing. It's not you as people, but our actions when it came to money, that we were on the sidelines for too long, and we made decisions because we just didn't go get X, Y, and Z job. Dad didn't just go get X, Y, and Z job. And because of that, we racked up credit card debt, we cashed out in retirement. We've gone so far backwards because of this job loss, which I know is excruciating. A job loss is like a punch to the gut. And especially if you're making high money, I totally hear that. I don't want to be insensitive to that.

But I do, Sarah, I want you guys to wake up and say, You can't do this. You obviously have sustainable, but that would be my conversation to the kids. If you lose a job, you're an Uber driver the next day, right? You have to bring in income to pay bills. And that may be humbling yourself because you were this top-notch sales guy making 400 grand, half a million a year, and your life just looks a lot different. In the meantime, we want you to get him to get back to that place for sure, but I don't know.

There's just a- What is the 22 and 26-year-old doing? Are they working full-time?

Yes. So the 22-year-old, she's sitting out College. She does work full-time. The oldest one When he just got his first big boy job, and he's getting ready to actually move out of the house. But each kid, their cars are paid off. They pay us for car maintenance. The oldest one does pay the rent, like I said. So even the boys are like, they've set up Roth IRAs for themselves. Yeah.

So I think for that conversation, Sarah, for my kids, again, for a season, them being home, if there's a big transition happening. But for their dignity's sake, even though you have a Roth IRA, there's something about growing up that when you live on your own, it just happens. It forces you. And I know this is such a stupid example. I don't I always use this example, but it's almost like you look in the fridge and there's no milk. And when you're on your own in an apartment, you're like, Well, crap, I got to go to the grocery store and get milk. Mom, she gets milk. Versus mom. It's those small things to the big things that really force you to be an adult. And you make different decisions. You think critically, you think in a different way. So all of that. And now, if they're there for a season to hit some number or a goal, and you guys agree on it, and there's a time frame, all about it. But I think for the dignity of your kids, Sarah, I would have a conversation to say for the good of them. And they're obviously really smart.

I mean, they're doing really well. But I think that extra step for them is good.

Well, I think That's really what I wanted to hear and what I thought, because anytime you can educate your children on something, a major life change is good.

But I also feel guilty because they are so responsible and they do pay for certain things, and I would feel bad to go, Hey, let's look at this.

You're not harming. I don't think you're harming them. I think you're actually loving them really well as a 26-year-old adult.

It doesn't have to be you asking them for money. It could just be, Listen, we need to cut back. Mom and dad, we're not doing great financially right now, and here's the areas we're going to cut back on, and here's how this might affect you. At least that's a baseline.

Yeah, but I think I would still hold my line, Sarah, with them, regardless of your situation or not. I think regardless of your, you all's financial struggle, for just them, their sake. There's a part of me that I don't want them to feel like, Oh, we're having to move out because of mom and dad situation. Even though that's part of it, they're moving out because they're 26 years old. You know?

Right, right.

They're leaving, right? And I don't think that needs to happen.

Yeah, totally, totally.

How much debt do you have, Sarah? What's the total amount?

Just, I mean, for credit cards, about $25,000.

Okay. Step one, We got to cut these cards up, and we need to go to work.

Yes, not negotiable.

If that's delivering pizzas, Uber, it does not matter. We need to swallow our pride and bring an income. We cannot keep going into debt. Wishing you guys the best.

For sure, Sarah. We're cheering you guys on.

All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're someone you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz. Our question of the day comes from Emma in Georgia. What does Emma have to say, Rachel?

She says, I met one of your financial coaches who was absolutely wonderful. So glad. I'd like to begin the six-month coaching sessions, but I have to get my husband on board first. How do I convince someone that is a live in the moment I might die tomorrow, so spend my money today. That financial piece is actually worth it. I'm considering asking a marriage counselor, but I truly do not think that this is a marriage issue. I believe he needs to change his mindset to believe that sacrifice vice, and living a debt-free life is worth it before we can begin our journey. Otherwise, I'm just dragging someone, kicking and screaming, and that's not going to work. I've tried to get him to listen to your podcast, but his excuse is, I'm not interested in learning about money. It's just not interesting to me is what he says. But then he'll complain about living paycheck to paycheck. Help.

Wow. This sounds like a marriage issue because you're married to him. I don't know how else to spin it.

That is the reality. Yeah. And it's a marriage issue that he's not listening to his wife. Can I say this? We do not have a perfect marriage. Never will I ever claim that Winston and I have a perfect marriage. But if I keep telling him something like, Hey, I'm fearful in this area, or I'm like, I worry about this. If he's just like, Wow, I don't care. I don't care. I'm like, You are such a jerk. There's a point where you're like, Oh, my gosh. Not that he has to go and do every little thing that she wants, right? She may be the nerd in it. But there's a point that, yeah, it is a marriage issue because And your husband- And your disinterest is disrespectful. Is an opposite, too. If this was a guy and he's like, And my wife doesn't care, I'd be like, Your wife is a jerk. I don't know. Does that make sense? Like with Whitney? If she kept saying something to you that she's really worried and concerned about something- This really matters to me, and I was like, Well, it doesn't to me.

I don't care. Sounds like a personal problem. She's not asking him to go to yoga class with him. This is your personal finances. This is your money goals.

It's your future. It sounds like your maturity. And then he complains about living paycheck to paycheck. And I'm like, Well, you Can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Is that the saying? I think this is a symptom of other communication issues with their marriage, value issues with their marriage. I would absolutely work with a marriage counselor to get to the root of this because you nagging him, as you call it, is not working. If he's unwilling to communicate, I think having a third party there to point out some things that maybe he's not realizing that could hit him in a different way, that's not his wife, I think that could help.

For sure. The truth is, people that engage in this process of becoming debt free, you have to really believe. There's a point that you're like, Oh, my gosh, this is something that is really important to me because it's not going to happen. We always say you can wander your way into debt, you can't wander your way out. There's a very intentional plan. There's some sacrifice involved. Things have to change. In order to become debt free, those things have to be true. And so obviously, this is very important to her.

And it's important to him because he's complaining about it.

Yeah, right.

He's going, Oh, man, this stinks.

We're living paycheck to paycheck. Yeah, but to engage in a debt free process, you're not just like, Yeah, that'd be fun. Sure. Why not? It's because like, Oh, my gosh, I have a level of fear, or I have a level of anxiety with my money, or I hate so much that I work so hard and we have nothing to show for. There's a deep motivation in Emma to get to this point. It's not this flippant thing in life. Yeah, like, Oh, I just want to go to a yoga class. So the fact that your husband is not taking the weight of what you are talking about seriously, that's a marriage issue, Emma.

A hundred %. I mean, you're either growing together or growing apart. And in this case, as she begins this financial journey solo, it's going to cause a rift in their marriage.

Yeah. If you are trying to get out of debt, but he's taking the money and going deeper in debt- Doing what he wants with it. You're not making progress. I mean, you really can't. Yeah.

So I would absolutely seek the help of a marriage counselor. Because it is a marriage issue, Emma. And get him involved in the coaching and saying, You're going to sit here and you're going to be involved, and you're going to like it because I care about our future, and I hope you do, too. Yeah. So that's a tough one.

It's a journey.

Sorry, Emma.

It's a There's a lot of people out there, though, where one spouse is gunko and one doesn't care. That's a hard place to be. It can take time. Sure. Totally. Yeah. All right.

Let's go to the phone. Zack is in Atlanta, Georgia. Zack, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Are you with us, Zack? Did we lose you already?

Hey. There he is.

How can we help?

Hey. Sorry about that. It's all good. Just a quick question for you guys. Me and my fiance are looking We're getting married in August. Career change is coming up for me. She's working on a study 9:00 to 5:00. We're seeking premarital counseling, but we're really trying to figure out a game plan for preparing financially for our future. Both have college degrees, but we want to figure out tangible steps that we can do now so that we can live comfortably later on for prepping for kids and grandkids, buying a house, things like that.

Just wanted to get you guys to know that. Nice. Wow, grandkids. Zack, you guys are planners. This is future thinking. Planners. Okay, so four months to the wedding. Congratulations.

Is it paid for already?

The parents So her parents will be paying for it.

Wonderful.

That's awesome. And do you guys have any debt? No, zero debt. Okay. And how much do you have in savings?

I've got about 51,000 liquid. Okay. And then I have another 13,000 in a four She has about 10,000 in her 401(k) and 62,000 liquid.

Good night, Zack. So between the two of you, you guys have $113,000 of cash? Correct. That's awesome. So let's call that your emergency fund plus Some down payment?

Yeah. We all want to buy a house soon.

Right. We've been looking. We're a little… I mean, we tore it up looking for houses probably three or four months ago, just seeing if we could even get close to what we wanted. We came up short every time because interest rates are killer. The core of it is the 20% it would take us to get out of PMI is quite a chunk of that. Sure, we do have 113,000, but 20% on a $400,000 house would basically eat us alive. So we were trying to figure out a great game plan.

Yeah. I honestly wouldn't advise buying a house in your first year of marriage anyways. I would just go find an apartment and rent and just be married, enjoy that season. Because the great thing about renting is if stuff happens, if things break, it's all fixed for you. You don't have that burden of homeownership right away. I do think renting somewhere for a year or two, I think, is fine. And then And then be looking at what you guys can buy. What do you guys make a year together?

Sure. I make together we're about 160.

160, okay.

That's great. With no debt, how much can you sock away in a year with that income? Right. I mean, our goal is- I want to save up another 60 grand, 70 grand, 80 grand?

Exactly. About half of that earnings.

How old are you guys?

She's really frugal, which is a blessing. I am 27, and she is turning 25 this year.

Okay, great. And neither of you own a home right now, obviously.

That's correct. Okay, yeah.

Yeah, I would wait a year, Zack. Keep piling up that money, and then have a great down payment. And even if you don't hit that 20%, I mean, we say for first-time home buyers, it could even be 5%, if that gives you a little bit more breathing room. But I mean, a great goal for sure is that 20% because of PMI. But yeah, you all are in a fantastic place. But that would be my next goal, is to look for that home.

And then get it paid off while enjoying your life, investing 15 %, paying off the mortgage that puts you in baby steps four and six. Obviously, you don't have kids yet, but once that happens, you'll be funding that college, and it sounds like you're in a great spot.

Yeah. It's even small things. I remember even when we got married, we didn't have enough furniture to fill some of the rooms in our house. So you think about furniture budgets, right? And you're like, Yeah, we want to That's true. We want to furnish our house, and we want to go on a great trip with friends, or I don't know what all the stuff is that you guys want to do with your life. You got the honeymoon already planned and paid for?

Yeah, we're getting close to putting the final stamp on it.

Where are you guys going?

Wedding planning is a little crazy, as you guys probably already know, but we're between a cruise, nice and cheap or flying out to Europe and just having ourselves a five, $6,000 budget just to have a little bit of fun with.

That's so fun. Gosh, you guys are so wonderful. I'm so excited for you. We're going to gift you as a little premarital counseling/wedding gift, Financial Peace University. So you both can use that for the next year along with every dollar. I think the sky's the limit. This is like the poster children of- Oh my gosh. What should I do to get stuff right financially? You've done it. You're out of debt with money in the bank. This is what everyone Which is their marriage started off with. I know. Well done, Zack. A pile of money, no stress. Just enjoy getting to know each other. It's great.

So fun. Enjoy Europe or the Cruise.

Oh, to be young again.

Oh, to be young again.

This is The Ramsey Show. Do you listen to The Ramsey Show for motivation? You want to know what's even more motivating? Attending a Ramsey event, the ultimate motivational experience that's fully focused on helping you eliminate money stress. Join us for the total money makeover weekend on May 10th and 11th in Nashville, and leave money stress at the door for good. Podcast listeners use the code 50 off to save $50 on standard-level tickets. Get yours at ramseysolutions. Com/events. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. It is National Financial Literacy Month, and this month we're celebrating teachers, the teachers of America. They love our kids well. They work hard. They're helping to shape the future by making sure our kids get the education they need to succeed with whatever life throws at them. Here at Ramsey, we want to say thank you to all those teachers with a teacher appreciation giveaway sponsored by Ramsey Education. So one teacher will win a five $3,000 vacation. They can do whatever they want with that and go wherever they want. We have two additional teachers receiving a $3,000 vacation. That's nothing to shake a fist at, Rachel, to wherever they choose.

So this is completely free, no purchase is necessary. You You just need to go enter at ramsey solutions. Com/teacher and enter today for your chance to win. So let a teacher know in your life.

We love our teachers. Our kids, I said something on Instagram, people were like, your kids go to public school? And I was like, Yes, because Our experience with our little public school here in Williams County, in Nashville.

To be fair, this county has some of the best schools in the nation. It does.

Every teacher we've had, I was just texting with one earlier, they're just amazing. They're the most amazing human beings and the staff and all of it. So all of you teachers out there, I know people have their opinions with everything, but you're just amazing. So there's some great teachers that I feel like sometimes they don't get the cred. That's right. So, George, I'm hosting this show on Thursday, and then I'm getting in a car, I'm driving to Atlanta. Oh, that's right. It's my last book signing for my book. I'm Glad for Where I Am, my new kids book that's out. I was out all last week on tour with New York and Phoenix and LA and Dallas, and my last stop is in Atlanta. So on Friday, if you're in Atlanta, Manzel Crossing, the Barnes & Noble there from 1:00 to 2:00 in Atlanta on Friday, I will be there to hang out with you guys. And yes, sign books, say hi to your kids. We did a little story time. So many kids, about 75 kids showed up in Dallas. With their parents. I know. So we did a big story time, and it was so fun.

So Atlanta, make sure to come. Come hang out on Friday, Friday afternoon.

How do you land the story time? When you finish, are you showing them pictures with each one? I do. What's your strategy?

I talk to them. I'm a mom. I got these kids. So we talk about what we're grateful for, who brought you to this book signing, because the whole book is about your family, really. That that's the foundation of our gratitude. It's the things that money can't buy to really start there with our gratitude. And so they're so cute, though. Kids are funny.

Were there any older kids?

Yeah, some.

They were like, I'm 18, Rachel. Yes. Some of them were teenagers with their moms, and they were like, Hi. Then a few just- But they were great. Strangers with no kids who just wanted to say hi.

Yeah. They came with other books that we have and signed those, met them. That's sweet. So, yeah, whether you have kids or not, come on out. It was so fun meeting all you guys on the road last week. A lot of them listen to this show. They listen to Smart Money Happy Hour, George. Love it. I know. It's so fun to be out in other cities and hang out with you guys. So Atlanta, come on out.

Can't wait. All right, let's get to the phones. Megan is in Vancouver, Canada. What's happening, Megan?

Hi, George. Hi, Rachel. I'm just calling. My husband and I got married in September 2022. We were lucky enough in October 2022 to win a million dollars through the Canadian lottery.

Whoa.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing.

Oh, my gosh. Was Is that one of those that you had to pick numbers, like the power ball here in America? Or what is it? Scratch-off ticket?

To be honest, it was a $10 ticket that we bought because my husband had just switched from oil field services and wanted to try a different industry and be home. So we were making a joke at a gas station, and it was the third ticket I've ever bought. I just, yeah.

Oh my gosh. That is so wild. Okay, so this was back in October of 2022?

It was, yes.

So it's been a while. So do you take a lump sum or payments? How do they do it in Canada?

So in Canada, there's no taxes or anything.

So we received the- There's no taxes on the lottery?

No. So you actually got a million dollars? Canadiians. Should we go to Canada? We got a million dollars.

Should we go?

Yeah. And it was a lump sum? They just wire it to your bank, write you a check?

To be calloused, I picked it up at a shopper's drug mart at a pharmacy because they send it as a check in the mail.

Wow. Okay, so you deposit a million dollars into your bank account. What happened to it?

Yeah. Is there any still left? Or Megan, did you all just go crazy?

There's actually quite a bit left. That's where my husband and I have two different ways that we're thinking of approaching it. Just to start off, we did pay our home outright and got rid of our mortgage. That was 350,000. We did get a newer to us, but still used vehicle, which was 25,000. Then we paid off. Luckily, we worked through my entire education, so I didn't have any student loans or credit card debt. We did just have 25,000 in a vehicle loan as well.

Oh, my gosh. You guys have 650-ish left?

Yeah. Then we did put some into our RFPs, 25 each. Then right now, we have about 550 that's still liquid.

Wow. Okay.

You can do whatever you want with it. Is it in a savings account?

It's in a high yield savings right now. The interest per month is really not doing that well. It's like a thousand, I think, a month, roughly around there. So it could be better.

What's the interest rate on the account?

They tell me that it's 4%, but that doesn't make sense.

I don't look into that.

You might want to move the money. I think there needs to be a conversation there.

Yeah, and is it FDIC? I mean, I don't know what you have over there. We have FDIC insured. So your money is insured up to a certain amount in that account?

Yes. I think there is some there as well. To be honest, I still really haven't done too much on that end, which is really a fault of mine. I've just been sitting there trying to decide what we should do going forward, which is why we're calling you.

Okay. You said you had two different opinions here.

Yeah. My husband wants to invest in a portfolio and have someone manage it. Then I actually, there is a rental property in our area that we could buy. And there is someone currently as a tenant, and then we would just assume the tenant and do a little bit of renovations as things have gone on. But I'm hoping that we could do a 15-year plan. But overall goal My thought for us is to get out of city limits and have land. So my thought is to have our house now and the other rental property help pay towards the mortgage as well as our salaries towards the land. Whereas my husband's thought is if we invest in a portfolio, we would still have less liquid cash because there is a 500,000 minimum investment with the person that we found that's fairly reputable.

Okay.

How soon do you guys want to move?

In an ideal world, we'd like to move sooner rather than later. I just want to be realistic about it and not- How much would it be?

I'm just curious. To get what you want, land and everything, I don't know. I just know real estate's expensive everywhere. But what would it be?

When I've looked at property that we're actually interested in, it's probably 800 to 900,000.

What's your current home worth?

We just had an assessment yearly assessment. I would say probably 365. It's gone up since we bought it.

Okay. If you sold your house plus the cash you have in the bank, you could purchase this land and live your dream today.

Yes. I think what I always get worried about is, with this other rental property, it would also be paid out. Then if we have both of those paying towards our acreage with our salaries, we would be fairly comfortable. Then we would also have those as long-term investment.

But that would require you guys- I don't love going back in the debt at this point. Yeah, you go back into debt with that plan. Okay.

Okay. So your best advice would be to just sell the house that we're in.

Yeah, but then all of your money, though. So the only thing, Megan- It's all tied up in your primary. It's all tied up in just one house, right? And so for me- Other than appreciation, it's not going to make you any money. Yeah, I would want a little bit more of diversification. And I would want some of this money be making money for me, right? I'm like, there's something about it earning interest that you guys may be able to use to help with lifestyle in general, right? Or to move towards something you want. Right. So, yeah. I mean, the real estate is a great investment. I don't think that you guys could go wrong necessarily either way with the rental property or putting it in the markets. I think we'd say both, if you run the numbers correctly, could get you what you want.

And it also depends on your age, your nest what your retirement goals are. So that's something to think about as well as you calculate all of this and figure out the next steps. I want to make sure that if you wanted to stop working at some point, you could and not just be stuck in this dream home that you now can't sustain. That's right. So make sure that you're still putting away money in retirement, that you're going to retire with a million, two million, whatever your nest egg goal is, and you have this beautiful dream home. But wow, what a story. That's great. That is wild. Canadian lottery. Who would have thunk it? Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 4:26, Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Taylor Swift once said, that's a left turn right there, Rachel. Taylor said, Even if you're happy with the life you've chosen, you're still curious about the other options.

Oh, do you know what? Is that a lyric? That reminds me of one of my, and I'm going to make James answer this because he has a mic. That's one of my favorite questions to ask people. Here's a great dinner question.

If you want to get to know his life. You love A good dinner question. I'd love a good dinner question. If you're ever at dinner, invite Rachel because she will get the table talking.

Is if you were to wake up and have a completely different life, different job, everything, what would it be? James would be a musician, wouldn't you? You'd be part of a band.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah, you'd be part of a band.

I think he'd be a music critic, though. It's more fun for him to critique and judge than to actually make art. I'm that right now, though.

What would you do, George? If you were to wake up tomorrow and you had a completely different life.

Single, not married, okay. Single, not married.

You can do whatever you want, whatever.

Oh, gosh. Well, I feel like I would want to be married to Whitney still in another life. That's great.

That's probably good. Okay.

I'd probably want to host a late night show. That's good. Yeah. The desk, the crowd, the vibe. Yeah, it'd be super fun. How about you? That's good.

I would be a political correspondent. Oh, wow. Yeah, for a network.

Which network? Can you tell us? I would do it anyway.

I would be very open. I'd bring my unbiased opinions to bias networks.

I think you'd have to create your own network for that, Rachel. I know.

But travel to all the campaigns and I'm like, Report on- Ramsey News Network, RNN.

Yeah.

I don't know. I think it'd be interesting. That's fun.

There you go. Where did that come from Taylor Swift?

Because she said, even though you love your life, you want to know other options. I would live in Manhattan. That's what I would be doing for sure with Winston.

That's good. The kids. I'm glad you still chose Winston. See, I was like, Is this a trick question that's going to get me in trouble? No. I'm not falling for it. No. That's a good dinner question. That is something that you like to do. Yeah.

Dave is not fun to play with, though.

He's like, I choose my life. My life's great.

That's exactly what he says. I just be me. And I'm like, You are so grumpy. You got to be creative, Dave. What would you be? A water skier or a scuba diver instructor? I don't know all his weird habits that he has. They're not weird, but he has lots of hobbies. He has lots of hobbies, but he would just be him. There you go, Marika. That's a free Ramsey dinner combo for you.

That's Dave's children's book. I'm glad for who I am. There it is. It's just Dave on the cover, smiling, thumbs up. I'm just saying, it's If you can't be Dave, be you. That's the second best thing. That's so good. What a story that would be. All right. I'm glad he's not listening. All right. Let's go to Andrea. That's fine. Andrea in Little Rock. Save us from ourselves, Andrea. How are you doing?

I'm doing good. How are you?

I'm doing well. How can we help you today?

Okay. I basically have two basic questions. I'm trying to see how we can save money to fund our dream and also So stop living paycheck to paycheck. So the basics are my husband makes about 3,500 minimum a month, bring home, and our expenses are around 3,400. I'm a stay at home mom. I homeschool our kids. And we've gotten very blessed on... Our rent is below. We pay a lot much lower than most people in our area. I'm on level billing for all of our bills, so we have a set amount every month, and we still cannot figure out how to really save. Our goal is to own land and build our own home on one day, and we have already purchased the land. We've saved and been able to do that. We own the land. We just need to start saving now for being able to build on it. A little bit of backstory is we were homeless at one point, and we ended up getting money to be able to stay in a hotel, and everything we were making was going into living in a hotel. Then we just both worked our butts off to say to be able to finally get a house, and we started from the ground up.

But now we're in this cycle of paycheck to paycheck, and it's a lot of anxiety for us, obviously, because we know what it's like to be at the bottom, and we don't want to do that again.

Wow.

Impressive. Yeah, it is. Do you guys have debt?

No.

No debt. Okay.

Is the land paid for in cash?

Yes.

Okay. How did you guys get the money for that?

Saving, and then we got a little bit of a tax return, so we pretty much took all of that and invested it into the land and paid it all in cash.

Okay. What home are you in now, or how much you owe on it, and how much is it worth?

We are renting. We rent.

Okay.

We've looked at to see if there's something cheaper in the area. Like I said, the landlord, he needed a lot of work done to it before we moved in. He really looked out for us. Most of the other houses in our area are for $500 more per month. Okay.

Are you guys investing at all right now?

No, we were. Then, like I said, when we lost everything, that went out the window because we had to pull everything out to survive. We were literally starting all the way over.

Yeah, totally. And I don't want to be a dream killer in this because I think building a home on that land is a very reasonable dream, right? I think that it can happen. I just think it may take longer for you guys. And so I think some patience, because what I want for you all is to have a level of stability that you just don't have right now, because even though you don't have debt, you are still paycheck to paycheck. Do you guys have any savings?

We have about 500 in savings right now.

So what I would do, I think what's going to- That's your next step. I think what's going to, yeah, relieve a lot of this anxiety, because that's an anxious place to be, is to up that. So I think all of your goal is to get 3-6 months of expenses saved before anything else happens. And that may mean that he's going to be working extra. It may mean that he even, I don't know what the jobs are in your area, even looking for something that may not be his dream job or what he loves. But if you can get something that's paying even 10 grand, 15 grand more a year. You know what I mean? Because you guys are at that fine line that if something were to happen, that $500 can go very quick. So I would be doing some extra stuff. And even for you, I know you're homeschooling the kids, but if there's anything from an online standpoint, I find a lot of moms are really great at administration. So even if there's a virtual assistant job that you can work, maybe it's 15 hours a week, and you can do that at night to help.

I don't know. I'm trying to give you some options, but it's probably going to require upping income because I think you guys are at a low point. Expenses-wise, I don't know how much more expenses you can cut.

If you look at the budget, there's nowhere else to cut. I mean, you can reshop insurance You can nickel and dime, get the grocery cost down. To see, can you get that down to 3,000 of expenses? That way you've freed up 500 bucks a month. Because saving 100 bucks a month, that's just not enough margin to do anything, whether it's emergency fund or otherwise.

You guys are just too tight. That's one thing I was... Oh, I'm sorry. No, go for it. No, go for it. I'm done. I was just going to say that's one thing I have looked into is I have a medical issue I have to go to the doctor for every month, and we did not have insurance because we didn't think we could afford it. I've had to pay $500 out of pocket every month, and I finally figured out how to get insurance and do all that. It's going to cost about $110 a month for the whole family with the tax credit, and then we'd have a copay. It'll be like 150 a month with the insurance and the copay, which will save us a good amount. We're going to, starting May first, we will finally be able to cut back there.

Does his job have any benefits?

When he had an opportunity for the open enrollment and we didn't take it, so we would have to wait. Other than that, he was working through a temp service, and he's now in the process of being hired on. I don't know. It was like attempt to hire. I don't know if once he's hired on, other doors will open in that aspect. But whenever they have… He works a minimum of 50 hours a week. The last month, they've been doing almost 70. So whenever there's That's how much time he takes it. Good. Yeah, and then I have a PRN job. What work is he in? He's a minor.

Okay.

Then like I said, once he gets hired on, officially, his income will go up $2 more per hour. Then I had a job PRN as a nursing assistant that helped us bring in some extra money every month. But with him working the later hours, they don't have openings for me to only come in for a few hours. That's why we're in a pince either way we go.

It may be a decision long I mean, this is personal, but putting the kids in school if you're able to work full-time and that helps you reach your financial goal of getting this dream home.

Yeah.

There's lots to chew on and think about, but it's only two ways to skin this cat. It's spend less, make more. That's the way to get margin, and that's what you guys need right now to get the emergency fund, to invest 15%, to get this house.

You got a lot of goals. I would emotionally let the house be a few years out. I think getting you guys grounded right now was the most important thing.

Absolutely. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the Books. My thanks to Rachel Cruz, the co-host today. All the folks in the booth keeping the show afloat, the audio running, and you, America. Thank you for watching. We'll be back before you know it. If you're a leader, your personal growth matters for your organization because whatever you lead can only grow as much as you do. I know from experience, I've been CEO of Ramsey Solutions for over 30 years, and now I'm sharing that leadership and business coaching experience with you on the Entree Leadership podcast. I'm taking your calls and helping you figure out how to overcome challenges within your organization. One episode could change your business. Check it out on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or on the Ramsey Network app.