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 actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, number one best selling author, George Campbell, is my co-host today. His book is Breaking Free from Broke. He's a Ramsey personality, and we're going to be answering your questions about your life and your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Leticia Starts this hour in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Leticia. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Hi, George. I'm great. How are you?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

All right. Well, I'm in an interesting situation that I feel I already know the answer to, but hearing it from you guys definitely will make it make more sense. I failed you about six months ago and did your entire Total Money Makeover book and started immediately implementing the baby steps. Paid off about $10,000 in consumer debt over the course of credit cards and a car loan. Good for you. Thank you. What is remaining now are my student loans. I got my bachelor's as well as my master's, and it amounted to about $160,000.

What's your master's then?

I got my MBA.

Good. So what do you make?

Yes. I make about 120.

That's good news.

Yes. So big shovel, but big debt, simultaneously. I did what everybody did pre-COVID, like right before it hit, and God offered the opportunity for them to consolidate it. And my mom said, That makes perfect sense, because over the course of In seven years between my undergrad and my graduate degree, it was 14 different loans between subsidized and unsubsidized. So right now, they are consolidated down into two. I've got 51,000 of subsidized and 110 of unsubsidized.

And you're single?

Now, I'm married.

You're married? What's your husband make?

Like 75, 80.

Oh, so you have a $200,000 household income? Yes. What other debts do you all have?

He's got a car for his son, and I am about two months away from paying off my daughters. We've got 20 and 17-year-old kids. Those will both be paid off here this summer. Then the That's the only thing.

Okay, so if you make $200,000 a year and you have a $160,000 a problem and you paid $80,000 on it, that would have you household living on $120, not counting taxes, and you be debt free in two years, right?

The numbers sound great when you say them.

Well, I mean, you make 200. I got you living on 120 minus taxes. That's less than you've been living on ever in recent memory. So I'm pretty much boiling your lifestyle down to nothing.

What's your question, LaTisha?

Well, so we are currently renting, and I obviously like the goal is to buy our first home. We're a little bit older, so I'm 42 and my husband's 45. So it would be like a first-time home buying situation. What we currently pay in our lease, I feel we could do in a mortgage and actually own the home instead of just renting. But I know, just from listening to the show, the idea of taking out a $200,000 mortgage on top of $160,000 in student loan debt doesn't make much sense. But I'm worried about trying to prolong getting a house if I fully, fully waited until the student loans were paid off.

If you're going to take 20 years to pay them off, that might be a discussion, but you should pay them off in two years.

Two years. And then the emergency fund and then the down payment. We're saying this is going to delay it, but you weren't ready to buy a house today anyways. You guys don't have any money. Do you have any money in savings? Yes. How much?

I got about 10,000.

Okay. Have you guys combined bank accounts?

No.

How long you been married?

Two years.

Okay. His kid's car, your kid's car, they're still separate discussions. You're still living two separate lives. We're going to always recommend, because the data shows us—this is data-driven—that couples that combine their money and work together towards a goal have a huge increase in probability of actually hitting that goal. That goal being getting a house, building wealth, having a real solid nest egg, all of those things. Trying to do it as two separate individuals acting as roommates, it very seldom occurs. Statistically, that's a data thing. We're going to have you guys combine that. We have two kids with cars we got to clean up, and then we have my student loan debt that we need to clean up so we can buy a house. That's what we would do. Georgia has got He's got his nose to the ground. He's figuring out what's really going on over there.

I'm scruff McGraff over here.

Oh, my God.

Just wanted to throw back to that, Dave.

This is an '80s throwback there, an '80s reference.

Not as young as you thought.

I'm telling you, you're getting older every day. But that's what we would do. I'm going to tell you to really lean in, and both of you, the faster you get this cleaned up, the faster you're on your way to not only homeownership, but wealth building in general. I'm going to absolutely go crazy for two years and have this done in two years. Because 120 minus taxes, stop your 401(k) temporarily during that time. Don't do anything. $1,000 is baby step one. Everything else goes towards this. We're going to attack, attack, attack, attack, and the two of you working together. Right now, you've been working this, and he's been standing over on the side watching you do it. We're changing the whole discussion, not just simply answering the one question.

As you guys budget $200,000 of income, it changes the numbers. It changes how much margin you have to throw at this debt. I think largely it's felt like a solo journey trying to tackle this debt making 120. That's not a fun way to go. And so marriage, it's we. You got to change the pronouns here and start looking at this thing as a singular goal we're attacking together.

Yeah, Jade says, Have a vocab rehab. Oh, I like that. That's pretty good. She's much cooler than you and me.

Yeah, I got to work on my rimes. I'm There you go.

We got to hang around with Jade.

I'm mentioning Scraff McGraff. Jade's out here with vocab rehab. Yeah, that's my point exactly.

Right there.

Well, back to the data, Dave. Back to the data. It's true. Couples build wealth faster when they combine their life, their goals, their vision, their bank accounts, their budget. It's just a better way to live.

Yeah, but I saw on TikTok that women ought to protect themselves. Oh, my goodness. See, there's several problems with that statement. I Number one, you were on TikTok. That is right there. That defines a whole lot. That tells us a whole lot about you right then. This is the Ramsey Show. 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 drained within six months. People, it does not have 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.

George Campbell, Ramsey personality is my co Host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Elizabeth is in Charleston, South Carolina. Hi, Elizabeth. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi. How are you today, Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's Okay.

Well, I worked very, very hard to get where I'm at. I met my husband in my early 20s, and I had about 20 store credit cards and 6K in debt, and He helped me get out of that. We worked super hard, saved every dime, didn't go on vacations for decades, put a lot of money towards the mortgages. Now we live in a great Great area, our dream house, great location, but I literally have no idea how much money we have, and we're still not going on vacation or living life. I'm just a smart person that's doing really dumb decisions by not finding this information out. Every time I ask, it's not going anywhere. It's not that I don't trust him because he's very good with money. It's just I think we're going overboard in what we were doing, and I don't know how to get out of this merry-go-round of just my head stuck in the sand.

Why is it that he won't share with his wife the money that you have?

I just never in the beginning because I was the one in debt coming into the marriage.

How long have you been married?

Twenty years.

I've been married 43. If the stuff I did stupid in the first seven years of marriage was still counted against me, I probably He wouldn't be alive.

I know.

What you did 20 years ago doesn't count. Why is it that 20 years into your marriage, you don't know what's going on with the money? Why does he not think you're worthy of that?

Probably because I haven't pushed it. Every time I push it, he just doesn't want to get into it, and I just back off. Then I don't fight it. I'm to the point where I have to know this If something happened to him, I would have to know how to pay the mortgage.

Okay. How can we help you?

How do I get out of this? I don't know if it's a mindset I'm stuck in or if it's just I'm scared. I just want to get out of this, the hold of just not knowing.

Well, I don't want to be a smart aleck or anything, but the way you get out of the hole of not knowing is you start knowing, which means Bozo is going to have to open up his mouth and tell you what the flip is going on, and you're going to have to demand it as a part of him continuing to live.

Okay.

Hey, dude, I'm going to duct tape you to the bed and beat you with a baseball bat. You're going to tell me what the flip is going on here, okay? I'm kidding. Don't do that. But you sound sweet and you sound so apologetic like you've done something wrong for asking about your life, and you don't owe anybody an apology for that. You don't need to be a jerk about it, but you do need to lean in hard enough that he decides he's going to share with you and say, Listen, I am terrified because I do not know what's going on. It's not okay that I don't know what's going on. Starting right now, I'm going to know what's going on or we're going to have other problems in this house. Okay. Can you find that much roar in your voice?

Yes. It's like a five-year-old that throws a fit. He goes into that mode.

You sound like someone who's a subject of domestic abuse, the way you're verbalizing it. It's all your fault that he's misbehaving.

I think it's the way I grew up with money. I'm the youngest of five kids, and there's a huge age difference between me and my siblings.

How old are you?

I am 47.

Okay, it's time to grow up then.

Yeah.

Don't give a crap what happened when you were a kid. As of right now, you're 47-year-old grown woman.

And he needs to grow up, too.

Yeah, walk in there and say, Bubba, this ain't going this way anymore. We're not doing this. Not happening.

You've told us that you trust him, but the truth is, I don't think he trusts you. If he's not willing to share any of this and be transparent with you, there's a bigger problem on his side.

Yeah, and he enjoys no one questioning his decisions. Is he controlling in other areas, too?

Just stupid stuff, like restaurants we go to, we don't like the same food.

I don't like that stupid. Eating is something we do a lot of, three times a day if you're normal. I think you don't get a vote in this marriage in every other area, and that's not okay.

I live where I always dreamed of.

There's a difference between having a vote and being a kept woman. You're tired of being a kept woman is why you call.

Well, I wish I was a kept woman. I make my money and contribute to the household. So it would be nice if- You're missing the point, darling.

I know. Okay, so are you going to sit down with him and deal with your marriage issue or not?

Yes.

Okay, good. I'm proud of you. If he absolutely refuses to share with you what's going on in the finances when you point blank demand that as an equal share in this marriage, then you guys need to go see a marriage counseling to which Bozo is not going to go, and you get to go by yourself golf and learn how to speak Bozo. That's what the marriage counselor will do. They teach you how to speak that.

I know that. That's a fun way to put it.

Well, they teach you how to come back and do the confrontation and give you... Because basically what we're talking about here is a boundaries violation. The first thing that happens when someone violates your boundaries, whoever we are, our friend Dr. Henry Cloud, of course, wrote the consummate book on that, boundaries. But you feel like you did something wrong. You feel crazy.

Which is now called gaslighting. That's the new term for this. When they make you feel like the crazy one, and you're the problem.

Yeah. That's typically when the boundaries are being violated, that's what's going on.

It's an abuse mechanism.

It's a manipulation. I feel like I did something wrong. But what happens is when you get in the presence of a coach or counselor, or you call us, we're going to come alongside you and go, By the way, you're not crazy. As a matter of fact, what they're doing is crazy. You need to step back up on that boundary again. This time you need to stand on it and not get pushed off it with gaslighting, manipulation, whatever it is. But this open... Guys, this is coming up more and more and more. Rachel and Dr. John Deloney are doing the money and marriage event in the fall, and they both have gone down a rabbit hole on this research that's out there right now. There's fresh research in, but it's an old subject. I saw the similar research 30 years ago, but we used to call it the marriage advantage because the statistics were that a single man did not prosper financially in his career, in his health. His health that wasn't as good as a married man. The idea being that relationships are good for you, good relationships, not toxic ones. The idea being that when you have something to work for, for your family, you're serving someone, it changes your demeanor, it changes your character, you lean in, you prosper for good reason.

Because when you got kids and dogs and stuff, bills to pay, all of a sudden it's different. It gives you some purpose. Yeah. There was what we used to call the marriage advantage. Well, now we're seeing it, and they're calling it all kinds of different things, but we're seeing the exact same data is still there. We found it again when we did all the millionaire research with all the millionaires. We found that the couple that is married and has a healthy marriage relationship, meaning that they both are speaking into the decisions. They're both speaking into the future dreams. They're both speaking into the sacrifices and prices that have to be paid to get to those dreams. They're speaking into major purchases. They're speaking into major giving decisions. The ones that do that together, who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her, and he will have no lack of gain. Gentlemen, you want no lack of gain? Virtuous wife, listen to her. Now, wives, Larry Burkett used to remind us that that does not give you permission to become the Holy spirit. That's his job.

So a virtuous wife understands that. And so it's thoughtful, wise input into life. You live longer, better, and you prosper more. It's It's a pretty dumb formula, but it's obvious. This is The Ramsey Show.

This episode is sponsored by Betterhelp. Hey, if you're like me at this time of the year, all of the school plays and meetings and invites from everywhere have completely drained your social battery. Or maybe you're like some of my friends who are bursting with energy so much that everyone may be telling you to just chill out a little. If you're having trouble navigating mismatched energy levels, boundaries, or finding people to do life with, it might be time to talk to a therapist. Therapy can be a place to open up with someone who's been trained to listen and walk alongside you and help you find paths through the chaos of mistrust match energy levels and more. If you're thinking of starting therapy, try Betterhelp. Betterhelp is completely online and flexible enough to fit your schedule. Just fill out a short questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost. Find your social sweet spot with Betterhelp. Visit betterhelp. Com/delonie today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P. Com/delonie.

You want to break free from broke? Well, you would get the book, Breaking Free from Broke, then by my co-host today, George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author. Very cool. And Ken Coleman has been helping people do better at their work and do work in different places so they make more money and have a better quality life. He's been doing that for quite a while. He's one of our Ramsey personalities. He's had a couple of number one best sellers, and he developed a couple of years back an assessment called the GetClear Career Assessment, the GetClear Career Assessment. Now, what it does is it helps you figure out what you're good at, what you love doing, and then starts molding that into a process and starts pointing you in some possible ways. You have never taken an assessment like this. It is powerful. I took it, and I'm obviously settled in my career. It was very interesting how it just completely We did such a good job with the assessment. It reads your mail. It read my mail. That's exactly what it did. It's pretty wild. Dave, you should be in talk radio. I mean, it was crazy.

The GetClear assessment has had about almost 100,000 people take it now. It's on our website at ramsey solutions. Com. We are launching a new book with Ken called Find the Work You're Wired to Do. Now, it will have as a part of the book, the GetClear assessment. As a matter of fact, the book is a quick little read to help you understand and implement the GetClear assessment. You get the assessment with the book, and it shows you exactly how to do everything. The book actually comes out in May. It's on presale right now. Again, you'll get the the audiobook and the e-book with it, which means you're going to end up with three codes to do three different assessments so you can give it to friends and family. That'll be pretty cool. It's a great bargain when you do all that together. You can pick this up anywhere, books are sold, but you can certainly get it at ramsey solutions. Com. April the 16th, the day after Dreaded Tax Day, Rachel Cruz is coming out with her second children's book. Her first one was, I'm Glad for what I have about to Contentment. This one is, I'm glad for where I am.

Great bedtime stories. This is about gratitude, because we have found that as you teach children gratitude and contentment, those are the antidotes to entitlement. Go figure. Humility is coming next. Get ready. But yeah, I don't know if it is or not, but probably. It all falls in the same bucket, right? Children that know how to say, Please and you and don't think that they are the center of the universe. They don't think the axis of the world runs through the top of their sweet little heads. These are children that become prosperous adults because everybody wants to be around them as opposed to the guy or gal who at a party is a taker rather than a giver. I'm glad for where I am. The latest in the series by Rachel Cruz comes out. Beautifully illustrated by the way. Both of these are in presale right now. You need to steal that for your baby.

I do. I got a seven-month-old little girl, and these are the problems I'm having, Dave. How do I not destroy this kid? How do I not raise an entitled brat in this wild digital age? I'm excited to read this to her every now and then, just to remind her what aunt Rachel said.

I got it out. I got Daniel's Little Boys 4. I got it out. Papa Dave read, Papa Dave read, Papa Dave read. Oh, that's fine. Don't get me started. I'll definitely read to you because we know that children that are read to, their intelligence level goes way up. So always be reading to your kids.

Especially if it's a good kid's book like this.

There you go. Check out all those books.

It's exciting times around here.

The Junior books have been selling very well for decades, but these books by Rachel are just the world-class illustrations as well. Laura just did an incredible... Lauren did an incredible job with that. George, changing gears from a sweet little kids' book that you can get presale at remsysolutions. Com to a That's a so sweet story.

Something a little more sinister, if you will. Sinister. That was good.

It was pretty good. All right.

You've got that villain thing down, Dave. A little scary how good that was.

Ftx co founder, Sam Brinkman-Fried in so many ways. Sentenced to, it's freed probably, but I love fraud. A fraud is, yeah. Sentenced to 25 years in prison for his misbehavior with the old Bitcoin.

This was the former cryptocurrency cryptocurrency billionaire, co-founded and led as CEO, FTX, which famously collapsed back in 2022. Twenty-five years behind bars for his role in perpetrating one of the largest financial crimes in US history. He was convicted of seven counts fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering, along with other charges of conspiracy to commit commodities and securities fraud at the ripe age of 32.

He went from multi-billion. If you launder Bitcoin, does it rust?

Is this like if a tree falls in the forest riddles?

This is a thought, yeah. When I put other coins in the laundry, they rust.

It was never really money. It was never really there. That's right.

It was just air. Who knew?

Nothing happened.

This is wild. His conviction last fall followed the startling 2022 collapse of FTX. Why was it startling? We predicted it. The cryptocurrency trading platform he had co-founded and led as CEO amid an $8 billion shortfall in funds. Ups. $8 billion. That's a lot. It's a shortfall. Is that what we call it. Oh, yeah. It's called 23 Years in jail. At trial, he was accused of using deposit or money to prop up his struggling hedge fund. No kidding. As well as using the funds to buy luxury properties in the Caribbean and make donations to a range of causes. Ftx, which was mainly the Democratic Party. Ftx was one of the second largest crypto exchange in the world, allowing users to buy and sell dozens of virtual currencies. His wealth was estimated at more than 30 billion. The collapse of cryptocurrency prices crippled FTX and exposed the shortfall of $8 billion. When the tide goes out, you can tell who is skinny-dipping. Love that. That's what happened, right?

He took people's money to invest, claiming it was still there, But instead, he was funneling it into crypto and keeping a little bit on hand in case people wanted to withdraw. Then when crypto bit the dust, everyone frantically tried to withdraw, the money's not there, and it all collapsed on itself.

George, the advantage of crypto is it's not regulated by the It's not the government, man. It's not the government, man. It's off the grid, man. There's no regulation on it, man. It's the advantage. Dave, you would like crypto because it's like you don't like the government, man. Right, man? Isn't that how it works, man? Well, guess Guess what? Dumb butt. When you have zero regulations and a guy is supposed to be treating something like a bank, and instead, he goes and buys his own stuff with your money, there's no regulations on it. There's no guidelines. There's no oversight. Listen, I don't want the government doing checkups on my body parts either. But I'll just tell you, this is the exact thing that makes crypto as a stupid idea easy to outline here because it didn't have any government oversight, man. It's like, Cool, dude. You're sticking it to the man. Yeah, well, this is what you get.

You go to real prison. You don't go to prison in the metaverse here, Dave. You actually go to real prison It's not an MTF prison cell.

I wonder if he can sell MTFs of his prison cell.

That would be something else. That might be his way out.

It's not a way out, but it's a way to make somebody money while he's in there.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I guess you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. That's the motto here today.

Oh, my gosh. Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer who set out every morning to hurt people.

That's his defense lawyer. Yeah.

Oh, boy. Mokowski described his client as an awkward math nerd.

You're just a sweet kid, Dave.

He's just a sweet kid. He just stole eight billion.

He tried to return the money.

He used eight billion of other people's money to buy him stuff. Sweet kid didn't know that wasn't his money. He didn't know that he... He just used eight billion of other people's money to buy him some stuff.

Yeah, that's offensive to awkward math nerds.

That's just a sweet math nerd. I mean, all the awkward math nerds in America and around the world ought to rise up and not be I want to put in this category because it's amazing how he's actually devoid of ethics is what it amounts to. He's like a psychopath. I mean, he probably is a sweet kid. I mean, in all honesty, I have no idea. I've never met the guy. But I wouldn't doubt it that he's a sweet kid. But he's just completely on a psychopath level, devoid of ethics.

Led to grifting.

Probably he's so far astray from normal human function that he probably didn't occur to him. He was stealing people's money. That's how stupid and sad this is. Here's what's really stupid and sad. Some of you thought it was awesome to put money in there. You remember Matt Damon? Fortune favors the bold. Don't you remember the commercial for-It was at Crypto.

Com for that one?

Crypto, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Fortune favors the bold.

Sometimes boldness gets you in prison for 25 years.

Sorry. There it is. Ding, ding. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, guys, whether you're starting on a card table like I did or well on your way to becoming a multimillion dollar company. Netsuite can help your team communicate and plan ahead better like they do for Ramsey. Let me tell you, NetSuite really helped us get our systems together. More than 37,000 other companies also use NetSuite to know their numbers and their business better. So check out NetSuite today and find out how they can help you become the business you want to be 5 or 30 years from now. Right now, you can download NetSuite's free KPI checklist. Designed to give you consistently excellent performance at netsuite. Com/ramsey. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us. James is with us in Chicago. Hi, James. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi. How's it going?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

I recently just discovered a gadget show last week, so I've been to watch probably 80 of your episodes on podcast. Wow. I went over my debt, and I'm like, probably $80,000 in debt, and I don't know, one, where to start because it's just so overwhelming to just pick one and go with it. Then my other second question is, I'm up for a new job that will triple the income that I make now. But I'm scared to take it because I don't want to make poor financial decisions to end me up until where I am now. I think it was never really talked about growing up. All this is like all the $80,000 is figuring out on my own type thing, if that makes sense.

Wow. How much do you make now and what will you make if you take this job?

Currently, right now, between I have a full-time If I take a job that I make, it's, I think, like 35,000. Then I have a PRN, like part-time job that I do on the weekends that I've just finished training for that I'll bring in an additional $30,000. I bring in roughly about $60,000 a year. If I take My new job, it'll increase my income to about between 130 and 150 a year. Then I can just go down to one job and I'll have to have two jobs because my one job, the new job I'm going to, I'll be traveling all the time.

What do you do?

Currently, I work in an investment at State Farm, and I'm a patient care tech at a hospital that I travel. I took a travel job for it. And then the new job will work in the catastrophe department at State Farm.

Oh, the Catastrophe Department. So you'll be traveling for State Farm, going to the disaster areas and helping the folks there, issuing checks and so forth, right? Correct. Okay. And you're how old?

33. Okay.

And what's your degree in?

I don't have one. Are you single? I'm having two classes away. Are you single? Yeah, I'm single. I have a kid, though. Okay.

Is the child traveling with you?

No, she's 13. I just had visitation I see.

All right. Let's reframe this. If I were in your shoes, that's what I would want to do. I'm going to just make up something bizarre, which is not happening, okay? But I'm going to pretend I was offered the opportunity to buy a company that was an engineering firm, and I could buy it for one-third of what it's worth. Now, I have zero engineering knowledge. I've never run a engineering firm. I don't know squad about that. I could make a real mess with that. Do you believe me? Yeah. But if I could buy it for one-third, then my new job would be to figure out enough about engineering to run the firm and enough about engineers and processes for running an engineer firm. I would have to go to school, so to speak, not real school, but I'd have to learn all I could learn about engineering if I wanted to engage in this bargain that I got in front of me. You see what I'm doing? You've got a bargain that's in front of you, but in order for that to be a blessing, like buying an engineering firm for one-third of what it's worth, and again, it's just a stupid bad metaphor, but it's a bargain, but it's not a bargain if I go screw it up and bankrupt the thing because I don't know what I'm doing.

That's your question. I don't know if it's a bargain for me to get a bunch of money since I'm not good at it. That means your job is not to not take the money. Your job is to go learn how to handle money, and you've been binge watching Ramsey, which is a good start. You're getting ready to come into some money. It made you nervous because it made you realize you don't know what you're doing. Let's get you on a path to knowing what you're doing. Let's make you competent in this area so that this blessing is a blessing and not a curse, which is your fear.

I don't think you're going to destroy your life over this, and here's why I know. You have the wisdom and self-awareness to call us going, I might destroy my life over this. Please help me not destroy my life. I agree. Part of it is pre-deciding, you're going to do wise things with this money that you are going to be managing.

I don't know, and the lack of knowledge scares me. That's a better statement than, I'm a bad person. I'm going to screw this up.

Because that reflects your character. I don't think you're that guy. You may have made mistakes in the past.

If I was going to give you a nice car and you didn't know how to drive, it would be your job to learn how to drive. Right. But it had nothing to do with, I wrecked my dad's car when I was 13. Well, so what? You still can learn how to drive. Right. That's what this is. You're getting a vehicle, money that can take you some places that you couldn't otherwise, and so you need to learn how to drive. We'll help you with that. That's what we do every day. That's the reason you've been watched. That's why you got really interested is I don't want to screw this up. I want to get better at it. I need to put some tools in my belt that aren't in there now for life. I'm with George. I don't think you're going to mess it up because you're asking the question. If you were arrogant and didn't know what you were doing, then that's a dangerous combination. But you're humble and don't know what you're doing. That's a fabulous combination. That's an opportunity for growth.

Right.

What I love about the baby steps in budgeting is it forces you to make a goal for your money because otherwise it disappears into stupid decisions like you're talking about. The wonderful thing is this new income has a very specific goal. It's going to pay off $80,000 in debt. You're going to set an aggressive goal and say, All right, I'm going to make 130 after taxes. Let's call that 90. That's 7,500 a month. I want to pay this off in 18 months.

Do they pay your travel and housing when you're on the road?

They cover… You get a company vehicle. They give you the stipend, I think that's what it's called, when they pay for all your food.

Is that in addition to the 90? In addition to the 130, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Okay, so- Most of it's made up of over time. Basically, you can almost live free as a single guy and almost put all your income on this debt.

Yeah, correct.

That's amazing. What if you could put six grand out of the seven towards this debt every month?

I can do that if I get accepted for it. Previously, I've been poor with money. During COVID, I made like 150 grand during COVID, but I was off in a relationship.

Where did you spend it?

And I don't want to go.

Bad relationship.

Where did I- Was it on the relationship? Relationship, traveling.

Yeah, relationship, traveling. I ended up buying a new car. It ended up being a horrible a deal that I thought I paid it off.

James, 100% of the people listening to you right now, including George and I, have done stupid stuff with money. My only goal is to not do the same stupid thing twice.

Exactly.

You've got some stupid stuff already under your belt. You know what it looks like? New car, traveling, trying to walk around, be something you're not in a relationship and using money to do that. You got those stupid things in your belt. You know what they look like? You won't do them again, hopefully. If you do them again, there's no hope for you. I mean, you got to stop doing stupid stuff. But you're going to do new stupid stuff, probably. I have done new stupid stuff over the years. My stack of stupid stuff that's in my rear view mirror is just taller than yours.

Dave's innovative like that. He always finds new ways. He's a genius.

We're going to put you through Financial Peace University and teach you how to handle money. That includes putting you in the world's best budgeting app, the premium version of every which hooks to your bank and allows you to track every one of your expenses. I want you to treat the next year and a half to two years like a game that if you're 100% debt free and have $50,000 in the bank at the end of the game, you win. You gamify this, and you just watch every penny in this budgeting app, and every penny goes towards your game goal. The game is the game of life. It's not the one with the little spinny wheel. That was a fun one. The little get married and have little babies in your car thing. The game of... Remember that? Oh, yeah.

I love that game. I love that game. Well, in your original show, it was called the Money Game.

That's true. That's true. Any correlation? It had nothing to do with the game of life. No, it didn't. It just was catchy. But now that's... So, James, you're going to be fine. Hey, as you're going along, if you need some help more than that, if you got another question, you call. We'll help you. It's what we do, man.

Fpu will be that game changer for knowledge, though.

Yeah, I think if you'll just do what we teach you to do in there, it'll work, man. It's work for 10 million people. This is The Ramsey Show. 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 actual amazing relationships. The phone number is 888-825-5225. George Campbell, number one best-selling author of the book, Breaking Free from broke, is my co-host today, Ramsey personality extraordinaire. Again, the phone number, 888-825-5225. Eric is in Chicago. Hi, Eric. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hello, Hey, hello, George. How are you?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

I had recently got married about a month ago.

Congrats.

I appreciate it. We have been pretty much on the same We want to combine everything together, and I just want to make sure that I'm following the right steps when doing that. Obviously, this is not something I've done before, Yeah.

Okay, cool. What are you combining exactly? Does she have a checking account? You have a checking account? How simple is this?

Yes, we both have checking accounts. She has a considerable more investments than I do. She's been very good with her money. Then we both have houses currently as well that we bought separately when we were single. Then we're essentially right now thinking about renting one of them while we're living in the other, but we do still have mortgages on both of those houses.

You guys have any debt?

Outside of the mortgages? We don't have no debt. Okay. No, only the two mortgages are on the debt, which has been great.

When you're talking about combining finances, it's also how do we combine this real estate situation. We have her name's on one mortgage indeed, your name's on the other mortgage indeed?

That's correct.

Well, I don't know Illinois law, but in most states, when you get married, your primary residence is automatically shared, whether you change the name on the deed or not. Okay? Okay. The other residence doesn't matter. I'm more concerned than the names on the accounts. Number one, I would combine the operations of the household into one checking account. That's what you and Whitney did when you got married.

Yeah, and You actually don't need to shut down your account. You can turn your checking account into a joint checking account, and then she can close hers out and move the money over.

Or vice versa. Exactly. Even the name on the investments, I don't worry about the names on the titles of these things. I'm more worried about the way we start using our pronouns and that we are considering our rental house, our primary residence, instead of like, Well, I can't talk about that house over there. That was his house before we got married. No, you get to talk about it. You're now married. I can't talk about her investment. She was doing good with investments before we got married. No, it's now our investments. The preacher said, And now you are one. The old wedding vows said, Unto thee all my worldly goods I pledge. Nobody says that stuff anymore. Maybe they should. But that's what you should be doing. I don't care if you go change the names on the deeds. That's irrelevant to me unless it just makes somebody feel better. The only thing I do care about changing the name on is the checking account. Shut down one, dump everything in the other one. But we have one mutual fund that is in Sharon's name only because it's some money that was given to when a family member passed away, and she said, I want to put that in a mutual fund.

So I just put it in a mutual fund in her name. I didn't think anything about it. But there's no question in the Ramsey household that everything that we have is ours in spirit. That's the main way I want you guys to start looking at it instead of like, I feel guilty for the debt I brought in. I feel guilty that she brought in more in investments than I did. So I don't feel Eric, I have the right to speak up into that. Oh, yeah, you're married. Yeah, we're definitely combining our decision-making. You see what I'm saying? It's more the spirit and the decision-making flow in the way we discuss it and the way we feel about it than the actual names on the deeds that propel people forward. You follow me?

Yeah, absolutely. I think that we both are on board and we want to get to that point. But you definitely tell when we speak about it, we still say your house or my house, and getting out of that mentality. It takes a little bit of time, maybe.

Well, I mean, we still say, whose car we take into church? Your car. Are you taking your truck to church? But we both understand we both own it. I would never buy a car without my wife present. I would never buy her a car for sure without her present, and so on. You see what I'm saying? It's the function more than it is the label and the spirit behind the function that I'm looking for. That's what causes people to prosper. It's not the technical retitling. But I think it'll take some time for you to start saying ours and we instead of yours and mine. Now, if the dog goes poop in the floor, it's definitely your dog. That's the key. It's not our dog. I I just told that this morning, so I'm just telling you. That's your dog. Your dog tore that up. That your dog just tore that up. I went, My dog? Why is it my dog? I want to tear something up.

It's your job to clean it up.

That's it. My point is it never That white goes away. But if you work at it and you say, Our goal is to be a functioning unit, a great partnership, not one domineering or one shamed or one whatever or a toxic version. See, that's relational stuff as well as financial stuff. Is that making sense?

Yeah, absolutely. I think a follow-up question, too, is that since we both still have our mortgages on our houses, selling one and pulling the equity and putting it in the other, would get us closer to not having a mortgage? Obviously, it's not something that we need to pay down consumer debt or anything.

I like it.

Would that be something that would probably be the best idea?

It will propel you forward in your wealth building more than keeping it.

Okay.

Because everybody thinks owning real estate, they answer to everything. I'm a huge advocate of real estate, but we know from the data that we've collected on millionaires, that getting their personal residence paid for, becoming 100% debt free was one of the huge arcs in the story that caused them to I'm a millionaire, mathematically, and we know that. But you've just been married 20 minutes. If you guys want to sit in this for a little bit and say, Okay, we're going to visit that decision next spring, a year from now. We're going to rent it for a year, and we may have to clean it up a little bit after the renter to sell it. It can't just be. Well, Dave said I should. Or if you're both just gung-ho, and you want to sell it, sell it. I don't care. But if it's uncomfortable for someone to do that, then you can sit on it a little bit. But the point still is moving in the right direction.

And having that alignment. That will help you build wealth so fast.

That's a big deal. How long did it take you and Whitney to get aligned?

Oh, my God. Well, she worked here at the time, so it was a snap of a finger. Okay. We were lucky in that regard. She was smarter than me, better looking, and better with money.

So you were lucky in that regard? Yes. I'm catching on. All right, that's how that works. This is the Ramsey Show. George Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Everydollar is our world-class budgeting app that helps you manage money the Ramsey way. It simply works wherever you are. I our iOS, Android, or online. You can start EveryDollar for free and immediately see where you stand with your money. You get organized, personalize your budget, stop overspending, and save more money. New to Every Dollar will show you a long-term financial roadmap. Track your networth, your debt-free date, your retirement date, your baby step progress, and more. We're going to proactively coach you to build wealth and reach your goals. This app is taking over. Download the free app for iOS and Android, or if you just want to do it on desktop, go to everydollar. Com and get started. It works. George, the number of people, it's like 10,000 a day are joining this. It's It's crazy how it's blowing up. The number of people using this and starting to use it, brand new. This app, we've had it around, but we've added a bunch of features in the last 18 months, and the popularity of those features and just The idea right now in America that I need to control my money with the budgeting process has caused this just to explode.

That's so true. The financial roadmap is just one. We've got the paycheck planning tool. For people who need to know, Hey, am I going to run out of money before the end of the month? This will help you figure that out. Some people that have the spouse or maybe they're that person who they are like, I don't want to budget. You're not budgeting just a budget to be a nerd. You're budgeting to accomplish these goals.

You're not budgeting to punish your spouse. We are making a decision with our money like two grownups because we want to go somewhere. That's what this is. It's telling your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. That's all it is. I don't really live on a budget. It's restrictive. No, it's grown up for you to tell your money what to do and not intentionally go into overdraft every month because you can't do sixth grade math. That's just being a grown up. A couple of years ago, the millennials, they're not cool anymore. But you guys said adulting.

Oh, that's right.

Adulting, you can't say that. It's not cool anymore. You made just sound cool if you said adulting about two years ago, three years ago. Now it's like you're just a boomer trying too hard now.

Now there's loud budgeting. Gen Z made that one up.Loud budgeting.Have you heard about that?

It's better than quiet quitting.

Exactly. It's the opposite. It's just loudly saying, I have boundaries with my money. I'm going to make a plan for my money. Really? What you made cool 30 years ago is now cool again, Dave. The trends come back around.

It's probably on every dollar. If you want a loud budget, every dollar will do it. We could turn up the volume, I'm saying. There we go. Rhonda is in Seattle. Hey, Rhonda, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I appreciate it. Sure.

What's up?

I wanted to ask something Some advice. Over the last few years, my husband and I have really been having a lot of trouble with keeping up with adjusting our withholdings every year. We end up paying thousands of dollars come tax season, which is now. Again, this year, we owe quite a bit. I feel like I'm saving all year just in expectation of this huge tax bill that we have to pay.

Why are you calculating your withholding correctly?

I don't know.

What are you doing incorrectly?

Well, I think I just wasn't aware of how much I needed to do that. I do feel stupid admitting this because of the importance of it's like, Oh, I didn't know.

The answer to how do I stop doing that is to become aware?

Yes.

Which I have. Then go calculate it, right?

Yeah.

Technically speaking, here's your math, all If you knew at the beginning of the year, in January, what your income is going to be approximately for the year and what your deductions are going to be approximately for the year, did you could calculate the exact amount of income tax you're going to owe in total? Does that make sense?

Yes.

If you divide that into each paycheck, we know what should be withheld in the paycheck then.

Yes.

Let's just be real basic. Let's say it's $24,000 as your tax bill every year total, then your withholding should be $2,000 a month.

Right. I think our problem is the withholding doesn't keep up with the raises.

No, it's all screwed up. The raises. Yeah. The IRS is incompetent. They tell you the number of deduct... My daughter, when she first got married, now she's married with kids now, but I'll never... First job, she came over and said, Dad, how many deductions do I need to do? We calculated out what her tax was going to be. She was a single lady out of college not making a ton of money, and we had to claim seven deductions. She had no deductions, but we had to claim seven deductions to create the proper withholding so that the proper amount was withheld so that she didn't owe any tax and didn't end up short like you have and didn't get a big refund either one. But that's I mean, so obviously, their tables are screwed up, right? Right. You can't really go on the IRS says you should have some. No, you got to actually say this is the amount of tax I owe. It's almost like you do your tax return a year early.

Right.

That's the most precise way to adjust it. Now, if you hadn't had the trouble you've had, it may be, but let's say if you had a steady thing for the last three years, you've got around $3,000 that you've owed every year. Okay, but nothing has really changed, then we probably know we just need to adjust it by $3,000 a year, right? $250 a month.

Right. Easier.

Yeah, that's easier than going and doing your whole tax return and figuring out exactly what tax is owed. Because nothing has changed. But now, if you got married, moved states, income went up or down, bought a house- Had a kid. Had a kid. There's all kinds of stuff that can throw that off, in which case you would need to go and run your calculation. What's your household income, Rhonda?

It is this year, well, last year, it was about 200 combined.

What's your husband do for a living?

He's got a federal government job, and then he's also got military retirement. Doing what? Homeland Security.

Okay, what do you do?

I work for the state. Doing what? We both have government jobs. I work for the court system.

Okay, I'm trying to learn about you guys for a second before I made this suggestion. Because here's what I would do. It sounds to me, and you tell me if I'm wrong, okay? But it sounds like this whole thing just makes you want to throw up. All the time. I just don't want to deal with it at all. I'm afraid I'm not doing it right, and it scares the crap out of me, and I don't want to keep doing it right I feel ashamed. That's what I think I'm hearing. If that's the case and I'm in your shoes, I'm just going to go get some help. You make 200 grand a year, spend a little bit of money and go see a tax professional, go to Ramsey Solutions and click on ELP, Endorsed Local Provider, for some of the tax pros we have. Have them sit down and calculate this for you and tell you what to do. Okay. Make them show you the numbers. Don't just do it blind. But that way you don't have to go, God, I don't even know where to start calculating this crap. I don't want to do it wrong again.

I hear all that, and it's okay. Now, the trick anytime you're hiring somebody to help you because of that feeling is to make sure you lean in enough to where you understand why they're telling you to do what you do. You don't just blindly go, Well, my tax guy told me. That's when you get screwed up, right?

Yeah.

Learn enough, but that way you don't have to do it. It's worth a couple of hundred bucks. Let somebody else it for you.

Yeah, definitely. I think that's the way to go. I think just moving through the transitions of all the other things you mentioned, this is our first year without a dependent and getting raises. I had a side job, and they didn't take hardly, pretty much any federal taxes out. I knew that I was going to have to save some out for that. But in the end, it's like, Okay, still.

Or you could just adjust your withholding at the state or at homeland by the amount that the side job is generating, right? Yes. Either way, as long as they're getting their money, they don't care, right? Right. Yeah. Have somebody help you calculate it?

Jump on ramseysolutions. Com/tax. I just went through this this weekend with my tax pro, and they showed me all the math and numbers, and it was super helpful to break it all down. So worth reaching out to a pro and have a peace of mind there and fully understand what's going on.

I always see how much I'm paying it just pisses me off.

I would love to be your tax guy, Dave. That would be fun.

Yeah, it's like you're doing taxes for the Grinch. This is the Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. We're so glad you're here. Hey, thank you, guys. We're seeing our numbers on Spotify and our numbers on Apple podcast. Our numbers on YouTube are all through the roof. We're one of the top-rated shows in all of those venues and platforms, and it's because of you guys. We appreciate you listening, watching, and sharing the show. If you want to help us out, be proactive and click the follow button, click the subscribe button. Be proactive and leave a nice five-star review. All this stuff affects the algorithms. It really does. Honestly, don't me mean or anything. We don't really need the affirmation, but it does affect whether these algorithms push the show forward when someone's searching stuff. Really, it does help us a ton, and it's a big deal. Also, if they got a share button on your platform, use it or just tell people about it or click a link and send it to your friend and cut it out and cut and paste it and say, This is a show you need to be watching.

This is information that's life-changing. These guys and girls are fun and funny and helpful, and those are the things we are. Sometimes we're mean, but most of the time it's just because we love you. Sometimes all at once. It takes that to get your freaking attention.

You've been funny and mean at the same time. That's one of your trademark moves. What? Yeah.

David is in Phoenix. Hey, David, how are you?

Hi, Dave. Hi, George.

Thanks for taking the call. Sure. How can we help? Dave got a question about a Roth conversion.

I'm trying to figure out whether or not that's something would be right for me. I'm 69, still working full-time. I'll be working for a few more years. I've got a self-directed traditional 401k and then a small traditional IRA. Again, just trying to figure out whether or not, tax-wise, it makes sense to- How much is in all of those? Those two, about 605,000.

Okay. All right. What are you going to do with that money, that 605,000, in the next 20 years?

In the next 20 years? Well, when I stop working, probably in a few years, it'll just start supplementing my... I've got some retirement pensions, but it'll just supplement the money that we're living on.

Okay, so here's why I'm asking, all right? There's a couple of things that go into the answer of the math on this. The longer you're going to leave the money alone, the more sense it's going to make to convert it and go ahead and pay the taxes. It's not going to make any sense to convert it and pay the taxes out of those funds. Let's take the 600k, it's maybe 200K in tax. Do you have 200K in addition that you would pay the tax without messing with this?

Yeah, we got some other mutual funds and things. Okay. Yeah.

Because if you just reduce it by the... Let's say you reduce the 600 by the tax amount, and then it becomes is tax-free, it's an exact wash. There's no benefit to doing that. Well, there's no benefit mathematically. Now, if you pay the money outside, number one, then number two, the longer you leave it alone, the more it's going to make sense, then there's two other factors for you to weave into whether you want to do this or not. One is you've got mandatory withdrawals on it now beginning at 72.5. Okay.

Your required minimum distributions or RMDs, you're aware of that, probably. Correct. It used to be 70 and a half. They just moved it to 72 and a half. Okay, so with a Roth, you don't have that. Got you. The second thing is when you die and you leave a traditional The taxes will be paid by the person. The income tax on that account will be paid by the person who inherits it. There's no inheritance tax on it, but the income tax will still be paid. You will either pay the income tax when you pull it out or they will pay the income tax when you pull it out. If you leave a Roth to someone, there's no tax because there's no tax on a Roth. Okay, got you. It's good for estate planning. It's good to not have to screw with the RMD. But if you're going to turn around and be using up the money in the next four or five years, it's probably not good.

Right. Okay. Could an idea be then, Dave, is to use... Let's say I went ahead and did I retire in a few years, and I start living on the money that are not in those vehicles, that are just in regular mutual funds. Then when those run out, for say, or what have you, 10 years from now or whatever, then start using the other money.

You could. You could do that. What's your total networth?

605 in those that I just mentioned, and then 725,000 in just regular mutual funds.

Your house paid for? Yes, sir. What's it worth?

750 or so.

Okay, so you got about $2.1 million net worth. Okay, give or take. I mean, you may have some other assets we hadn't talked about, but that's about where we are. I'm 63. I will never touch my retirement account. I've got plenty of other assets. I have converted it all to Roth, so I don't have to screw with RMDs, and my kids don't have to pay taxes on it. No RMD, no taxes. Okay. Because I'm not going to touch it. It's going to go to them. Got you. Because I'm going to live off of other stuff. I've got a bunch of real estate I've got a bunch of other income, and so on. I'll never touch that stuff. It's a pure estate planning and RMD play for me. Every year, my 401k here at the office, I have to match myself, but matching a 401k is required to be traditional. It cannot be Roth. Then I flip it to a Roth in December of every year. I don't own a... A hundred % of mine has been converted to Roth. But that's the reason. Because I'm never going to touch it. It's going to grow tax-free.

If I live into my 90s and I'm 63, it's going to be millions and millions of millions of millions of dollars, just that one account, going to the kids, completely tax-free. It's awesome. Okay, got you. That's the way I'm looking at it. But again, if you're going to turn around and pay the taxes by converting it and flip, turn, take the money right straight back out, the math does not work. Don't do that. Doesn't make sense. Okay, got you. That's why I'm trying to go through this. George, this is one of those things that has changed with me. It's not the advice has changed, but once I got to this age, finally, I started doing this show at 32. When I got to this age, we talked about Roth like it was some distant thing in the clouds.

It was hypothetical at that time.

It's out there in the mist somewhere. Now the stink of things staring me in the face and I'm going, Yeah, but I did all this other stuff, right? I don't even need the money. I got to start thinking about it even different yet again. We used to say, convert it to Roth because it's going to grow tax-free, and you'll have all that tax-free money when you get to retirement, which I do. I've got all that tax-free money. I'm 63. You're still working. I can access it. Zero penalty, zero tax. I could get a hold of it right now if I wanted. But why would I? It's growing for the next 20 years with zero tax on that growth. No where else I can put it that it's going to do that for me or for them. It's changed my perspective of how important that tax-free thing is when you look at it- From a legacy estate plan. When you look at it through the lens of the estate tax or the RMD.

For people wondering out there, should I be doing this? There's a certain spot in the baby steps. We tell you that's the right point. It's not in Baby Steps, one, two, three, even four. It's once you have a paid-for house, then you can take the hit and pay the taxes on that. Before that, you should be focused on the home payoff.

That's a very important clarification. Investing 15% before that. We were talking to a multimillionaire Baby Step 7 guy. I just assumed everybody knew that. So you're good clarification.

I don't want people to go out there just converting left and right after hearing that call. That man's in a very different place. He's got a paid-for house. He's done the Baby Steps.

Yeah, he's got extra money laying around. You got money laying around, and you're in your '40s, '50s, or '60s, and you're in Baby Step 7, and you want to advance your wealth, the way to do it is to get the government's hands off of a big block of it by converting it to Roth.

The RMDs, these required minimum distributions, the reason they have those on traditional is because the government wants their tax money.

Yeah, and they don't get any tax money out of the Roth. It's done. You've already paid it. They're going to get their money. They're going to get it out of your kids' hide or out of your hide with the RMD or when you take it out otherwise. Or when you convert it, they're going to get their money. The traditional is going to be taxed. It's just a matter on who and when. You can control all of that with this conversion discussion. You can talk to one of our SmartVestor pros, and they can help you do the calculations on this. Go to ramsey solutions. Com and click on SmartVestor and get somebody that we recommend in your area.

I know you work hard for your money, and the key to keeping more it in your pocket is by making a plan for your spending with a budget. Everydollar is the budgeting app that I use personally because it's perfect for looking every dollar you make in its little President face and telling it exactly where you want it to go. Just like you told that guy in traffic exactly where you wanted him to go. And even better, EveryDollars walks you through the entire budgeting journey so you always know your next right step. Download EveryDollars for free in the App Store or Google Play today.

George Campbell, Ramsey personality He is our co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Kyle is with us in Milwaukee. Hi, Kyle. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hey, guys. Thank you for having me on.

Sure. What's up?

I have a quick question that my wife and I have been brainstorming. I took a job about a year ago that makes me commute 50 minutes one way. This is causing a little conflict in work schedule with her being a teacher and working first shift and me working some days first and second shift, but most days just second shift. We don't really see each other that much, but We're in a pickle because we do have a good deal in terms of expenses. Our rent is only $400. It's a deal that we got when we moved in together during college. What do you make? What do I make? Well, we together make about 120. We bring in about 120.

What do you make?

I make about 7,000 a month. She's a teacher, she makes about three, so about 10,000 a month.

If you were to move close to your work, how far is she from hers?

Well, the thing is she could get a different job. Since she's a teacher, she could get a job in any city, the market for- Because she's not making money.

No, she's not.

That's the other thing. It's like she can be flexible with her job and we can move closer here for time's sake.

What's the difference in rent from where you are now to where work is?

Yeah, that's actually a great question. The closer you get to Milwaukee, the more expensive it gets in terms of taxes and whatnot at the end of the year. So the difference would probably be, I mean, going from $400 to $1,500 plus, $2,000 plus.

You guys make $10,000. That's a $1,000 a month.

Yeah. $1,000 a month. Yeah.

This doesn't seem like a big conundrum financially for you guys.

No, I don't think it would be. But I watch your show and whatnot, too, and I'm like, we're calculating everything. And we're like, in five years, if we just kept doing this, we We could have $300,000 in cash saved up. We could purchase a home straight up in cash. We wouldn't have- In five years, you would have $300,000, which is $60,000 a year.

If you reduce that by $12,000 a year, that'd be $48,000 a year you're saving. In five years, you'd have $250,000.

Okay.

That's not including if you get a raise in the next five years or if she gets a better paying job. Those are other factors that play into this.

The other one is your mental health. My point is the fact that you have cheap rent is not what's causing you to buy a house in five years. It's your incredible savings rate.

Yeah, we're pretty frugal. When we watch you, we watch Graham, Stephan.

Yeah, that's what did. I mean, not Graham, Stephan. He's great. But he didn't do it. You did it. But you're frugal. My point is 50,000, 48,000 Of the 60 a year you're talking about saving has nothing to do with the rent. You understood what I did?

Yeah.

300 divided by 5 is 60 minus 12,000 for increasing $1,000 a month is 48.

Yeah.

Okay, so 48 times 5, basically $250,000, you're going to have instead of 300,000. It makes a dent. It doesn't destroy it. And that's the difference in the rent deal. Moving does not keep you from accomplishing that exact same goal, except that you're not going to buy a $300,000 house for cash. You're going to buy $250,000 house. But I'm saying you're right on track for all that. That's what I'm thinking. I don't know. I don't know I know what we would do, but we were weird in so many ways, Sharon and I. I have never in my life had a long commute. This morning, I drove eight minutes to the office.

And he lived 15 minutes away. You do the math how fast he was going down the interstate.

But anyway, that's also true. But aside from my driving habits, the chance I'm burning up two hours of my life a day is pretty close to zero.

Yeah, that's the thing. You get your life back. My dad did this growing up, Kyle. He drove an hour each way to work outside of Boston, and it took a toll on him. I just talked to him the other day, and he said, Man, you don't know what that did to me for 20 years doing that. I don't think it's worth it. Yeah.

If you can avoid it. I would change something. Now, I can do it for a short period of time. I can do anything for a short period of time. We can embrace pain to have a greater outcome. That's an amazing thing. What you're talking about doing is we can put up with this if it gets us to our goal of paying cash for a house. I like your mindset with that. But there's a lot of different things that could change. You could change jobs, you could change locations, you could change entire cities, you could change a lot of things. But I'm doing some number of those variables to get my life back as a newly married guy that never sees his wife. That's hard.

I'm a short commute guy. That's tough. I wouldn't be able to do that.

And the rent is not $5,000. I am a complete wuss. I have to have my home time.

Well, I think you'd have more road rage if you had a longer commute. America doesn't need that right now, Dave. We need healing. Longer days on the road.

Why are you saying I have road rage? I do not have road rage.

I've driven behind you and in front of you. Both times I was scared.

That has nothing to do with rage. It has to do with you being in the way. My little Tesla car. Get out of the way. You and your little battery car, move over. Get out of the way, and then you won't have a problem.

You've seen that Mad Max Fury road?

There's a sign that says, Don't drive in the left lane if you're slow. There's a sign that says that, George.

It can only go so fast. It's on a battery.

Get in the right lane, and then you don't have these problems. It's not a problem for me. I don't have any road rage at all.

Mad Max, Furry Road is a documentary about your driving. That's not even a fictional movie.

Furie Road. Furie Road.

It just filmed Dave driving and then CGI it with some actors. That's all it was.

I have never flipped a soul off. It's been 20 years since I flipped somebody off.

Turn from I never to it was 20 years.

Well, I had to be honest. But I don't have road rage. I don't get mad. I drive fast, but don't get mad. I get frustrated with people like you in the wrong lane. But other than that, move your little battery car over. Oh, man. Those little battery cars are supposed to go fast. You could just push on that thing and make it go.

I could take you in a race.

I know you could. You probably could.

You're too competitive.

Yeah, you run fast. I've seen you run. You're quick. You're quick on your feet. You're that guy. That's fine. If we don't laugh, we cry. The deal is this, okay? It's a good discussion with Kyle in Milwaukee because there's always a trade-off in personal finance. Some of you are listening and going, I live in LA. Everything's an hour commute. Just get on the 4:05. Now you're talking an hour right there. I mean, periods. I get it. I live in Nashville, so I'm spoiled as long as I don't try to go to Nashville, which now takes three times as much time because all you people from LA moved here. The stinking place is now crowded. But anyway, I understand some of you, a commute is a normal thing. That's okay. I was saying I know what I would do, but that's not a financial principle. It's not a moral imperative. If he wants to do that, and it's fine with him and it's fine with his wife, but he called because it wasn't fine. But you get to make choices, and when you're making choices, there's always a trade-off. The choice is I'm going to drive a not-so-great car so later in my life, I've got so stinking much money I can I drive whatever I want to drive.

I'm going to live like no one else so that later I can live and give like no one else. When you say that, you're saying, I'm making choices. What we want you to do more than just follow us blindly is Learn that principle of intentionality, because no one wins the Super Bowl on accident. No one has a great marriage accidentally. No one accidentally builds wealth. Be very intentional and look at it and go, I'm going to make that trade for that result. We're saying, are we going to make a $1,000 a month trade to not have a two-hour commute? We're both saying we personally would.

As long as it's a quarter of your take home pay, no more than that on the rent. Exactly. There you go. There you go.

This is The Ramsey Show. 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 actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book, Breaking Free from Broke, is my co-host today. Thanks for joining us. Alicia is with us in Chicago. Hi, Alicia. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for having me on My question, I've got about $3,000 in collections that me and my husband owe. We have it negotiated down to about $1,500, roughly. Most of that is in writing. Some of it is not. The question is, I was going through some of that today, and while I was reading it, they were saying that they were going to report it on my credit report as paid in full with partial payment. If I decided to do that, and then I'm going to owe taxes on some of it. I have the money to pay the full $3,000. The question is that which route would really honestly be better at the end of the day? Is it to pay the full amount or to pay the partial payment?

Pay the amount you've negotiated down to.

Pay the amount? May I ask why? Sure.

Because technically, they're supposed to send, and they don't always do it, a 1099 for the difference. Okay, so Let's say that you have a $1,500 you've negotiated the 3,000 down to. You've had $1,500 in debt forgiveness. Does that make sense? Yes. Debt forgiveness on 1099 is taxable, and you would report it on your tax return when you get a 1099 from them. They're supposed to send a 1099 to you and to the others. They don't usually do it. They usually just use that as a thing to mess with you. Now, taxes on $1,500, if you're in a 30% tax bracket, are $500. Do we pay them an extra $1,500 to keep from paying $500? No.

No, right.

That's why I said that. That's the math on it. Now, I will add to it. There's a different component, and that is a moral or a spiritual component where you're looking at it and you feel like, You know what? I owe that money. I should pay it. I've got the money. If that's the case, then you should pay the money on that basis, but not because of the threat of taxes.

Okay. Now, my dilemma is the fact of I'm trying to clean up my credit out of a bad situation that me and my husband got ourselves into. As far as a credit position, which doesn't even matter because it's all going to be considered a pay in full or a charge off anyways.

Yeah, both are a collection item, and both damage your credit. One damages it more because you didn't pay the bill in full. But it's certainly not the end of the world. Besides that, you don't need to be borrowing a bunch of dead gum money anyway, so you don't need credit.

Okay, perfect.

Is that- Yeah.

What would you need the credit for? Do you guys have any other debt?

No, we don't have an… Well, I shouldn't say no. We do have a student loan debt of 17,000 that needs to be paid off, and we We started budgeting and we should have that cleared up by the end of the year this year. Go ahead. That's the way it's looking at. We would like to, in two years, be able to buy a home.

You will be. You will be. Two years from now, None of this will… It'll be on there, but it won't count sufficiently against you to keep you from getting a home.

Okay.

Yeah, it's not going to do enough damage to keep you from getting a home. Because I'm also guessing that if you're in this situation, you've got other bills that are already paid that were paid late.

Yeah. Most of those I've been able to work with them, and I've gotten them to take our late payment off of our record, except one late payment. The rest of them, they have all absolutely agreed and said not a problem, and I've taken those all off of our history.

It's a better check and make sure that actually happened because they, again, don't follow through very well. That stuff is usually done by downloaded computer files. Honestly, the people keying in the stuff are not that bright, usually. You better check it. You better keep a constant watch on your credit bureau and see if all that's really happening or not, which is good news for everybody. You ought to check your credit anyway, even if you're not going to be using it. You got to know what's on it, make sure. You can pull that once a year for free. Mine has been at zero I've been frozen for decades now. As soon as they allowed you to freeze it, I froze it. And of course, it was zero because I hadn't borrowed money in 30 plus years. I just don't have any credit.

If you go to annualcreditreport. Com, you can pull that for free once a year from all three credit bureaus, and I think it's wise to do that just to make sure there's no fraud.

Especially in your situation like she's in. Making sure there's no fraud and making sure there's nothing going on.

Everything's accurate, even the stuff that you did borrow on.

In my case, I'm so far removed from that that it's not necessary for me to check it, but it is a good exercise to check it once a year, all three of them, too, because the different ones to come up with. There's 52% of the credit bureaus reports have errors. Oh, wow. 36% have errors that so egregious that they would keep you from getting a loan for the wrong reason or keep you from getting a home for the wrong reason, a home loan, which is, yeah, that's a big deal. All right, Jeanette is in Kent, Ohio. Hi, Jeanette. How are you?

Hi, I'm good. I'm so excited to ask this question to this duo. Dave, you're awesome. You're the guy that started all. George Campbell, I love Smart Money Happy Hour, and you're just a human version of an exclamation point.

Oh, wow. Thank you.

Quite the compliment. Wow. My question today really a change in my mind.

I'm curious as to why I would need a financial advisor. My husband and I are in baby steps four, five, and six. We're working to pay off our house in the next three years. I have a hard time justifying an expense for somebody to tell me to do what I'm already doing. I'm curious to know what you think about that.

Why do you think George and I use one?

I honestly don't know. I don't understand what they would tell me that's different than what I'm already doing.

I found that when I have a third party looking bird's-eye view of my entire financial picture, they see a lot of things I don't, and they live and breathe this stuff. They're thinking about tax strategy, state planning, giving strategy, ways to minimize taxes, ways to maximize my investments. They're looking at things from a very different viewpoint than I have. It's not just, Hey, can you help me pick a fund?

I can go pick a fund out of the 8,000 and do a pretty dead gum good job. I've been licensed in that. I've done that. I used to do that for a living. I'm very competent and capable of doing it. It's certainly responsible enough to do it. But what I don't have is I don't spend every day looking at mutual funds. The number of hours I spend looking at mutual funds in a given year is very small because I just buy stuff and keep it. I don't think that much about it. I look at my statements and I keep moving. But They're out there moving around in that forest all the time. Sometimes my guy will call me up and go, Hey, there's this thing happening. You may or may not want to do it, but I just want you to know about it. He teaches me something I didn't know before about a particular fund or fund class or whatever. Again, what we pay them is a very small amount to manage the existing account. There's not that much to it. I'm not paying somebody a big, huge annual fee. This is I pay them when I purchase.

George pays them on the balance of his account. Rachel pays them on the balance of her account. She runs that managed funds process just like George does. We think it's worth it. That's why we endorse SmartVestor pros and why we use them personally. This is the Ramsey Show.

Knock, knock. Who's there? Your taxes. Well, actually, it's George, but you get the point. April 15th is the last day you can file your tax return or request a deadline extension. So head to Ramsey SmartTax and get this party started. Ramsey SmartTax gives you access to free chat and phone support and saves you up to 70% compared to the other guys. So filing your federal return is easy and affordable, like less than 35 bucks affordable. So go to ramseysolutions. Com/smarttax. When the deadline comes knocking, you're resting easy. That's ramseysolutions. Com/smarttax.

George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Our live event season is in full swing. We've got three events coming up where you can go and be with us and experience the different Ramsey teachings, live and in-person. The Big Dog is the total money makeover weekend coming May 10th and 11th. It is almost sold out. You can still get tickets if you go ahead and do it. This two-day event is the ultimate motivator to get you fired up and get your friend, your spouse fired up, get everybody on the same page, get out of debt, become wealthy, be outrageously generous, have a total money makeover. George will be speaking, Jade, Rachel, of course, Ken Coleman about how to get your income up, Dr. John Deloney about the effects of this on relationships and stress and how to win in these areas. We're going to give you the tools to win. We're going to walk you through these time-honored processes. It's a full-on experience. Lots of Q&A, lots of stuff happening over the whole weekend is here on the Ramsey campus. It's a Friday evening, all day, Saturday. Come in a little early on Friday, watch this show happen on the glass.

Smart Money Happy Hour that night as well.

Smart Money Happy Hour is one of the things we do to kick it off that night. It's one of the things. You definitely want to come to this. May 10th and 11th. Go to ramseysolutions. Com/events and get your tickets. George and I will be doing Dave Ramsey's Investing Essentials, a two-night virtual event, May 21st and 22nd, where we're going to go through material. We were working on some of it today, polishing it up, that I've really never taught. It is my personal playbook on investing, including my real estate and what I do. These days, my friends that I run with are typically 10, 20, 30, $100 million net worth people, and what do they do? What are real people that are real investors do, not some character on TikTok trying to sell you something.

17-year-old on TikTok showing you how to do it. In their mother's basement. Yeah, the calculations you were walking us through in the meeting, Dave, I think is worth the price of admission alone. If you want to really do this the right way, Dave's going to really show us some stuff you've never talked about before on stage or on air.

Yeah, I mean, even our content people are going, I've never even heard that. Well, I don't teach it. I just do it. Anyway, Dave Ramsey's Investing Essentials, May 21st, 22nd. Tickets at ramseysolutions. Com. Then this fall, October 24th through the 26th, the Money and Marriage Getaway today with Dr. John Deloney and Rachel Cruz. But those two together, this is fun. No question. This is a barrel of monkeys right there. I'm just telling you. You have a blast laughing about your marriage, learning about your marriage. They get into stuff. This is adults only. They teach you what you need to know to win in marriage, and Dr. John is not ashamed to go there.

If they don't invite me to speak, I will pay to be there. That's how much I love this event.

Oh, it's really good. It's really good. We can probably get you a ticket. I know a guy. Yes. There you go.

That was my way in.

Ramseysolutions. Com/events. Check it out and watch and see what we're doing. Probably more coming soon. Lee is in Buffalo, New York. Hi, Lee. How are you?

Hi, Dave. It's Leah.

Thanks for asking. It's Leah, right? Leah. I'm sorry, I said it wrong. How can I help? It's okay.

My husband just got terminated about two weeks ago. We're broadly too calm about this, I think.

I'm a little thankful. Okay, what did he use to make?

Okay, my husband was about 60,000.

And what do you make?

I am a full-time student right now, finishing my associate's degree.

So how are you eating?

Pretty well, actually.

Where's the money coming from? Where's the money coming from for pretty well?

Well, like I said, he just got terminated. He is on a stipend until the end of May.

Okay, a severance package?

Yes. Okay. Very generous.

Okay. Through the end of May. So we've got two months, almost. Yes. From today. What did he do? What did he do for a living? He was a warehouse supervisor. Why was he terminated suddenly?

Okay, very odd. They were told that they were going down different paths and that the job was going in a different direction. We were blindsided, completely out of the blue.

It's more of a layoff than termination. It's permanent. I know it's permanent, but a layoff is permanent. It doesn't sound like he did anything wrong.

I believe he didn't.

Was there a lot of conflict and toxicity leading up to this?

There was a lot of toxicity with a new boss who's been there about just over a year.

He was actually- Who doesn't have the chops to actually say why he fired your husband. Correct. That's what it was. It was not we're going in a different direction. It's I don't like you, you're fired, and I don't have the guts to tell you why. Yes. Okay. All right. How long had your husband been there?

Three years.

Okay, cool. All right. Why are you so calm? Because you got this thing till May?

I think that's the reason. We're both very oddly calm at this time. I don't know. I feel at peace with it, but I just… We've been following your program for 19 months, paid off the majority of the debt.

That helps.

We do have one credit card. It's at 13, and we have one car, which is about 11, besides It's the mortgage.

I would do what you're suggesting and say, We're going to put full stop on any total money makeover debt snowballing and just push pause and pile up cash because we're right square in the middle of a storm, right? Here's what you've already done, and I don't like it. I want to encourage you to stop it. That is, he came home and has grieved this and is angry and hurt and wounded and betrayed and doesn't know what he did and all this for two weeks. I want him to go get a job now because if he gets a job like this week making as much or more money, this severance is a signing bonus. It ends up being a blessing that he got fired. Go get a job making 70K this week.

Okay.

Go after it like your hair's on fire. Okay. Because every The day between now and the end of May that he gets a job, the sooner he gets it, the more your signing bonus is called severance that you didn't need.

And the faster you're out of debt completely, the faster you have a fully funded emergency.

All of that money could be used to accelerate your debt snowball. You follow me?

I do.

So don't be calm. Don't be panicked. Don't be panicked, but be very fired up and wired up about, yay, I'm away from that twerp. I don't have to work there anymore. Let's go make more money, and let's do it right now.

Okay.

Don't wait until June.

Now, I have one more question. We have about 15,000 in liquid assets, but we might be forced to take a to withdraw from the 401k to cash it out. Why? Should we?

Why?

They've been very pushy about it. The company is based out of a different country.

Well, just take your 401k and roll it to an IRA. You don't take it out.

To an IRA. Don't withdraw. You want a direct rollover.

Direct rollover. Yeah.

Okay. You don't ever want to see the money.

Yeah, get with one of the SmartVestor pros and just roll it. They can fill out the paperwork. They'll deal with the weird company stuff. You can get some basic information. But yeah, just roll that. You don't need to withdraw it. Leave your liquid cash sitting there and pile up as much liquid cash as you can. Your husband ought to be working six jobs, side gigs right while he's looking for work, and then go get work immediately. Let's create so much income in this 60-day period of time and a new job in the midst of it that this whole thing ends up being a blessing. You look back and go, Thank God he got fired by that toxic twerp. That's a big deal. That's big. But mindset is, when I get fired, the first thing I do is nothing. It's normal because you get knocked flat on your back. I'm just saying, Get up, get up, shake it off, get up, get up, go, go, Go, go, go. Instead of like, Don't put me back in, coach. That hurt. That's true. That's the way you feel.

You get in this foggy haze. You got to snap out of it.

Exactly. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, friends, it's Ken Coleman, and I've got some big news. The GetClear Career Assessment is now paired with my new book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. Every book comes with access to the assessment so you can discover who you are and how you're wired. Then I'm going to show you how to use your results to get specific in your job search and find the work you enjoy. Pre-order Find the Work You're Wired to Do at ramseysolutions. Com/store and get the audiobook and the e-book free. Go to ramsey solutions. Com/store.

Thank you for joining us, America. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Today's question comes from Mike in Washington.

Here it is. We got, Should I reduce the amount of car insurance coverage on an aging car? My car is eight years old and worth 6,000 to 7,000. Should I keep all the, quote, bells and whistles or move towards a liability-only type of plan?

Well, what you would do, if I were in your shoes, is price it. Sometimes the bells and whistles really aren't that expensive. Bells and whistles, in your case, you're calling collision, which replaces your car. If you have a $7,000 car, do you have $50,000 in cash? If you don't, you need to keep collision because you need to be able to write a check and not touch your emergency fund and replace this car to self-insure. Now, I'm in a position financially, I could self-insure through all of my vehicles easily. I choose not to because I looked at what it costs me to insure a car that's worth X. I spend Y, and I'm basically buying insurance, and it's worth it to me to do that.

To transfer the risk.

Yeah, exactly.

The car is 50 grand. It costs you a grand for that coverage. It's worth the peace of mind for you to just pay the grand.

It's a risk transfer, and it removes, in my case, some of the liability as well because it puts an attorney with the insurance company between me and an accident.

I imagine when the attorney sees the name Dave Ramsey, they get a little excited.

Yeah, on the other side. They get really excited because They sometimes mistakenly think that means they're going to get something. What they didn't really grasp was that really means they're in for the fight of their life. But anyway. But that's the insurance company's problem, right? In other words, I had... The one I remember the most, Mike, like this, is I had an old Jeep we had down at the Lakehouse, and it was about 3,000 bucks. I thought, Why do I keep collision on that? That's dumb. I got teenagers as one reason, at that time. I looked up and I asked the insurance guy, said, Hey, why don't you drop collision? He goes, It's going to save you $150 a year. They want to insure this worse than I don't want them to. For 150, sold to the man in the green jacket.

I was just checking my numbers to see what my collision is out of my policy. It's about 50% of my premium is going toward collision. Okay.

On a six or $7,000 car, it's not a lot of money. You probably, unless you've got a big pile of money to self-insure, you need to keep the collision in place, most likely. You're going to look and look at the trade-off, the dollar spent versus having the coverage. It usually is a good buy.

It might be 100 bucks, and you go, All right, I'm willing to keep that.

Now, if you got a super bad driving record or I don't know what you're driving, you're driving some weird car that gets stolen all the time or something like that, like a Hyundai or something like that. But yeah, I can't get a Hyundai covered right now. It's awful. Sorry, Hyundai, I didn't do it. You guys did when you built them where they could be stolen so easy.

I've heard about it, and I think he has as well, or very easily stolen.

Same mess, yeah. Anyway, There's a theft problem on them for some reason. Well, I know the reason. I'm not going to go into it. I'm not going to help with it. Anyway, unless you got some weird car situation, it's not going to cost you much to cover this. When you actually look at the actual savings, you're going to go, It's not that much money. That's what I think you're going to do. That's what I did in most of the cases I've looked at. Katherine is in San Diego. Hi, Katherine. How are you?

I'm good. Thank you. Thank you for taking my question. Okay, so I'm waiting for my final tax returns. I hired a company to negotiate and get all my taxes caught up. I ended up becoming Being self-employed back in 2015. However, I've been learning a lot, unfortunately, the hard way, and my bookkeeping is a mess, and now I owe a lot of money, and I didn't know- You haven't paid taxes since 2015? No, I paid some, but not all of it.

How much do you think you're going to- It just keeps piling up.

It's probably going to come out to about 50.

$50,000.

$50,000.

Do you have any money?

No. I just got the $1,000. I just started listening to you guys.

What's your income?

It fluctuates, and it goes from 30 to 50. You're still self-employed?

This is a business you run? Yeah.

This is a business that I run. Just for the last three years, it has stayed at I'm working a part-time job.

What other debt do you have?

Back in 2022, Everything. I didn't make much money. I ended up accruing. I paid everything off, and then I started using credit cards again, so I'm back up at $10,000 in credit cards.

You have IRS debt of probably 50, credit cards of 10. Anything else?

Yeah, that's it. Then my regular rent, and those are the necessities of rent and food.

You make 50 on a good year, you owe 60. Mm-hmm. Let's put it that way. We need to get her in.

Is your credit trashed?

I beg your pardon?

Is your credit trashed?

No, I've been keeping up with the payment.

Do you own a home?

No. Okay. I just had an accident two years ago. It was a brand new car that was already two payments away from paying it off, and then it got totaled. That was the bad year where I only made, I think it was about, I made like 22,000 that year. When my car got totaled, that was it. I luckily had bought another car that was cash. It's an old car. It's a good car. It's a Toyota. For some reason, I just saw this person selling it, and I'm like, You know what? I'm going to buy it because you never know. Sure enough, the new car got totaled. I've been driving my Toyota, and of course, I'm not buying a new car until I can pay something cash.

But you don't have any money? No. So the money from the insurance from the total car is gone?

It's gone because it was paying the bills after… Because like I said, that was the bad year. I had to use that money to keep up with the rent and to keep up with paying my- The IRS is going to be penalizing you and taxing you until you get this 50K cleared.

You can put it, your guys that were working with you, your tax folks, and probably fairly easily negotiate a payment plan. It's going to be a substantial payment until you get the 50 cleared. But that 50 is going to be with you a while if you only make 50. What I would love to see you do is, I doubt you can do it, but if your credit union will loan you the money to pay the IRS, I'd rather you owe the credit union than the IRS. It's less interest and they're much easier to work with. They're more human. I want to get the IRS out of your life as fast as you possibly can. But if you're going to be fooling with this for three or four years, and you may be if you don't change your income, then we're just going to work a death snowball. We're going to clear these credit cards. But I want you to fight to get your income up and try to add some more. Because even five or $10,000 more than you're making now, a side hustle or whatever, thrown at this 50, you can start chunking it and getting it away and getting it done.

Of course, no more bleeding. You got to You got your books in order and you got to stay current from this point forward so that you don't just trade old tax debt for new tax debt by not taking care of business again. You really, really, really have to go in and have a healing in this area.

You might need to go, Should I be running this business right now? Should I go get a full-time job working for someone else making even 25, 30 bucks an hour would give you a raise compared to what you're making now? That's an option to consider if this becomes too much.

Or both. I don't know what the business is, but both.

If you can do the business and keep the 50K plus a full-time job.

Go make a 50K, then you can clean this up in a year. Change the numbers. That thing. I'm going to be fighting and scratching and clawing to try to get my income up and to try to get the the rest out of my life as fast as I can if I'm in your shoes. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. First John 3:18. C. S. Lewis said, One of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is shut their eyes to facts. Deb is in San Antonio. Hi, Deb. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hello.

Hi. What's up?

Yes. We have recently found out that our daughter is in need of prosthetic jawbone joint replacement on both sides of her face. Wow. And although she's in a tremendous amount of pain, our insurance company considers this a cosmetic procedure, and they do not want to cover it. The part they will not cover is in the ballpark area of $65,000. Wow. We're wondering, what is your advice to people in this situation? We do not have an extra $65,000 hanging around. This is a serious need.

If we do not do it- How old is your daughter?

She's 22.

How long has this been going on?

She started having a lot of pain about a year ago. We went to an orthodontist and they said, Oh, there's a serious problem here. We're going to send you to a specialist. The specialist said, We think we can help you. We need to put you in braces for a year. That year came and went recently, and they reevaluated and said, Oh, sweetheart, we can't help you. We need to send you to a different specialist. We recently saw that specialist who said, Oh, dear, your choice is prostatic, childbone joint replacement.

Okay. You've seen only one person?

We saw the orthodontist here.

The one specialist, you haven't gone and gotten a second, third opinion on this issue.

The specialist we saw locally was Very good. He said, We can possibly fix this by splitting the other dog.

It's $65,000, and you're going to take my jawbone off. I'm getting second, third, and fourth opinions.

This is our third opinion.

No, it's the first opinion, and you liked it because you liked him, is what you just told me. Then you changed your story.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to explain it that way. We feel very good that we're in good hands. We've talked with our orthodontist, our dentist, the specialist in our town, the specialist in the other town. I don't know who else to go to.

You went to a specialist in the same field in a different town? And took her there, and he looked at her, she looked at it, and gave you the exact same diagnosis?

Well, we have an MRI, we can look at it. Her job on right there is gone.

Wow, what a horrible thing. I'm so sorry. Well, the only thing I know, the only thing that we've had experience with in the medical community is to always get lots of different people looking at a problem that is a severe, not just simply one that I like. You've got one plus one looked at it out of town when you sent the MRI over. If I were in your shoes, Tantra, you ask what we would do. What we would do is we would keep working the problem because there may be another solution that is insurable. I don't know. I don't know anything about this from a medical perspective. A zero. I have no knowledge of it. But I'm just working a problem. I'm working a project here and an issue, and my baby's hurting, and I can hear her pain in your voice. I don't blame you for wanting that pain to go That's a good mom. But I'm going to try to figure out that. Then the second thing I'm going to do is, let's say that you talk to maybe two or three more people in San Antonio. You're in Dallas and you're in Houston talking to people in personal visits, and they're looking at it and saying, Oh.

Then you ask around that community and you find, I'm going to become a dadgum expert if I'm in this situation over the next two months, if my baby's hurting in this situation. I'm way too old and ornery to trust one doc on something that's this unusual. This is not a simple thing that happens every day to somebody. I've lived my whole life. I've never heard of it happening before today. It's very unusual. Would you agree with that? Yes. Okay. For that reason, I'm going to just keep researching. Then the second thing I'm going to do is once I have established for sure in my mind, and you may already have, you may not want to take that piece of advice. That's fine. That's okay. You ask what we would do. We're here to help you. We'll tell you what we would do. Once I've established that it is an absolute necessary situation, that it is not cosmetic, it's a dadgum medical problem, then we're going to start talking more sternly immediately to the insurance company. As a matter of fact, I may go ahead to start that conversation now to the At some point, I might hire an attorney to make them provide the insurance money.

You might spend $3,000 or $4,000 or $5,000 on an attorney instead of spending $65,000 on the procedure and make the insurance company it because I don't know. I have no knowledge, but I'm going to... I don't accept the first answer from the doctor, and I don't accept the first answer from the insurance company. I am cynical. I'm suspect of all of these people until I get this problem solved. I don't mean that in a mean way. I'm just saying until the problem is solved, they're part of the problem. That's the way I'm fighting it because I'm a warrior-style person.

Think about it this way, Deb. If I were to pay you $65,000 in order to fight this as your full-time job, would you do it? This is your full-time job. That's how I look at it. I'm just doing some quick research online Someone went through the same thing, and they said it was 50K for all this. It was a huge battle with insurance, but eventually, most of that was covered, and they again had to fight. They said, These surgeries are medical, not dental.

So as long as you're in that work- Where did you find that?

I just did some googling, Dave. I'm very sleuthlike like that. There's stories out there. I would connect with people who have been through this and ask them how they did it, how they fought it, just to give you some hope that it can be done, but it's going to be a journey. Fighting insurance companies is not fun.

Yeah. So You got a, I guess, the reason for my cynicism is, let's be real blunt, you got a bad diagnosis or a bad treatment plan the first time. You go to the orthodontist, spent a lot of money in this. We spent a year in pain, and oh, nothing, zero. Then he's going to recommend, well, I don't care what he recommends, because the last thing he recommended, it sucked. I'm pretty much fire in this guy. You don't get three choices on this stuff. Figure out if it's the only way, and then what is the best way, then if it is the only way. When I was a younger and less nice version of Dave, my wife was diagnosed before we had children being pregnant. Oh, wow. We went and told everybody, A baby's on the way. We go in for the first thing, the OB goes, Oh, I messed that up. I went, Dude, you got one job. How do you mess that up? Babies. You mess up the baby job, you're fired. He goes, What do you mean? I said, We'll be transferring her files somewhere else. Your whole thing you do is to find out if babies are coming and make them come.

You didn't make that hat, and you screwed that up. Now I got to go tell all my relatives no babies on the way. Yeah, dude, you are so fired. My wife's like, and I wasn't even that nice. Sharon's like, You embarrassed me. I said, Yeah, he embarrassed you. That's what She won't be seeing him again.

It's fine.

So, yeah.

Until you run into him at a grocery store 30 years later.

That's why they call it practicing medicine. That is scary. We're just giving it our best shot. Anyway, we had Obviously had three wonderful children later and had a wonderful OB experience. One guy took care of all of those. He was right every time. He was a lifelong family friend. I'm not a perpetual jerk to all doctors. That's not the point. But if you got one job, dude, one job, You messed that one up.

That's two dreams today. I wanted to be your tax guy just to see you irate, and I want to be your OB now.

Your failed OB doc.

Yeah.

Epic fail.

Dave, never mind. I did not see. I thought I saw something.

Never mind. Epic failure. Epic failure. Yeah, I read the test panel wrong. You flunked. When I happened in college, that's called an F. Yeah, out of there. Done. That puts this hour in the books. We'll be back before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. 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.