Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It is the Ramsay Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I am your host, Jade Warshaw, joined by George Camel. And today we are taking calls about your life, your money. So give us a call. The number is triple 8825-5225 george, let's go directly to these phone lines.

Let's do it.

We got Austin in Omaha, Nebraska. What's going on, Austin?

Oh, not a lot. How are you today?

I'm doing good. How are you?

I'm doing very well. Thank you for asking.

You bet.

I just feel blessed to have the opportunity to speak with you about our financial situation right now.

It's my honor.

So we've been watching a lot of the show recently, and we're actually 100% out of debt right now, and we're feeling really fantastic about it. And we're also having some anxiety about what do we do next? Because we have our emergency fund saved up. We allotted 2000 per person. We've got six months worth of living expense saved up for our current situation, which we're renting, but we want to get into a house. And we don't know at this point in the game, do we just sit and stack cash and then wait until we can just go buy a house outright, or do we stack enough cash for a down payment and then get into a house as quick as possible?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I have a question for you before I give you my answer to your question. When you said that you had an emergency fund, you said $2,000 per person. Can you elaborate on what that meant?

Oh, sure. Our understanding was that we needed to have, for small medical emergencies, about $1,000 per person. And then on top of that, we needed six months worth of household bills and expenses.

Interesting.

We saved 2000 per person, and then on top of that, six months worth of household bills.

Okay, well, that's an interesting thought. The way we teach it here at Ramsay is just to save three to six months of your basic household expenses so that if you were to come on hard times, maybe you lose a job, you have a medical emergency, that would be enough to get you through until you're back on the other side of things. So the 4000 extra you have saved, as far as I'm concerned, you can throw that over to the down payment and start. You've got $4,000 saved already to go towards that. And as far as whether or not you want to buy a home outright or if you want to save 20,000 or as much as you can save to put down, that's really up to you and your wife. What's the going rate for a home that you think will be right for your family?

Well, wow, that's a tough question. We've been looking at the different values of houses and then plugging in the numbers. And if we were going to go on the 15 year fixed like we're seeing that you're teaching, then our approximate price range is going to be right around 175k.

Are there homes for one hundred and seventy five K?

Twenty five percent. Pardon me, sir?

Are there homes for 175k in your area?

There are. It's our first house. We'll be first time home buyers.

Cool.

It's nothing that we're really going to want, but we know that we're going to have to have.

Well, here's the deal. If you're like, hey, the 250 home is the goal. Well, all that means is patience. We're going to save up more down payment so that we can afford this and stay within those parameters.

Yeah. What's your income.

Combined? We are slightly over one hundred K a year.

And how much can you throw every month toward down payment savings currently?

Well, we haven't discussed exactly what we could throw at specifically that savings, but our margin after our budget is $1,746.99 a month.

Great. Are you guys investing at all right now?

No, we withdrew completely out of our 401 KS, actually, just as of yesterday, so we could start channeling all of our money straight into a high yield savings account.

So you're wanting to do baby step three B, full on? Hey, we're not going to invest at all, but for the next year or two, we're just going to pile up cash to get into that home.

Yeah, that was the idea. We just weren't sure if we should pile up just enough to get in.

Or what the well, at this rate.

I wouldn't aim to try to pay for a house in cash because it's going to be a moving target and it could take you ten years. So I'd rather you get to the point where you can do that. 15 year fixed rate, 25% of take home pay going towards the mortgage. That's when you know it's the right time to buy.

Okay. That's actually the exact discussion we had last night. I said, I think what we need to find out tomorrow is whether or not we're going to be here in the apartment for two years or ten.

Yeah. And if it's going to be more than two, I would start investing.

I would, too. You could do both simultaneously. Maybe start out by saying, okay, like George said, for the next year, year and a half, up to two years. We're just going crazy putting all of our money into this down payment. But maybe once you hit that two year mark, if you're not ready to pull the trigger and you're like, you know what? We've got this much saved. It'd be great if we saved X amount of dollars more. I'd go ahead and start investing and then try to reach that savings goal at the same time. That way you're not missing out on valuable time and compound interest. What do you think about that?

Pretty powerful force, right?

Absolutely. When it's going in the right direction.

Just doing some math for you.

In the right direction? Yes.

$1,700 a month is 20 grand a year. So in two years you'd have 40 grand. And let's say it's a $200,000 home, that's 20% down. That would give you $160,000 mortgage. And you can use our mortgage calculator on our website to start figuring out, all right, are we going to be within this range? And if it's 26%, we're not going to yell at you. The whole point of that is not to be legalistic.

Sure.

It's to make sure that you're not house poor and you have 50% of your take home pay going towards a mortgage.

Amen.

How's that hit you?

That hits me like a pretty solid plan.

Excellent.

Awesome.

We got them out of analysis paralysis mode.

That's right. That was a great call. I think, George, a lot of people are in that situation. With the market the way it is, it's almost like even when people have done the math, it's like, we can save for this. Or a lot of people I've talked to have already saved the money and they're just sitting on it because they're afraid to get into the market because interest rates are high, inflation is high, student loans are coming back and it's like, do I pull the trigger? Is it smart to buy a home? It's like there's all this uneasiness around a subject.

So true. Well, it's interest rates and the housing market is insane. The best time to buy a house is when you're ready financially to buy a house. And so that's why we have those parameters. You don't have to wait on the sidelines and wait for some magical perfect interest rate or wait for the housing market to crash. You might be waiting a long time, a long time. And by then you're mad at us because you're like, the house prices are triple now. I'm like, right, sorry.

And I know a lot of people are worried, obviously, interest rates on average have hit over 8% and it's like, no, I'm just going to wait. I'm going to wait. It I'm like, no, if you have the money, go buy, get into the market. If interest rates go down enough that it makes sense for you to refinance, you'll always have the opportunity to do that. But like you said, you don't want to sit on the sidelines, get in the game. Because whatever property you have, if you buy smart, it is still going to go up in value over time and you've got to get into the market so that you can start being a part of the game and adjusting how everybody else is.

Right.

If you just sit out there and you'renting forever. Not to mention rent goes up too.

That's true. And a lot of people were freaking out. Remember, it wasn't long ago we had bidding wars. And before it even hit the market, it was gone. Well, the market's cooled down a little bit. Now you can actually take your time. You might be able to even have a really great offer below asking price.

That's right.

And get it. And so if you're on the sidelines, it's time. Hit up our friends at Churchill Mortgage, get pre approved, start the process, start house hunting with a Ramsey trusted real estate agent. All of these things are going to help you get out of that analysis. Paralysis.

That's right. Your rent, your mortgage. That payment is usually people's highest payment, right? And you don't want that fluctuating your whole life with rent. We know that home buying is the key to building wealth. This is the Ramsey show.

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This is the Ramsay show. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw. To my right is George Camel. Give us a call. The number is triple 8825-5225 and we will discuss the things that are on your mind as it relates to your life, your money, your career, what's going on in your world. But before we get to that, we've got our Neighborly Question of the Day. Our Question of the Day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. When emergency repair needs pop up at home, the last thing you want to do is spend time searching for the right providers. I know that's right. The Neighborly app helps you find the top local home service providers like Airserve, Mr. Ruder, Plumbing and more. Don't wait until something goes wrong. Be ready now. Download the neighborly app today.

Today's question comes from Mark in New York. He asks I'm currently around $360,000 in debt, 260 on the house and $100,000 in credit cards. I feel beyond help with my debt. I'm struggling with what to do. The minimum payment on all the credit cards equates to more than I make on a monthly basis. It feels hopeless. I don't know how to get out of the situation I've put my family in. Please help. All caps. Oh, Mark, I can't breathe just reading that question. Man I'm so sorry to hear that. I mean, a hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt, that's a very special type of debt. And that, I mean, very high interest and it's going to take a while to climb out. And Jade, you had six figures in debt, so you can speak directly to this. But it's different when he's going, it's more than I make on a monthly basis.

Yeah.

Which means we got to make more.

He's got to make more. And I think mentally, if he can just for a moment separate his home mortgage from the whole total less overwhelming. It's less overwhelming. And the good thing is your home is making money for you. Hope the market will accumulate more equity for you. So let's put the home of 260 on the back burner for now. You'll get to that much longer down the lane. And let's look at this 100,000. Now, here's what I would do, because George was right. Sam and I were in a position where our bills were far more than what we had to pay. And so you have to get on the phone. You have to get on the phone with these folks and say, look, here's what's going on. Unless you make this payment XYZ, you're not going to get any money. And so you've got to call these people up and let's, for now, negotiate very small payments because we're going to make minimum payments on everything in our debt. Snowball right. And we're going to put any and all extra money to the smallest debt. So not only do we need to find extra income, we've got to find margin, actually put more on a smallest debt.

So, first things first, you're getting on the phone, making those calls, and here's the thing, I hate credit card companies. They're going to tell you, no, that's not possible. And the only way is you've got to make one payment today and just give us your bank account information and we'll do it. Don't do any of that. Do not give them your account information. Do not set up a plan. Just say, hey, it's either this or you're not getting it at all. And you want to know what? They might not get it for a while, but you're going to get through this. And what you also need to do on the other side of that is you've got to find more income. George it doesn't say what his income is.

We got no clue. We don't know what his minimums are. But the other thing he can do is call and ask them to lower the interest rate and say, hey, listen, I'm trying to pay this off, I really am. What would be a huge help is if you could lower this interest rate so that I can give you the money that I owe.

I love that, and thank you, because you just jogged my memory. George I remember getting on the phone with Capital One and saying, look, if you look back through all of my payment history, I probably have X amount of dollars in late fees and over usage fees. Can you just refund some of those? Can you just do me a solid? And they did. And a lot of times they did, a lot of times they didn't. But here's the thing. It doesn't hurt to ask. All you can do is ask. Ask for a lower interest rate, ask if they'll forgive some of the fees, and finally ask if you can have a lower payment temporarily because you're on a plan, you're paying off the debt, and after that, you just got to get your income up.

Yeah, and I don't know what kind of debt. I mean, 100 grand in credit cards is an insane amount, so I don't know what you purchased on that. If it was we're trying to get by or for it was couches and cars and who knows what. But I'm going to go, what out of that money? Can I return? Can I sell to try to undo some of this stupid tax that I've created here? That could help as well. Last ditch effort. He could look at selling the house. I don't like that. It feels like it's almost the scapegoat option of, like, I didn't really have to change my behavior. I could sell the house, use equity and pay off the debt. I would rather see him increase his income and climb out of this thing versus get rid of his house.

I agree, because and I'm not trying to be judgmental, but when I see $100,000 of credit card debt, it makes me ask serious questions about your behavior and what's been going on in life. Like, I've got a lot of questions, and so I would love to see him walk through that. I wish we knew what his income was, but whatever it is, it GOTS to go up, right?

Call us up. We'll talk more.

All right, let's go to Monica. She's in Hanford, Stockton, California. What's going on, Monica?

Hi. How are you guys doing today?

Doing fine. How are you? Good.

So my question is kind of like a career question. I am a dental hygienist of eight years, and as much as I love what I do, I love educating patients and bonding with patients, especially when they have fear. It's turning towards more of becoming a salesperson and kind of pushing things on patients when I don't necessarily feel they need OOH. And I took Ken Coleman's career assessment because I am on maternity leave, but I'll be going back in November, and I've been having some doubts. Going back with his career assessment, it highlighted that I am good at being an educator and coaching, and since I started your guys'plan, I've actually gotten really into it, and becoming a financial coach seems to be like a good idea to me. So I want to know, how do I transition, even though I love what I do, how do I transition from that and then possibly balancing out and becoming a financial coach?

Maybe I'm having two thoughts. Number one is, I'm just wondering about the actual office that you're working in as a dental hygienist. I had a buddy who loved dental hygiene, and the way her office was training all of the hygienists, it did turn more into a sales role. It was like they were continually pushing things and products on the customer, and she was like, I don't like this. And she found another office that didn't do that. And so she was able to focus on the attributes of her job that she did love. And for her, it was just as simple as switching offices. So that's my first question, and I even wonder if that's step one. And then as you do that, you can start to build the financial coaching thing on the side and get that to a place and start building into that and putting time into that. And then if you're like, hey, I really love this, it starts making money for you. You'll have that moment where you can kind of switch over because there's a bridge there.

Yeah, that's good advice. I've tried different offices, and it seems to keep gearing in the same after a couple of months, gearing in that way of we need more production. We need more production. But, yeah, I could keep looking and keep trying different offices. This is probably out of the eight years, my 6th office.

Wow.

Have you let your leader, your dentist know, say, hey, listen, I'm not comfortable pushing this stuff. I'm happy to do dental hygiene. That's what I signed up for. But I can't in good faith push these credit cards and payment plans onto people. And have you brought that up to them?

I have mentioned it. Anything that I kind of mentioned to them, it seems to just, okay, we'll address it later. And it goes underneath the underneath.

Well, what happens if you just don't push the credit cards? What would happen if I didn't?

They'd probably recognize that I'm the one person not doing it and probably talk to me from time to time. But having that outside pressure of filling, it just seems I don't know, unethical. I don't know. I don't like that.

Yeah.

I think if it's not needed, there's a difference between knowing what the patient needs and me feeling strongly about that and educating them and doing it. What's best for them.

Absolutely.

No one's the same. You got to treat them based on their needs, not what a general here's the package deal.

Get all of it. Well, you work with integrity. And that's the type of person I'm looking for in a dental hygienist right there. So I think that that's incredible. The thing I'm worried about is I don't want you leaving this job without something prepared for you. So whenever we talk about going from a situation where you've got the steady income, George, and it's like, hey, I want to build this business over here, you've got to play those cards correctly because you don't want to just quit. And then that is not the position that you want to build a business.

We don't want this to be a giant leap of faith. We want it to be just a step off the dock, right into the boat, right there. So build that business.

I'd start pouring into that now. Start getting your feet wet, start getting the training you need and start building that up so that it's there when you're ready to make the leap. This is the Ramsey show.

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All right, this is the Ramsay show. I am Jake Warshaw, this is George Camel, and we every month do a series of budgeting webinars. Because, George, some of the biggest questions we get is how am I supposed to budget? My income is irregular, or how am I supposed to stick to my budget or my spouse sticks to my budget? I don't stick to the budget or vice versa. And people need help with this.

Oh, 100%. And we can't go through this on radio. And so to have an hour where you can visually see us going through every dollar, showing you how it works, showing you how to create that margin, the response has been amazing.

Incredible. Like, it's amazing how many people sign up for these webinars month in, month out. We usually do about two a month. George, you host some. I host some, rachel Cruz hosts them. And we have one coming up October 24. It's a Rachel Cruz every dollar webinar.

I might sign up for that just to get some tips.

Okay. That's what I'm thinking. And I'm thinking you need to sign up for it, too. If you've had any questions about budgeting, I'm telling you, they're great. They're completely informal. They're over your lunch break. You can do it while you eat your Jimmy John's while you eat your firehouse subs. No one is going to judge you.

If you have Rachel's favorite. Rachel's favorite? I found this out.

Schlotskis.

I don't know anyone who's ever said that word who's ever been there, but she's a big fan.

Look, every dollar budgeting. All you have to do to sign up is go to everydollar.com slash budgeting to save your spot. I love it. Let's go to the phone lines. We got Kim in Baltimore, Maryland. What's going on, Kim?

Hi. So we have been about two months into our debt snowball. We're making really good progress, but the thing my husband and I are butting heads about is whether or not we should stop contributing to his 401 because his employer matches his contribution.

Yeah, that's a toughie.

He feels like we're losing out on free money, but I also feel like, hey, this is really going to impact our snowball here 100%.

Hold on. He's giving away money to lenders every month. He's clearly not that concerned.

That's true.

So let's just make it clear if we're going to start doing math, we're losing out on this money. Yeah. To the debt. This is a tough one. I totally understand. I empathize with those who are nerds like me, who are like, why wouldn't you take the match? It's 100% return. You guys are always telling people to start with the match and how great that is. But we also know that getting out of debt is hard and it takes some behavior change and you need momentum and you need progress. And when you draw that line in the sand, you go, you know what? That extra $400 we were investing, what is the match? Can you tell me the number?

So right now he's already agreed to drop it down to the maximum that they will match. So it's at 400. So we put in 400. They put in 400.

Okay.

Can I tell you that if you just invest $400 a month, you may have a great retirement, but what if you could invest $1,000 a month? $1,500 a month? That's what happens when you free up those debt payments and pausing your match. Going down to zero lights a fire under you to then get out of the debt so you can get back to investing to then invest way more than the measly match.

Yeah.

So that's hard. If I just told him that to his face, he'd still go, yeah, but it's free completely.

I agree with George wholeheartedly. When we find ourselves in debt, we look up and it's like, oh, man, I made a mess. I've got to get myself out. Sometimes we have to pay the consequence of that. And in this case, you don't get to invest know. You get to clean up your mess. Then when the time comes, you get to put more in, like George said, than you ever dreamed of. And here's the key, and I want everybody listening to get this. And Kim, this is not you, but if you're going to dillydally with these baby steps, if, you're know, I'll put a little here and a little there and you've paused your retirement, you are jacking yourself because you're not going quickly. The point is, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do it with intensity, I'm going to do it quickly. Most people are done in under two years, right? And so in the grand scheme of things, when you're finally able to invest 15% and more in baby step seven, you are going to more than make up for whatever you lost in your match over those two years. But if you're the person who's kicking that can, you got your hands in your pockets and it's like, well, today I'll do it and then tomorrow I won't.

It depends. Know what's on sale then? Yeah, you're going to jack yourself. But the key here is intensity. I think, Kim, that's what you've got to go home and explain to your husband is like, look, I get it, it's a match, it's free money. But we've got to clean up our mess first. And the quicker we clean up our mess, the quicker we can get to the things that you want to do. The fun part, and let's be honest, investing is the fun part.

That's it. Kim how much debt do you guys have?

So right now we are at a combined total of 22,000 in debt. We've got 6000 in a home improvement improvement loan and 16,000 in credit card debt. Okay. And currently, after all of our medical expenses, gas, groceries, all that stuff in our mortgage, we're putting 2000 a month toward our debt.

Great.

So we're currently looking at an eleven month payoff, but if we can add that 400 in, we're looking at a nine month payoff.

And what if one or both of you get a side hustle? And what if you decided, you know, what if you make the sacrifice and go down to 0%? I'll make a sacrifice in this area. So I've got some skin in the game too. And all of a sudden you have four, five, six, $700 going towards this debt you didn't have before. Now you're out of debt in seven months instead of eleven. And you see that progress to go, hey, seven months from now, if you follow this to a T, we'll be back to investing way more than we were seven months prior. And then start doing the math on what credit card interest is doing to you as you lose out on the extra $400 you could have been putting towards that payment. Yeah, if he wants to do some math, we can do math.

We did. The debt snowball way back ten years ago when we first got married, paid off 40 grand in student loans and then we just fell off. And as you often do, and I'm like, okay, you know what we have to do. And we didn't contribute to a 401 while we were still in student loan debt. And he knows that. I'm like, why was that okay back then?

I think you. Were younger, and he was like, yeah, we've got time. And probably now that you're into this and it's further, he's like, oh, he's starting to look at the future and go, we've got to get there's things that need to happen. And it sounds like he's got good motives, like he wants to do what's.

Right for family, do it logically, but we can't just land on logic. We have to think about behavior and emotion, what got us in here. We got to do something about this because you've been through it before. So the fact that you fell back in, you got to tell him, listen, is insane that we're back here, we made progress, then we took a step back once and for all. We're going to be done with this. And that means going all in.

Yeah, I love that. That's a good call, Kim. Thank you for the call. I think a lot of people face that, and I think that's probably one of the toughest parts of the baby.

Steps for most controversial.

Yes.

The amount of flak we get. I can't believe they tell people to stop them. Listen, life isn't always just about a number and a match.

Yes.

We've got to look at the big picture. And the big picture is most Americans are investing three or 4% to get the match, and that's it. And that's what they do their whole life. And we're telling you, hey, for a year or two, go down to zero, so you can go back up to 15.

And I'm going to put some folks on blast right quick, because here's what Jade thinks. I think people don't want to stop their investment contribution, because if they can say, yes, but I've got X amount in savings or X amount in retirement, then they don't feel so bad about this debt that they have sitting over here. And it's like, well, I still have a positive net worth because I've been investing to my 401K. I'm like, yeah, but you still have $40,000 in debt or $60,000 in debt. And so I think for a lot of people, it's their little Jedi mind trick, making them feel bad, think they're doing better than they actually you know.

What this is, though? It's really a toddler mindset. The toddler says, hey, why eat my vegetables when the cake is buy one, get one free? Let's just skip to the dessert. Jade got a great deal on cake right now. Why do I have to eat my vegetables? Well, you're going to be real out of shape and have a tummy ache.

That's right.

And that's what we are as a country right now. The entire country is just broke and in debt, not investing enough up to their eyeballs in consumer debt. We're at record levels across the board. Credit cards, a trillion dollars. Auto loans, $1.58 trillion. Student loans, $1.57 trillion. And yet we're complaining that you can't build wealth in America today. And we're telling you, what if you got out of debt and invested more and you could retire with dignity?

I love that. And people are like, even more than dignity.

I'll take my bogo cake, Jade. No, thank you.

You know what I call that? I call that skinny fat george, have you ever seen people who are they look skinny, but their diet, man, their diet is total crap. They eat just but somehow because they have good metabolism or whatever, they're still skinny. And I think that when you are investing, it's like, oh, I've got this money stacked. I've got savings. But you've got this pile of debt over here. It makes it look like, hey, I'm in good shape. I do what I'm supposed to do. But really, your diet is crap and you're eating McDonald's, and you've got a bunch of debt stacked over here, and when you sweat, it's sweating out of your pores.

Why do you think I'm wearing all black today, Jade? It's very slimming.

It is very slim.

I don't know what I'm hiding under here.

I don't want to know what you're.

Hiding under that so much McDonald's. You know me.

That's only for Whitney to discover. This is the Ramsey show.

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You're listening to the Ramsay show. I am your host, Jade Warshaw. I'm joined by George Camel, who is host of The George Camel Show on YouTube, which, by the way, is popping off.

George, we just hit 100,000 subscribers the other day.

I saw that.

We did.

Congrats.

Now I got to beat Deloney and Rachel.

Yes.

Some friendly competition.

I love that we're having fun. Yeah. If you have not already, hop on over to YouTube and smash that subscribe button for The George Camel Show and.

By the way, you were on the show. We had you on a really fun interview.

That's right, that was super fun.

People love Jade on there, so you need to come back.

Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me. There it is up there on the screen, the George Campbell Show, if you're watching on YouTube. And for all you who are loyal listeners to this show, the Ramsey Show, thank you so much for listening and we hope that you will share the show with others the same way that I just shared George's show.

Sharing is caring.

Sharing is caring. And we want all of our friends to be rich and out of debt as well. So share the show so that they can get this wonderful they call this.

Gatekeeping jade when you don't tell someone interesting. Yeah. Don't gatekeep.

Is that right?

Let people know that debt freedom is possible.

Yeah.

That you can invest the right way, not fall for all these TikTok traps.

Interesting.

Don't gatekeep. I'm trying to be young and relevant.

Well, Jay Z said you're not rich if you're the only one rich and nobody around you is that you're not really wealthy.

It's got to be contagious. It's got to be hanging around other rich people.

That's right. You got to be sharing the knowledge, sharing the wealth, sharing the blueprint. And that's what we want you to do. If this show has changed your life, if you like it, maybe you just find it entertaining. Tell some people about it. Hit that little paper airplane button on Instagram or share it through YouTube or just like old school, just talk about it while you're having lunch and tell somebody, hey, there's this new podcast I've been listening to and it's awesome. It's called the Ramsey Show. We would appreciate that so much. It's free, and of course, like we said, it's spreading that good. Good. All around the world. So in the meantime, let's go to the phone lines. We've got Marie in Durham, North Carolina. North Carolina. What's going on?

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call.

You're welcome. How can we help?

So I have a question. I just recently paid off all my debt, about $80,000. Woohoo. And I didn't go through the baby steps like a normal person because I didn't start until late. I also have a uniform transfer to minor account that my parents created for me when I was younger. And I'm under the impression that it's just like mutual funds now. Okay. My goal would be to buy a townhome or something in the near future, and I have about $57,000 in there. I was just wondering if it's a good idea to use that money as a down payment on a house for me.

I think that that sounds wonderful. You said that you didn't walk through the baby steps in the traditional sense. That's fine. You don't have any debt and that's great. My next question before you bought a house would be to make sure that you've got three to six months of expenses set up. Do you have that?

Yes. Cash wise, I have about $30,000.25 of that is in a high yield savings account, and the rest is just in my checking. And then I paused investing in my retirement, and I have about 7000 in there. I don't know if I should resume now.

Okay, so the 25 that you have in the high yield, is that three to six months? Like, what portion of savings is that for you?

So that would be three to six months of savings for me. I have $30,000. I would want to save at least $20,000 for my emergency fund okay. Before I buy a house. And I have that.

So if 20,000 gets you to three months or four months or whatever that part is within the three to six months, which for you let's take that a little bit further. Okay. So it's just you. What type of work do you do? I'm a nurse. Okay. So pretty steady work. You're probably okay with three months if four months makes you feel better. I'm not mad at that. Typically, the way we determine that is if you're in good health, if you have a stable job, if you're somebody who's married, what do your job situations look like? That's kind of how we determine that three to six month situation. And I feel like you as a nurse, I'd probably stick somewhere between three or four months, and I'd feel good about that.

George yeah. And on top of that, have you looked into the tax implications of withdrawing the money?

I do know there will be tax implications, and I didn't even know if just pulling the money out would even be a good idea. It's been sitting there for so long that I just don't even know what to do with it.

I'm assuming they saved that money because they wanted to be a blessing for you later in life as you begin your adult life. So I think there's no time like the present if you're looking to get into a home, and that money is going to help you do that faster. And you followed the principles. I mean, you're debt free with an emergency fund, and so now is the time to begin that down payment savings. And if you want to stack up as much cash as possible and liquidate that account, pay the taxes, use all of that towards a down payment in the next year or two. That's great.

Okay. Yeah, that was my plan.

Yeah. Because if you add the 10,000 that you had as an overage in your savings, I mean, you're at 60. Well, you've got taxes on this, minus.

The taxes, but still, you could be looking at 50 grand down payment, which is awesome. How old are you?

30.

Okay. You got so much time. This is awesome.

This is yeah, consider it a gift. I love that. I love it. I love when we get to say yes to people.

Well, yeah, the UTMAs and the UGMAs fun names, they're meant to save for your child so that when they're an adult, they'll have a little pile of money, which is awesome.

Yeah, I'm not mad at that. That's very generous. Well, let's see what William's talking about in Anchorage, Alaska. William, thanks for calling in.

Hey, how's it going?

We're doing good, how are oh, not too bad.

I was just wondering about credit score after paying off and closing accounts.

I heard somewhere one Dave Ramsey said that the credit score will go to zero after like six months or something. Yeah, I was trying to research that. I couldn't find anything on it.

So once you've finished paying off all your debts and all of your debts are paid off and all of your accounts are closed, then that will start the process of your credit score slowly rolling to zero. So you're going to see it go down first. It's not going to just totally evaporate. You're going to see it go down first. And I'll be honest, that is a little bit emotional. And then after time, it'll be zero or indeterminable for Sam and I let's see, for me, I think it took like seven months, and for Sam, it took a little bit longer. I've actually heard people say it's taken almost a year.

In some cases, six to twelve months is the average. And so you can also go pull your credit report for free@annualcreditreport.com. That's the one site where you can do this for free. And you can pull that and see, hey, look, I got no lines of credit open because a lot of people think they close the lines of credit.

That's right.

The credit score hangs around and they find out, oh, I forgot about that account.

And you know what? George makes a really good point. William, I'll tell you this. I was messing around and looking on Credit Karma.com, checking my credit score after we had paid off all the debts on my name. I'm like, OOH, I was so excited to see the score roll to zero. And it took there forever. It just sat at like 300 or something and it was just like destroying my self esteem. And then we started looking at the process of buying a house, and when they pulled my credit, like the real way, it was zero.

Yeah. These sites, it's kind of like a zillow where they're pulling information from somewhere else. That's the official source and it's not always accurate.

But more than that, here's what you got to keep in mind. William and anybody else, sites like Credit Karma, they want to sell you debt, so they benefit from saying, oh, your credit score is 300. Let us tell you how to get that score back up.

Oh, yeah, they'll notify you hey, you should open up this line of credit from us that will help you get your score up. And we have this new card and there's new loan and this credit card we partnered with, it's just riddled with loans and debt. And so anytime that you go, well, mint.com is free, I'm like, yeah, because you're the product, bro. It's not free.

Exactly.

You're going to get bombarded with debt and marketing. And that's the sad underbelly of how these companies work.

It is. So beware and just know, hey, be patient. And like I said, it is emotional. George, when you see that, go to zero. And let me also be clear. I actually made a social post about this. A lot of people, they're like, I paid off all my debt, but I'm keeping that one credit card open just as a, know, safety net or whatever. But I'm like, no, that's not going to work. Yet again, George, when it comes to this plan, you either got to take it or leave it. Because if you start doing shady stuff like that, it's not going to work for you. Everything we teach is being able to live a life without a credit score. And if you keep that one card around that you're not utilizing, you're not using, it's only going to make your credit score go down.

Give it up. You can live without a credit score across the board. Renting cars, buying a house, it's all possible. And we're living proof.

That's right. We're living proof. It's time to give up the ghost, give up those credit cards, let that score go on ahead and go to zero. A zero credit score is just as good. Actually, it's better than a good credit score. Zero is what we're looking for. This is the Ramsey Show, live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It is The Ramsey Show where we help you build work, wealth, do work that you love and create actual amazing relationships. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw. I'm joined by George Camel, and we're taking calls all afternoon about your life, about your money, your budget, how to make more money, get more income coming in, pay off your debt. This is what we're talking about. So give us a call. The number is triple 8825-5225. We're going to jump in directly to the phone lines. We've got Tristan in Dallas, Texas. What's going on, tristan, Jay, George, how.

Are you all doing?

We're doing great. How are you?

The wisest redneck I know says better than I deserve.

I'm glad Dave's not here to hear that you might take wisest redneck. That's nice.

Hey, I'm a descendant of many a redneck, so I'm right there.

There you go. There you go. I love it. How can we help today?

Yeah, so I'm in baby step two right now. I've got about $40,000 worth of debt. That's mostly student loans. And then I've got a car loan that I was recently driving around a brand new car, but I listened to Dave and sold that and got a cheaper car for the time being that I just owe about five grand on. So the only credit card that I have is one credit card that I've really discovered about a year ago on Father's Day when my mom kind of unexpectedly passed away. Oh, man. When me and my siblings were helping my dad go through everything and kind of try to get him sorted out. Because we knew our mom handled most of the finances, we actually had discovered that she had opened up, I think it was twelve credit cards in his name and eleven in my name.

Oh, my goodness.

Eleven cards. Hey, I'm sorry. That's tough. I mean, it's tough enough you lost your mom and then to discover a secret like that, that's painful.

Yeah, it was rough for a little while, but thankfully at the time I had a wonderful girlfriend who helped me get through it, and now she's my fiance.

Okay.

So we're going to get married soon. But my main question is that ten of the cards, I showed them some information, reported a claim to them saying that these are fraudulent, and they were actually really helpful. Immediately closed them out, reported them as fraudulent.

Okay.

And then there's just one card that initially told me that, oh, yeah, we're going to close this out in about a week. And then I found out a few months later that they had, in fact, not closed the card out and they had been charging me late fees and it's just been yeah.

Did you get it in writing that they were going to close it?

Unfortunately, no. It was all over the phone. Yeah. And basically we've been going back and forth for about a year, and it turns out the thing that they are hanging on right now to keep it open is that when I was 18, my mom had bought me a plane ticket to go visit my older brother in California as like an early birthday present.

Okay.

And she apparently had done that on that credit card, so there was a plane ticket in my name.

Hey, this isn't fraud.

Yeah.

What's the balance on the card?

It was about 1800, but after the late fees, now it's like 2200. And so part of me is just kind of frustrated and just kind of wants to be like, okay, let me maybe just throw this in the debt snowball. But the other part of me is just like, Nevit. I don't want to let this freaking credit card company win. What's your income this year? It's going to be 91.

Okay. If I'm you this has been a year of headache and hassle you lost your mom. This is not what you want. Consuming your mental space.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? And it's like I don't want to overstep, but the longer that you have to deal with this. I feel like it has the ability to kind of infiltrate what you're feeling about your mom, even, like, she left me with this problem. I feel like that can be a really tangled web, and you can end up feeling like, some bitterness or some anger towards her when really all you want to do is just grieve your loss.

Yeah, and I definitely felt that for about the first six months after she passed and went to therapy for it, though. And so that part I'm not really holding on to anymore, because she did what she did in her mind, she thought she was doing what was the best for us and us other kids, but yeah, so that I'm not too worried about.

I'm just like, yeah, I'm still going to pay it. George, what would you do?

I would call and say, listen, I'm done with this. Here's what I'm asking you to do. Just cut the late fees, cut this $400 off. I'm happy to pay the original balance, but we've been fighting this thing. I didn't even know about this card. And so I'll work with you on this, but I'm paying my 1800 and that's it. And get that in writing and say, hey, I'm closing the card after that. So that's what I would fight for, but I wouldn't fight to try to get it to zero over the next ten years, like Jade said, and just it's too many brain calories over too small of an amount of money.

Yeah, I agree with that. I second that notion, George. That's a good one.

So sorry.

I appreciate the call, Tristan, but that is you know, I hear about this all the time, and this is not what happened in Tristan's situation, but for moms and Dads listening, it is fraud. If you open up credit cards and the names of your children and say that it's you, that's fraud. And not only that, you have the ability to really jack their credit. I know people personally who this has been done to them, and then they hit 18 and they get into the world and they're 21 and 23, and they're like, why is my credit already bad? What's happened to me? And they find out it's because their parents have opened up cards, messed with.

Your kid's financial life. And the other trend I'm seeing, Jade, I'm seeing all these videos on Instagram and TikTok. There's all this advice saying, hey, add your kid as an authorized user on your card. Even if they're three years old, when they're 18, they're going to have amazing credit and they're going to be so grateful. And here's what happens. The parents blow up their kids credit yeah. By accident.

Yes.

And then screw up their kids financial life before they're even an adult.

It's so unfair. It's so unfair. You've got to let your kids decide who they want to be financially. Don't just set them out there and just assume, because what if they follow the Ramsey way and they don't want to have anything to do with credit and credit cards? I could only hope, I could only dream that's the case, George. That's what we're hoping for. But you've got to be careful. And then there's another teaching in this, George, about if you are a monitoring your own credit and making sure you see all the accounts on there. Because this guy is talking about he said there were ten accounts, eleven in his dad's name and then another eleven accounts in his name.

Yeah. This is the importance. We are not for the credit score, but we are for pulling your credit report once a year. You can do this on AnnualCreditReport.com we have no affiliation. This is just the authorized federal website to do this for free. And that will show you every single trade line credit account you have open, every single student loan, everything. It's going to lay it all out to give you a picture. And that's how I found out that fraud had happened to me.

Yeah.

There was an at and T account and a Verizon account opened across the country with a previous address of mine in Nashville.

Wow.

That was opened and they added $1,700 worth of debt wow. Onto both of those accounts. And the only way I found that was pulling my credit report and getting a collector call saying, hey, you owe us this money. I went, what? I didn't have verizon.

Yeah.

So there you go.

Something like that happened with Sam and I. It was a Discover card and he was like, I don't know what this is. I don't know what it came from. And, yeah, check your credit score, make sure you recognize the debt, and when you do, pay it off. This is the Ramsey show.

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All right. You are listening to the Ramsay show. I am Jade Warshaw, your host, joined by George Campbell, host of the George Campbell YouTube Show. And George, you're big into social media. I'm big into social media. There is a trend that is circulating that to be honest, I can't tell if I think it's funny or if I'm a little bit offended, but it's called yeah, a little bit of both. It's called girl math. So girl math is trending, apparently, and I'm not going to tell you what it is. We have a video for you guys to watch, and this kind of explains it. So take a look at this. Here's a list of things that I firmly believe because of girl math, anything under $5 is free. Anything I buy with a gift card is free. If I buy something, but then I return it. I've made money going to an event or a concert is free because I purchased the tickets so long ago, it doesn't even count. I load my Starbucks app in advance. So Starbucks is free. Anything discounted more than 50% is free, and I am losing money by not getting it.

If I'm paying something back for dinner and I have money in venmo, that dinner is free. If I don't buy something, like, if I don't buy a pair of shorts for $50, I've made $50, and I can then go spend $50 on something else. Okay, this one's a little bit weird, but my husband and I share credit cards and a bank account, but somehow, every time that he puts down his card with his name on it, that's free and he pays.

Wow. Okay.

That moved fast.

But, man, that's hilarious. And relatable.

It's ratchet. That's messed up. All of that is so wrong.

Here's my definition. So Rachel Cruz and I, we covered the concept of girl math on last week's Smart Money Happy Hour episode, okay. At length. And it was eye opening, to say the least. But here's our definition, all right? Girl math is a term for how women justify unnecessary spending through a series of mental gymnastics. So that's what it comes down to. It's financial. It's money. Mental gymnastics.

Yeah, that is gymnastics. I mean, the way they were rolling off the tongue, I was like, wow, this is your way of life. The weird thing is, let me be 100% honest as a lady myself. There were a couple of the ones that she said that I think that I have rationalized in my own head. Yes. When she was like, if it's a gift card, it's free. I was like, yeah, I'm with that. I'm with that. If it's a gift card and you didn't buy the gift card 100%, that's free. I don't know that that falls into.

Girl math, because that's can we just call this out? That the guys are very much guilty of guy math, which is a whole nother thing that's now come up.

What's man math?

It involves more like Home Depot and Lowe's. Justification. The truck justification.

Got you.

Why they need a $60,000 truck. So their stupid tax is a lot more zeros on the end. And the girl math but my wife has been guilty of, I'm going to return something, and then she'll come home and say, I made a $75. I'm like, no, that means we just spent the difference.

Okay.

Can I spend 200? You return 75. You didn't make 75. You spent 125.

Okay.

You know what I mean?

Well, can I tell. You my version of that because I think mine's worse. Honestly, today I have a return and I was already thinking about this.

Oh, I know where you're going with this.

I have a pair of pants and a shirt to return and I'm like, hey, that's going to be like $110. And I was already thinking like, I know what I want to get and I'm like, it's like $140 and I'm like it's free because I'm like doing a return. Well, Anna, even though it's a little bit more, I still feel like you're.

Return isn't going back in the budget. You're like, well, that gives me $110 I can spend elsewhere because that money was already spent. Right now I want to call out and I do feel like you can.

Add a little to it.

Your husband Sam is in the lobby watching this right now. So you are spilling the tea on yourself.

He is giving me a look of distaste.

He's like you best.

I think that he's even shaking. He's having a whole conversation through the glass. I can't hear you, Sam.

Oh, my God.

I don't want to hear what you're saying right now. But, girl, math, here's the thing. Let me tell you a quick story. I had a budy call me the other night. I'm not going to tell her name. I won't put her on blast, but she makes tips for a living. She called me up. She's like, Jade, if I have this tip money and I go out and buy XYZ, it doesn't count, right? And I'm like, yes, it does. She's like, yeah, but it's like found money. It's like extra money. It doesn't count.

And I'm like, oh, boy, yes, it does.

So sometimes I even think if we have cash, like somebody gives you cash money, you get cash back in your pocket. People think, I don't have to add that to the budget.

I can just it's outside of the system. It doesn't exist in the matrix.

There's no paper trail.

That is true, Gen Z, because we're all about like, hey, switch to cash.

Cash envelope.

It'll get control your spending. And then they go to cash and they go, no, this is free money because it never touched my bank account. So my rule is it has to be reflected in the budget. All money, whether it's cash, whether it's a return, the return in every dollar, you can drag the return back into the category and refill it.

That is true. I'm going to have to pray about that one.

George, did she talk about like, concert.

Tickets or event tickets in that one?

She did. She said if you buy it far in advance, it doesn't count.

That's right. I bought it eight months ago. So did I really spend the money? Yeah, because by the time you get to it, you're like, oh, I don't have to pay for this because you already did.

I definitely relate to that. Wait, can I tell you, I don't know if this is girl math or just weird math, buying a car in cash. I have said this before, and I know people are probably rolling their eyes out of their head, but when you save up and buy a car in cash, I feel like it feels free. Like, when you go and buy the car, it's like it never happened.

Wow.

Because you've been putting this money aside. It's been earmarked over there. It's never been part of your emotional day to day money self. And then you just come home with the car, and you're like, that joker was free.

I'm just saying. Yeah, no, that's fair. I mean, if you write that check and you see that money disappear, there's an emotional piece where you're like, that's $23,000 that just disappeared from my bank. But you're right in that you're not going home with a payment. You're not going home with a loan. And therefore, mentally, you've removed it.

Yeah. Emotionally, you've already set that money aside. It's already been earmarked for something else. And so I think some of that is probably where this girl math takes part. You're kind of compartmentalizing your spending. You're already saying, this is this, that is that. And you got to be careful, especially now. Let's get into some serious teaching on this. I think if you're especially married, you've got to be careful with girl math, guy math, because ultimately, what's the purpose of this? Are we doing this to keep purchases from our spouse? We're trying to fly underneath the know. Dave said it, and it's so true. You come home with those target bags, and you're like, it was a return. But why are you hiding it under the bed? Like, why are you hiding it in the back of your closet or keeping it in the car? Can I tell y'all, I'm gonna put myself on blast. This is the type of stuff I used to do. I come home, and if I'm like, oh, Sam is there.

I would leave you walking with bags. Leave the bag in the car until when? Until you can sneak it in?

Until a more opportune moment? George, that's what I used to do.

Back in the day. That is mischievous.

Look, these women out here better have my back, because I know all of y'all. Y'all have done it, too. But the point is, once we get more mature, once we start having these conversations with our spouse, and once we say, hey, let's share our money, let's do what it takes to get on the same page, we have to stop all this nonsense.

Well, the heart of it is it's one of the reasons we're broke. It's fun to laugh at, and it's relatable, and we all do it. But until you can get above that mental gymnastics and go, you know what? This is an unhealthy justification for me to spend and not actually deal with the root problem, which is my behavior and me wanting more than I have, being discontent, buying things out of stress or out of convenience. It's part of the reasons you're not hitting your financial goals.

That's right.

And so it's hilarious to laugh at and very relatable. And I'm not here to judge those that fall into those camps, like Jade has just admitted, but at some point, you got to just be an adult and go, yeah, okay, I can't do that anymore.

And it makes to this has been a interesting thing for me. So Financial Peace University. That's the class that we teach. It's nine weeks. It teaches you everything you need to know about money. And my husband and I coordinated that class many, many times. And a lot of times we would have younger kids in the class and, like, in their, like, that age and venmo, cash app, Zelle, all of those quick money transaction apps. I noticed that a lot of people keep those apps, and I think that's where a lot of people pool a lot of quote unquote found money or girl math or boy math money that honestly should be added to their budgets. Because it's like, oh, I just got this. Me and my girl went out to dinner, and she just cash app me. That and I'm like, before, you know, you're going to look up and have, like, $300 in cash app. That's real money.

Yeah. And you're just cash appping and venmoing back and forth to each other with your balances exactly. While not having any money in your bank account.

Yes.

That's a problem.

So the call to action here is, let's go through this. Let's look at the cash apps. Let's look at the venmos, let's look at what the return. Let's make all of our money actually be all of our money, and let's have that money working for us.

And that's where the budget, I think, is the solution.

That's right.

To curbing the mental gymnastics.

That's right.

Girl math and guy math and whoever else math.

Yes. The budget is your friend. If you don't have a budget, check out the EveryDollar Budget. It's the only budgeting app I use. I know. It's the only budgeting app that George Campbell uses. You can download it today for free@everydollar.com. This is the Ramsey show. All right, thanks for hanging out with us. This is the Ramsey show. I am your host today, Jade warshot, joined by my other host, George Campbell.

I'm here too.

Yeah, that's right. And you know what? Let me go ahead and say this for the people who are in the comments, we're both hosts.

Great point. What are they saying in the comments?

I think they think whoever sits in this chair is the host and that whoever sits over there shouldn't talk much.

That's funny. Well, we look at it as a we call them drivers, like, who's driving the show today? But it's equal co host.

It's equal co host.

The funnier comment is that people think it's like Game of Thrones out here, and it's like, oh, Jade's gonna take the throne. Rachel's gonna know. Jordan's gonna take we're out here trying to fill some big old shoes of Dave Ramsey.

I know that's right.

So there ain't no Game of Thrones happening here.

Yes, George. So I give you permission. You could say as much as you'd like this show.

Thank you for your permission. Jade.

Let's go to the phone lines. We got Hannah in Columbia, Missouri. What's going on, Hannah?

Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking my call. You're welcome. My husband and I are finishing up baby step three. We have a one year old, and our second baby is due in February.

Nice.

Exciting.

Yeah. My husband just started a new job this week, so we are both now working from home.

Wow.

We also have a nanny that we bring into our house to provide our childcare. So it's a full house. We currently live in a three bedroom, 2100 square foot house. We were going to make the space work. However, my husband had his first Zoom call with his CEO this week and was immediately kicked off the Internet. The strongest Internet signal offered in our neighborhood is six megabytes.

Oh, gosh.

Both of us working here. Yeah. We're in the middle of nowhere.

Wow.

That's like dialog. Oh, my gosh.

That feels like sometimes I want to throw my computer out the window. So between that hurdle and just wanting more space with another baby and us both being here, we're wondering if we should move and take on a bigger mortgage.

Well, how big of a room does a baby need? I'm curious.

Well, we would just like for him to have his own space. But still, if I have an office and our other son and that baby.

Are the bedrooms being converted into offices?

Yes. So right now I'm in an office, which would be our nursery, and I would move my office to our bedroom. Our other son has a bedroom. And then my husband was going to be, like, in a room with no windows. Kind of in there.

Done that. Yeah. That's not fun. The real question is, what do the dollars and cents say?

Sure. So with his new income, our household income is $220,000.

Good.

Yeah. Our current mortgage is about 210, but it's worth about 275. So we've only been here about two years. The thing to that is, we owned a house before this one, and we were only there six months after the basement leaked, and there was mold that was discovered. After we bought it, we moved, and so now it feels like we're just jumping from house to house and are never going to get ahead if we keep moving at the rate we are.

Yeah. Sorry. Just for clarity, how long have you been in this current house?

Two years.

Two years. I hear what you're saying, and I think the Internet has some validity. If you're working from home, you need to find a way to get steady Internet.

Not to nerd out, but can you just do like, a hotspot from a cell phone kind of thing? Like I know Verizon, all the cell.

Phone companies have this mobile hotspot, and it's also not offered in our area. The thing that prompted this call we got Starlink.

I was wondering about that as well.

Yeah, they came out today and said, yeah, it's not going to work for you. We're in a pretty rural part of town with a lot of trees, so we've looked at pretty much other could.

You work out of like a local coffee shop or co working space nearby or anything like that?

I have a desktop phone, so I can't really pack that up and take it with me. My husband's on zoom calls, and the whole agreement with him taking this job was that so he's going to be traveling. And my thing with that was that he'd be home working, so the travel would kind of offset with him being gone and us having young kids.

So you've been in this current home a little more than two years, so that kind of gets you off the hook. If there were any gains on this, what's the property like? If you were to sell it today, what would you get for it? What would you take home from that sale?

We take home about 60 between what we owe on it and what we could sell it for.

And what could you add with that other than your baby step three? Do you have any other money saved?

No. We should finalize baby step three by December 1, and we could stockpile cash and move. But with a baby coming in February, I would prefer to be settled in a house than bring our baby home.

Yeah. Look, I get it. Here's what I think you guys need to see. I think that there's, like this ideal state that you have, but until you have them, especially my screen says that you want to move into a bigger house. Like you want to move up. It's not like you're saying, hey, we're going to move into something that's around the same price. We're just going over here where there's Internet, it sounds like you want to spend more money, have something bigger, because I don't know what you're pricing at. What is the cost of the homes that you want to move into? That's the question.

Yeah. My thing was, like, we've already moved twice in the last three years, and I don't want to get into another house just to move in two years when we could afford it. It just feels like if we keep jumping from house to house, we're never going to get ahead. So we were looking at about, like $400,000 houses, which would pretty much be like three times of the mortgage that we're paying right now.

Right.

That feels like it's going to eat up a whole lot of your income on top of paying the nanny.

Yeah.

So my worry is you guys get in there and you're like, we have Internet, but no margin. And now we're stressed out financially, even making 220, which is a great income. Great income can easily disappear. With the current housing market and taking on double the mortgage and paying a nanny, it very quickly could disappear. My heart says, let's pause on this. Let's get the new baby in this current home, let's make it work, let's figure out a temporary Internet situation, and once you're back home with the baby nice and healthy, let's start shopping for a new house with more money in the bank at that point. But right now it feels like you're going to rush into a decision and then go, this isn't the house either.

Yeah, right.

That's my worry.

And we have no idea what our month to month is going to look like. He just started this week. We haven't gotten that first paycheck.

Exactly.

By the time next year, we could be in a totally different position.

I mean, you've got the nanny who can stay with the kid. Like, I liked George's idea of maybe you can go someplace else and get the work done that you need to get done that requires the Internet. While you've got the nanny on call, you're paying for her to be there.

Anyway and contact the company that you work for that he works for and say, hey, here's our situation. Can you help us figure out an Internet situation out here? Maybe they'll cover it. Maybe they know of a way to do this. Check with your neighbors, see how they're getting Internet. I can't imagine every single person within a ten mile radius has that kind of poor connection.

Yeah, exactly. But either way, I think that the main thing to get across. Hannah, is something here? Something has to know. I think sometimes we want to have everything all at once. It's like, oh, I'd love for the baby to come home to a new house. I've got this new income. And I also think, George, that here's what I think. It's a lifestyle creep thing. It's like, oh, we finally got this new money and we can just like we're so quick to spend it's. Like, just let it breathe for a second, like, get used to what life looks like.

Well, because I didn't hear about investing or anything, but we're at baby step three. We still need to have 15% to invest. We need to put money away for the kids college. I know that we need to pay this house off early. So my worry is you're stuck in this baby step three no man's land forever because of that lifestyle creep. So I think we can find solutions for everything. The desktop phone, usually they can route that to hit your cell phone.

Yeah.

And you can use that. Or they can issue a company phone that's mobile so you don't have to lug your phone to a coffee shop or a co working space or whatever. But in this new fangled remote world, I feel like there's more options and we just need to do some homework.

Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that wholeheartedly. Thanks for the call. That's a good one to think about. I think there was a lot going on there. $220,000. That is a great income. But it's not a million dollars and it's not half a million dollars that can get dwindled away very quickly on very big expenses. Like if they move into a house that they're not quite ready to afford, they can be one of those people who's living paycheck to paycheck, who's making.

Over six figures, because that's one out of three folks making six figures still paycheck to paycheck.

Yeah.

And that's sad.

Largely due to lifestyle creep.

Yep, that's right.

And debt. That a lot of lifestyle creep, too.

That's right. That's right. This is the Ramsey show.

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What's going on? You guys are listening to the Ramsay Show. I am Jade Warshaw, joined by George Camel, fellow Ramsay personality and host. We're taking your calls all afternoon. The number is triple 8825-5225. Give us a call. We used to say the number was toll free, but I think these days just about every call you make is going to be a free.

You never know, I might start charging one of these days for fun. If you're a nuisance of a caller, although you owe us a dollar for our time.

OOH, don't start. All right. Let's go to Stacy in Virginia Beach, Virginia. What's going on, Stacy?

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. How are you?

I'm okay. I have an issue. I have about $30,000 in debt that since COVID I tried paying it and I put it with a consolidation company. And within the past couple of months, it's impossible for me to get it down any further. And I've been paying for this would be the fourth year, so I've paid it off, a huge amount of it. But this last 30,000 and I'm like $3,500 behind now and because of work situation changing and everything.

What kind of debt is it?

I don't know what to do. It well, a few years ago, it's credit card. It's all credit card. Two of our daughters were going through really bad times, and I was making good money and had excellent credit in the 800, and I gave them each a credit card, one of them, two of them in their name, but still on my credit and their situation when.

You say in their name.

On it.

Okay, so you just gave them a credit card that was they were like.

An authorized user, but on your account.

Correct.

Okay.

Correct. And unfortunately, broken promises, and it just hasn't happened. So I end up putting once I found out that they were not making their payments, I tried to keep up with it as best as I could, but because they had been late and stuff, it snowballed, and one of them even used it for, like, rent cash advances.

So did you take them off of these cards?

Oh, yeah.

Okay, great. So there's no more debt being accumulated.

But you're on the hook, and they're not paying another dime.

Yes. And I've paid altogether. Now, this is with the interest and the fees and everything, it got up to $135,000. Yeah, I paid everything. But this last 30,000.

You got it from 135 down to down to 30. Do you have any other debt?

No.

Okay. And what's your household income?

Well, see, that's the thing. My husband does not know that I'm paying this.

He doesn't know about the debt.

He would disown them. It would totally fracture our family.

And you don't think he's going to find out one day?

No, because we don't have debt except for the only so you have to.

Use your own income and do this secretly with your own bank account because he can't find out because it would destroy the family.

Hold on a second. Can you flip the script for a second? And imagine the tables were turned and your husband had done what you did and took out these credit cards and so on and so forth?

Well, no, he knew that they had them. He thinks that they're making their payment either way.

If the tables were turned and he knew what you know, right, like, just put yourself in his shoes. Would you want to be told.

If it wouldn't be that. I know he will disown them.

No. Simple question. Would you want to know? Do you feel like you would have the right to know if you, as a couple had incurred $135,000 of debt? Do you have the right to know?

Sure.

Yes, ma'am.

And here's the thing. If he disowns them, that's the decision he made. So you can own your part. You did a lot of stupid stuff, but it's up to him what he does with this situation.

Yeah, but that would mean me not getting to see my grandchildren.

No, it wouldn't.

Oh, sure it would, because both of them would take it the opposite.

They would take it as you tattled on dad to us, and now you're not our mom anymore, and you're not going to get to see the kids as punishment.

Exactly.

If that's how this whole thing is going to go down, there's not much of a relationship there to begin with.

Yeah.

How are you already not resentful towards the daughters?

I'm pretty sad.

This relationship can't be in great shape right now as it stands.

Well, there are circumstances that led to it, and there's no excuse that if they could and I had put it in my email, they're not in a position they're literally just getting by the initial that they did. There's no excuse for it because it shouldn't have been hidden from me because then I could have done something to help to rectify at that time.

But they're their own women. How old were they when this were taking place? Over 18.

Oh, yes. But they were both one was getting out of a she didn't know she was relocating for a job, went up there. The whole family was supposed to move up when kids got summer, and the now ex husband decided he wasn't moving, and the other was in a horrible, abusive marriage.

Here's the thing. Here's what I want to say. All those things are really difficult. Those are difficult situations to manage. You're their mom. You want to step in and help. You helped in the wrong way, and now everybody's reaping the results of that and in this case, the consequences of that. If you wanted to help, you could have given them a gift. You could have said, hey, the right way to help in these situations is not to open a line of credit where they can spend and spend it's to say, you know what? I'm going to cover your rent this month, and you're taking the action yourself, and you've still got all the power and the control as far as the money, and they can't create debt on your behalf. So I think that the hard part here is you're having to come to grips with, like, I tried to help and I botched it, and it's still reaping bad fruit, and that sucks. And I think also it's easy for you to say, oh, my husband, he'll disown them and he'll do this and he'll do that and keep it from him, but you've all got to get in a room and be like, this is what's going on.

And it might be an episode of Jerry Springer, but you guys can't keep all these secrets off to the side. And dad doesn't know this, and mom, if you tell him, you're disloyal. There's no healthy boundaries here, and there's no healthy relationship taking place here. Man, I wish John Deloney was here because he would get up all into this.

This is largely relational. But the thing is here you said you're having work issues. Do you have an income right now?

Yes, but due to COVID. And it's still where we live, it's still not 100% open back up. And to do where with Virginia is not open where what I do with my job and I can't say or else, then that just pinpoints me. Okay, so my income has dropped drastically.

What do you make today?

Past couple of years? Jeez, probably only like $30,000 right now.

You need to go find a new career.

Well, I've been trying. I probably put in a dozen to two dozen.

If you go work a retail job at $16 an hour, you just got a raise.

When? What does your husband make.

Good money.

Due to six figures?

His career.

And you guys have totally separate finances?

No, we have joint also, but this was on my own.

Okay, well, you're not going to be able to pay off this $30,000. You need his help right now, unfortunately. Which means you're going to have to go and say, listen, I'm sorry, I committed financial infidelity. I need your help fixing this. I want to salvage the relationships. I need your help. This is what marriage is. It is dealing with the hard stuff together.

Yeah. She's going to have to swallow her pride and go in there and ask for help. This is her spouse. And by the way, combining incomes doesn't mean that you have a joint account that you both put some into and then you have your separate accounts off to the side. That's not combining finances. That's playing yourself and you're playing your marriage, too. This is the Ramsey Show, live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's The Ramsey Show where we help people build wealth, do work they love and create actual amazing relationships. I am your host today, Jade Warshaw. I am joined by one of my favorite guys, I mean George Camel. What a stand up individual.

You are so kind.

And we're taking your calls all afternoon about your life, your money. Give us a call. The number is triple 8825-5225 and we'll try to get you on the line. In the meantime, let's quickly go to these phone lines because we've got Linda waiting in White Plains, New York. What's going on, Linda?

Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Happy to do so. What's going on?

So my parents are retired and they're in the process of getting divorced. My mom is going to be keeping the house, but she won't have very much to live on. So my siblings and I are thinking of taking on the mortgage. And my question is, does it make sense for us to take on the mortgage for this house that's older and it needs significant renovations? Or should we try to sell and find my mom a new place to live?

I'm going for option number two because it's way cleaner. When you started talking about that, my brain started imagining all the ways that can go south because how many siblings is it? There's three of us who.

Will be able to take on that responsibility.

So let's just pretend you guys split the mortgage equally, and then suddenly one sibling falls on hard times or something happens in their world and they're not able to hold up their end of the bargain. And so now it falls on two siblings, and then, God forbid, something happens and another sibling goes through something with their life and their family, and they realize, hey, this is not a priority. Do you see how that can kind of unravel very quickly?

Yeah, definitely. What we've been thinking, though, is even if we try to buy something new, we'll still all have to pitch in.

What is her retirement income free wave?

Yeah, it's not much. So with Social Security, my mom will have about $2,800.

That's something. It's just her she can't afford an apartment.

Sorry?

She can't afford a condo or an apartment?

Not in New York.

Does she have to live in do all the siblings live in the White Plains area?

Yeah, we pretty much all live in the same area. We've considered relocating, but for the entire family to relocate, that would be significant.

Is there any spousal support? What's going to happen? How is the dust going to settle from this divorce? As far as the finances go?

Yeah. So pretty much splitting my dad's pension in half, but he has more Social Security because he was the one working, so he'll be able to live on what he gets. But my mom won't quite be able to make ends meet.

So she'll have the 2800 plus half of his pension? No, that's including that includes the pension.

Okay, so if you were to sell the house, what would it bring? In the condition it is now.

Maybe 150,000.

It would only go for 150 grand.

Because it needs a lot of renovations.

Then I think we need to get her out of there anyways. What's going to happen when you take on a big mortgage and you have to pay for all these renovations and none of you even live there?

Yeah, well, we're all in our 30s. We've all been saving for our own homes, so what we're thinking is we'll just keep renting.

So you're going to delay the rest of your financial future to keep mom living this dream nightmare? I would sell it and I'd get her a real, just quaint little condo and apartment, and if that can get her mortgage lower to where she can still afford it, then that's great, but I would not refinance this thing. And you guys take on the loan. But her name's on the title. It's going to implode the family sooner rather than later.

What's your net worth?

My net worth is about probably about 150,000.

Yeah. And if you had to guess, your siblings, where are they sitting at? If you had to guess?

Oh, somewhat less than that. I don't know what their net worth is, but they make about 60,000 a.

Year and they probably have that average debt, that sort of thing.

I'd rather mom go live with one.

Of the siblings at this point. Oh, you're all debt free.

Could she live with one of you all?

Yeah, that's definitely possible. It's just hard for us to think of our mom having to move back into an apartment. She loves being outdoors. She loves gardening. She has two big dogs.

She can still go outside and there's so much that she can still do. I think you guys have to grieve what's taken place and grieve the fact that you guys all had this ideal picture of what your mom would be doing at this age and what that would look like. And it's not like that everything can.

I also just say she doesn't get to have her dreams when she did nothing to prepare for those dreams. That's a hard thing to say out loud because I'm sure she's a wonderful person, an amazing mother, but she's sitting here with a mortgage, no retirement, and hoping to live off of Social Security. And so we have to also face reality. As John Deloney would say. One of his daily decisions we have to make is choose reality. And the reality is she can't afford the life that she wants and you guys are going to prop it up while setting back your own financial futures, which is only going to build resentment and only takes one of these jenga blocks to fall one of the siblings to go. This sucks. I'm out to where everyone hates each.

Liked George. I liked George's idea of possibly her living with you guys for a while. Here's what I'm thinking. And you can poke holes in this if you sell this house and you get 150 out of it. Now, when I asked you what would it bring, I wanted to know what would you profit from it? Not what 150 is, what you would profit from it. If I were you guys, I'd set that money aside and let it grow for her. And if you guys can work out a situation where it's like mom is living with sibling one for a while, and then she's living with sibling two, and maybe over time, you guys are able to figure out a situation where she gets a little apartment because she can draw some money off of her nest egg and then she's got the 2800 coming in and then she's kind of sustainable on her own. But I would rather you guys work out a situation on the front end that doesn't involve you guys each ponying up a bunch of cash and this long term thing of we're paying her rent or we're paying her mortgage, I just think that that's going to drain all of you.

Yeah.

That sounds good.

I mean, we will still have to contribute to her because again, with that income that she'll have, she won't be able to rent, but, like, on her own.

I would also do some homework and see what all of the options are. I know White Plains is expensive, but I would be shocked if there wasn't a one bedroom for $2,000, $2,300. And maybe you chip in to help cover some of her groceries. But we don't know how long we're going to have to prop her lifestyle up for.

I know that's right. Or maybe there's a friend or somebody else where she can get a roommate situation. And they have a Golden Girls deal going on and they're just they find a way. They've got a companion, they're having fun and they're living in their apartment life together. Either way, the vision that they had for their mom is going to have to change. And that's tough. I hate to have to tell them.

That, but, yeah, option A and B aren't great. Let's look at CDEF and then make a decision as a family.

And I bet the further out they go, there's going to be something cheaper. They've just got to live for it. This is the Ramsey show.

Hey, folks, it's Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruz. And we want to tell you our number one tip for managing your money. Well, I'm talking about budgeting.

Yes. And everyone knows that I am a huge fan of budgeting.

Well, that hadn't always been the case, though, has it, Rachel?

No. But listen, I seriously love it now because as soon as I started making a budget, I learned that it puts you in control of your spending. And my favorite way to budget is on our app.

Every Dollar.

Yep. Every dollar makes budgeting simple. It's the easiest way to make a plan for your spending so you can prioritize the things that matter to you. And you can get started today for free. Just download the app and check the show notes for the link.

And you guys, don't wait to start budgeting. Download every Dollar and create your free account today. Do it.

It's the best. Thank you for listening to the Ramsey show. I'm Jade Warshaw, joined by George Camel, fellow Ramsey personality. And if you're a new listener to our show, number one, thank you for being here. We're excited that you're here. And number two, you might hear us talk about things that you're not quite sure about. We talk about a series of baby steps. We talk about something called FPU Financial Peace University. You might hear us mention the word every dollar. And you're like, what the heck is that a budgeting app? And you want to know more information? Well, we've got just the thing for you. We want you to head over to ramseysolutions.com and we want you to click on the get started button. That's going to help you find your best next step here with Ramsey. It's going to help you get plugged in to what's going to be the next step for you. And that's what we want you to do. So ramseysolutions.com and click the Get started button. Today's question of the day is sponsored by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Neighborly has top quality providers like Precision Door Service, Junk King and more to help you take care of projects before the weather gets too cold.

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Today's question comes from Nick in Georgia. My wife and I bought a car new last year for 34 grand. Since having a new baby and her becoming a stayathome mom, we were thinking of selling that car for what we owe on it, 27,000 and purchasing a used car with 60 or 70,000 miles for around 12,000. The other plan is to attack the debt with intensity and pay it off in six to eight months. I'm just thinking it sounds better to save the 15,000 in cash. This is our only debt besides our mortgage and I wanted to get your thoughts on trading the newer car with the warranty, the Kia for a Nissan Versa or other small car. Monthly payment is 650 before extra payments and we make roughly $140,000 a year with a bonus.

Ahaha, love questions like these.

George fun times.

Yeah.

It feels like one of these, like, riddles you had in school back in the day. Like, Joe has four apples.

Yes.

Oh, man. Nick okay, if I'm in your shoes, I make 140K. I've got 27,000 to pay off. This car is not too much for your world. Sometimes we go, hey, dude, sell the car. You make 50 grand and this car is 34 grand. So we're not going to yell at you for the car's value. I'll get you for taking out a loan in the first place. But making 140K, you can pay it off in six months. I'd probably go that route versus trying to do the hooplav. I'm going to sell this. You have $0, so you still need the twelve K to get the other car. So that's the scenario here.

Yeah.

Normally I'm in favor of downgrading in car, but it's not a necessary piece of the equation.

I'm with you on that.

What's really getting 50 a month hurts my heart. It hurts my heart.

Oh, that car needs to make like a tree and leave. It's really expensive. $650 a month hurts my heart.

I don't know how much money they have in the bank. If they had the money in the bank right now to be done with the debt and get that car.

You want to know what? Considerate there's part of me that thinks that they might have some money in the bank because with all the detail, sometimes we get questions of the day. There's like no details and I'm like, what is wrong? This guy has every detail. So he sounds like a planner and a little bit nerdy, like maybe a spend, like knows where every dollar goes. So if they have some money sitting aside.

People making 140K generally have a little bit of money sitting aside. Now, some are living paycheck to paycheck, but a lot of times they're just doing 14 things at once.

Yeah.

So I'm guessing they could pay this thing off even faster. And so I like the, hey, if we could pay this off in four months instead of six or eight, let's do it. Let's go hard at this thing. Then I'm okay with you keeping it, but there's no hard line. I'm going to draw here and go, you got to sell it because smaller car, new baby. I don't know, I feel like you're just going to then turn around and go, well, the car wasn't big enough.

No, they can have this paid off in a yeah, no biggie there. I like it. Good advice. George, what do you say we pick up Sal's Call in Sioux Falls, South Dakota? What's going on, Sal? Hey, guys. How are you doing? Good, how are oh, I'm a little nervous, but here we go.

You got this.

You can do it. Well, thank you. So I read the Total Money Makeover.

And I got a very impulsive and.

I basically empty our savings to wipe out our cars, my student loans and a huge chunk to the mortgage. Okay. How much money was that, man, it was like over 40K. Over 40K? Yeah.

The problem is I did all this without telling my wife.

Foul. Ten yard penalty.

Yeah. I really hurt her feelings.

You told her. Now what was her reaction to this? Obviously she's hurt, but she just said.

She would have loved to be part of the plan and all this. I'm usually in charge. She's a stay home mom, and I'm in charge of the finances. Run that. Wait a minute. Wait, let's hold up. Go ahead. I think there's where the problem lies. There's this idea in your house that you're in charge of the finances, and I think that's the mindset that led you to think. I read the total money makeover. I got a great idea. I'm going to go into our savings and I'm going to pay the bills. And that's what's gotten you here. And I think that starting instantly right now, you're doing a vocab rehab. And from now on, both of you are managing the money. It's our responsibility to manage our money. Can we agree on that? Yes. So that was my question. How do I introduce her to you guys in a very loving and patient and kindly way without coming off as a control freak? Like, I realized there's a lot of conviction in me now. I been showing her more, like statements and numbers and where our investments are through my employer, like my four hundred.

And one K and everything good.

And I've realized that she was not even aware of that and he broke me. It's like, no, we're a team. It's not my money. It's our money. It's our resources.

We take trips together. We invest together.

We grow together like we're a family. Do you think that she wants to has anything happened that you feel like there's resistance, like she doesn't want to be involved or she doesn't want to know? Or do you think it's just been her being in the role she thinks she's supposed to be in and you being in the role you think you're supposed to be in? I think it's on me. I think it's my lack of leadership, like, showing her things. And we don't do a budget. I mean, we spend less than what I bring home, and I can see that because our savings were growing every month. But I feel like it's on me and not really fully knowing how to include her on the budget.

We're not really doing a budget, but.

I want to start doing love to if you think that you can get her to watch it with you, I'd love for us to give you Financial Peace University, and you guys watch it together. I'd love for you to find an in person class near you and for both of you guys to go to this class together and make it a date night. Like, this is what you go and do. You're participating together. You talk about it afterwards and have Every Dollar part of that. So the way our resources are set up, they're set up for you to work together. Every Dollar is an app that you download on both of your phones. You both can look at it financial. Very of course you can do it if you're single, but I feel like it's great for couples. Like, it's got that special piece to it. So if we give that to you, Sal, will you do it together? Oh, absolutely. All right. Absolutely. Okay.

So you seem very genuine, Sal. There's genuine remorse here, and I think that is going to go the furthest with her of saying, hey, listen, I screwed up. I haven't been doing a good job leading this house, being a good husband, and I want to get us on the same page. And I want to let you know that your vote counts just as much as mine.

Yeah.

And I'm no longer just going to run this ship on my own and then just let you know what I did in hindsight, because the heart behind it of he went and paid off debt. It's such a great thing. The wrong way.

Yeah. I literally don't think it was intentionally to be malice. I think people enter into relationships with gender role ideas, and a lot of guys think, hey, it's my job, or in some families, it's the woman who pays the bills. And it's like, this is you and this is me, and this is just the way it's always been. But that changes today. Vocab. Rehab. Guys love it. This has been a theme today.

George Sal, hang on the line. We're going to gift you one year of Financial Peace University as well as one year of every dollar premium. Let her have a say in the budget. Let her share her thoughts on how you're going to move forward and that will get you guys dreaming together and get this marriage back on the right foot.

This is the Ramsey show.

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Thank you for listening to the Ramsey show. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw. Next to me is George Campbell, host of the YouTube show George Campbell.

The George Campbell Show with a K. Don't wear it out.

That's right. And don't get confused about it. We're taking your calls all afternoon about your life and your money. So give us a call. The number is triple 8825-5225 and we would love to chop it up with you. And that's what we're going to do with Christian who's in Chicago, Illinois. What's going on, Christian?

Nothing much. How are you guys doing?

Great.

Wonderful. So here is the scenario. We had our home up on the market for about three to four months. It was under contract. We were the week of to close and then the buyer's lender did not approve their loan, so they weren't able to buy the house. So we put it back on the market again. We went under contract and then the buyer backed out. So we were supposed to close on our third contract yesterday. Now the buyer is short $8,000 and we don't know what to do at this point. Don't know if to keep waiting. Is there anything that we could negotiate? It's a roller coaster. We're really just trying to move forward with our lives. Not sure what to do.

Well, first of all, we're going to give you advice as entertainment because this is the job of the real estate agent, the closing attorney, the lender. But we can give you our take, if that helps.

Sure.

So they're eight grand short. What has the communication been? Because the lender and the closing office, they should be looking at their finances at the very last minute going, hey, we still good. We still good, we still good. There hasn't been any financial changes. So they had this money at one point, right.

Ask that question one more.

Did they have the eight grand at one point, or did they never have it and they just got pre approved?

Well, yes, but apparently the buyer gave a bank statement that was from August and they went forward with it. And in the matter of three months, the buyer, who has a joint account with her mother, quoted my attorney, whose mom spent $8,000. I don't know. It's probably personal, but it definitely did affect everyone in the pipeline.

Well, man, if they got to pay to play and if they can't, this deal is over and you're going to have to try for the fourth time, which sucks.

Yeah.

What has the communication been about? When and if they're going to close this deal and have the eight grand?

Well, it sounded pretty consistent. It sounded pretty diligent.

I would need in writing that on this date, we will close and you will have the money.

That's what we have on file. Everything is ready to go. Tomorrow we're closing. And yesterday came I got a phone call, 05:00, that we're going to have to reconvene because it really sounds fishy to me because apparently there was a wire transfer coming in from Mexico. Cover the cost.

Christian, I don't like any of this.

I mean, you're doing this all by the book, right? You're working with closing attorneys and lenders and real estate agents.

Yes.

This isn't some, like, backwoods deal.

No, this is Dave Ramsey realtor that we found a previous attorney that I used to buy the house.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure this wasn't some weird situation where you're kind of working around some of that.

Christian, what's what's your timeline? I mean, do you have a contingent offer out on another house or do you have some time to what's your rush or do you have a rush?

Well, at this point, it's getting to a point where this is going to be like the fourth, 5th time doing it. I don't know. It's tough to say because where are.

You guys going to go? Let's say you close three weeks from now, where do you guys go?

Well, right now we are staying with my in law, my mother in law, until this all clears out. We don't want to sign a lease until this is finalized because we want to restart. I've been listening to Dave Ramsey and I felt like this was the right decision to make and this know, trying to restart, save up a bunch of cash and get a mortgage that we know afford.

Sure.

So the timeline is based off of that. But on the flip side, we did just find out that we have baby number two on the way.

Congrats.

So the timeline is within that context, getting an apartment before the baby comes. And I don't know if I'm going to have to put the house on the market again, because logically speaking, it would probably be better to keep it at that point.

But again, here's the thing. This deal is not going to happen. It can't hurt you to put the house on the market and keep it out there. Obviously, we're going into wintertime, and my guess is in Chicago, things slow down quite a bit in the I mean, I would keep working with that real estate agent. Here's the thing, and you can correct me here. When Sam and I were selling our house, something that was frustrating to me is sometimes the realtor would act like there was a solid offer, and then Sam and I were like, yes, we've got this offer. And then the next day it's like, oh, well, they pulled it back, and it's like, how solid was it to begin with? You know what I mean? So you might also be dealing with that idea, because the realtors, they want to sound like they're doing the best job for you. And I've got four offers, and then at the end of the day, they pull out and you're like, wait, how far along, really, was it? Or were you just trying to make it sound like you sold our house super fast kind of thing?

I'm curious what the real estate attorney said. Have they talked through the options? Like, hey, we can postpone the closing. We could work out a partial payment plan. They pay some of it now and some of it after the fact, we close the deal. What are the options that have been laid out?

That's a good question. I spoke to the attorney within the past couple of hours, and he said that the first option, we wait until she scraps it up. He's hoping he's just telling me a lot of things that he hopes. He hopes this hopes that, which isn't convincing enough for me, really. And the second option was to I forgot what the second option was, to be completely honest. But there wasn't a lot.

I mean, has anyone just suggested to push the closing date by two weeks or four weeks until this person can do whatever they're going to do to get the money?

Thank you. That was actually the second option, to push it back two to three weeks.

I'm good. Waiting two to three weeks before putting it back on the market in case the deal does go through and you can be done with this, because I know you're just exhausted at this point.

I bet I would be too.

Beyond that, I'd have it in writing. Hey, three weeks from now, if they don't have it. We're moving on because they're going to keep kicking the can down the road.

Yeah, we see.

Another week. We need another week.

What do we do with our mortgage then?

If the deal falls through and you still have the mortgage? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah.

Well, are you still going to list it again at that point, or are you going to keep the house and just live in it for a while?

We'll see. Because right now there's a payoff request, so I don't intend to pay the mortgage until the deal closes.

Do you have the money to pay it off now or no? No, this is contingent on the home sale.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, the request doesn't mean much until you actually pay it off.

Right.

You're all good there. I mean, as long as you're making the payments, you got to keep making that mortgage payment until you figure out what's next.

Yeah. And that's all you can do. I mean, you're either going to decide to put it back on the market again if this thing doesn't come through in three weeks or four weeks or whatever you decide as the next close date, or you might decide, hey, winter, it's not going to be good. We're going to wait till spring to relist it again. What percentage of your take home pay is this mortgage right now? Are you guys drowning?

Yeah, I don't know how to do the math on that. I have $157,000 left on the loan. I'm bringing home about $3,800 a month.

What's the actual mortgage payment?

Yeah, the actual mortgage payment is 1200.

Okay.

Yeah.

So it's not crushing you.

So if this doesn't work out, if this doesn't work out in the next four weeks, I would just really consult with the realtor and say, what do you think is best? We've been down this road for the.

Last the realtor wants to close the deal. They want that commission.

But I know that's right.

I'm going let's get this in writing with the attorney and say they got three weeks. If it's not in three weeks, they lose their earnest money, their deposit, and we move on with our life.

Yeah, but are you going back on the market after that, or are you holding out till spring?

I'm probably holding out because I think they need a breath of air right now. So too, they're exhausted. Tough stuff.

Tough stuff. This is the Ramsay show. You're listening to the Ramsay Show, our scripture and quote of the day. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. That's colossians. Three, two, then frank zappa. Zappa says, a mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it's not open.

Oh.

OOH.

Mic drop. I like that.

Okay.

I'm Jade Warshaw. This is George Camel. We're taking your calls. We got a little bit of time left today, so try to get your call in on those phone lines.

It's.

Triple 8825-5225, and we take your calls live and in person. If anybody was wondering about that. Let's go to Chicago. We've got Bryle on the line. What's going on? Bryle?

Hi, thanks for taking my call. I'm in a situation where I want to move out of my mom's house. I want to get an apartment or a house. My mom's very adamant about me not renting an apartment that's on the first floor. And she says that it'll be better for me to just stay in the house and save money for a down payment. And from my point of view, I want to move out as soon as I can, and I'm taking care of my financials so that I can prepare for that. And I was just wondering what your opinion of that is.

How old are you?

28.

Boy, it's time to get out.

Have you been working? Did you go to college? Have you been working? What have you been doing?

Yeah, I've been working at the company I'm at right now for it's going to be two years in November 1.

Okay. And what was the reason you were staying home in the first place after you got the job? You had a big boy salary. Was it, hey, I'm trying to pay off debt, or hey, rent is expensive.

Right. My mom's a single mother. It's just me and her here, and the rest of the family is back home, and so I've kind of been hesitant to leave her.

See, I'm wondering if there's a relational piece of this where she just doesn't want her son to leave because she likes having you around, which is a.

Very sweet she's also trying to look out for me financially too, which I'm trying to solve as well.

What do you mean, financially?

I've got a couple of debts that I'm trying to pay off.

How much?

I take home monthly about $4,100. I had a credit card balance of 6000, and it's down to $375 now.

Okay.

That's gone, like, in the next few weeks, right?

Yeah. I have a motorcycle loan that's got $10,100, and I'm planning on selling that and just getting rid of it and staying off of it.

Will you earn a profit when you sell it, or will you be upside.

Down or will it just be even probably $5,000 profit.

Okay.

I have a car that we're debating right now whether or not for me to keep it or not. I bought it brand new when I first got my job. The loan amount was originally 36,000, and it's now down to 23,300.

What's it worth?

Telly Blue Book trade in the dealership was offering me 24. I've been listing it for anywhere between 20 to 30,000.

Okay.

What else?

I have a student loan that's 11,000.

Okay. So let's assume the credit card is gone this month. Right. And then after that, you said you're going to sell the motorcycle and probably bring anywhere between $1000 to $5,000. If you did that, whatever profit that turned would go onto your student loan. And then we've got to decide what's going to happen with this car. Are you looking to quickly pay it off, or are you looking to sell it and downsize to something in cash?

I was just going to sell it, and I have a car available for me right now. It's Toyota that's got 130,000 miles that I used to drive that my mother now drives. And she also has the opportunity to go back to her older car that she used to drive.

So she's got two cars.

Yeah. My mom helped me buy my first car, the Toyota.

Okay. I'm doing all of this because on paper, you're almost debt free. If you do all of this, you pay off the card. We're going to sell the motorcycle, come out of that with $500 to $1,000. Sell the car for 30. You owe 23. You're going to make six or seven there. So you have seven plus the thousand from the motorcycle. Now we got eight to throw out 11,000 of student loans, and you're debt free in the next two months.

Yeah.

And then you can actually move out.

So what is your opinion about getting an apartment or staying at home and saving for a down payment?

I would get the apartment.

Apartment? Dude, you've already stunted your growth long enough, even if you have to get some roommates.

And it's a great way to start out. Like this idea of living by yourself. Right. It's like, let's dip our toe into the water before we just dive off the high.

What's her deal with the first floor apartment?

Cockroach. I don't have a problem with it. My mother has a problem with it as far as safety. And if you're on the first floor, the robber is going to go on the first floor.

I don't buy any of this.

Wait, there's some arguments to this. You do have to are you in.

A super dangerous part?

No, I'm in a good neighborhood, and the apartment that I'm looking at is literally a two minute walk from her.

House, so it's a safe neighborhood. The only other reason I wouldn't live on the first floor is that's where the bugs come in.

Are you that person?

Second floor is the best floor. If you go too high up, no one's going to help you move. Getting your couch up there is going.

To be a pain in the butt.

Thank you. Will Rudder. Will Rudder in the booth knows what I'm talking about. But if you go on the first floor, if there's any pest issues on that property, they're going right under the door into your apartment.

I think we're done letting Mommy make the decisions for us. That's the heart of all of, right?

That's right.

So I just think we got to go. Mom, I appreciate everything you've done for me. You've been amazing. I got to step out on my own. I've been making bad decisions while living at home, taking on all kinds of debt. I think using my own money, my own income, not having this safety net, this hammock I've been laying in, is going to cause me to make better financial decisions, and therefore, I will come visit you on the weekends. We'll have family. Love you.

So, Cyanara, let's talk on both sides of this coin for a second. George so I've been reading, and there's a lot of arguments out there why if you're coming out of college or you're in your early 20s, it could be beneficial for you to live at home for a couple of years while you're getting your financial footing or whatnot? This is what some of the articles are saying. But there's part of you it's like, yeah, you could do that if you have a great relationship with your family. Like, I know a couple of people who can actually live at home with their parents, and no one blows up. I couldn't do it. But, hey, and there's like, yeah, if you have that type of relationship for a year or so, that could work. But then there's part of it I'm looking at my guys numbers here, and there's part of it that's like, I live at home. I don't have any expenses. I can buy motorcycles and cars exactly. And dilly dally with my student loan.

This idea that I'll save up a down payment or just get comfortable and eat mom slowly. There we go. Is that an Eminem reference?

I mean, I had to.

Knowing you, I just thought it was.

Yeah, but there is part of that where comfort can really hold you back 100% from doing what you know that you need to do.

And I'm not dogging on Bryle. I'm having a little bit of fun. But I truly think that when you step out on your own, with your own income, your own bills and your parents, they did a great job raising you. Yes, but you're an adult now. We have to have our own life, make our own decisions, and it's great to ask mom for advice when we need it, but to have her dictate, hey, here's what you're going to do next. At 28, I'm out on that.

Yeah, it's not good.

Even if you get a second floor apartment, which is I just have never heard this second. 34 years old. I've never heard that. You should not get a first floor apartment.

I want anybody watching this on YouTube to put in the comments if it matters what floor you're on and put.

Matters because of your neighbors, people stomping above you. I'm like, what's going on up there?

That's true. But, yeah, you got to think about these things. You don't want a bunch of people above you.

Yeah, but the idea that robberies don't happen on second floor apartments, I call BS on that, too.

Yeah, that's true. And it sounds like they live in a safe neighborhood. But the point here is there can be some benefit if you have just I think my rule of thumb is, like, a year. When you graduate college, you have a year to go home, have an exit strategy, and then you got to have.

An extra and if life happens, you have some extenuating life circumstances, it's okay to have that safety net, hey, I got to be home for six months or a year, get my life back together. But this is a different situation. I moved out when I was 20 and moved across the country, and I love my parents, and I visit home, but it felt good. I felt like it propelled me into adulthood in a different way than if I had lived at home until I was 28 or 30.

Yeah, I moved out and I moved into an apartment that some girls I went to school with, and there was no room. I just slept on the couch, and I lived there.

And you survived.

I survived.

Was that a first floor?

No, I don't think it was first floor. I don't really remember. I was sleeping on a know I think I was paying, like, a couple of then I got married, and Sam and I moved in together.

It worked out.

It worked out.

Hey, that's what we're here for.

That is what we're here for. This has been the Ramsey Show. Thanks for hanging out with us. That does it for this hour. When it comes to your life and your money, you can tell me that you won't do it, but don't tell me that you can't. This is the Ramsey show.

Hey, George Camel here. If you love the show and you want a deeper dive on your money journey, we've got a weekly newsletter that gives you helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to today to sign up for the newsletter. Again. That's Ramsaysolutions.com. To sign up for our weekly newsletter.