Um, live from the headquarters of Ramsay Solutions. This is the Ramsay show. It's where we help you win in your life, specifically your money, your work, and your relationships. The phone number to jump in is triple 825-5225. That's triple 825-5225. I'm Ken Coleman, thrilled to be joined by George Camel with a K. And we are here for you this hour. George is our resident money expert. Today. I'll help you in areas of work that is very much tied to your money when we're talking about income. So if you're feeling stuck, confused, burned out, overlooked, and you're a little bit worried about whether or not you can make a professional move while in the baby steps, I assure you you can. And I'm here to help on those questions. We team up on all of it. George, you ready to go?

We have a good time. Ken always a good Friday when I.

It'S always good to see what you're wearing today. I like that you've got an ensemble here.

I'm going for the fall, the autumnal wardrobe.

You look like you've stepped out of a J. Crew hat.

I was going for more of a Tim The Toolman Taylor, but I'll take J. Crew.

Yeah, I don't think you'll ever achieve Tim The Toolman Taylor.

You can turn a wrench if need be.

Yeah, so can I, but just in the air. I can turn a wrench around. That's all.

That's where we're served best.

George and I stay away from the tools, but we can help you. And by the way, before we get to the phones, I want to acknowledge a fabulous crowd out in the studio. Live studio audience in the lobby, ramsey Solutions.

They have people to look at.

Yeah, we're very excited. Sometimes when it's empty, we get depressed. But these people out there, fabulous looking. They look very excited to be here. We know they're disappointed that Dave isn't, but they're pressing through. They're pressing through.

That's your tagline. Press on.

Press on. So, thank you very much. Let's go, triple 8825-5225. Tim joins us in the windy city. Chicago, Illinois. Tim, how can we help?

Hey, guys. How are you doing today?

We're having a blast. What's up? Hey.

So just, I guess, two part question. So looking at a potential layoff at my place of employment. So they came in and reduced the workforce by roughly 30%. To my surprise, I was not one. I was fully expecting to be one. Let go. But I wasn't. And I've been assured that there's no more cups coming. So my question is, what could I do to prepare myself financially in the event that that comes? Do I start seeking other employment? Do I make a generous salary? So do I ride it out?

Let's jump in there. So, had there not been company layoffs, would you be asking me the question about looking at someplace else?

I've always explored other opportunities, but never really thoroughly gone through with anything, but I was kind of actively looking, but I guess I had 1ft in, 1ft out.

Okay, well, since you were actively looking, I would continue to look. It doesn't mean you have to leap. And we actually don't teach that you leap anyway. If we're talking about really leaping to something or just kind of, well, I'm going to leave, and then I'm going to go find something. So if you were already looking, Tim, I would continue to look. There were reasons why you were looking. I'd continue to look, but I wouldn't be looking out of fear. I would be looking towards my future. Where do I want to be in five years, ten years, 15 years down the line? That needs to be the dominant question here, because you're not truly happy or fulfilled, or you wouldn't be looking. Is that fair?

Yeah, it's a fair statement. My end goal is I want to somewhat part time, go part time, around 50. Myself and my wife, we've worked extremely hard to clear our debts, so we don't have much overhead debt. I do some freelance real estate stuff. I try and flip a house a year. I just got my first rental this year. But with that said, I also have that flexibility with my current job. Whereas I'm afraid if I jump somewhere else, that flexibility will be gone.

Something to think about. And one thing I would mention too, instead of just flipping all the time, because flipping requires a purchase. There's risk there. If you've got your real estate license. I don't know if you do, but if you do and you've got work flexibility, I'd be trying to sell five to ten houses a year. Or let's set a goal for three houses, and we put that money aside. That's why I want to bring George in. I give people advice to always have some extra income. Some side income is good. I think he's got that with the real estate play. But just from a planning standpoint, we shouldn't be walking around George expecting to get laid off all the time, but we should have a plan. Where do you fall on a three to six month emergency fund versus being used for major emergencies versus a layoff? Because I would tell people, get back to work as quick as possible. What's your advice financially? How do we prepare financially? Not just professionally, for sure.

Well, one is getting out of debt, and it sounds like, Tim, you don't have any consumer debt right now.

So we have one auto loan, which is my pickup truck, and then our primary home that we live in, and then my rental property, and that's literally it.

Okay, so the auto loan needs to be your priority right now. If you're truly worried about this layoff happening. I want no debt in my life. I want to owe less people money so that I can float by longer if I need to use that emergency fund. I'm guessing you don't have an emergency fund then?

Yeah, I'm sitting on a little bit of cash, which is I was planning on using towards our next property purchase. So I'd say probably right around 15,000 in cash.

And what's left on the auto loan?

Probably 33.

What do you guys make?

So, my wife, she just started doing some work, so she's knocking down maybe $400 a week. And probably I think this year I'll probably do $115,000 in my primary source of income.

Okay, awesome. So you've got a great income there. But I want to see this auto loan debt cleaned up, so I'm going to use the majority of that cash to clean up this debt. That'll leave you with about half of the auto loan and the next few months. If you're truly worried. I would want no debt, and so that would be my next goal, is to get rid of the auto loan and then restock the emergency fund up to three to six months of expenses. I'd probably lean towards six months. If this is going to be looming in your future, I would just stack up as much cash as I could, and once things stabilize, we'll know more, we'll start investing. But it sounds like you're doing a lot at once. You're trying to pay off some debt, you're trying to save. You're probably doing some investing right now. You're buying property and flipping it. Is that fair?

Yeah, that's 100% accurate.

Is the rental income that you mentioned to George the rental debt, is that the next flip, or is that something you're holding on to?

No, this one I'm going to hold. I think the first flip I did last year is what helped me purchase this one, plus tuck my money back in my pocket. And we were getting top top dollar for the houses that we're flipping versus the purchase price. So the ROI was really good, but I definitely want to get more into rentals as that long term passive income.

How are you financing these flips? Currently?

Just a 30 year mortgage with the.

Current rates, and then you're trying to get rid of them fast?

Yeah, I think it's seven and a half percent interest on that one.

If I'm in your shoes, I'm slowing down on this flipping business and I'm going to get my financial house in order. I'm going to let this layoff scenario just be a good wake up call to go, hey, let's get completely out of debt, let's have an emergency fund, let's be investing for the future, and then future flips. I would encourage you to pay cash, which is controversial in the real estate investing world, but, man, it's a different ballgame and you do it with a whole lot more peace and a whole lot more profit.

Oh, absolutely. No, if I had that kind of capital to go in and offer cash that's cost us a lot of properties too, because we don't have that cash flow built up.

Well, you know what to do, man. I hope you do it, but I'm going to push pause and take a look in the financial mirror before I continue the flipping game. Sounds like you're great at it, but when you start doing it with cash and no debt and you have that stable income, it's going to be a whole different ballgame.

You want to get yourself to a point, folks, where you are layoff proof and you can do that if you follow the financial principles that we teach. You can get to a place where, hey, it still sucks to get laid off, but you're not freaking out.

All right.

Good stuff. George Camel. Ken Coleman with you, america. This is the Ramsey show. Don't move. More coming up. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey, folks, it's Dr. John Deloney. This time of year can be hard and seasonal affective disorder is real. When I moved to Nashville, the time change caught me off guard. It got dark at like 430 and I was ready for bed by 06:45. P.m.. Things weren't as fun. Even the food lost its flavor. Now I know how to prepare my body. When things get dark, I go outside to enjoy nature. I stick to an exercise routine, and I intentionally connect with people. Another thing I did is therapy. Therapy can be a bright spot even when the sun goes down too soon. Something positive and interactive to make us feel grounded and give us the tools to manage the way seasonal change can affect our bodies. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. BetterHelp is flexible because it's totally online, so it can fit into any schedule. Just fill out a short questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. You can switch therapists at any time for no charge.

Find your bright spot this season with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com Deloney today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. He lp.com deloney. Welcome back to the Ramsay show, america. Thrilled that you are with us. Triple 8825-5225. Triple 8825-5225 is the number to jump in. I'm Ken Coleman. George Camel joins me. We're here to answer your questions. I'll take any work related questions as it relates to your income, maybe even your stress, the anxiety at work, any of that stuff. We'll talk about your work. We'll talk about your money. George is here for your money questions and we're thrilled that all of you have joined us today. Kara is up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. How can we help?

Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

You bet.

Yeah. So I'm new to Dave Ramsey by like five.

Wow.

And that's awesome.

Welcome.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited and terrified. So I have a master's degree that I've been working on for three years and I only have three credits left and I obviously am not going to borrow money to finish it, but I'd like to finish in the spring. So I have a Sep IRA from a previous employer and that business has since closed. They don't work there and there's nothing being contributed to it at this point. But it has about $5,000 and it would cover the tuition to finish my Master's. So I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on should I cash out the IRA and pay for school that way or should I just kind of put off graduating and keep working and saving? That's what I'm asking.

Well, it's a great question, and since you're new to the program, first of all, welcome. And second of all, if you keep listening to the show, you'll probably hear us say, don't rob yourself of your retirement. And there's a few reasons for that. Number one, if you cash out from the Sep IRA, you're going to miss out on all the future compound growth. And if you want to know what I'm talking about, you can go punch that into our investment calculator and put in how much money is in there right now?

$5,000.

Okay, so if you put in $5,000 and you just didn't touch it for the next 20 years, you would realize why it would be a mistake to cash that out. Number two, you're going to pay penalties because you're not at the age where you can withdraw it without tax penalties. So it's going to count. You'll get hit with a tax penalty on top of that. And for that reason, I'm going to say let's pause, let's not touch that account and let's cash flow the rest of your schooling with future income.

And number three, Kara, $5,000 isn't enough. You can generate $5,000. So how much do you need to come up with to finish this? Masters?

How much cash?

Yeah.

Because you're not going to take a loan.

Right? And I'd rather not dip into what I've saved for my baby steps. Let's see, I have the $1,000 for step one, and then I have 2000 additionally in my savings. So I could use 2000 of it and then just have to come up with 3000. But I feel funny about taking money out of savings for grad school.

I don't know. Okay, so what do you need to finish the three classes?

What's the total?

It's just three credits. What do you need?

What's the number? How much?

5400.

All right, so here's the point. You need to use the baby steps. I mean, work the baby steps. Yes, but just in addition to what George said, you can come up with the 5400 to get those three credits, and it's worth waiting to get the 5400 cash. Go work, go do whatever, sell stuff. The point is don't overthink this. You're doing the right thing by asking this question. But now let's just go get the cash.

What's your cash and income?

So together with my husband, we're $110,000.

That's amazing.

Yeah, that's great. You can do this.

So how long would it take, realistically, to save up another $3,000 with future paychecks?

Well, yeah, I'm not sure because we have $287,000 in student loans.

Ouch.

That's terrible. Yeah.

And what is this grad school going to do for you as far as your career and your income?

Well, you're going to laugh. This is my second master's, Tara.

What are we running from here with? Just chasing more education?

Well, I think what happened is, during COVID when I wasn't allowed to leave my house, I got bored and I was like, well, let's just do personal development.

Well, go to Europe or read a 6th grade.

Listen to a podcast, for heaven's sakes. Listen, the damage is done. So can I tell you press pause. I've heard enough to know that you don't need these three credit hours anytime soon.

Yeah, I have six years to finish the degree, and I'm three years in.

Hold on. You need to focus on getting out of debt. We are not worried about the three extra years. There's time between now and three years where you can finish that degree. Right now, you don't need it. You don't need to be focusing on it. That's $5,400. That needs to be going to something else. Yes, George.

Yes. And you both need more jobs. We need to increase this income because you got a great shovel, but the hole is massive. You got 300 grand in debt making 100. It's going to take you forever to pay this off.

Yeah. One master's degree is enough for you right now to go make some money to dig out of this. Okay.

Yeah, some of it's. My husband's, he had to get a doctoral degree in physical therapy.

You guys both have it's not his, right?

Yeah, it's all together 287. How do we get you both making six figures?

What are you doing for work?

I own a music school, and we've got a good amount of students and, like, five teachers.

How much do you make.

After everything? Probably, like, net for the business. 50,000.

You're paying yourself 50,000? Yeah. I think you've got to be realistically looking at how can I make 30 to 50 more? Okay, quickly, like, what must be true, given the skill set you have, the experience you have, for heaven's sakes, you've already got one master's.

What's your first master's in jazz? Vocal performance.

I'd be playing gigs. I'd be doing private lessons. Whatever you need to do on the side, even if it's outside of the music school.

You say that, but unless you can make decent money, I don't know if there's some great jazz bars where you can sing. You can get hired at weding nights.

Wedings?

You're going to send her to weddings?

That could be a great can't be a good idea.

Nobody wants a jazz singer.

People pay good money to hire jazz bands. Really very classy, very tasteful.

Private events to be fair. I've been married 25 years.

Been a long private event.

Long time since I've been to a weding.

Think about, like, a nice Ramsay event. We do a nice cocktail reception, all right? Get a little jazz band. We hire Kara.

Here's the point, though. Done. Listen, I'm all for you using your gift, yeah. But I don't know that it's going to ROI right now, and so I want to be making again, I'm not kidding when I say what must be true for Kara to make an additional $30,000. If you can do that, jazzing it up at the weddings. Great.

I don't scale up the business. Can we scale the business exponentially?

The music school? Yeah. Can you scale that and get that?

Yeah. Right now we're doing private lessons, but we could offer, like, group lessons and try and get more income that way.

Yeah.

Start brainstorming with the team for some revenue generating ideas like Kara.

This is massive, is the point we're making. That's a lot of debt and if you let it stay around, it becomes almost paralyzing.

The interest alone is going to be crushing if you guys don't get on top of this soon.

Yeah. Luckily, we both drive crappy cars and we've been trying. We paid off, like a personal loan for 10,000, but we haven't done it kind of in the order. We haven't done it in the order. That makes sense.

I'm going to help you guys with that order. We're going to give you one year of Financial Peace University, as well as one year of every dollar premium so that you and your husband can get on the same page, get fired up and get angry at this debt. I don't think you're angry enough right now. And that's what we need to do to get rid of $287,000 in consumer debt. We are pushing for you. Hang on the line. Jen is going to pick up. We'll gift you those resources. I hope it helps.

Is jazz or size still a thing?

I don't want it to be a thing, but I think it is.

I will look that up during the break.

Ken will come back with some jazzer size around.

We'll be back with an update on jazzer size. This is the Ramsey show.

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Welcome back to the Ramsay show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by George camel, we're here for you this hour. Triple 8825-5225. Now, you know, we've got all these social pages, and I'm sure if you're engaged with us, you're on some type of social platform. By the way, follow me on Instagram at Ken Coleman. Follow George at George Camel. K-A-M-E-L. But we've got these fun community pages. I've got like a Ken Coleman official, I don't know, Facebook group, but our baby steps community page on Facebook. A lot of fun stuff happening over there.

George, there's over 410,000 people now in that group.

That's right.

That's massive, massive group.

So what we've got here in my hands is some of the confessions. This just kind of spiked up, I guess, in the group. Klarna confessions.

Oh, yeah, these buy now, pay later companies.

Exactly. And so we've got a list here from the thread of some things where people admitted the dumbest thing they have bought now, paid later. So now, George, you don't remember this because you're younger than me, but we used to call that like layaway. Oh, yeah, that was like a thing, you know what I mean? And so now it's buying al pay late.

Well, now you can get it. Now with layaway, you had to actually.

You had to wait for it.

But they would put it up in.

The top of the store. You could go in and see the thing. My mom would go, well, we're going to get that in a know, that kind of thing.

Get you a Stretch Armstrong for Christmas or something.

I hope they didn't lay away the Stretch Armstrong, but here we go. So we're going to read a few of these. So Jenna says the dumbest thing that she bought now, paid later were house plants from Etsy.

Rare house plants, apparently.

She goes on to say they're still alive and beautiful. But boy, that was dumb.

What a reminder. Every day as you look at that, you water that plant, you go, still paying for that thing.

Still paying for it sucks. Give me an idea, George. What a cost of a plant? It feels like you would know this.

A rare house plant, I imagine, could fetch upwards of over $100.

Okay.

On Etsy.

Wow.

Anne said blankets and nugget play couches.

Now, are those couches that look like chicken nuggets?

Well, no, they're just soft play couches for, like, kids and stuff.

I googled you look at me like.

That was a bad I had to Google it.

I hear nugget. I hear play. I think McDonald's has got their line of toy.

It's chicken nugget couches a strange name. Okay, I'll go with you on that.

What is the studio audience, you think? That wasn't that weird, was it? She has one. Oh, boy. Some guys point. Boy. Speaking of, you'll be sleeping on said couch tonight. After pointing that out, we got to teach him that's relationship 101 stuff. Yeah.

Play now, pay later. Yeah, there we go. All right, what's next?

Peloton. That's not really that surprising. Yeah, because that's a bigger purchase. I think those bikes were over two grand.

Yeah, not anymore. I feel like they've gone down since.

COVID They have indeed.

The market has gone down. We both had one at one point, Ken, didn't we?

You still have your no, I sold it.

Yeah, me too. Thought I was more athletic than I was.

I was into it for a while, but then I just got tired of it.

Well, I'm too frugal. You're paying $50 a month for this membership and I'm not riding this thing. It became a clothes hanger soon after that.

Was it a close hanger?

I'm not that motivated. Joy said $100 worth of makeup that I could totally afford at the time. Just didn't feel like feeling the money go out all at once. That's the most common reason people use this. Even if they have the money, they go, I just didn't feel like spending it all today. Now they're spend it all later, too.

Which I'm guessing that's the game.

That's the game. That's how they get. Because you have $40 item right below that add to cart button. It says, hey, why not pay $10 today and pay $10 for the next three, four weeks?

So it tricks the brain. I'm guessing, George, into thinking you got a discount.

Exactly. And let me tell you, Ken Klarna brags about this to retailers on their website. They say consumers will spend 45% more in their cart if you put one of these options on your website.

Angela gets my award for dumbest buy now, pay later papa John's gift card because we couldn't afford food on the financed vacation.

Okay, so you're broke. You go on vacation on the credit card, you have no money, you're maxed out.

And she goes, we're going to finance a papa John's card. Wow.

Buy now, pay later pizza, that's a dark place you've got to be in life.

I mean, you got a payment and heartburn Papa John's.

Now. Rachel Cruz loves Papa John's.

Is that her favorite pizza?

Yeah.

Very interesting.

Her favorite chain pizza. I don't want to put that on her. That it. Know true Italian pizza, by the way.

She's the only person I have ever met that can eat the amount of pizza that she eats and doesn't gain an ounce.

That's genetic blessing from the Ramsey crew right there. Kate said, dog food. That's pretty rough.

I see what you did there. It took me a second and you pointed at me. I went, what am I supposed to get? Oh, rough.

I had to cue Ken for that.

Wow. How about Michael with the lawnmower blades for a zero turn? Mower again, had the money, but the installment plan sounded too easy to pass up. Exhibit a, your honor.

Lee. Wow, guys, don't fall for this. Gina said, I use afterpay and went to history to see what I've spent when I added it all up, I spent $8,500 on random stuff, mainly nail stuff from Revel Nails, tory Burch stuff, halloween decor and Nikes. Yikes.

Well, the Tory Birch stuff is pretty pricey.

She said Tony Birch. But I imagine it's Tory. Right?

I saw you corrected it. Is there a Tony Burch?

Who's this Tony?

Please tell me it's not a knockoff of Tory Birch. That's got to be a typo.

Yeah, I think she fat finger Facebook.

I've been in the Tory Birch story. That's pretty pricey. You know that brand Mrs. Coleman likes?

It not to the tune of $8,500, hopefully.

Well, if I'm paying that, I budgeted for it, George. And I paid. You're not paying later, I tell you that right now. Last but not least, jamie given Angela a run with the Papa John gift card. Jamie bought movie tickets and financed $40. Movie tickets? I hope they didn't go see Barbie.

Wow.

Yeah, you better hope. That movie was good.

It was dreadful.

I'm told to pay that plus interest fee.

See it. My daughter went to see it, but good gracious.

Well, let me tell you this, Ken. This is a stat I pulled up. A third of us. Consumers who use these buy now, pay later options fall behind on one or more payments, which can trigger crazy interest of up to 30%, along with late fees. So everyone says, Ken, well, I'll pay it later. I have the money now.

I could pay it now until you forget.

I'll kick it down the road.

Could you imagine paying 30% interest on Papa John's pizza?

That's insult to injury.

It's just bad. Or a bad movie.

Insult to indigestion is what that is.

Wow.

No, thank you. Yes, folks, don't fall for these buy now, pay later options. Psychologically, you think, well, why pay 40 when I could pay ten? I'll free up some money in the budget. That's what these companies want you to think. Here's their taglines, Ken. After pay, get what you want. We've got your back. Affirm pay at your own pace. Klarna, get financial, breathing room. Nothing says breathing room like having to pay for something three months later after you've digested it.

Yeah, it literally is a scam. That's amazing. Give me after pay.

After pay, get what you want, we.

Got you know what that is? You deserve that's. The cool uncle that used to go to his house and he'd go, hey, candy jar is over top of the stove. Go in there and get yourself some.

Know and you know you smoked a pack of Marlborough. Hey, kid, go get yourself well, I.

Was trying to give my best, but I mean, it's like that's absurd. It's literally like be immature. We all had that uncle or the grandparent that just didn't care. You know what I mean?

They're playing into our immaturity. They're playing into the toddler inside of all of us. Who says, I want it now? Well, I want to wait.

That's it. Until then, they're gaming us.

It's insane. And it's caused a generation of broke people. And if you search this on Twitter, people brag about how broke they are because of these buy now, pay later services.

I'll tell you, the one that gets me is the, know, like a pack.

Of soda, or like, I've seen that Walmart. You could get a pack of Cokes. You showed it to me on payments of, what?

Thirty seven cents a dollar?

Seventy eight for the next three months. That's a pack of coke.

And would they charge you interest if you didn't do that?

Oh, 100%. They all have different terms and conditions. But the bigger thing, Ken, is that it causes you to overspend. I mean, you saw that stat I showed you. From Klarna bragging to retailers, you're going to spend 45% more. If you're psychologically thinking, well, I'm spending less today, therefore I can put more in the cart. If I can spend 25% of that amount, I'll feel better about packing that cart.

George this speaks to the fact that these businesses exist and they're crushing it.

They're becoming billion dollar industries.

Somebody just woke up. These are smart people, by the way. You may say they're evil, sure, but maybe they're not. They're just smart and they're going, you know what? We have a culture of people who think they deserve everything, and they deserve it now.

And nobody has the money now because they're all broke.

Yeah, but they don't have any money because they're too busy getting stuff they deserve that they can't afford. And this really is a behavioral issue. We got a lot of new people joining us all the time, and a little mini rant on that. You've got to get to a point where you realize that delayed gratification is the secret sauce to success in any area of your life. Relationally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially, professionally. Learn how to say no to yourself. It's a game changer.

Short term convenience has a long term cost, Ken. Don't fall for it.

I don't have a mic in my hand, but I have a pencil, or otherwise known as a pencil. And I'll drop that. There it is, the Barbie reference. Full circle. Don't move. More Ramsay show coming right up.

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Welcome back to the Ramsay show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by George Camel. The phone number for you to jump in the shower isa. Let's go to Naisha in Dallas, Texas. Naisha, how can we help?

Hi, I am calling in because I need help with a budget, and my income is not I don't have enough income to cover my budget, and I'm behind. I'm repo, and I need to know, where do I start?

Well, you've got the dynamic duo for those two issues. Let's get the budget under control first. George, take it away, and then we'll work on some income stuff.

Yeah.

Naisha, give us a financial picture. How much do you make and how much debt do you have?

Okay, I make about 56 a year, and I receive child support about 10,000 a year. And I have about $215,000 in debt, and that does include my mortgage and my car.

Okay, so let's separate the mortgage out. We'll save that for later on down the road. What does the other debt add up to.

My car? That's $23,000. I have 9500 in student loans, and I have about 12,000 in credit cards.

Okay. This helps me now. So once we parse out the mortgage, it's looking like you have, let's see, about $45,000 in consumer debt.

Yes.

Okay. That gives us a number we can work with. Now, you said the car is about to get repoed. Are you behind on payments?

Yes.

How far behind?

I'm like two payments behind, and October, I think, will make three payments.

Okay.

I think October made three payments.

Can you sell the car? What's it worth?

So I've tried to sell the car, and dealers are offering me, like, 11,000.

Well, dealers are the worst place to go to sell a car because they're in it to make money. You want to sell it private party to someone who can give you a lot more for it. Have you looked at the Kelly Blue Book value? Private party, for what it's worth.

Not private party. I haven't.

Okay.

I've only did it. Okay.

My guess is that's going to be closer to 1516.

What is it? What kind of car is it?

It's a 2017 Infinity QX 60 that.

Should sell for a pretty penny.

How many miles?

I have 130,000 miles.

2017 Infinity QX, 6130 thousand miles.

Ken's doing some Beautiful Mind math in here somehow.

Well, I'm shopping for cars for teenagers. I'm pretty well versed in this. That should be getting private party. You should be getting in the $16 to $20,000 range.

There we go.

I absolutely believe that'll. Hold up. I think it's closer to 20. So we've got to look at that as a viable option. We'll come back to that if we have time, but you have got to get some help if you're not confident in that. How to put it on Facebook marketplace. Look up Kelly Blue book today. Put the vin number in. This will take you three minutes to get an actual, real number. Okay. Please do that, because I think you've got to look at that because that's going to change your life if you get rid of that debt.

Yeah. And that car is staring you down. I think getting rid of that would give you a lot of peace. It would just give you the student loan and the credit card to focus on, right?

Yes.

Okay. And do you have any money currently budget?

So I got paid today, and that was a short check. So I don't have any savings right now. No savings? I've already started trying to sell things good. So I can have an emergency fund.

Are you current on all of your other bills?

$1,200 right now.

Okay. You got $1,200 and you're current on all of the bills except for the car payment.

So my mortgage I did a repayment plan with that. My mortgage is normally $1,500 a month. The repayment plan added $1,000 onto my mortgage. So starting November 1, my mortgage payments will be $2,500.

You can't afford that, can you?

No, I can't.

What is this for payment plan about with the mortgage company?

Because I got behind.

Are you able to afford this house long term or do we need to.

Get rid of it long term? I can afford the house if I stick to a budget, and I got off my budget ish it really wasn't a budget. It was just I was paying bills regularly.

How long do you have to pay the extra 1000 for?

Six months. It's six payments.

That's most of your take home pay.

Right.

So which means we're going to get behind on the other payments, which means we're going to stay in this vicious cycle forever. How many kids do you have?

I have four. Two are in college. They have four rides, so they have tuition taken care of. And I have two toddlers.

Okay, bless you. How much is the house worth, do you think? If you were to put it on the market.

The house can sell for about 100, and I think 70 or $80,000. I've even considered putting it on. Putting it up for sale?

No, do not do for sale by owner, if that's what you're talking about.

No, actually, I had a realtor okay. And we were going to put it on the market. The only thing is what we needed to list it for. I needed more than that to find me another place to live and to pay my debt off.

Okay, well, you can go rent for a while, couldn't you?

I could, and the rent will be more than my mortgage.

Even with this payment plan, it's not.

Going to be more than $2,500.

So for me to find an apartment here in the Dallas area, two bedrooms are starting at, like, $1400.

Can you move further outside of the city?

I've considered that I have to be somewhat close to daycare, and I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses, but I've tried all of this.

Yeah, well, we don't hear excuses. We don't sound someone who is a warrior, who has been through a lot, who is in a really tough pinch. So we're not here to yell at you. We want to help you. We're trying to look at all of the options to help you get out of this mess as fast as possible.

That's right. And we're not saying that you need to sell the house. We're just asking is that a viable option? Because to the extent that we relieve pressure on you the quickest that we can, that's what we're trying.

I'd rather you be in control of the home sale versus it being forced through a foreclosure.

I agree. And you're staring down the barrel of that because with the Children Daycare, do you have the ability to work more to make some more money? Do you feel like I'm going to give you the increase your income bundle? Okay. It's got a bunch of goodies in it. Because I think we've got to increase your income to the extent, like, quickly to give you some breathing.

I have I've applied for another full time job to work, like on the weekends. I'm working overtime at my job. I also do crafts on the side, and I sell those. It's not consistent. It's not a consistent income revenue that I could even consider. I'm currently in two courses, two free courses. That is to get my life insurance license and to get my real estate license. I wrote a policy last night so I'll receive that income, but it's not immediately. It's delayed.

Okay.

All right. So here's what we need to to I want to give it back to George for a second. But what we are going to do naisha we're going to get you some free sessions on us with one of our financial coaches. We can't go into all the details that you need right now on the air and our coaches, it is going to be our gift to so I want you to stay on the line in just a moment and we're going to get you connected and they're going to walk you through the nitty gritty of the budget. And so here's what I wanted to tee George up on just to encourage you. George, what can she do right now, we're going to get her with Coach, but the budget side of things, if she begins to get control of the money, she's going to have a better chance of digging out.

Yeah.

Your A one is to create some margin, and the only ways to do that is to make more and to spend less. And it sounds like you're doing both of those things to the best of your ability. I think we might need to go to our credit union and get a small loan to cover the difference that you might be missing on that car when you sell it and get you something cheap right now, maybe a $6,000 car. $5,000 car to get you around for now that will get you out of this hole and give you some hope for the future. So hang on the line. Jen is going to pick up. We'll give you the increase your income bundle and those financial coaching sessions.

We wish you the best naisha you're going to get out of this. Hang on. We believe in you. This is the Ramsey Show, live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. This is the Ramsey show. It's where we help people win in their life, specifically their money, their work, and their relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by my colleague and dear pal George Camel. With A-K-K-A-M-E-L. That's right. Triple 8825-5225. Triple 8825-5225. And we're excited to be with you. We always enjoy being together. We have a lot of fun sitting in here together. We actually sit next to each other in the office. Double blessing. Well, double blessing. And we enjoy helping people. George is here to help you with your money. I'm here to help you with your work issues. Those work and money issues go hand in hand, and so we want to help you win in those areas today. Triple 8825-5225. Let's go to Tim, who joins us now in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Tim, how can we help?

Hello.

Hello, Tim. You're live on the Ramsay show.

All right. How are you guys?

We're having a blast. How can we help?

I work in the automotive industry and my job just got affected by, um.

Is that due to the strike?

Child support? Yeah, it's due to the strike. We're a supplier.

Okay. Have you been laid off?

Drowning? Not laid off, but I was able to work overtime and that was keeping me somewhat afloat due to excessive child support.

Okay. And so the overtime pay has gone away?

Yeah.

Okay.

So what are you making now?

Now? I haven't done the math yet. I just was told yesterday at the end of the day, and then today is the first day that my hours were hours were cut.

Okay. What do they cut down to?

8 hours a day. So a 40 hours week. I was working 50, 55 hours before.

Okay. So we're still at 40 hours. And that will cut your pay just by that hourly rate.

Right.

Okay. And you have no idea what that could be?

It's been a while since I've looked at my monthly take home, but I'm guessing that with this cut, I'm going to be taking home about $450 a week after all of the stuff is taken out of it. Garnished.

Oh, for child support?

Yeah.

Okay.

But I have to pay like, 70% of my income in child support right now.

Wow. Okay. And what's your question today?

What can I do to help out? I don't know how long this is going to last. I've talked to my boss about it, and he's not sure either. He's just like, I'm just doing what I'm told. I'd have you work more if I could, but he can only do so much.

Yeah. Well, let me also say that we don't know how long the strike is going to last. Is it going to continue to expand? Right now, it's just kind of a partial rolling out version of the strike. So nobody has any control over that. So you've got to take the initiative. And so you've already been working 55, 60 hours a week, if I heard you correctly. So guess what I'd be doing if I were you? I'd be working 55 to 60 hours a week. You got 40 with your current employer. You've got some skill set, you've got some experience, you've got connections out there, and you've got to go make some money, and you've got to stay where you are to stay afloat. And then you need to revisit things with your lawyer. It seems absurd to me. You're not making crazy money, have enough.

Money to pay him. He said, I'm not going to represent you anymore until you get me a lump sum and pay X amount per month.

Do you need to I do something.

Contact the courts and the judge and say, hey, we need to relook at this based on my new income?

Yeah, call the judge directly. You don't need a lawyer to show the judge your income.

How do I do that?

Well, recalculate it based on this new income?

Yeah. One of the biggest misnomers in the world is that you've got to have a lawyer in this situation because you're dealing with the judge. You're not arguing a divorce. The child support's already been established. The judge is the one that makes that decision. I'm just telling you what I would do. George, step in here. If I start to say something that's careless, but I would be on the phone with the clerk office of the judge and go, look, here's my situation. I can't even afford a lawyer, but I can show everything. I got my utilities, I got all the bills. This is my situation. I just got my hours cut. But it seems absurd that 70% of your income is going to child support.

My ex wife physically attacked me and then told the court that I had attacked her. And she basically has a kid, three of them, three daughters, just about full time. That's why, okay. The only thing somewhat saving me is the fact that there is some sort of limit on wage garnishment. Otherwise.

Now if you go make this side income, is that going to be garnished as well?

If I make side income, it might be okay if I don't exceed what I was making before the strike started, but anything I make above that, that's then going to determine the new level of child income. If I voluntarily, ever voluntarily decrease my income, then the child support remains at the higher level.

Man, I'm sorry to hear you're going through all this.

Yeah, that's a little bit more complex when you start talking about accusations of abuse and stuff like that, that's a different ballgame. So strike what I said from that. But I also would tell you that you have to make more income. Even if they take more of it, you still got to create margin for yourself. And then George, I think he's really got to figure out. So here's the deal. If I'm you because I want to turn it over to George on the budget stuff, you've got to cut, cut, cut everywhere you can. But I would tell you your a number one as soon as you hang up is how do you get 15 more hours at least keeping your income at the same level that you were at? George?

Yeah. What kind of debt do you have right now, Tim?

IRS, about 4000 attorney fees? About 26,000.

26,000 in attorney fees.

Right.

Was this all from the divorce to now?

Right. Apart from that, I would have no debt.

But they were okay doing all this without any payment?

Yeah. And then last December was the last time we had a conversation. He's like, no, I need a lump sum. $3,000 and then something like three to $500 per month in order to continue representing you.

Sounds like you need a new lawyer. But you still owe this guy money.

I still owe that guy money. Then I have nothing for a retainer for another guy.

And you've got the IRS debt. Anything else?

IRS lawyer back, child support. There's still about 4500 left in that man.

We have got to clean this mess up and get you to a good foundation. You are underwater right now, and I wish we had time to dig into it all, but what we need to do is revisit all this with the courts and go, listen, here's my income, here's all of my debts. I can't pay this child support going forward. We need to figure out a new plan whether that's I've said that in.

Court before, but they still said, well, it doesn't matter. You still owe this.

Yeah. I actually think George in this situation. His focus is needing to be let's go get more income. And you've got to get your budget under him. I'd love another financial coach session for him. Let's do it to get everything under control, figure out where everything's going, where it's coming in. Hang on the line. We're going to get you a free session with one of our great financial.

Coaches and they can dig into some resources locally for you as well.

Do what they tell you to do. They will build a map for you out of this. So sorry you're going through this. This is the Ramsay show. Fake it till you make it. It's popular career advice, but it doesn't work for very long if you don't love what you do. You can't fake the enthusiasm and energy you need to win at work. You also can't fake your physical health and energy. Everybody knows we should eat more fruits and veggies, but fruit chews and veggie tips don't count. If you aren't winning physically, I promise you're limiting your opportunities to win professionally. Folks, I know you're going hard right now to pay off debt and get ahead professionally, you need another gear. And that's why Balance of nature will help you. They help me. They give me the benefits of fresh, whole fruits and veggies in just seconds. The blend of 31 different fruits and veggies is powdered in an advanced process that locks in the nutrients. So go to balanceofnature.com and enter the promo code Ramsay to get 35% off your first order and lock in a lifetime price as a preferred customer. That's balancefnature.com with the promo code Ramsay for 35% off your first order.

Welcome back to the Ramsay show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by my colleague, George Camel. We are here for you this hour, triple 825-5225, taking your questions about your money and your work situation. Many times those are very intertwined and we're happy that you're here. Triple 825-5225. The Ramsay show question of the day is here and it's sponsored by our friends at neighborly, your hub for home services. Take your home's efficiency and style to the next level with convenient solutions from shelf Genie, Window genie, which, by the way, was George's nickname in high school, and Glass Doctor. Download the Neighborly app now to find and schedule home service professionals near you.

Thank you for that, Ken.

Yes.

Today's question comes from Layton in Arizona. When do you decide to get a new to you car? We're having no problems with any of them, but mine is almost at 150,000 miles. Do you wait until your car starts breaking down? Do you wait until it dips to a certain percentage of the original price or some other criteria?

I feel like that question is like custom made for you.

I love this question.

You probably have a hack for this and I'm actually interested to know.

I don't have a certain formula. I'm not a car guy. I put that in quotes because when people say they're car guys, all that means is they make really dumb decisions when it comes to their car buying and they justify it because they're a car guy.

I don't know. I think car guys are going to take offense to that. George. I think car guy.

Now, there's broke car guys and then there's Dave Ramsey, who's a car guy. So let me caveat it that not all car guys are created equal.

Okay? I think there's wannabe car guys, which is your classification, which is you. And there's car guys who like they like to get underneath the hood of a car. Oh, sure, they get the grease under the fingernails. They understand things like does it have a hemi?

Well, you see what I'm saying?

Yes, that's a car guy.

But financially, cars are depreciating assets. Some would call them liabilities. And so this is not an investment. So I'm a big fan of buying a new to you car. So buying a used car, unless you're a net worth millionaire, that's when you can get a new car, if you should so choose. And at that point, drive it to the wheels fall off if you want to get the maximum ROI. So she's saying, hey, it's at 150,000 miles. Do I wait until it's breaking down? You don't have to wait until it starts breaking down, but I would set up a car sinking fund.

I like that.

What that means is, in your budget, you set aside a certain amount every single month. Let's call it $200. That's $2,400 a year. And in two years, that's almost five grand. In four years, it's almost ten grand. And so over the years, as you drive this car, which most cars will go way longer than we allow them to, ken most people think, I got to get it's been four years. It's like an iPhone now. Got to get a new car. Ken I've had this one for four years. It's starting to smell a little bit, get it detailed. I promise you, a professional detail for $100 will make you go, oh, I got a brand new car.

Stop letting your kids throw the French fries in the floor.

There you go.

I mean, there's things we can do.

Here, and 150,000 miles depending on the car is not a lot of miles, right.

But I think you could see the handwriting on the wall. So I'm jumping into where you're at here, going, all right, if it's got 150,000 miles. But it's in really good shape, and I know I can get probably two more years out of it. Three more years without a lot of issues. Then I'm starting the sinking fund to your point. And maybe I sell it once I get the replacement fund where I needed to be so that I get the maximum money for it. Yes. So there's that to take.

Most of the depreciation has already happened when you hit 150,000 miles. And so if you're going to sell a car, you want to do it before it hits that hundred mark. That's where people start to get spooked. That's going to have all kinds of issues. But if this is a Honda or a Toyota, you yeah, I like how you think it goes 300,000 miles. I just checked the mileage on my car, I'm sitting at 181,000 and I'm going to ride that thing till yeah.

But it's a Tesla.

Yeah.

Miles don't matter on those things.

That's the thing. They can go up 500,000 or more battery. So all that to say, I don't see miles as an indication, necessarily, depending on the car. I like it, but you can get an inspection on it. And if you start to see things start breaking down, I'd get that sinking fund up and going. So that you are ready when that car does break down. Number one, you have the repairs fund going with your emergency fund, but also have a sinking fund ready for you to buy a new to you car. It's a great question, though.

Yeah, thank you for the question. Isaac is up next in Columbus, Ohio. Isaac, how can we help?

Hi. So I have a question. So, little backstory here. So my wife and I just got married two weeks ago.

Very exciting.

Oh, yes, thank you. So we have a little bit of debt between ourselves. She had to get a car about a year ago with her trade in and everything. That was about 8000. And then I think her car right now before interest is 18,000. My car is a little older. My car payment will be about 8500 to pay off, not including the interest. So I got about two more years on that expected and then a couple of thousand in credit card debts. Aside from that, we don't have any other debts. No student loans, we don't have a mortgage yet. We're wanting to buy a house and that's our largest goal. We want to be established in our first home before we start having children. We currently live in a one bedroom apartment and we're kind of busting out of the walls. We're not minimalists by any means.

Okay, hold on a second.

Yeah.

I want to set some expectations for you, my young friend. It's just you and the wife. There's no way you're busting it is unless it's a cardboard box. You're not busting out of it. You know what I mean?

Sure.

Do you have like seven cats or anything weird?

No, we actually don't have any pets because our apartment has a crazy $400 pet deposit.

Okay, good.

But you're not just have too much crap. You have to get rid of your crap.

Dude.

Go to Goodwill.

We are collectors, for sure.

Well, then, okay, but here's the point. The reason I jumped in here, I want to get you back on pace, but this is the kind of stuff that pushes you to make bad financial decisions on a house that you think it's just you and your wife get rid of all of her stuffed animals or something. Whatever's going on.

What are you collecting?

I don't understand how you guys are busting out of a one bedroom apartment.

Well, it's actually kind of funny. So we like geology and stuff like that. And we like artifacts, like just like crystals and arrowheads and just natural stuff like that. So we've got shelves of it, but we're trying to downsize. We give stuff away to people who like the similar stuff. We give it away as gifts so we can kind of maintain a healthy amount without hoarding.

Yeah, I was going to say, what's a healthy amount of arrowheads? I mean, how many let me tell you this. Can one person have we got.

Slow enough with the rock collection because we got a pile of debt to clean up. Now is not the time to be buying rocks.

Sure. Yeah. We're not really doing that. It's mainly just going out on going on trails in rivers and stuff. And stuff that we find. Okay.

And that's how you activity.

That's good. Well but I'm going to tell you to stop collecting rocks and arrowheads and start working extra jobs.

That's the thing. So for my job, I'm a home health aide and I live in the position. So three days a week I'm not home, and my base hours is 72 hours a week.

Oh, okay. I don't know how you have time to find arrowheads with that schedule.

You're not in the apartment long enough.

To hate it downtime.

Okay. What do you mean?

We're barely there. My wife is in the transitional period of her new job, so she just got hired. She starts the 23rd of this month.

Awesome.

So she's going to be making take home estimated about 700, $800 a week. I do about nine to eleven, depending on overtime.

Okay, so what would be your monthly take home pay between the two of you starting in a few weeks?

Between the two of us, it will be expected to be around six to $6,300.

Awesome. That's great news. So then the question becomes, how quickly can we pay off these cars and the credit cards making 6300 if we're doing nothing but focused on paying off debt?

Right. And that's actually how we got married so quickly. We didn't want to finance anything. We spent the past year, maybe 15 months maybe just absolutely saving everything we could, paying things as we go along, just being absolutely crazy with saving because we didn't want to put anything on the credit card.

Good.

And in fact, because of how crazy we did it, I wish we had had more savings by the time it was done.

Do you have any right now?

Yes, we have about $2,300.13 in cash and about 1100 in our savings account. Okay.

You have your baby step one, starter, emergency fund. The rest of this money needs to go towards paying off this debt. Do the debt snowball smallest to largest, get on a budget? We're not doing anything except paying off this debt. No rock collecting, no arrowhead collecting, nothing, man. Bust it. You got this.

Good stuff. Thank you, George. More coming up right after this. This is the Ramsay show. All right, america. We're here to help you win in your money, your work, and your relationships. This is the Ramsay show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Camel is with me today. Triple 8825-5225 is the number for you to jump in. Let's go to Seattle, Washington. Sandra is on the line. Sandra, how can we help?

Hi. I'm seeking wisdom, so I have two questions. The first one is, when should I sell my house? And the second is when should my husband find job he enjoys within the field he's in or call it good and go back to school. So I'm going to throw some numbers at you. We bring home together $125,000 a year. 74 of that is myself. The rest is my husband. We have $30,000. A little over 30,200 in debt. 1500 of that is consumer debt. 8700 of that is student loan. And 20 of that is a loan that my mom gave me to put down towards the house that we currently live in right now. The house that I live in, I think that I can get about 400 for it. I owe 200. So my initial thought was sell the house, list it January, sell it, put that money into a bond or some type of savings. And then while we let me back up a little bit, we are aiming to pay off all the debt, including my mom, by early March latest April. And so my thought was this would be the first time we ever have money in our hands.

It would give us a chance to restart, to let him really find a career that he enjoys, go to renting. And we don't have anything really holding us down. But I don't know if that's wise just because we're not drowning right now.

What's your reason for selling the house? Because it's not your consumer debt.

No. The neighborhood is going to craps. There was a drive by shooting right down the street. It's like our street is fine. It's everything around us is just there's a lot.

How far outside of Seattle would you need to go to find a safe neighborhood?

So I'm not in Seattle. I'm about 3 hours away in Tri Cities. But I guess to be actually in a safer neighborhood, I would be closer to my job. And I mean, the houses that we're looking at in that area are about 500.

Okay.

We were thinking so let's jump in.

Here for a second. If I were in your situation and the neighborhood around me was going to crap, I would be getting out of Dodge. And the fact that you've got some equity in this home right now is great. So you don't have to sell it to clean up the debt. I like the fact that with your husband's, I mean, he's still got some great income potential. So do you. And the fact that you're already on track to pay off this consumer debt in just about six months or less, that's great.

Are you saying you'd pay that off if you sold the house or regardless?

No, regardless. House is also old and it's breaking down. Like I'm driving beaters. My HVAC is going out.

Okay, sell it.

Okay. So then that would lead to the next question. So is it stupid for us to let that money sit for two years while he tries to figure out what he wants to do for a career? Is that unwise.

I don't think it's going to be two years. I'm not sure where you're pulling that number, but no, it's not unwise on the surface.

Well, number one, you're going to take the equity, whatever the profits you get from the sale of this house, and you're going to pay off the debt, which has 40K. You need an emergency fund, which is probably another 2025K.

Right.

So all of a sudden you've got 100K that's sitting in a high yield savings account parked for your future home purchase. I'm going to call it a down payment fund for a future home. Maybe you guys rent for a year, keep saving up, get yourself in a good financial spot. He gets the new job, great. Now we're ready to purchase a new home.

The question I've got is, are you guys wanting to stay in Washington state or as he's looking for this career, are you guys open to going anywhere?

We're starting to open our minds to going like it's taboo in our family.

I get that for the rest of.

Your family, you're going to end up resenting. It's a cultural difference. Yes, I will resent them. Yeah.

So we make that decision now that we're going to go where we feel led to.

Yeah.

All right, but let's keep it to the finance piece. I'd sell the house. George just told you what we would do next. You immediately finish baby step two instantaneously upon the account getting hit with your money left over after you've sold the home. And now you've got the emergency fund instantaneously. Now we put the rest of the money in a high yield savings account and your husband is getting after it. And I'll give him some great resources. I'll give him my get clear work assessment. Today my gift to you. And he's going to know maybe for the first time in his life, what he's really good at doing, what he loves to do and the results that motivate him. That's where the ideas come from as he begins to pick his professional path. And so then he figures out, all right, I know what I want to do, why I want to do it, where I can do it. Now how do I get qualified for it? That's the next part in the decision process. Hopefully he doesn't have to go back to school, but if he does, you guys cash flow it maybe can get by with some certifications or qualifications.

I announced on my show today, Walmart just went public, one of the next big companies, one of the latest rather to say that they're moving a lot of corporate jobs into a situation where you don't need a degree. So as this economy evolves a degree I'm just going to put this out there really quick. If it's not the only way or the best way for your husband to get qualified to do what he wants to do, don't assume that college or degree is necessary. Can we start there?

Yeah, I guess my concern is so he's a mechanical engineer, and he's, like, talking about going to teaching. So that's the other reason for some I mean, that's a big drop from the 125 that we're at right now.

Well, you're making 74, he's making 50. He's making 50. Well, he's not making a lot of money for a mechanical engineer. In fact, I would say he's at the bottom. So if he wants to be a teacher well, I want to operate with facts. Okay.

Yes.

The median salary for a teacher in the United States right now is around $63,000, give or take. It may be 61, last time I checked, but it's somewhere in that range, so that's not a drop for him.

Yeah.

And so let me also say this. If he wants to think about teaching, he needs to hang out with some people that are teaching in the spaces that he thinks he wants to teach. Is it higher ed? Is it K through twelve? He needs to spend some time with people that are doing that and figure out if, in fact, that's what he wants to do.

Okay.

All right.

That's very important. But I think you guys know what we want you to do. Financially, this is pretty straightforward, but for him, going forward, it's what does he want to do? Let's get around people that are doing that, and let's figure out, after I've talked to them and I've heard the good, the bad, and the ugly, do I still want to do that? Because America needs more teachers. But I will tell you that America needs to fix the classroom situation so that we don't have the teachers that are leaving at the level that they're leaving right now. It's a four alarm dumpster fire. And so before you go into teaching, he needs to know what he's dealing with. It's not the teacher's fault, by the way, but it is an increasingly tough environment. So I want him to be sure that that's what he wants to do.

Yeah, no, me too. I mean, he worked as a para when he was doing his undergrad, but I don't know if that's enough experience for him. Yeah, no, I think what you're saying is perfect. I think that would be very wise for him.

Yeah. You asked for wisdom.

Yeah.

That's about the wisest thing he can do before he picks a new path. Sit. Shadow. Sit with people that are doing it. Shadow them. Get a good look, or else it's just this romanticized idea, and he has no idea. I want to sit with a teacher at the end of the day who's had one of the worst days of their life and go, Why? Was it awful? And then I want to know, am I willing to do that? And if the answer is yes ding, ding, ding. We got a winner. So I really appreciate the question, but that's financially told you what to do. I would love for them to move quickly on this because, by the way, George, this will take the financial stress out of the decision.

Oh, 100%.

He's not going backwards if he goes into teaching. Not right now.

Yeah, we'll get that income back up in no time. And you're going to continue to make more money. So I'd make the necessary repairs you need to make on this house to sell it, to get what you need for it, and I'd get rid of this debt. Get yourself in a good financial spot, and we can work on his career from there.

Yeah, good stuff. Hang on the line. We'll get you the get clear assessment for your husband. This is the Ramsay show.

Folks.

Changing your family tree takes more than rice and beans and side hustles. It's also about transferring the big financial risks off your family by having the right kinds of coverage in place. That's why my team created the coverage checkup quiz. It only takes about five minutes to find out what types of insurance you need and don't need to protect your finances. Make this quiz one of your regular checkups, starting right now@ramsaysolutions.com. Checkup. That's Ramsaysolutions.com checkup.

Welcome back to the Ramsay show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Camel joins me. The phone number is triple 8825-5225. All right, George, who needs to call us today? Well, yeah, we got a lot of new people all the time, and this idea of, well, they've been listening call in show is intimidating for some people. So what kind of calls do you.

Think this is the day to call? I think you and I are the least intimidating bunch of guys you could run into in an alleyway.

By the way, the studio audience is also validating this. I mean, who's going to be scared to talk to us? Look at us. We're not big men.

Number one, I take offense to that.

You do?

I never said it wasn't true. I just said I take offense to it.

I'm fine being just an average sized guy. I'm okay with it. We have giant personalities.

That's true. Well, there's a lot of people out there, Ken, because I get these DMs on instagram all the time, and people say, hey, I need help, and I go call the show. I can't help you over a DM. It's not a good format.

Yeah, they'll call me up and go, ken, listen, I'm in a situation here where my boss is doing this. I feel like I'm being overlooked. I've got a promotion over here, blah, blah. And they give me all these details. I can't answer that in M. We.

Have to have the back and forth.

Too much thumbs. And so here's the deal. It's a free call. Are you aware of this? A toll free number.

George, if times get tough, we could start charging.

We could. Triple 8825-5225 is the number you got a work question. You feel like you're stuck, you feel confused? I don't know what I want to do with my life. I want to pivot. I want to make more money. Is starting a job? Is starting a company the way to get out of debt? Anything related to that? George will take any of the budget.

Can we do something fun? Next person that calls in with a career question gets your get clear assessment for free.

How about fact? We'll go above and beyond that. We'll also give them the increase your income bundle, the whole thing. So you get my book from paycheck to purpose. You get the assessment. To get clear work assessment, I'm calling the show. You get the get hired course. I have a whole course. There's a lady out there now. She's trying to call in.

You can't call in from the lobby.

The lobby doesn't count. I'll just give it to you because I'm nice. All right. Because you're so nice out there. All right.

That's fun crowd.

I thought you were going to say a fun topic. We should say we're going to take calls on this now.

That feels risky.

All right.

Too dicey. We have let's get to the calls. Ken speaking of which, speaking of which.

People, now the phones are lighting up. That's all we had to say is that we were going to be nice. Scott is on the line in Indianapolis. Scott, how can we help George?

Ken thanks for taking the call. I'm intimidated by you guys, but I don't have a work question, so I guess I flunk the test.

I'll figure out something again.

I'll tell you what, I'm going to think of something. While George answers your finance question, I'm going to come up with something to give away.

All right, guys. So I really have kind of two issues going on side by side. I have a wife. I'm trying to come up with something to help her join me on managing her budget. Right now, she's kind of refusing to get involved. And along those same lines, we have a large purchase we're considering. It's expensive and time critical and really be a good time to get on the same page.

And we're not really who wants to make this purchase?

We both do.

Okay. What is the purchase? Can you tell us?

I'm 56, she's 40. And we want another kid. We want to purchase a kid. Help doing it.

Are you joking when you say purchase a kid?

No. Using IVF.

Oh, okay. I had to ask. It threw me off.

Okay. So where are you guys at financially today? As it stands, do you have any debt and what's your income?

The only debt we have, we're Davish, so we do things a little different. No mortgage, no payments. We've been married for two years. I brought in the debt of about 18,000. That's down from 100,000. And that was medical bills from my previous wives.

Okay. So you still have the medical bills?

Yes.

Anything else?

No.

Okay. And what's the household income.

Combined, we make about the same. We're doing about 9000 a month.

Awesome. Okay. That's a great shovel. So we can clean up this medical debt quickly. Do you have an emergency fund?

Yes.

Okay, so you're right on the Davish part, and you're trying to get her on board. What is the current hesitation on her part?

Well, just a little background. She was raised poor family. Her previous marriage was he was an overspender, and she had to manage the books. I managed the books in my marriage, so I thought it'd be kind of a great combination coming together. I made the mistake of saying, well, since you've never had money, I'll let you keep your income in a separate account.

Oh, boy.

Yeah.

So you guys currently don't have combined bank accounts.

Right.

And it's because two previous marriages, there was financial trauma that happened in various ways, it sounds like.

Right.

So there's a very kind of scarcity mentality from her upbringing, plus the financial abuse that she experienced in her previous marriage. So she's coming to the table with a lot of financial baggage that we have to get to the root of. And do you feel like you're triggering a lot of this when you're talking, hey, I'm going to manage this. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to get on the budget, and she's starting to get a little skittish about the whole thing.

Yeah. It's probably at that point where I'm aggressively trying to get her involved, and it's pushing her away, I think.

Well, what is her longing? Is she wanting a child? What's the real why behind why should she get on this budget? What's in it for her?

Yeah, then that's what I've been trying to actually use, is we've got this. We don't really have the money for it, but if we work together on this and I've thrown out a couple of offers as far as if she gets paid for her summer work or I get end of year bonus, we can go ahead and use that money for it. The chance of success is only 25%, so obviously I'm a little reluctant with those ODS to even go into this venture. I'm willing to try.

All right, let's talk about the relationship part. So obviously, you're not on the same page, and I'm guessing that you've said to her multiple times, I want us to combine bank accounts and all this and work together. Has she just said full stop, no way, I'm not interested?

Yes.

So it's non negotiable to this point. She said, no, thanks.

Yes.

All right. How bad does she want a child at 40?

Badly.

And you've told her, we don't have the money to afford it. What does she say to that?

I think she's willing to go into debt for that. And that's where I've kind of said we need to see a couple of things first before we do that. Okay.

And how'd that go over?

I think she's just driven to she wants to try for another child.

Let me read between the lines. So she said no. You said we need to combine our incomes, finances, all this. She said no. Then she said, I want a baby. And you said, okay, but we don't have the money, so we need to do this, this and this. And her reply was, I don't care, I want the baby. I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable, but this is important. Is that what I'm hearing? She's like, thanks, but no thanks. We're doing it. Yes, my friend.

This is like you guys are misaligned on core financial values.

Well, this is going to wreck your relationship. I want you to fast forward for 30 seconds. You go ahead and give in because she's dug in. And so we either come to a compromise of what we both want, she wants the baby, you want to pay cash for it, we compromise on that or we don't move forward on this. That's my position and it ought to be your position because if you give in and this isn't about right or wrong and it doesn't work, which there's a 75% chance it doesn't work, I'm hoping for the best. My wife and I went through it. It did not work for us. So I'm speaking from a place of intimate knowledge of the situation. We paid cash. You will resent her tremendously. And I also got news for you. She'll probably want to try again. Now, you think about that future because I think this is a difficult conversation and probably with a marriage counselor or a pastor. That's what I think this is.

Yeah, I've listened to the show enough where that's probably what I was thinking. The advice was going to be, well.

This is just such an emotionally charged conversation because we're not just talking about a frivolous purchase of a pool, okay? This is our family we're talking about. So, Scott, hang on the line. I'm going to do my best effort to get you guys on the same page by gifting you one year of Financial Peace University. Have her watch all the lessons. Just have her say, hey, all I'm asking is that you sit down and watch these lessons with me. And I'm also going to give you every dollar premium to make budgeting even easier. And what you're going to do, it's not I'm handling it or you're handling it. We're going to look at this together and craft a plan to help us create this future both financially and for our family. So hang on the line. We'll give to you those resources.

Good stuff, George. Good hour. Thank you, America, for listening. This is the Ramsey Show, live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. This is the Ramsey show. It's where we help you win in your life, specifically winning with your money, winning in your work, and winning in your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by George Camel. Phone number for you is triple 8825-5225. Triple 825-5225. We love taking your questions. We're going to be nice. We're going to try to be entertaining as well as equip you to move forward. And if you don't like the jokes and the little side comments, well, you can tune in when two other channel, they'll change the channel. Just another day, it'll be two other people. But I'm getting more and more. George, the little comments about the root beer float, which we were once referred to by a listener, was this comments.

A podcast review on I believe it was a podcast. We appreciate that.

So more and more people are saying they like the root beer float. So we don't know who's the root beer we don't know who the vanilla is. George has his opinions. I don't know if I agree. I digress.

I think you're the float. I think I'm the root beer. You're the float.

Well, it's the same thing, the root beer float. You mean the vanilla ice cream?

Yes.

You think I'm the vanilla ice cream?

You're smooth, you're cool, you're liked by everyone.

I don't know if that's true.

Root beer. Not everyone likes that flavor, Ken, but.

It'S got a little bit of spice to it. Little zing. And that's you.

Little Zing. Little Zing.

I see what you're doing there. All right, we'll get off of that topic quickly and move to Las Vegas, Nevada. Where? Or is it Nevada? Nevada. Nevada.

It's Nevada, technically, but Nevada in my heart.

Can I get a ruling in the booth? Is it Nevada or Nevada? What do you think?

Most people think anyone that lives there will say, including Sarah, she's going to say it.

Okay. Sarah will tell us. Sarah, you're on the Ramsey show. Is it Nevada or Nevada?

It's Nevada, and that's the only way.

Okay. I will start to change it because I lean towards the ah, not the ah.

All right. Nevada.

Okay. How could we help?

So I am actually selling my house and moving out of Nevada and building a new house in Denver, Colorado. So between houses, my family and I, we have about four to six months, and we're going to have about half a million from the sell of this house, cash that we take away. What should we do with that half a million while we're just waiting about the four to six months until we put it down on our next house.

Okay, so there's going to be a gap of six months between the sale of this one and the purchase of the next one. And you just want to know where to park it?

Yeah.

Okay. If I'm in your shoes, I'm going to go with a high yield savings account.

Okay.

And that would be do you have a spouse yeah. Okay. You want to make sure that it's FDIC insured. And that would give you each two hundred and fifty K of protection, which would be perfect if you have 500K sitting in that joint high yield savings account.

Okay.

And that'll give you about 4%, some of these 5%, maybe even a little more. And you take $500,000, I mean 100,000, you have 5%. That's five grand. Right. So we're talking 25 grand in one year. So split that in half. You're going to make twelve grand guaranteed if the interest rates don't change.

Okay. Sounds good.

So I would not invest the money. I wouldn't put it in A-0-I would just find a decent high yield savings account and you'll be good to go there. Congratulations.

Thanks. What are your thoughts on treasury bonds? Should I stay away from that?

I would stick with the high yield savings account because we're seeing the very similar rates without any restrictions for taking the money out early and all of that. So I'm a fan of the high yield savings account right now for that temporary parking spot. Okay.

And just roll it all over. That's exciting. You love taking that call.

Well, we get a lot of crisis situations. This is a good problem to have. Where do I park half a million dollars?

And nothing against our good friends in Nevada, but moving from the desert to the Rockies, different landscape, that's a very different deal. Speaking of the Rockies, Darcy is joining us somewhere near Denver, Colorado. Darcy, how can we help?

Hi, George and Ken. Thank you so much for taking my call.

You bet. What's up?

So my husband and I are really stuck on baby step three. We're losing money out of that fund, like every month. We can't seem to figure out this budgeting thing. But I think that my husband should withdraw enough money from our traditional Roth to pay off our house.

How old is he?

And he'll be 59 and a half next October. But the backstory is that the house mortgage payment is 50% of our income. We both hate our jobs. And I'm probably about to be fired because the state has filed a civil rights discrimination case against my employer.

You got a lot going on there.

Yeah, we got over a million. I can tell you any numbers.

You want to know what's left on the mortgage?

I'm sorry?

What's left on the mortgage? What's the balance?

467,000.

And what is your household income? Right now?

Our household income is about 7000 take home.

7000 take home. Okay. And what's in your nest egg in all the retirement accounts.

Okay. So our traditional Roth has $778,166. Our first Roth, which is my husband's, has 17,509. The second Roth, which is mine, has 12,551. My husband has a 401 in his work and that has about 80,000 in it. He wasn't totally sure. And I am an educator, so I'm under the state para. Program. And I have 54,721.

Okay, great. So we're close to a million in our nest egg, and you're saying I want to rob half of my entire nest egg to pay off the house.

Well, the house is worth at least $600,000, but it's half of our income. It's 50% of our take home.

I understand that. What I'm worried about is your house doesn't produce any income, and so you're living in this house, and now you have less than $500,000 to live on for the rest of your life. Am I correct?

Well, no, because if we sell the house, we'll end up with $600,000 at least.

Okay, but I'm saying I don't want you to have to sell your house that you love. I want you to be able to retire with dignity and not have to go, oh, we're broke. We have to sell the house. So while it's great you guys have a great net worth, I'm just looking forward going, is robbing this Roth a year from now the best idea? And it sounds like you want to rob the Roth earlier than next October.

No, I'll wait, but my husband is totally against it for, he says, tax reasons, but we're stuck on baby step three, and we just can't figure out.

Well, it sounds like we got to stop having life just happen to us and get ahead of things and get better maintenance on things. And these emergencies aren't going to keep hitting you. We're going to figure out the job situation. But right now, I would not make any big moves. I would stay put. And worst comes to worst, sounds like you might need to sell your house, but I would not rob your retirement instantaneously.

And I'd get very serious, very intentional to get new gigs very soon. This is the Ramsey show.

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Today.

That's Ramsaysolutions.com tax.

The Ramsay show continues. Thrilled to have you with us. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me. Triple 8825-5225. Triple 8825-5225. Let's go to Phoenix, Arizona. Anthony is on the line. Anthony, how can we help?

Hi there, gentlemen. Good afternoon. So I'm coming up on my first eligible retirement date. I currently work in public safety, so I'll have a defined pension benefit on that date. Coming up, I'm kind of battling a lot of compassion fatigue as well as burnout in my current job and wondering if I should retire and try to pursue a second passion and a second career. I love to travel so being a travel agent or something like that. Our total household debt right now is about $20,000, not including our mortgage, since the interest rate is practically free at this point. So if I were to retire, I'd walk away with my defined benefit, plus about an additional $30 to $40,000. So I would have the startup cost, and we would be debt free going into it. And I just don't know if it's the smartest. I can keep I can keep working, and the pension goes up, and the other investment nest egg accounts continue to grow, but I don't know.

Yeah, I think you do.

I think you do. My guess, Anthony, is your head and heart are in a wrestling match, and so that's why you called today. I think your head's telling you to stay in the guaranteed thing that you know, that has the pension, and I think your heart's telling you to leave.

Yeah, but I guess I just don't know which one to fall. I guess I just don't know which one to follow.

Well, just confirm that. I'm guessing you're saying I'm right, that your heart's telling you to leave.

Yeah. I love the job that I have, but it's just one of those I wake up every morning and everything's great, and I start to drive into work and I'm like, oh, my God, do I have the emotional energy to do this one more day?

What are you doing?

I'm a homicide detective.

Yeah.

It'S a pretty heavy job.

Yeah, I can't even begin to comprehend that, so I won't try. But let me ask this. This is interesting to me. Well, let me ask you this. What part do you love? Tell me the part about being the detective that you love.

Solving the cases and giving families closure.

Okay, so it's the investigative part, tearing into it, digging, putting the puzzle pieces together, and then after doing all that, giving answers to the family, that's the part you love. The part that burned you out is just all the trauma and all the disgusting stuff with it, correct?

Yeah, it's kind of the trauma, the disgusting stuff, the fighting with the attorneys, fighting with internal politics and drama within the job.

All right, I'm going to throw something.

Out that should be exhausting.

If you didn't have to deal with that, would you be calling us about this issue? If we took the disgusting trauma and all the fight, but you were just doing the investigative part to get to the bottom of something, to give some sense of closure? If we just kept it there, would you be calling us?

I don't know.

I'm going to say that I don't think you would. And I'm not trying to talk you out of the travel agent job. I'm going to tell you to pursue the travel agent thing on the side.

Okay.

But I want you before you walk away, I want you to take some time and not a lot of time because I think you're probably getting to your limit of trauma and just junk. I just wonder if there's another role that involves the investigative side, the puzzles, the closure. I just wonder if there's not another role that way in doing that work that doesn't involve the trauma. And, I mean, I'm a little bit limited here because I'm not in that world, but I think you know what I'm talking about. Is that fair?

It is. I've spoken with the spouse about that to try to figure out what that would look like. There's not a lot of appetite for anything that would be more dangerous than.

No, but here's the deal. I'm pushing against that. I don't know that it has to be dangerous. I wonder if you were like, maybe investigating financial crimes or investigating I don't know, I mean, maybe insurance fraud or could you work for big insurance companies? I mean, I'm really trying to brainstorm here, but I know there's more out there that don't require you to be CIA, FBI and all that. I'm just telling you I think it's worth kicking the tires. Do you understand what I'm saying?

No, I do.

Because here's the deal. If we remove the trauma and the danger and we are mostly 80% of our day in the investigation and putting the puzzle pieces together and giving closure, man, that could be really great. And it involves good retirement plans, 401 KS, George, all the investment piece. I at least want to kick the tires. But while I'm looking for that, I'm also going, all right, let me make the moves, and let's pay the debt off, and let's get the travel agent thing going on tight because it's going to take some time on the travel agent thing to get the income up to where you are. You do realize that?

Oh, no, absolutely. Yeah, I totally recognize that. If I were to leave public service and law enforcement, the difference between my take home now and my take home in retirement is zero. I'm going to be bringing home the same. So anything I do above and beyond that is extra.

Okay.

So I'm still going to hold to what I'm saying. I think you should kick the tires to see if I can find something that I love.

Yeah, I like a related role that maybe isn't as on the scene, maybe behind the scenes a little bit more.

But if you can't find it, you're not going backwards financially, and you get a chance to take a shot at this. So I would just consider that.

I'd also go talk to people who are doing independent travel agent work full time and take them out to dinner, coffee and say, hey, how did you get into it? How did you get to where you are today doing this full time and see if it's something you'd like to do. They might be able to kick you some of the smaller gigs and start to get a taste of it and that's something you can absolutely do on the side right now versus jumping ship. Completely hoping that it's going to work out.

Maybe Anthony could book the Camel Coleman vacation.

Now we're talking. You got your first client, Anthony. Sounds great.

Hey, man, we appreciate we just eat something with a lot of shuffleboard activities. George is really big into shuffle.

Putt putt. I've been known to kick Ken's butt in some putt putt.

This again. You beat me one time because I basically know I'm and it's still the.

Greatest day of my life. And the fact that your wife got to watch me decimate you in mini golf is one of the greatest joys known to man.

I wanted to point out the audience right now that George a did win, but he struggles with proper uses of adjectives. There was no decimation going on. You snuck in somehow because you hit it through the elephant's mouth, out the ear and it went in the last hole. Something of that was Ken claims he.

Was phoning it in that day.

I promise you I was phoning it in you and any competitive sports thing is phoning it in just by nature of being there and I love you. I'm trying to get him out on the pickleball court, folks, America needs to see George Campbell and Ken Coleman in a pickleball match. I can tell you right now we're getting a lot of bobbleheads out in the audience.

There's a lot of things America needs right now. I don't think you and I playing pickleball is one of them.

I disagree because there's a lot of dark stuff going on in the world today. Inflation's there. People need to laugh. I promise you, if you and I played pickleball live on YouTube, coleman Campbell charity, we could raise some money for.

Something good, at least $100.

We need to get Rachel out there. Deloney Jade. I'd ask Dave to get out there, but he's no chance.

You're now involving people who have athletic ability. I'm out.

Well, I have athletic ability. You forgot about that. Okay. I need a rematch. I need a rematch so that I can gloat when I beat you in pickleball.

No, I think I'm going to just take my win and go home.

I love it. We are having a good time. Hey, every dollar webinar, I got to mention that really quick. George, tell folks why they need to be a part.

Yes.

We've been doing these Rachel, Jade warshaw and myself. It's totally free. You can sign up@everydollar.com, slash budgeting, and for an hour we're going to sit with you, show you how to create margin by using EveryDollar show. You the ins and outs of the product. And we've had great response. Thousands of people show up on these virtual calls. You can watch the replay later. If you miss it and can't make the time, so go sign up regardless. Everydollar.com slash budgeting we've got one coming up next week.

Just occurred to me. I need to do a pickleball webinar nope. On that hard pass. You think so? All right. We'll see. I'm going to talk to Dave about it. This is the Ramsey show.

Here at Ramsey Solutions, we're on a mission to bring hope to the hopeless. We've helped millions find peace in their money and their life, and we need people like you to help us. We have open roles in our sales, marketing, and technology teams. We offer financial, developmental, and health benefits to help you live a balanced life while doing life changing work. You want to join the Crusade? See our openrolls@ramsesolutions.com careers and apply today. That's ramsaysolutions.com careers.

All right, folks. Welcome back to the Ramsay show. Triple 8825-5225 is the phone number to jump in. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell is with me, and we are taking your calls about your life, your money, your work, your relationships. Let's go to Nathan, who's on the line in Charleston, South Carolina. Nathan, how can we help?

Hey, guys. How are you doing?

Doing well. What's going on?

So me and my wife need a little bit of guidance, if you guys don't mind. So we are freshly married the last two years. We got married when we got married, we bought a house in our hometown, and I went in and I gutted the entire thing and redid it. And that was back when the interest rates were down in the low twos, and we end up gaining quite a bit of equity in it. We got about 135,000 in equity, and we actually put God calling us out of there. So we end up moving about three months ago, about 8 hours away to South Carolina. She's in ministry. And so I ended up renting my house out when I moved. We're currently renting down here. I've been renting my house out when I moved, mainly because my parents have six paid off rental homes, and that's basically all they do now. They're retired, and they said they take care of it, and it's bringing in good money. But we are currently in about $90,000 of student debt, and I am wondering if we should sell the home, pay off our student debt, and kind of have a good three to six month emergency at that point.

We have about three months saved up right now, but that's kind of where we're at.

Okay, well, my guess is you called on the show. You know what my answer is going to be? Sell the house. Yeah. That's great that your parents are there as kind of the property management crew. But as it stands today, if you're living in Charleston, would you go buy this property as a rental?

No.

And the fact that you've got all the debt on the other side and it sounded like you were excited about it propelling your financial future, you become completely debt free with a fully funded emergency fund with money left over to start funding your next goal. Which I assume is going to be being a homeowner in Charleston.

Correct? Yeah, we're looking to do that. Maybe start a family. So I'm just thinking more about getting out of debt to better do that. I know long term I want to rent a property. It's kind of what my parents taught me. But again, they've paid off all theirs, so it makes a little bit of difference.

And guess what? When you tell your parents about this, they're going to go, oh, my gosh, don't listen to those. You should keep the rental property. We'll take care of it. It's fine. You can put a little bit down on your next house while you still have your student loans. You'll be okay. Is that what they would say, you think?

Yeah, probably. So they don't like that either, though, so I don't know. They bought their rental homes in cash as well. They kind of run that same game.

That's what's up. Well, I'd take after mom and dad, then. And go. That's my goal. I want to become a homeowner. I want to pay my place off because you guys are young. How old are you?

225.

That's amazing. So let's fast forward, right a year from now, you have no debt, fully funded emergency fund, well on your way to saving up a down payment, correct?

Correct. Now, too, yeah.

And then you'll have a house in Charleston. Let's aggressively get that thing paid off and then let's start saving up for an investment property. And my guess is by the time you're in your early thirty s to mid 30s, you're going to have a paid for investment property. Well, that sounds like forever from now, but let me tell you, man, you got a good 70 years left on this earth. You got plenty of time, Lord willing.

Well, I really appreciate it, guys.

Yeah, you bet. Thank you for the call.

That's awesome.

Yeah. Love that. How about your old neck of the woods, mary joining us in Boston, Massachusetts. Mary, how can we help?

Hi, thank you for taking my call. I'm 55 and I'm working full time. I'd like to know whether I should put my money towards paying off my HELOC or credit card bills. And my credit card bills are mostly for schooling. I'd like to change careers eventually, and so I'm studying at the same time. My credit card bills have zero interest for a year, and my HELOC is at 1.9% also for a year, and the HELOC is at 95,000.

And what about the student loans?

Excuse me?

How much do you have in student loans?

I don't have any student loans. It's credit card bills.

Okay. On the credit card, how much is on there?

Yeah. 17.

Okay, great. And what's your income?

I make about 97 a year.

Okay. I'm focusing on these credit cards ASAP and this HELOC, we can put that next what's left on the mortgage?

There's no mortgage.

Just the HELOC.

Yes.

Okay, well, that makes it real easy. I'm going to put all my focus on this credit card at the 0%, and not because it's the interest rate, but because it's the smallest debt.

Okay.

And making 97, you could pay this off, what, in, let's say, another six months on the credit cards.

Yes.

And then in another two years to get rid of the HELOC. Yes, that would be my plan.

Well, that's what I'm nervous about, is that it's going to go to prime afterwards.

When does the HELOC go to prime?

It'll go July of next year. 2024.

Well, you're not going to be able to pay it off earlier than that anyways. Right, right. So it sounds like we made what we call a stupid tax is what we're going to pay on this, and we're going to get rid of it super fast. We're going to get really aggressive about this. Do you know what the rate might go to at that point?

No.

I'm guessing well, right now they're saying about seven point whatever, but who knows?

You will survive it, but you kind of touch the hot stove and you go, that didn't feel good. Not doing the HELOC again, right?

No.

And you got a great.

Yes. I ended up buying a house, and it ended up costing me. It was next door to my parents. My mother is sick, so I ended up paying more than I wanted to or else I would have lost it, and I had to gut the whole thing. So that's really why it ended up costing me a little bit more. But also I have about 20,000 in savings I'm just kind of holding off for emergency fund. Should I use any of that to pay anything down or just keep that? Absolutely.

Let's get rid of this credit card debt today. Even sitting at 0%, it's going to clear up the payment. You're going to be free to focus on that HELOC and get this done even faster. And if an emergency comes up, you're going to pause these baby steps that we're talking about, and you're going to aggressively attack whatever emergency has come up, sell stuff, make more and cover it. And likely you're not going to have a $10,000 emergency coming up. It's going to be those ankle biters, those $200, $500. And so that's what I would be focused on is just following these baby steps through. Baby step $1,000. Baby step two. All consumer debt gone using the debt snowball method.

Okay, great. Okay.

Yeah. We're cheering you on, Mary.

Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you. Absolutely call. Awesome stuff. Love that. When people get that, they see the light bulb kind of go off, like, oh, I can actually do this. This is doable.

Well, there's so many options and it can be overwhelming. And so just to have a filter, you can lay down and go, okay, I'm going to filter it through this. I want to get rid of the debt. The smallest one will get knocked out the fastest. I've got money in the bank I could use. The problem is dealing with the fear of, oh, my gosh, I'm going to go down to $3,000 in savings and I work hard to get up to that 20.

What's the best way to overcome that? I've heard you, we've talked a lot, but I'm just curious. You've coached a lot of people. Now, what is the best way to overcome that fear?

Well, number one, they have to realize the money has someone else's name on it already. It may be in your account, but when you owe someone $20,000 and you have $20,000 sitting in savings, you don't really have 20,000 in savings. Your body is keeping the score, as the book says, and therefore, you're not truly safe. You have the illusion of safety, which is sometimes scarier because we get lulled into a sense of comfort. And so part of getting over that fear is seeing the freedom on the other side and starting to paint that transformational picture of here's what happens. You got no payments. Think about how that would feel. Think about what that does for your budget and your finances and how much faster you can tackle the next debt. That's what I found helps most people get over that hump.

So are you saying that there is a, for lack of a better word, a chemical transformation? When you walk through those two exercises that you just gave us, the perspective of, it's really not my money, I owe it to somebody else. And then once I eliminate that debt and all those feelings, even though I only have two grand or one grand left in my mercy fund you're saying that stress is far less the chemicals with that stress is far less than what you're experiencing.

To give you some Ken Coleman alliteration, I think it turns the fear into fuel. When you have a $1,000, you're like, I'm not safe. Things are not okay. And I go, yeah, now you understand what's really happening. This is the reality that your financial situation has been and when you follow this proven plan, millions of people have done it. So this is not something that has a lot of risk involved.

Turn your fear into fuel. I love the alliteration. It's another pencil drop, or as we say here what is it?

A pencil drop.

Is that good? Austin's rolling his eyes. I'll have to go check on him in the booth. Don't fear. More puns up next and your calls. This is the Ramsay show. Welcome back to the Ramsay show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by George Camel. The phone number is triple 825-5225. Our scripture of the day comes from Proverbs 13, verse 20. Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm. And our quote today from Thomas Soul, four words today in the quote. Thomas doesn't need a lot of words to drop the depth.

That's it.

Intellect is not wisdom. OOH, you got to sit there and think about that one for a moment.

Well, it takes intellect to understand it.

Well, intellect is not wisdom, in other.

Words, which kind of is wisdom in and of itself. It's kind of wisdom.

It is. Knowledge is overrated.

It's pretty meta.

And all you got to do is hang out on Ivy League campuses.

Oh, I thought you were going to say Twitter.

No, Twitter would be the opposite. Twitter is any fool can type. That's what my big quote about. Twitter would be. Just, okay, I'm going to fire off some opinion. Doesn't matter if it's honest, doesn't matter if it's right. Just there we go.

It feels good to get it out.

Feels good. Venting Alexander is up next in Orlando, Florida. Alexander, how can we help?

Hi. Big fan of the show. All right.

Hey.

Thank. You. How can we help?

So I'm 22 years old. My apologies. And I just got an unarmed security job which pays $18 per hour full time, and I get paid weekly. And I have a bit of a dilemma because and there's unlimited overtime when it comes to that job. I'd say 2021. My parents, which I am grateful for, gifted me a 2018 MercedesBenz, and they were going to take care of all of it, and I was just grateful for it. Who wouldn't be? And so their business within the last year, I'd say, kind of went down drastically to where they're basically in survival mode and they had to put the payments on me. So I'm trying to see how I could possibly get that done, because the payments per monthly on the car note is 600. They paid 29,000 in total for the vehicle, or they financed it, actually, and there's 20,000 left. I have, unfortunately, nothing in savings. And I looked the lowest possible way for any type of car insurance on this vehicle. The lowest I could find is 450. And I have a clean record, not even on parking tickets. So basically paying well, you're an 18.

Year old, so the car insurance is through the roof for young drivers.

Oh, no, I'm 22.

Oh, you're 22 now, okay. And what are you making with your.

Job 18 /hour plus unlimited overtime.

Okay. So you're making about 36 grand a year.

Yeah.

Without overtime.

Yeah.

And what's the car worth?

The car is worth, I'd say 21,000.

Okay. That's a lot of car for a guy making 18. And you're saying, hey, do you want to get out of this?

Well, his parents transferred the payments to him.

So you're stuck with this thing. Yeah, unless you sell it.

That's the thing. We actually don't have the title. It's in my father's name, but the financing company, they have the title until we're able to pay off the vehicle. So I don't think we could sell.

It or if it's no, of course you can sell it. If your dad has basically said you need to take over the payments of this, he needs to sign the title over to you. That's pretty simple. But the point is, somebody sells the car. Here's the point. We're making this too complicated. Alexander, here's what happens. You list the car today and you.

Sell the car and you can do the transaction at the lender's office.

That's right.

They'll give you the title as soon as it's paid off.

That's right. Once the person buys the car. This is all simple stuff, but I don't even know how to explain this. This is so simple. Just sell the car, and then the title will be transferred to the person who buys the car.

Okay, so just get a hold of the company, the lending company, and basically find a buyer.

Yes, but you do it all simultaneously, so the transaction happens. They'll then release the title once the car is paid off, and then you can transfer the title. You're going to need your dad there because you said it's in his name still.

Yeah.

Sell the car. You're not going to sell this to a dealer. You're going to sell it. Private sale. Do you understand what we're saying?

Private sale. Can I get more description on that, please?

Yes. So you list it on Facebook Marketplace, or you list it on Craigslist or you list it on AutoTrader.

Yeah. Because the dealer is going to give you much, much less for it because they're in the business of making a profit.

That's right.

So if you're saying the car is worth, you said it's worth how much? 21.

20 to 21,000.

Okay. So the dealer is going to go, hey, we'll give you 14 for it.

Right.

We don't want that.

And what do you owe on the car again?

Yeah. 20,000.

Okay. So let's just keep it simple just for explaining to you what you're going to do. And you need to go to Kellybluebook.com and put in the Vin number, and it'll get you a really accurate number. Let's just say that you sell it for 20, you owe 20. Okay? So you sell it to a person, they give you 20,000. You pay the car off, the finance company gives you the title. You sign the title over those people. That's how it works. Very simple. Your dad can be involved with the whole thing, but you need to get rid of this car, and you get rid of it before it continues to depreciate because you don't want to be upside down. You're right at that break now, which.

You need some money to get a different car as well, right?

Yeah, that's the thing.

So how quickly can you save up and get a beater. Car.

How much are you thinking?

5000.

5000? Might take a couple of months. Yeah.

Okay. So in a couple of months, we can sell this car. It's not going to depreciate that much in a couple of months. Right. And as soon as that car is sold, you got the other one right there ready to go. And that insurance is also going to be a whole lot cheaper, and you're going to do it with cash. So don't go to a dealership and say, I have $5,000. They'll say, hey, well, we can get your payments nice and low, buddy. We're going to pay cash. You're going to buy this car from a Facebook marketplace, an independent used car dealership, and it's not going to be a pretty car. It's not going to be your beautiful Mercedes you've been driving. So get ready. Emotionally.

Yeah.

But what you're going to also do is get an inspection on it'll. Cost you $100. You can take it to a Firestone and get it inspected. Make sure you're not buying a lemon of a car, and take it for a test drive, do your due diligence, and that should get you at least out of this pickle. Do you have any other debt?

No.

Okay, great. And then let's start to use this income to build ourselves an emergency fund once we get out of this car. Debacle.

All right, perfect.

Hope that helps. Man. Sorry you're dealing with that. And parents that are listening out there, please don't gift your kids debt.

Yeah, I mean, wow.

Don't call it a gift.

He doesn't even understand. And unfortunately, they haven't even told him, look, here are your options. If you want to sell it, I'll walk you through it. He doesn't even know. And so not just gifting them debt.

But yeah, I want to know, when he says transfer the payments, do they actually legally transfer the loan or they just said, hey, you're sign in and you pay this now, can you do.

That if the dad's name is still on the title? I don't know if the finance company.

Would do that would change the loan to this.

Maybe they would.

Poor 22 year old who's now stuck with it, because I don't think they would have let him finance that car. Yeah, man.

And now that I think about it, I know he's on hold. I hope you can still hear us, Alexander, but maybe $3,000 car $5,000 car is not a beater.

Well, these days, it used to be the $1,000 car. Now, with how crazy the car market is, you're looking at $4,000 for the bottom of the barrel vehicles that still run.

Yeah, but he's got to do what he's got to do. He may be working little crazy hours.

He might be taking some Ubers.

Yeah.

Now he's driving the unarmored truck, it sounds like doing unarmed security. I don't know if that comes with a vehicle or not. Sometimes you'll have a vehicle for that. You could drive home. Yeah, that's an option, too. Interesting man. Well, it's been a fun show, Ken.

It has been. I thought you were getting ready to say something. I was. Well, I want to let people know.

We'Ve got our money and marriage getaway coming up.

Yeah.

It is October to the 21st, and I'm going to be speaking you've been.

Added to the docket. What are you going to be speaking on?

My talk is called pillow talk the dirty secrets of budgeting.

Really?

If you're going to do a budgeting talk, make it spicy at a couple's event.

I got to tell you, when I asked you, it was out of courtesy. Now I'm interested. Now he's in was a courtesy ask to set up the event. But then when you said the title of the talk is pillow talk, I want to see the illustrations.

Well, the goal is to let couples have fun, but also get equipped with tools, cast a vision, create a life.

But you're not suggesting that people talk about the budget in bed, are you?

No. It's about throw pillows. There's my teaser. So ramsaysolutions.com events. There's still some spots left. Rachel Cruz, Dr. Jaloni, Jade warshaw, and myself will be there all weekend, october 19 through the 21st. All right.

Good stuff. George Camel, always fun to be with you. Want to say a big thanks to Austin and all of the kind folks in the booth that keep us on the air. And to you, America, and to the folks in the lobby. Thank you so much for listening and watching. This is the Ramsay show.

Hey, it's George Camel. If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey baby steps, go to ramsesolutions.com and click on the get started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. That's ramsesolutions.com and click get started.