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This is the Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about their money, their work, and their relationships.

The phone number to jump in today is 888-825-5225.

888-825-5225.

Alongside the fantastically talented Jade Warshaw, I am Ken Coleman.

And partner, you're looking very bright today.

Yes.

I like the yellow.

It's a reflection of the way it feels outside.

It is scorching hot everywhere, folks.

Welcome to summer.

And let's also welcome Stephanie as we get started in Oklahoma City.

Stephanie, how can we help you?

Okay, then.

Hello.

Stephanie.

Yes.

Are you there?

Yes, I'm here.

I feel like like we're there with somebody else, too.

It's a meeting.

Are we in a meeting?

Hello?

Stephanie, are you someplace where we can only hear you?

Yes, sorry.

I have a contractor here.

Yes, I'm here.

Okay, tell the contractor.

Wait a few minutes, pal.

Get yourself a Gatorade.

We'll get back to you shortly.

How can we help?

Yes, I'm here.

Hi, I am just calling because we are going over our finances and

we're looking at our debt ratio.

And my husband is thinking that he needs to pull out about $14,000, $15,000 from his retirement savings.

He is active duty military, and I feel like there just has to be another way.

For what?

What are we pulling that?

What is he considering pulling the money out for?

To

pull that out to pay off some debt.

We've got about credit card, $25,000 in credit card debt altogether.

And then we have the he has a truck, I have in an SUV,

and we have $15,000 on his truck, and then we have $8,800 on my SUV.

And we have about $8,300 in savings.

And we homeschool, so we are a one-income family.

So the $8,800 you just mentioned, that's your total savings.

And our savings right now is $8,316.

I'm sorry, $8,300.

But my point is, that's all the savings you have in the whole world is $8,300.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, I don't know how familiar you are with our baby stuffs.

I'm going to bring in my partner here on this one.

But the answer to the question, and Jade will explain why, no.

I understand there's an intensity when somebody kind of goes, all right, I'm ready to get rid of this debt.

And you think, where can I get the biggest chunk of change?

But simply put, you're going to get taxed on that, and that makes zero financial sense.

Not to mention, that's your retirement money.

But Jade will walk you through through this.

You kind of need to get engaged with our baby steps.

Partner, come in here and tell her all the whys and the hows.

Yeah, so I don't like the idea of pulling from retirement.

Is the 15,000 all that you have?

In his retirement,

I mean, that was just, he said, my husband, Kyle, said that he just has to look more into it.

He seems like he's pretty sad, but I just, I have a bad feeling and I don't want to make a quick decision without

It's definitely a bad choice.

You're correct.

I mean, A, he's going to be taxed on it and he's going to get hit with those fees.

And even if it's not his only money, I would hate for him to drain that.

And it's not even enough to pay off the debt.

So I was just wondering how he arrived at 15,000.

So I would say immediately no to that

in any capacity, by the way.

I'm never going to suggest that you borrow from a 401k unless you were, you know, maybe avoiding foreclosure.

But in this case, listen, the good news is you've got a little bit of money saved

and we can attack this and really see some headway very quickly.

Let's talk about these cars because I think there's probably some wiggle room here.

Tell me about the $15,000 truck.

What's it worth?

So it's, oh, I'm not, so our, we have $15,501.86 left on it.

It's about $442 a month payment.

It's a 2016.

What's it

private party.

I thought I had all the numbers for you guys, but I did not look that up.

It's a 2016 Ford King Ranch.

So I'mwork.

That'll be thing one on your homework list tonight is I want you to find out

what the value is, private sale, not trade-in, private sale.

And if you find that

you can sell it and maybe get a couple thousand, then I would do that.

Or even if you could break even, I might say, hey, let's sell that and can we scrounge up five thousand dollars and get a five thousand dollar truck and now you're you've made headway of ten thousand right on that um

and then

or what you could do is go ahead and you could sell that truck outright and then take some of the saved money yeah and put that right towards a five thousand dollar truck and then take the other two thousand and put it towards the suv and start knocking that thing down

that's what i would do um and go down to one car though no no no because you still have the suv that's worth $8,800, right?

You're probably not going to get, you know, much more for that.

I would probably go ahead and pay that one off.

But then you said you've got $8,000 saved.

So if you can unload that truck and you're not upside down on it, you can just kind of get out of it and you're right side up, I'd get out of that and then take $5,000 and buy

a cash truck.

Okay.

Are you familiar with our baby steps, Stephanie?

I have your book here and I'm literally actually.

I have a book.

Real quick, let's just roll through it real fast.

Okay, roll through it.

Baby step one.

No, but I just I feel like we got to kind of get right back to the basics because here's exactly what we would tell you to do.

Baby step one is $1,000 in savings.

That's to cover your garden variety emergency.

You have $8,300 and some change.

Okay.

Baby step two is take the smallest debt and we attack that.

with a vengeance.

And once we get rid of that, we take the minimum payment on that and everything else we've been attacking, the extra money, and it goes to the second largest debt.

And we go smallest to largest for momentum.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Okay, so that means that today what we would tell you to do is you're going to move $7,300.

That's going to leave you with $1,000.

If you're still with me, say yes.

Yes.

All right.

So we've got $7,300 right now to attack the smallest debt.

What is your smallest debt?

Probably my target credit card.

It's got like $197 on it.

Great.

So now we have $7,100 and we're going to cut the target credit card up.

Are you still with me, Stephanie?

Say yes.

Yes.

All right.

So what's the second largest debt?

Our Platinum and American Express card.

How much?

$3,749.

Great.

Now the math's getting more complex for me.

I was not a math major, but

we got about $4,000 or $3,000 left, right?

$3,000 left, right?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Okay.

And so you keep putting that money in there.

Now, the other option, Jade, is would you put it on the car to get the car situation?

Because I know you were talking about that.

That's our baby step, Stephanie.

That's what you're doing next.

So Ken is exactly right.

That's the way the baby steps work.

A lot of times, though,

in these equations, there's a car situation that we can unload some debt very, very quickly.

And that's why I suggested that possibly you sell this truck, depending on what it's worth.

If you look it up and it's worth $13,000, then you keep it, right?

And you start paying it off.

But if you find that you can unload it and get that $442 back in your pocket every month, think how quickly you could do that debt snowball that Ken was just.

Let's say the truck's worth $20,000 because it's a King Ranch.

Yeah.

I don't think that's unreasonable.

I'm making that up.

I have no idea.

But let's say it's worth $20,000.

You owe $15,500, like Jade said.

You pay that off today.

Okay, now we've got the profit that you had left over plus the 7,300, excuse me, the 8,300 minus the thousand dollars, 7,300.

That's how you make up quick ground, but then you attack it.

So, hang on the line, what can we give them?

They got the book, but they need every dollar.

Let's make sure you have every dollar, you need that immediately.

I get it.

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All right, Curtis is joining us now in Baltimore.

Curtis, how can we help today?

Hey guys, how are you doing?

Good.

What's going on?

Appreciate you taking my call.

So

I got an email today that about dropped me out of my seat.

We have an unexpected medical bill that came up.

My wife needs some oral dental surgery.

And we're looking at like $30,000.

Whoa, are they putting a whole new jaw in?

Pretty much.

Yeah, it's to that point.

Lots of new teeth.

We'll leave it at that.

Okay, well,

give us a little more confidence.

I have the money, right?

Oh, great.

I'm a diligent saver, investor.

I have no debt other than my mortgage.

And so this is kind of a tactical question.

I'm one of these guys who has put a lot of money into my hsa over the years and was planning on just sitting on it until retirement to try and take advantage of that yeah triple triple tax savings so i have plenty of money in my hsa which i could tap into but i'm only 41 years old i also have the money in cash and i have it in investments and i'm just do i break my rule and spend some money out of my HSA and just move on and say that's what it's there, that's what it's there for.

Yes.

Would you use your HSA can?

I would just use my cash.

Do you have it?

Is it invested in your HSA?

Why?

Tell me why.

Well, I would do it.

So the way my HSA is,

you have to keep a thousand liquid and then you invest the rest.

And since the rest is invested, I wouldn't want to unplug it.

I see what you're saying.

So if I had the cash,

I would use the cash.

That's what Jade would do.

I'm not saying you're wrong, by the way, to use your HSA.

So there's no right or wrong on this one, correct?

No, no, no.

Yeah, I don't know why.

My gut, I like my cash.

Because he's got the money.

If he was calling in and he had like 10 over here.

That's an interesting point.

You know what it is for me?

I don't know if this helps you at all, Curtis, but I love that she asked me about this.

Psychologically,

it's all psychological.

It's that money

has been pulled away

for health.

You're right.

And my cash,

like, because here's no one loves paying $30,000 for any any health care procedure.

No, they don't.

Much less your wife's.

Like, I'm just being honest.

Well, wait a minute.

You said at least it better be your off.

I think the psychological part is better if you go, well, my knee's about ready to fall off.

Sure, okay.

I'm just saying, he's a good man.

Yeah.

I'm saying it's tough psychologically, and I guess that's why I went to, well, that's what the HSA is for.

And I think I'm going to do that.

I want to leave my cash alone.

But I'm thinking about it on interest, obviously, since the HSA money is invested.

The hope is that you're you're having a

better interest rate than the money you sit.

My point is, I needed to confess, but

I think I agree with you.

The better play is to let that money continue to build and use the cash.

But gosh, it doesn't feel very good to me.

It never feels good.

I mean, even

it being

never feels good.

You know what?

This pains me.

Are we on my side?

Well,

we like each other, but we like a good spat.

We do.

We do.

We like a professional.

And I think this is hard for me.

I'm going with Jade.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Appreciate you guys.

All right, Kirk.

Absolutely.

That was easy enough.

Listen, his wife's getting a new grill.

I think this show would be just as easy as life if I just said, yeah, whatever Stacey says, whatever Jade says.

I'm kidding.

Just a joke.

No, no, no.

I was just going to say life would be easier for you and Sam Warshaw.

Yeah.

Well, maybe Sam's listening to it.

Whatever they say is right.

Which pains me, but I think I like your play because I'm going to get more money.

I'm going to get better return.

I'd rather use.

I didn't want to use the cash, but I'm going with you.

You gave me some Trump.

I think you're right.

You gave me some Trump.

I like.

You gave me some Trump vibes on that.

That was, that was, that, that gave me.

I've never heard that before.

It was like you were like doing an impersonation.

It was good.

I like, I like your plan.

It was good.

All right, McKinsey.

It was a hand.

She's a smart one.

McKinsey's up and provo.

McKenzie, how can we help?

Hi, I have recently started looking into the baby steps to pay off our debts and everything.

And right now, we currently only really have our student loan debt at about $20,000.

But we know we want to go to grad school, and that will probably

put us into about $400,000 to $500,000.

Whoa, timeout.

Okay.

All right.

You got the, you'll be called in, maybe on the right show or the wrong show.

We'll find out.

Let you be the judge of this.

When I hear someone say we want to do that, and we're going to look at $400,000 to $500,000, I'm going to lean in and say, for what purpose do you both

need

a continuing education degree, some type of master's?

What are we getting and why are we getting it?

My husband is going into law school and I am going into medical school.

Okay, so you answered the big question.

Is a graduate degree the only way or is it the best way?

By the way, America, those are my two questions and will always allow you to remove the emotion around a graduate degree or a degree.

Is it the only way or is it the best way?

In your case, you want to be a doctor?

Yes.

All right, and he wants to be a lawyer.

So we got to do it.

Now, I'm going to challenge you on something.

And you can check me, you can fact check me.

We live in a fact check age.

Your husband, if he is patient and he is disciplined and he keeps taking the L sat long enough to get, there's a certain score and I wish I knew it.

I'll look it up in a second if we have time.

But you can, he can get a full ride from a smaller, lesser known law school.

And in your case, that would be the only way I would do it because you aren't going to get a full ride.

But you, you, you need to be patient.

And I'm going to tell you something that seems insane, but I just wonder how much money you could save up and delay med school is that even feasible to you emotionally because i know that that's an emotional question

i think i think i would be open to that for sure

yeah because we definitely have looked into him going to law school first and postponing the entering medical school i love that let me tell you why What do you expect his legal income to be?

Wherever he thinks he's going, what type of field he's going to?

What do you project as his his income post-law school?

We're hoping starting out

at least 80 to 90,000.

And we're trying to be a little more conservative so we don't get our hopes up too high.

Love this.

Jade, I want to bring you in here.

I like this plan.

I know we're asking a lot.

Listen, I love that you're spreading it out.

That already makes me feel better.

What my mind instantly went to was last week.

I think it was Dave and I, or maybe it was George and I took a call and the young guy called in.

He was 500,000, actually, I think he was 600,000 in debt and he couldn't pass his final tests.

And so he was now working a job for $50,000.

Oh, my God.

And he was looking on for a way to get out of debt.

And I just, I mean, my soul ached for him.

So that's where my mind goes to.

It's like best laid plans.

And don't get me wrong, you sound like a genius.

You sound like a really smart person.

I'm sure you'll go on to do fine.

I'm not trying to put any evil on you,

but that's the way my brain, that's, you know what I'm saying?

So if you can find a way to pay for this in cash or slow down to Ken's point

and cash flow it and do it little by little or, you know, find somebody who will pay you to work while you're in school, whatever those different options are out there, please go for those.

Yeah.

So the answer to your question is, should we pay off our student loans now?

Yeah.

Yes.

Because to Jay, Jay makes a very good point.

We don't want to wish ill will on your plans, but man, both of us are old enough to be around and see how our best-laid plans have always changed.

And if you pay off your student loans now, you get peace now.

Then, if something were to change later, you still have peace.

This gives us peace now, gives us peace later.

There's always time.

That would be our hope for you.

Because if I can just finish it with this, one last question: I want you to give me a yes or no answer.

Have you two thought about what it would feel like to have $400,000 to $500,000 worth of debt hanging over you?

Yes.

How's that feeling?

When you talk about it and think about it, what does it feel like?

It's definitely stressful.

There you go.

Choose no stress.

And you don't want to bring that stress into your profession.

You don't want that stress of making that payment breathing down your neck every day when you're just trying to go to work to do the work you love.

And I actually think Ken is brilliant in telling you to pay off the student loans you have now because paying off what you have now is just a teeny tiny taste of what it would feel like to do $40,000 or $400,000 or $500,000.

Well, speaking of that, you're only going to taste Pepto-Bismol because that's what you're going to have to drink every day to make it through.

I'm talking

the peak stuff.

$500,000?

Don't touch it.

Don't do it.

Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance, or they don't have any at all.

I don't understand this, John.

Why don't people want to take care of their family?

They think they're going to die or something.

Well, I used to be one of those guys, I didn't even think about it.

And one of my buddies said, Hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids.

And I immediately went and got term life insurance.

That's a gut punch.

And oh, you're telling me, and for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse.

They've lost somebody important to them.

Me too.

They don't know what to do next.

Me too.

I mean, you're going to have a crisis here.

And, you know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow.

She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up, or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow.

That's exactly.

These are the two options.

And terminal.

Take care of your dadgum family, man.

Term life insurance can replace income, pay off debts, cover funeral expenses, so your family can actually have the opportunity to just be sad.

Yeah.

To just miss you.

That's exactly what it's supposed to be.

It's saying I love you to your family.

Term life insurance.

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Let's go to Cindy next, who's joining us in Dallas.

Cindy, how can we help?

So I'm 48.

My boyfriend's 40.

My father's 59.

And we have moved in together.

I moved into his home.

And we have discussed marriage a few times.

And one of the things that we agreed on is that we keep finances separate, which after finding you about a month ago, I've learned that that's not recommended

hold on hold on hold on

hold on hold on you said you found us a month ago and we don't recommend that boyfriends and girlfriends

no no no we get married

i just want to make sure you knew what our position was right now you guys should keep them separate you get married you bring them together how long you guys been dating

three years okay

so what's your question yeah so i have almost all my debt paid off of course my income is a lot lower than his.

And I say I have it almost paid off.

I have a mortgage, but I don't.

I recently owner-financed my home

to where,

of course, if they pay it off, I will make about $150,000 in interest.

Okay, what's the term?

So we did

a 20-year note

at 15%

down and 14% interest.

And I sold it for $89,000.

And I surveyed off a half acre to keep for myself separate from the property.

And that also went in.

Well, we went through a title cut and we did it legally.

Okay.

God, have the people that bought your home agreed to a 14% interest?

That's what I was thinking.

That's why I think that.

Oh, no, I agree.

And I tried to talk her out of it when she first started saying something.

She was renting it from me.

And she kept saying, you know, I've known them for a really long time.

So I know what their finances are.

And I kept telling her,

you don't want me to do that because you don't understand how much you're going to end up paying for them.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Hold on a second.

Hold on a second.

You're telling me that the people who bought this house from you, they came up with the idea of a 14% interest rate against your objections?

Actually, my banker suggested that.

She came up with me.

Please don't finance it.

Yeah.

Please own it finance it.

And I said, well, you know, I got to talk to to my banker.

So I went and talked to my banker.

And I've been single for a long time, single mom, struggled.

He knew I struggled.

He knew that my income went from about $58,000 a year to $30,000.

So he knew I was struggling.

Okay, I get all that.

I don't want to get us on a rabbit trail.

But the only reason I'm digging in here is, can they afford that?

Yeah, is this going to default?

If they will manage their money, they can afford it.

Have they been affording it?

And how long have you been in this deal?

We just closed on it in April.

Oh, I don't know.

They've been working for a year from, well, a year and a half for me.

So they've been paying this note for a year and a half without it potentially becoming theirs.

And then we made it to where

the amount didn't change for them.

No.

Got you.

Okay, got you.

Yeah, I feel

that's what I was trying to make sure of.

Yeah, that's good, Ken.

How sketchy do you think their finances are?

Because this affects you.

Okay, keep going with your question.

Yeah, what's your debt and stuff?

Or what your question is.

without that mortgage i only owe 42 on the house sold it for 89 or selling it for 89 i have about six thousand seven thousand left that i need to pay off in my name credit cards and like little loans okay

i recently um got out from under a car loan and i bought cash vehicle

because

i could afford dubkeep on it yes so

you got out of the loan.

You got a cash car.

Okay, that's great.

How can we help you?

He is like, hey, I've been listening to this babe ring guy.

You should hear this.

We can be debt-free, yada, yada.

He does still have a mortgage and he has some credit cards.

Okay.

And he gets paid once a month.

So he charges everything on the credit card once a month.

He pays his credit card off.

Right.

Got it.

He doesn't have a balance.

He's talking about getting another credit card for the airline points,

which will have a yearly fee, an annual fee.

And I'm like, no.

So you have a philosophical disagreement on the uses of debt and whether it should be in your lives or not.

You feel it shouldn't be.

You're working hard to pay it off.

He says it shouldn't be, but his actions don't reflect that because he's still going out and getting credit cards is what you're saying.

Yes.

And so, well, he's talking about it.

He got it in the mail, you know, and I'm like, right, but when you're done with something, you stop talking about it.

Right.

Right.

So what's your income?

What's his income?

I make, I just recently got a raise.

I think I'm at 34,000 now.

He makes, I think, almost 70, maybe 65,000.

Okay.

So my question is, since we're older and we've both been previously married, if we do get married,

can we become debt-free without putting our incomes together?

Like, do we need to do that in order to accomplish the ultimate goal?

I mean, listen,

all things are possible, but it doesn't mean that is the best way to do it.

Like, you can get there.

It's going to take a lot longer.

You're not going to be on the same page.

There's going to be secrets.

There's going to be way more arguments because you're not actually working as a team.

That's like, that's like,

yeah, I don't know what it's like, but it's.

So, my question is, how long you've been dating?

Three years.

And do you think he's going to pop the question anytime soon?

Yeah, like we've been discussing it.

Actually, he's already said something about it, and I told him no the first time, but we're discussing it again.

What made you say no?

I'm very gun shy.

Hold on.

I'm very gun shy.

You can't just speed past that, like, you didn't say what you just said.

No, I was like, hold on.

What caused you to say no the first time?

Well,

because it's not my first rodeo, and I decided maybe I wasn't very good at this.

So it was more you than him?

Probably on that, just because I'm like, I don't know.

Well, you got it.

You know what?

I sold that property and I kept a half acre.

Let me tell you.

I just bought that security.

There's the issue.

There it is.

Yeah.

Security of your heart is the issue.

Now, here's the deal.

Most of the time, it's dudes not wanting to commit, but you've got everything.

You've got

all the things except for the real thing.

And he's going, I want to marry you.

I want to make you my wife.

And you're going, eh, I kind of like you as my boyfriend because we got the relationship stuff.

I get to keep my finances separate.

You got all the...

This is friends with benefits.

You even kept your tract of land in case you had to get out of there.

That's the thing.

I don't mind getting married and all that.

And part of it's probably a little bit of control.

Like if we put our finances together, can I just go spend my money and not be like, hey, I want

to get $200.

No, I can't do that.

No, you can't.

Let me tell you this.

I really believe that you guys should engage in some premarital counseling before he tries to pop the question again.

I'd hate for this dude to be 0-2.

Yeah, no.

Well, we're seriously discussing going forward.

I know, but you need to be seriously

put on the table what my issues are.

But not with us.

It's okay to not put him on the, like, see not be like, yes, we can get married, but let's not tell our finances.

Yes, but

what you're saying is a non-commitment commitment.

You're saying, I want to,

you're saying, think about it like this.

And this is going to sound extreme, but it's kind of the same thing.

What if, what if, what if, Ken, what if you said to Stacey, I want to be 100% committed to you, except on Saturdays.

Oh, Saturdays, I get to go out and do my thing.

I would catch a three-iron to the side of the head.

Because you're proposing not a full commitment.

So, if you say, Hey, I want to be committed to you, accept my money, that I keep over here.

That's like, what do you mean?

Well, and I don't know that he is willing to put his money in one pot because when we have discussed the pool, we discussed keeping it separate.

So, Cindy, Cindy, we've given you our financial advice, and I'm being very serious and very hopeful for you two.

But I do believe this is premarital counseling.

It's a trust issue.

You've got trust issues,

both of you, and it's okay.

By the way, I think you're totally normal, and I think everything that you've got concerned about are very, very normal and real, given that you've been burned before.

But this is a relationship, and so I I think there needs to be healing

prior to engagement and then we talk money yes but like the money conversation cannot happen in my mind effectively until there's healing on both sides so my advice would be we love each other we've been living together you live together

Yes, I've been living with him and his home for a year now.

Yeah, you guys need to go get counseling and decide, can we actually be together, not just cohabitate together?

Right now, it seems really easy because there's no skin in the game other than the actual relationship, but the money piece is a big part of it and shared dreams and goals.

So my prescription, Jade agrees, premarital counseling.

Let's get healthy, then we talk money, then we get engaged.

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All right, who out there is tired of living paycheck to paycheck?

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Stetson.

See, now this is a name.

That's a great name.

This is a good name, James.

If I was Stetson Coleman, I'd be a big deal.

You'd be good at football.

You'd be

6'3 ⁇ .

More muscles.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

More muscles.

I like that you dropped more in there.

I said it like that the first time.

No, you didn't.

You said I'd have muscles.

I'm sorry, Ken.

And I compliment her every show.

I don't know what I got.

I'm getting

this material.

That material is winning.

You know what?

I'm going sleeveless shirt the next time I'm with Jade.

People need to see the guns.

They need to see what's going on.

I digress.

Stetson, help us out of this mess and let us help you.

How can we help you today?

Wow, what the entrance.

I don't know how to follow that up.

Are you all those things, Stetson?

Were you good at football?

Do you have muscles?

You know, my wife thinks thinks so, and that's about all that matters.

But I do play football, so you did or did not?

I didn't talk about football today.

You did or did not?

I did.

Yes, I did.

I was the quarterback for myself.

I did it, though.

See?

See,

guys with the name Stetson, you know what they aren't?

They aren't kickers.

No, they're quarterbacks.

Do you know who was a kicker and has two thumbs?

This guy.

True story, I can't make it up.

Stetson.

Oh, man.

You got a great name and a great football career, I'm sure.

But let's help you with your money.

What's going on?

All righty.

Thanks, guys.

Well, hey, I'm 23 years old.

My wife's 24.

We have a newborn, and we're about $680,000 in debt.

Whoa.

$250,000 is her student loan.

So she's a stay-at-home mom now, but she went to school to be a chiropractor.

I've got $360,000 in a rental house that is upside down.

What I mean by that is it's really worth about $225,000 now.

I bought it at the height of COVID.

And yeah, just the market around it kind of tanked.

And then I've got $70,000 in an equipment loan that was going to be leased out to somebody.

The lease fell through, so now I'm stuck with a piece of equipment.

I make about $60,000 a year, which covers our personal expenses, but definitely does not cover any of the debt that we have to take care of.

Another

aspect to this is I started a home services business when I was in high school and got the chance to exit that business about a year and a half ago for about $1.7 million.

A million of that went to equity, took about $700,000 of it in cash.

So you're probably wondering why the heck am I here?

So $500,000 that invested that in a real estate business is doing really well.

$100,000 of that is going to go to taxes, which I have to pay in a couple months.

And then the other $100,000 we just spent on various things.

So I've kind of got this weird predicament.

One of the biggest questions I have is, other than just general advice,

is investing in that real estate business a good thing because it's doing really really well or should we focus more so on paying down the debt which one should take priority which gives you the worst feeling

or the best

not investing in not investing in the real estate business definitely gives me the worst feeling

well I wonder about your real estate savviness because of your other rental property

I'm a little surprised.

I would have thought you called today because this debt's eaten you up.

and and you were going to say man ken i don't like the feeling of this debt and you're so excited about your real estate investment because it's doing so well but it's not helping you in your actual life right now

so i would get out of the real estate company and get all my debts paid off because you've proven you know how to make money can you tell us more can you tell us more about the the 500 000 real estate what that would be is that one property what what is that tell us more

yes that's a good point uh And it's a very different business.

So I definitely failed in the rental business in a big metro like Atlanta.

The business we've got is we're buying lots of land in East Tennessee from the Knoxville area.

We're putting mobile homes on them and we're selling about 120 days.

So we're making like somewhere between 60 and 70,000 per home.

And I'm in it at 50-50 with my mom.

So I brought the capital.

She brought sweat equity.

I'm bringing sweat equity.

You're making 60 to 70,000 per home.

So you split that.

So you come home with 30, 35,000?

Yes, and we've invested everything back in the business.

How many times have you come?

Oh, okay.

So

then

how much do you have there sitting in that pool?

How many times have you done that and been profitable?

We've been profitable every time.

We've done it about seven times so far.

Okay.

And we just bought about 33 lots.

Okay.

Okay.

Interesting.

So you're saying instead of letting that continue to tick on like it has, you want to infuse it with another $500,000?

No, ma'am.

I already invested in your

$500,000 in it.

Got it, got it, got it.

That's the $500 that's left over after he sold that company.

So, okay, so how much is in your, like, can I just ask, like in your operating cost account, how much is in there now?

Um, personally, or for my business for the business, because you said you put all 500 in there, and you guys have been profitable nine times in a row.

So, what did you turn that 500,000 into?

Is what I'm asking.

So, we've, we've got about 800, 900,000 in equity, but all of our money at this moment is in deals right now.

Got it.

Okay.

We've got quite a few.

So we don't have a ton of liquidity, but these properties sell so quickly that we get liquidity pretty quickly.

So really the moral of the story is like, you know, I have enough cash to pay down my debt for a certain amount of time, but I'm going to run out of cash eventually.

And you don't have any retained is what I'm saying.

You haven't retained any.

Everything is up in the air.

Yes, that's correct.

Interesting.

I don't like the sound of that.

I don't either.

And I didn't hear in the details that you have cash to pay off some of the debt right now.

I haven't heard that at all.

How much cash do you have to actually pay off?

Well, first of all, you hit us with a lot of numbers.

You did?

What is your actual debt burden right now?

It's 680.

Is it 600 or is it?

It's 680.

Okay.

It's 680.

Okay.

All right.

And then just to clarify, that was your personal debt, even though we believe it's all together, but just for the, that was your personal debt.

But on the business, is there any debt on that real estate business or are you doing everything in cash?

No, ma'am.

Everything is cash.

Good.

Okay.

that's the good thing about what you're doing what i don't like is there's no savings or retained earnings anywhere that feels like that's a recipe for disaster that's a different call so the question then is

you're asking do you pay off your personal debt the 680 is that the question

yeah because we could pull pull all of our money out shut down the real estate business and pay off the majority of it but why do you have to shut down the business to do that that's what i'm trying to yeah

It takes a lot of cash.

I mean, because each, you know, our land and you don't have to pay for that.

And then we buy these mobile homes we buy them all cash right but what i'm saying is you said and track with me here you said we make like net profit 30 what did you say 60 to 70 off of each deal yeah 60 and then you said

but then you said but we choose to reinvest that so i'm saying if you didn't reinvest it what would be your profit like would

you would be able to can pay yourself something and continue going is what i'm saying so if you can pay yourself something and then use that money to pay off the bad rental that you had, why can't you do that?

That is the plan.

The question is how soon do we do that?

Like, do we stop everything and do that now or do we wait, you know, a year or two?

Again, and I'm saying you shouldn't have to stop everything.

If it's really profit, you shouldn't have to stop everything.

Yeah, we don't know what you mean by should we stop.

Do you mean you and mom sell the entire trailer park and the land and everything?

Is that what you mean by stop?

Right, right.

Stop.

So basically pull all of our cash out, stop buying homes, pay off the debt.

And I'm saying,

okay, yes.

That was my take.

Yes.

I think you should cash out and get out of all this mess.

You're saying he should start paying himself and debt snowball just like everything else.

I'm saying he's got a business.

He's running it at the speed of cash.

There's probably some changes and tweaks that could make it better.

But I'm saying if you're really generating enough profit, because in my mind, the point of a business is to make some profit so I can pay myself.

So how quickly?

So, Stetso, we've got about a minute, we got 50 seconds.

Quick question: When will you start to actually get your next cash payment?

Instead of putting it back into the company, when would you get the next payment on something?

When

we'll close on two homes in August, and what will you walk away with, you personally?

About $50,000, my split of it'll be.

All right, so great.

So, what Jade is saying, you take it away.

We got 10 seconds.

Start paying yourself so you can pay off this debt.

There you go.

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This is the Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about their money, their work, and their relationships.

The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225.

Triple 8-825-5225.

Alongside the spectacular and very sunny today,

Jade Warshaw.

I'm Ken Coleman, trying to keep the positive energy up next to her.

Just, you know, your personality is bright enough, and then

you got to really one-up it with the outfit.

It's enough to give you a tan.

I like the tan you got.

You got bacon here.

This is all from the first hour, just kind of coming off of you there.

It's just bright, bright in here in the studio.

And Laura is joining us now in San Francisco.

Laura, how can we help today?

Hi, Ken and Jade.

I'm so excited to ask you for your perspective.

I

have been in the biotech industry about 34 years,

and we recently did a reorganization, and I have been impacted and

will be terminated in a couple of months.

Yeah.

Although I have the opportunity to look for internal jobs, and I am interviewing, but I thought this question would be for you all.

I'm about to turn 58, and I will get a very sizable severance package.

How much?

And

a year's salary, which is about $252,000

before taxes.

Okay.

All my stock

grants at Vest Every Year, those will be accelerated.

I'll get all of those.

How much is that worth?

Well, today's price, probably $75,000.

They'll pay out my vacation, which is, I don't know, $10,000.

Okay.

And my 401k has got about $1.4 million in it right now.

My house in the San Francisco area has more than doubled in the 18 years I've been here.

So that's a big asset.

And I have been thinking I'd eventually like to move back east to be closer to family once my son's done with high school.

If you were to sell that house, what would you stand to make on it?

Probably,

well,

I think close to a million and a half, but I don't know how much commission would be in taxes, but over a million.

Over a million actual net to you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

After taxes and the real estate fee, you feel like you're going to make a million plus.

Yes.

Okay, great.

That's great.

That's fantastic.

Okay, keep going.

These are really good numbers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're very good.

It's very

tempting.

I do have,

I feel like I'm so close after so many years of being in a regulated environment and being under stress.

There's something very tempting about

saying,

can I do it?

Maybe do some part-time consulting?

Or

I'm interviewing for an internal role.

I am informed if they offer that to me, I have to take it.

I wouldn't get my

severance package, but I would stay with the company.

Would the pay be the same, or would it be a step down?

It's the same.

Oh, okay.

It would be.

The positions,

it's a huge company.

And so there are, I'm very thankful there are a variety of internal positions.

There are other biotech companies in the area where I live that I'm also looking at.

And my first thought was, should I focus externally and sort of cash out this chunk?

But there's, there's something to be said for the

34 years.

If I do, yeah, if I do secure an internal position, continue with my benefits.

All right, let me ask you.

Can I ask you a fun question?

Please.

Okay.

All right.

Let's say

that

the severance they gave you was

3x, 4x.

Let's say you cashed.

Let's say you had the stock.

Point is you'll walk away with a million dollars, a million more.

Okay?

I'm giving you an absurd thing.

I know that's not going to happen, but I'm driving at something.

Let's say that happened.

And you walked away with a million dollars and you got the East Coast and your family sitting out there or

working in biotech for a different company.

Which choice would you make?

The first one.

Of course, you would.

I'm also looking at my mom's in good health,

but I think

eventually,

you know, I want to

take care of her

when she's going to need it.

And so I'm not, I'm in a good position right now.

I'm not too sandwiched as a sandwiched person.

Right, but do you know why you said yes?

You said, well, if you gave me a million, I'd absolutely go to the East Coast and be in your family.

Do you know why that is?

Why did you say that?

I think after such a long and intense career

being

nice, but you're walking away with 250.

But when I jumped it up to a million, you went, oh, it's a no-brainer.

So are you getting where I'm going?

It was, for whatever reason, the million dollars was more financially secure for you to do the thing you want to do.

Do you agree with what I'm saying?

Yes.

Did you agree that that's what I'm saying?

Also,

in my head, I was thinking, you know, if this had happened two or three years from now, it would be no question.

It would be like

very much.

Okay, this is all I wanted to discover.

So, Jade, here's what I was doing.

I'm with young guys.

I'm doing a little psychological digging to get to the point that this is all about, do I feel safe financially to do the thing I want to do now?

So, there's where I want to bring in my partner on this.

All right.

So, that is exactly, exactly where I am.

I know, know.

I know.

I've done this a time or two.

And I want to bring you in because here's what I'm seeing.

I'm seeing that you're going to get a year's salary to walk so you could move to the East Coast and not work for a year if you don't want to because you've got 12 months coming in the same way it's always been coming in.

I also see,

let's see, 85,000 coming in on top of that.

And I see us walking away with a million dollars in my best Dr.

Evil voice to go back east

and just settle in, be near mom, and begin to create a new life.

All the while at 1.4.

That's right.

And my point is, is you can get back into consulting six months in if you really miss the work.

You can jump back in the industry on the East Coast if you really miss the work.

But I'm not hearing missional work right here.

I'm hearing, is it financially?

Am I secure?

And my position, Jade, I want to bring you in.

I'm saying she should do it because I think she's got the finances, but I want you to speak to that.

Yeah, I think I, well, yes, I agree with Ken.

I think you've got the finances to walk away from this and go to the part of the country that you want to be in.

I don't think you're done.

Something tells me that she's going to find something else.

I agree.

Yeah, I don't think you're done working.

I think you've got time to figure out what that is.

And

yeah.

I think you've got time to figure that out.

I mean, your lump sum,

if invested well, is going to double every seven years.

So that's going to

$1.4 million.

That's right.

You're going to a less expensive part of the country where your million dollars from your home sale is going to go a lot farther.

I mean, are you, you're single, yes?

You don't need a, you don't need a giant house.

You could probably find something for the median home price around $440,000.

You never know what San Fran's going to do.

You know what I'm saying?

I'd take that money and run from San Francisco.

You have a lot of friends who

have relocated.

Okay.

Just stick around here until I get my, my son graduated from the senior year of high school.

Okay, great.

Perfect.

Perfect.

I love this for you.

I do too.

It's an adventure.

Yeah, this is a wise decision for you, not a silly decision.

You've got the money.

You're going to be fine.

Follow your heart on this one.

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All right, let's go to Minneapolis where Lori is waiting for us.

Lori, how can we help today?

Hi, Ken and Jade.

Thanks for taking my call.

I hope you're not going to tell me I'm doing everything wrong, but if you do, better knowing it now than later.

That's true.

And I promise you, we'll be gentle.

Okay.

Well, first of all, I'm

70 and a half.

I'll be 71 in September.

All right.

I've been retired for two years.

My 31-year-old son, who was born with

divergencies at birth, lives with me, but he's fully employed and done very well, and now he's sort of helped taking care of me.

Anyway, from the time that I

turned 66, which is my full retirement, I started taking social security.

Hey, Lori.

Lori, I'm so sorry to interrupt.

Could you adjust your phone a little bit so we can hear you a little clearer?

Addressed that how.

Can you hear me now?

Yeah, that's better.

Just kind of mouth right on the old phone there, I guess.

Right there.

I don't know how to describe that.

Hold on, let me try.

I'm about an inch away from my phone now.

That's perfect.

Okay, go for it.

Okay.

So when I turned 66,

and I'd only been working at a sort of for me high-paying job, like $65,000 a year, for

about 10 years at that point,

I worked an additional two years collecting my Social Security and my

salary, and I threw everything that I could at my mortgage and my second mortgage and credit cards.

So everything was paid off when I retired at 68.

That's thanks to Dave.

I figured I had to do it somehow.

I'll work longer.

Okay, so

I think that my income in retirement is pretty good.

I've got Social Security.

I've got a pension from the city.

I've got an annuity.

That's my IRA from a job a long, long time ago.

What is the total of all of that coming into you every month?

Coming in every month is $5,300.

Okay.

What's the nest egg amount?

What's the nest egg of the pension and the nest egg of the annuity?

That's that income right there.

So no nest eggs.

That's just coming to her every month.

Got it.

Okay.

That's coming.

And my son also pays $1,000 towards our basic $2,000 expenses a month.

My house is worth $425,000.

I've got an investment account of $135,000.

I've got cash in the bank of just shy of $90,000.

And I've got a health savings account of $15,000.

The only thing I haven't paid for so far is my cremation policy.

Can't quite do that, but I know I have to.

Okay, so what is your question for us?

My question is,

I spend

probably $3,000 a month on fun.

Okay, great.

Above and beyond the $2,000 that you told us?

Yes.

Oh, and also for the past two years, I've had a job during the school year

that

annualizes to $800 a month.

Great.

And

that's what I've been spending mostly on the speech.

What are you spending $3,000 a month on fun?

Give us an idea of what that comprises of.

Well, for us, fun is traveling and theater tickets.

Great.

So in the last two years, we went on an N70 Cruise.

We went to

Memorial Day.

We did a Broadway long weekend.

I've been to Vegas a couple of times.

Here's the thing, Lori.

Lori.

Lori, here's what's great.

You've got $5,300 that you're going to be earning really in perpetuity throughout your entire life.

It's more than enough for you, which is exactly where everybody wants to be.

You've got $3,000 of margin that you get to spend in retirement doing things that you enjoy doing, travel, theater, maybe go, you know, have some nice meals, and you're doing it together with your son.

Where's the problem?

Yeah, no problem at all.

I think that's what everybody's hoping for.

Good for you.

And Lori, the reason we're saying this is because you're very responsible.

You've really done well with your money.

So no guilt, no shame.

And by the way, if things change, you need to tighten up, the good news in this is that you've got the margin to be able to do it.

You've got the side hustle.

So keep enjoying the theater.

That's fun.

I love that.

What's your favorite show?

If you're going to a show tomorrow, what are you going to see?

I mean, something I've seen before.

Is that okay?

Yeah, it's up to you.

It's your world.

I didn't know if this was an all-time list or not.

Oh, well, whatever you want it to be, Ken.

I'm probably going to go see Les Miz in London.

That's great.

It's my all-time favorite.

Le Miz is so sad.

It's so like.

But I love it.

It moves me.

Yeah.

i loved hamilton never saw it uh i will say michael jackson uh on broadway right now is a phenomenal show ken when you sent me that video of them singing man in the mirror yeah no why no because you're i i know you have uh they're very very uh just too stiff right you're a performer yeah but i'm telling you for the average joe of which i am non-musical professional It was a fabulous show if you like that music.

But I gave you the traditional.

You did.

Yeah, you did.

Yeah, I'm with you on Le Miz.

Oh, unbelievable.

Let Broadway be Broadway is all I'm saying.

I don't like when they turn pop music into Broadway shows.

All right.

I like Hamilton.

Yeah, that's good because it's its own thing.

It's not trying to turn Tina Turner or like, you know, Billy Joel into a show.

Okay.

All right.

Not sure what you're really fired up.

Sorry, I got really, I did get really fired up.

I like that she's got the margin.

That's the point to be able to do the things she loves.

And she's been very wise, by the way, in her early 70s.

So very fun.

David is up in Dallas, Texas.

David, how can we help?

Hey, you guys.

Thank you guys for taking my call.

Sure.

What's up?

Hey, I have a question about my mom, and I really want to approach it with respect.

She's told me to my face that I'm her retirement plan.

I want to honor her as her son, and I've been trying to involve her more in my church, but she's in a tough spot after her divorce about two years ago when my stepdad just walked out on her after 25 years.

So unfortunately, she tends to deflect any offers of help,

seeing herself as a victim in her situation.

And I get that.

She's working as an LVN, but her pay is minimal and she's struggling to get by.

I'm sorry.

What is her pay?

Do you know exactly?

I don't know.

Probably somewhere around 20, 22 an hour.

Okay.

And how old is she?

She's mid-50s.

Okay.

And are you single?

Or are you married?

I'm married with a child, yeah.

And so you're saying she straight up to your face said you're it buddy pretty much to what you said what did you say what was your reaction in the moment um i i really didn't know what to say i haven't really thought about that um barely discussed it with my wife i mean we've we've kind of expected that mindset um but anytime we try to help her with finances she just doesn't want to help herself and she just keeps going back to that victim mentality so the retirement plan

Does that just mean that when she can no longer take care of herself, she just gets to shack up with you?

Is that what you think she means by that?

Essentially, yep.

Wow, but she's still young.

That's what I'm saying.

There's a lot of time to turn this around, but she doesn't want the help.

She doesn't.

Nope.

She, every time we try to help her with finances, with

so this is a conversation you got to have.

This is a layout the boundary now.

Uh-huh.

You got to see, you really do.

This is, you're right.

You know, initially, he said, How do I do this respectfully?

If I were in your shoes,

I would

take, well, A, I would pray about it for a minute and try to get my mind together because i would be fuming

so i'd get my head right and then i would sit my mom or dad down and i'd say listen i understand that you've caught some bad breaks i understand

and and try to be really understanding about the things that you know to be true the things that you laid out you said you know the guy walked out on her after 25 years all those things acknowledge that and then i'd say but here's the thing i now have a family and i have a lot of responsibility to my family i do not want to repeat some of the things that we have gone through.

And as a result of that, I can't be your retirement plan in the way that you're viewing.

Instead, I need to help you get yourself on your feet so I can then be on my feet with my family.

And if you're not willing to participate in that, then we're all going to lose.

And I'm not going to lose.

So you have to participate.

Like, do you see what I'm saying?

Yeah,

we're heading into a break.

So I put him on hold.

But I could not add

any more to what you just said.

This is a tough situation, David, that she's put you in.

So here's what stinks.

You realize how tough it is psychologically and emotionally,

but she's done it to you.

So you're already there.

So I get it.

You're like, what do we do?

What you do is when a parent puts you there, you're there.

So you do exactly what Jade said, and it's not going to be fun.

Let's be very clear.

But I think this has ripped the band-aid off.

I never understood that until I got older.

To just do it fast, let the hairs get in there, it all rips out at the same time.

Pulling it off slow never works.

It's actually less painful to take it head on and you have to do this now.

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All right, buying and selling your home is a big deal.

You know that.

And you just would not want to go into something that big without somebody who knows what they're doing on your side fighting for you.

The Ramsey Trusted program is the only way to find a top agent that you can trust to help make your home a blessing, not a burden.

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Let's go to Michelle in Miami, Florida.

Michelle, how can we help today?

Yeah, so I have, sorry, it makes me a little nervous.

You're doing great.

I have a question.

My husband is kind of,

he's like a crazy spender, and I think I'm being lied to.

I know we're behind on the mortgage.

It's just been tough.

Oh, I'm so sorry, Michelle.

I know you're hurt, and I know you're afraid, to say the least.

And we're going going to try to walk through this with you.

Do you all

by the way you set up the question, I'm guessing or wondering if you have separate finances?

So we have separate finances because it's a second marriage for both of us.

Okay.

And

we've had a prenup since the beginning, which is fine.

I came in.

Who made who sign it?

He made me sign it.

Okay.

But now I'm actually really thankful because

he's this vendor and it's very it's been scary because

I just

I know the mortgage hasn't been paid in months.

The home has a fair amount of equity, but I can't convince him to sell it because he thinks that

he's a developer.

So he thinks the next thing is down, you know, around the corner.

And it just makes me nervous.

We have kids together.

They're in high school.

And like I said, I do have my own finances, but I have also let him borrow quite a sum of money.

And I just to the point from you or in your name?

From me personally, I had to let him borrow some money because he's in a

$200,000.

Girlfriend.

Wow.

Okay, let me get my head around this.

So it's only his name on the mortgage?

Yes.

Okay, so

here's what's very difficult about this call.

You guys, for the last, how many years have you been married?

Almost 20.

Maybe 18.

For the last 18 years, you've had different lives.

Yeah.

And we're seeing the result of that.

And we're seeing, you know, you had this prenup, but you both just decided, hey, it's not just the prenup.

We're like, we're going to live separate lives.

And you have done that to the point of you're even

lending and borrowing each other money.

And this is not just Venmo Me for a sandwich.

This This is $200,000 that you are expecting back.

And so there's such a level of, and I'm not saying this to be rude or mean.

I just am laying the cards out.

There's such a level of dysfunction here that it's hard for Ken and I to just kind of pick up in the middle and say, do X, Y, Z.

There's layers and layers and layers.

Primarily, Jade, because I don't know what your take is, but she can't do anything to stop him.

No, you can't.

I mean it's just like at this point what if you okay if you were in this situation I'm curious okay

what would you do

it's hard to say because this has gone on so long I like to think that I

would never have let it go this way well you wouldn't have but I mean in other words she can ask for counseling she can say this has got to stop I got you know but even then I guess my question is the question that's burning in my heart for you is what are you trying to salvage?

Because

it's not a marriage.

There's a partnership here that I see.

There's

some

codependency here, probably, that I see.

But what is it for you,

Michelle, that you're wanting to salvage here?

I guess I know it sounds terrible, but I'm to the point where I'm trying to salvage my own

financial stability.

And I do have some assets of my own,

and I have some other money of my own.

Well, here's the good news to that objective:

if he loses the house, that doesn't affect you financially.

Now, it doesn't affect you.

But this thing is so weird, as Jade has pointed out.

Can I ask another question, Michelle?

Yeah, yeah.

If it weren't for the kids, like if the kids were out of the house, would you still be married to this guy?

Yeah, that's a good question.

It's a Fair question.

I don't know.

It's just

there any fear of him leaving you?

Oh, no.

That's what I thought.

That's my point.

So I hear the emotion in your voice, and I think Jade's doing a really with the kids.

I think that's something.

Yeah, it's like, what are you trying?

What are you really worried about?

Because

this doesn't really hurt you financially.

No, but there's 18 years of relationship.

There is a relationship.

It's not healthy, but there's 18 years of relationship there.

So I get it.

And anything can start to feel,

you can start to develop

a normalcy with anything,

no matter what.

So I suffer that.

You think it's going to stop.

That's why.

You think it's going to stop.

So, of course, I'm thinking, like, if he

gets some of his business stuff resolved, that he can catch up on the mortgage.

But, but, yeah, i we have a lot of equity in the house and i have proposed to him you know we're maybe we should sell the house i said you know it's fine the house is worth over two million dollars now if you did that

how close how close to foreclosure are you guys you said it's several months where's the status right now

I can only go by what I'm told and not what I know, but I believe that we could be in foreclosure in July at some point.

So when you say, Michelle, that there's this equity, that really is just his or have you guys been splitting the mortgage?

And are you on?

Really just his, yes.

Okay.

See, it's so weird.

It's hard for my brain to compute that.

But again, Michelle, you guys are separate financially.

So you're calling us.

And honestly,

you shouldn't be worried about any financial damage because you guys are already been living for 18 years completely independent of each other other than Christmas gifts, right?

I mean, yeah.

Oh, no, I don't get those.

So, so really.

But we

pay the yard guy and the cleaning crew and pay,

which is, that's what, of course, boils me over further.

I said, well, if we can't do groceries or we can't do things, you know, for the house.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

You can do groceries.

You already buy your own, correct?

Well, that is true.

Who knows what I'd spend.

I mean, not that I don't, I'm fine with paying for this relationship is so jacked up that you guys have get in,

you've got to get into counseling on this.

You got to ask him because here's the deal.

My guess is he's waiting to the absolute last minute to sell the house.

Is that what I'm what it boils down to?

But again, this is so separate.

You guys are so separate.

You're calling us going, what do we do together?

And it's like, you're not even together.

Yeah, it's a marriage counseling discussion, but it sounds like, I mean, tell me if I'm deriving the right thing here.

For you, the biggest benefit is, hey, I need this guy to sell the house so I can get get my 200K back and I can roll out.

Well, I'd probably admit to that.

There's a little bit of that.

Listen,

I am not judging you.

I'm not judging you at all.

I actually think the best thing, and I'm

not favorable.

I think the best thing for you, Michelle, is to sit out and be 100% brutally honest with what you want out of this.

I agree.

That's why I'm asking you tough questions because if you can walk out of here having said the words, I wouldn't even be with this guy if it wasn't for these kids.

Truthfully, I just want my 200K so I can get out.

I don't need him financially.

I have my own two legs to stand on.

That kind of tells a story.

You've never mentioned in this call trying to, wanting to save anything, any affection towards this guy.

When I asked her, I go, are you worried about him leaving?

She's like, no.

Yeah.

I think this guy's got it so made with you that I think he needs a wake-up call.

Well, and I mean, look, I think we're all human.

We don't want to submit to failure and we don't want to give up.

I mean, I do care about him, but he's kind of his own worst enemy.

Constantly

breaking his hole, breaking his hole.

And I'm like, stop with the f defining hole.

Yeah, there you go.

You've checked out, girlfriend.

I like that statement, but we're not saying give up and walk away.

We're saying put an ultimatum down.

If you want to be married to me, we are going to therapy and we're going to try to work through this.

If not, there is no future.

But I think you got to put your head out.

Now, look, you can't just check out and not do anything.

You can't check out.

And you've been checked out for a while, and he's not going to change absent

a massive, massive bounce to where he has to look nowhere but up.

The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by our friends at YReFi.

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Okay, today's question comes from Kate in New York.

She says, hey, at what point is it appropriate to spend your income?

My husband and I are in our 50s with three children and have $1 million in retirement and invest about $45,000 per year into those funds.

Our paid-off house is worth $550,000 and our vehicles are also paid off.

Together, we should gross $200,000 this year, and we have a fully funded emergency fund.

I would like to go on vacation and drive nicer vehicles, which we would pay for with cash.

As long as we keep saving for retirement and cash and pay pay cash for everything, is it okay to spend the remainder of your income if you are investing in tithing?

Girlfriend.

I have the feeling that Kate is married to Chuck the cheapster.

Oh, man.

I know you get to Scott.

That's what syndrome.

Yeah.

Chuck is tight.

And Chuck needs to run a lot.

Yeah, he needs to.

He needs to run.

Yeah, I don't know.

What do you say to that?

Yeah, it's frustrating.

I say yes.

Like, this is what frustrates me, I would say, Ken, is a lot of people,

you know, they gravitate towards the Ramsey plan, which is our way of teaching things within the baby steps.

And they kind of can't let go of the first two baby steps

or the first three baby steps, and they drag that mentality into the rest of the plan.

And it's not supposed to be that way.

So, for the folks who don't know, you know, we've got this teaching, these seven baby steps, and then there's a lot of nuance around those baby steps that kind of are indicative of this, this Ramsey way of life, this Ramsey plan.

And the first three baby steps, yeah, you're getting out of debt, you're living on on nothing, you're stacking up as much savings as you can, but once you hit baby step four, you got to switch gears.

And the gear shift is, okay, I go from being very, very intense to now I can start to go into a mode of being way more intentional.

And yes, I'm still doing things like investing.

Yes, I'm doing things like paying cash for college, but I'm also starting to do more of the things in life that I enjoy and you're transitioning into that part of life.

And then, of course, by the time you get to baby steps, baby step seven, seven, which they've been at, you should be living like no one else.

That's the part.

You live like no one else.

So later you can live and give like no one else.

And, you know,

Travis the tightwad never got there.

I love that we've got our archetypes.

I got Chuck the cheapskate.

You got Travis the Tightwad.

I like this.

But you know what I wrote down?

I just scribbled this down.

This is what this boils down to.

And I can't read that writing, by the way.

That looks really like scribble.

It looks like a squirrel who's on cocaine, dragging a marker behind him.

That's what it looks like.

Kate wants to live.

Chuck wants to survive.

It's that simple.

It's that simple.

And you know how to just thrive in it.

Money for him is all about surviving the worst case scenario.

He hasn't adjusted.

I would suggest to you that Chuck was probably a cheapskate before he found Ramsey.

Oh, he's.

And then our rules made him go, oh, I like this, right?

Yeah.

Because those kind of people are, and Dave talks about it in different ways.

They're pumped counters.

He talks about the free free spender or the nerd.

But what's below the free spender and the nerd, I believe, is this.

Kate wants to live, buy a car cash.

She wants to go on some vacations.

Great.

Chuck, he just wants to survive.

Well, you never know what Jerome Powell's going to do.

Oh, we're in the war.

It's like there's always a reason to be uptight with money.

And I'm not knocking on Chuck, but I'm just saying I believe that when it comes to money, those are the two psychological profiles underneath it all.

Okay, let's take it a step further.

So

I

want to take this a step further.

Well, I know you do.

I just don't know where you're taking it.

Well, we talked about this on the Live Like No One Else cruise.

And this is actually a lot of what I talked about.

So a guy like, you called him Chuck?

Yeah, Chuck the Cheapskate.

Chuck the Cheapskate.

The problem with Chuck the Cheapskate is he needs a love language.

He needs a spending love language.

Because right now, his only love language is saving.

Right.

Save more money, save more money, save more money.

And you can only save so much.

Whereas Kate, she knows, she's like, hey,

she's figured out I want to take a vacation.

So she knows she likes experiences.

Right.

She's figured out I want to upgrade my car.

So she knows like there's a level of this that she wants to upgrade her life.

So I would say that there's five different spending love languages.

Oh, drop it on us.

All right.

Number one,

experiences.

Experiences.

Okay, so that's like vacation.

Save her life.

I go to the new restaurant when it opens.

Can I just tell you without knowing the other four?

That's mine.

That's yours?

I want to make memories.

You want to go to movies when they drop?

I want to, when the NBA Finals things come up last minute, I want to get in the car and go.

Yes.

You know me.

I do know you.

Yes.

I see a great pair of shoes that I don't need, but I can afford.

I get them.

Well, that's different.

That's a different one.

That's an experience.

Oh, it is.

I'm sorry.

We'll get to it.

We'll get to that.

I apologize.

Okay, so, but that's good to know.

So, Ken is experienced.

The next one,

this could be,

you know, generosity.

People who are into generosity,

they don't care i know i know that wasn't going to be yours kin i'm kidding but they they they get a high off of you know going to do mission work and they love contributing extra money and they love like funds and you know foundations and galas they're the you know what i mean yeah they love that yeah then there's people uh this is mine self-care You do love some self-care.

Self-care.

This is.

You do.

And I don't have Botox, but this is like

Botox, get yourself wrapped.

You love those seaweed wraps.

Seaweed wrap.

Do all of it.

Self-care, love that, right?

I love that.

Anything mistake?

I got to tell you, I'm a big spa guy.

I consider myself somewhat of a spa expert.

You got that thick robe?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Self-care, that's number three.

Okay, the next one.

This is my other one.

Convenience.

All right.

So you like spending money, DoorDash.

You'll pay a lawn service.

No.

I'm just saying these people.

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Yeah,

they'll pay a lawn service to do that.

I do like the guy cutting my lawn.

Cleaning lady, cleaning service.

I love our cleaning folks.

Cleaning man, whoever, you know, anything that is convenient.

I do appreciate those.

And then the next one, I call this personal joy because this is personal to you.

Your spouse may not get it.

Like you said, the shoes.

Oh, yeah.

I love Jordans.

Somebody else would go, you're an idiot for spending that on a pair of Jordans.

But I'm like, it's my personal joy.

Don't take it away from me.

That's my live like no one else.

So what would be yours?

Something

joy?

Pickleball?

Something Stacy may not be like, ah, yeah, yeah.

Take it, give it or take.

Well, you know,

we like to do really nice restaurants and tea and experience.

That's an experience.

Theater.

See, I don't know.

To me, experience, I don't know where experience and personal joy are.

I think personal joy, like some people could be into like Pokemon cards.

That's not really an experience.

It's just something that you like spending on money that somebody else might not understand.

And that's okay.

That's your thing.

So those are the five love languages.

And I think that Chuck or Tae Wad Travis, whoever you want to call him, he needs to find out

what that is.

And he needs to put that in the budget every month.

Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I do.

I think this is great because I would suggest to you, I love that those five.

If somebody who's up tight like that and we're having fun, by the way, we have no idea if that lady's husband's name is Chuck.

We just made that up.

I'm making that up because I like to entertain myself.

But I do think that he doesn't even know what his love language is.

Is that fair?

Yeah, he's so

fear-based.

Yeah.

That there's no love.

There's no love.

He just gave us some love languages for money.

And those kind of folks, and again, not bashing you,

but you just cannot let go of the fear in order to go, well, in this case, his wife wants to travel and buy a car that's nice and all that.

It's very interesting.

And I also want to know, how much do you think the actual debt itself

versus

the life experience that you had growing up with money.

How much of,

is it 50-50?

Is it 60-40?

As to as to where when people come to us,

they're like in major debt, and then they also have this past, right?

Whatever they grew up.

You're saying what does that play into it?

Yeah, I'm curious.

Oh, I think it plays...

I think the past plays way more

than the actual what's currently happening.

Okay.

I think so.

Yeah, I agree with you.

That's why I asked you because we've done a lot of calls, and it's really important to understand when we give you coaching,

you've got to wrestle with what's really going on.

Yeah, who you were with money, who your parents were with money, what you grew up as a financial framework of money.

Guarantee you, the Chucks, the Cheapskate Chucks of the world, they grew up in a scarcity situation.

Yeah.

And that's why they're so afraid and tight on that.

So really good.

I love those love languages.

Is there any way people can download that?

That talk?

They'd have to steal my computer from me.

Okay, there's your answer.

Hey, what's up?

Dr.

John Deloney here.

The new dates have dropped for the Money and Marriage Getaway over Valentine's Day weekend in 2026.

This is your chance to hit pause on everything in your life and reconnect with your spouse over a long weekend in Nashville, Tennessee.

Me and my friend Rachel Cruz will be digging into topics like sex, money, communication, and more.

This weekend is happening on February 12th through the 14th, and early bird prices start at $749 per couple, but the prices will be going up soon.

Get your tickets today at ramseysolutions.com/slash events.

This is the Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about their money, their work, and their relationships.

The phone number to jump in today is 888-825-5225.

Alongside the fabulous Jade Orshaw, I am Ken Coleman, thrilled that you all are with us, and we're going to start it off with Russell in San Antonio, Texas.

Russell, how can we help?

Well, hello, I'm so glad to get through to you.

Good to talk to you, sir.

Well, thank you so much.

Well,

I'll give you a little story.

In 2012, I had a major stroke.

I was working.

You may know the company, I don't know, Argo Group.

It was a major

PNC insurance group.

Okay.

And I had a stroke

going into work in the

stairwell.

Oh, wow.

Sorry.

My goodness.

Yeah.

And they

carried me out to an ambulance, and I've had four more strokes.

Oh, gosh.

Bless you.

And,

you know, and now I'm facing homelessness because my money just plain

ran out.

I had a pretty good, I had a pretty good sized nest egg, about 30,000 bucks.

And it went, you know, the medical bills,

you know, and uh, I'm living here in a

exclusive say a motel in San Antonio, and I don't have the money to pay for that.

Are you smart?

Are you still employed?

No, no.

When I recovered a little bit, I worked for Domino's.

I worked my way up on the ladder in there, you know, to be a little

manager and stuff like that.

We're hiring and firing

drivers.

So, what happened to that job?

I had another stroke.

Okay.

Bless your heart.

So, all of these strokes keep knocking you out of work.

Where are you at physically now as it relates to being able to work?

I can't.

Yeah.

Are you on any government assistance?

Just Social Security, and that's about about all I got.

What's your Social Security payment every month?

20 net

is 2,510.

$2,510.

Yeah.

And

gross is $2,700.

When you get past

paying for your Medicare, you get the $2,700 for the next, I don't know, three or four or five months or something.

Okay, how old are you?

I'm 75.

Where is the $2,500 a month?

What's that going to?

If you don't have any money, that means your expenses are eating up all the $2,500 and you can't even pay for your hotel.

Where's it going?

Well,

my rent is

about $400 a week.

To stay at the extended stay.

Right.

And then do you have a vehicle?

I do.

Okay.

And is it,

are you paying payments on something or is it just something you've had for a long time?

I've had that thing forever.

Okay.

So that's paid for cash?

Yeah.

There's no expense there except gas.

Okay, so we got gas and insurance.

Okay, and what's that run you?

The gas is

almost next to nothing.

I'll about

you

20 bucks a month.

Okay.

So you have no friends and family?

I've got all kinds of friends and family, but they've all

gave up.

What does that mean?

It means they left me alone.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Well, the reason I ask that, Russell, is because when you have no ability to work because of the strokes, your only income is the Social Security, and the $400 a week is just way too expensive for you.

So our first and best strategy, in my mind, Jade, speak up here if you disagree.

Our first strategy is to get you a much lower cost of living situation.

And

I don't know if the local government is aware of your situation.

And I will be candid to say I don't know specifically what's available to you.

But

if family has left you alone, then we've got to reach out to some friends.

And even if you were to just, for instance, get a roommate or go live with somebody and you paid them $500 a month, that's a lot of margin there because most of your money is going to just the hotel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, do you know how to budget?

In other words, are you able to, if Jade and I were to come meet you right now and sit down with you, could you show us where the rest of the money outside of the $1,600 towards the extended stay, where the rest of it's going?

Do you have a grasp of that?

I can show you that to a penny.

Okay, so then

where is the best saving of money?

Am I right that your lodging is the number one expense?

My lodging is the big problem.

Okay, so let's assume that we remove that.

Would you have enough margin to live comfortably off the Social Security payment?

Absolutely.

Okay, then.

Then that's our number one goal here.

The hard part is,

you know, on that list of friends and family, who do you think you could

talk to to say, hey, can I rent a room?

Can I?

Because at this point, yeah, I'm looking for renting a room out of someone else's space because even an apartment, even an apartment is going to rent you $1,600 a month.

You see what I'm saying?

So I understand why you went to an extended stay.

Yeah, it, well, here's the situation.

I've got two sons.

The elder one lives in Colorado Springs, and he doesn't hear.

Okay.

Okay.

And the second one lives

in Plano, Texas.

Okay.

About two or three, four hours from here, four or five hours from here.

And I've tried to contact him, and

he said, go to, you know, where.

Okay.

So you can't go to them.

but can you get on one of these sites and can you find a roommate can you find a room to rent that's a little cheaper than 1600 because i mean even two hundred dollars less would break would be a big difference for you if you could find something for 14 it would make a it would make a big difference yes yeah i i mean here's the deal we don't have time to unpack and i'm so sorry about the relationship with your sons i i know but listen if i'm you russell serious as i can be i'm gonna i'm gonna stumble into some churches and I'm gonna say, Hey, I need help.

I'm a 75-year-old man who's had a lot of health complications, but I have enough money to take care of myself if I can reduce my cost of living.

And I need to find some other 75-year-old dude who's lonely and needs a roommate or something.

I mean, I'm just telling you, you got to look for that and you got to ask for some help with people that are in the business of helping.

Because here's the deal: we've established you can help yourself if we get you out of that hotel and we get you in a much more reasonable

living situation, then you've got some margin.

So Russell, I wish we could pull open a Rolodex.

I wish I could get everybody listening in San Antonio to call in and say, we can help Russell out.

I wish I could snap my fingers, but you can do this, but you've got to ask for help.

I can't break

it down.

You can't do this in isolation, Russell.

And you also said there was tons of family and friends.

All we talked about was the two sons.

I'm going to swallow my pride, and I'm calling every family member who will answer me and who will help me and I'm saying please help me

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Ah.

You're looking at it.

I was trying to remember, what's the nursery rhyme where it's like, not too little, not too

much, just enough.

I don't know, but you had you pulled it, you should have sang it.

It wouldn't even have fazed me.

I would have treated it like a voiceover.

Goldilocks of the Three Bears.

Oh,

yeah, so it's like the Goldilocks.

Something to do with porridge.

Yeah,

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I can't remember.

I tried.

It's been a long time.

George is up in Nashville, Tennessee.

George, how can we help?

Hi,

thanks for taking my call.

You bet.

I

recently got engaged.

Congratulations.

That's great.

And I have

we've had basically it's come out that my fiancé has what I consider a significant amount of depth.

How much?

And I'm not really sure.

$65,000, I think is what she told me.

I think you're her ex-er.

That's significant.

How long have you been fiancéing?

Well, we just got engaged last month, and we've been together close to a year now.

Okay, so how are you handling this information?

Well, I am not sure what to do about it.

My first reaction was to pay it off for her,

but she seemed a little resistant to that.

I'm not sure maybe if I should wait until

after the wedding or if I shouldn't pay it off at all.

I don't really know.

You should wait until, well,

here's the good news.

The good news is that you heard the news and you weren't like super pissed and like, well, she's on her own.

I like that your first thought was how can I, how can I come into the situation and help?

That's great.

I would say, yeah, don't do that until you're married.

And when you are married, then it's both of your issue and both of your problem and both of your debt.

And so you both get to help pay that off.

And if it just so happens that on your side, there's more money to put towards it, then so be it.

What would be her

problem with you contributing towards that after you're married?

You know, I think she really

it's, you know, she just says like she, she doesn't want to let me do that.

Like she doesn't want to,

she wants to do it on her own, which

I can understand.

But have you guys discussed, since you're newly engaged, have you guys discussed what marriage finance is going to look like?

In other words, have you at least discussed when we get married, we should combine finances?

Or are you guys on the opposite side of this, which is you're saying, well, we're just going to have...

Because the way you just said it it makes me wonder if that's what you guys are planning to do.

Because she's like, well, I'm just going to take care of it myself.

What's the play?

Well, I think we should combine finances.

We do too.

We do too.

I'm just asking you, have you discussed it?

I don't think she wants to.

But have you discussed it?

Or are you just guessing?

Not really.

Okay, so yeah.

So A, you haven't discussed it.

And B, the way she's talking, it's exactly right.

She thinks it's separate.

So that gets back to the answer to your question.

What we always say to people, so we will say it to you.

Number one, you should not pay it while you're engaged.

You can encourage her, support her,

but you don't pay any money.

The day you guys get married, okay, now we combine finances

and then you do help because it is now our student loan debt.

Even though it's hers, it's our debt.

Now that's what we teach.

And Jade, there's a reason for this.

Give him the pep talk as if you were talking to this young couple

over your dinner table as to why they should combine.

I mean, it's for me, it goes back to that old kind of biblical teaching, like two people become one, right?

That's what happens when you get married is you become one flesh, essentially.

And that's not, you don't leave anything out of it.

I mean, we literally use the same example on a call earlier today.

It's all encompassing.

You don't leave things out to the side and say, well, kind of, like 95%, you, you take the, take 100% of each other.

And that includes the good and the bad, right?

Like you don't say, hey, I really like you, but, you know, I don't like your mom.

And so, you know, it's like, no, you take the in-laws, you take all of it comes with it.

And you can't really compartmentalize it.

And that, it's the same thing with money.

Now, there's that part of it, which is just the factual element, right?

And then there's the part of a lot of marriage is

vision, you know, creating a vision and going after goals and creating this life that you want for each other and for your family and for your namesake and for your legacy.

And that requires teamwork and partnering together.

And it's very hard to partner with someone who is on a completely different life track and has their money over here separately and has decided I'm with you, but only 90% with you or only 85% with you.

Does that make sense?

It does, yeah.

And so, yeah.

So, so george i know jade would agree with me here we are we would both recommend that you guys

have premarital counseling not because it's a crisis but it's just really smart because money is a big issue in marriage so i would go to her if i were you and say hey this issue has made me realize we're not on the same page or wavelength when it comes to money and we need to be and now's the time for us with no tension just to kind of go in

and let's let a professional therapist walk us through and facilitate our views around money our desires about money our fears all the things

and let you two have a professional walk you through this prior to getting married that's what i would do if i were you and this has kind of been a theme today george you're not the first person i i you're definitely not alone can we had this earlier everybody's got a background that they're bringing into their relationship with money and so it's up to you once you become married to figure out how your spouse ticks

as it relates to money, because guaranteed, it's not going to be exactly the way you tick, right?

And the things that make you scared aren't going to be the things that make them scared.

And the things that make you feel comfortable might not be the things that make them feel comfortable.

So learning that and starting early is so important.

And I think really points to a true level of intimacy in your marriage when

you understand somebody at a soul level like that.

Yeah, I absolutely agree.

Again,

when we talk about young couples, because we have a lot of people, whether they're living together, not married, or in George's case, I don't know if they're living together or not, but they are now engaged to be married.

And we know the data, Jade.

We know what the data says about...

divorce and money because there's so many things attached to money.

That's the keeping up with the Joneses.

That's the keeping up with the lifestyle that I was raised with, but now all of a sudden I don't have daddy's money.

Yeah.

Right.

Whether that's like the guy or the gal.

Yeah.

So there's a lot that goes into this.

Gender roles are.

And then what we spend on and what we don't.

Views of debt.

This is a mess.

Yeah.

If you don't get on the same page prior.

It doesn't have to be like divorce mess, although it can be.

But let's, can we just own the fact that it's really messy?

I think so.

Trying to blend.

You touched on this.

And

I've said it before, Ken.

I'll say it again.

You know, and maybe we've even been guilty of it here on this show of saying, combine your finances as if it's some kind of like, boop, it's done.

You have one conversation, it's done.

It's really not like that.

You know, like you said, Ken, this is a web of emotion and,

you know, some things you hold on to with a kung fu grip in marriage and it's like, you don't want to let it go.

So a lot of times this is conversation after conversation with a few arguments sprinkled in, right?

Like that's the way this looks, you know, a few counseling sessions sprinkled in.

It's rarely, maybe if you get married super young and you just are ready to go with the flow with everything, it can be a little easier, but it's rarely just a light switch.

It's mini conversations.

It's give and its take.

It's compromise.

It's each person having to get uncomfortable and get very vulnerable.

And that's the way it looks.

Yeah.

So again, you're listening, you're watching us.

And you're in a very serious relationship, whatever that looks like, get on the same page with money sooner rather than later.

Everything else tends to fall in place there because what it takes to get on the same page with money will help you in every other major part of your marriage as well because there needs to be some discipline and some emotional safety involved in all of this.

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All right, folks, we are so excited about all the new folks that are joining us all the time

via podcasts, of course, radio, SiriXXib, YouTube.

Just really, really excited.

And we have more people coming all the time and they're kind of going, hey, I'm excited about this.

It's helping me change my life.

I want to help others.

And so we created the Ramsey 101 playlist to be able to make it really easy with one click of one link.

For you to share all the 101 basics, the fundamentals of what we teach.

And so it's free, easy to share, and you can get it in the show notes, the link in the show notes, or it's at the top of our YouTube channel and it's our Ramsey 101 playlist.

So check that out and share, share, share.

Holly is joining us now in Columbus, Georgia.

Holly, how could we help today?

Hey there,

I am a spouse of an active duty service member.

I work full-time in a remote W-2 position, but I'm wondering and would like to pick your brains about whether or not I should switch to the same position as a 1099 contractor.

What would be the, in your mind, what's the positive?

You're just responsible for your own taxes?

Do you also get to choose the jobs you do?

The latter, yes.

Having that flexibility for not only what the military requires of my husband and our family, but also to have more flexibility for our two toddlers.

But then also there's a possibility of an increase to the income,

which obviously I'd like to pay off my debt.

I was looking over my benefits this morning, which I can give you guys all the specifics if you want to.

And if I'm doing the baby steps correctly, the only one that I am air quotes missing out on is the 401k match, but that's not part of my equation right now.

Okay.

Then

what I'm hearing is 1099, I get the opportunity to control my income a little bit more, whether it be, you know, I can take more jobs or let go of jobs or whatever.

I get the flexibility of a schedule and getting to choose my work.

And the only negative is I don't get a 401k match.

Right, because things like FSAs, life insurance, disability, all that stuff's covered already.

So I don't really need those employer-sponsored benefits, which is why I was like, this 1099 gig sounds really cushy.

But I know there's a lot of extras to 1099 that I have no idea what I'm dealing with.

Not really, not really.

I would just input.

Yeah,

Both of us have 1099 backgrounds.

The only issue is you've got to have some discipline to do your own withholding.

Yeah.

And you've got to have a good tax pro.

And if you're communicating with that tax pro along the way, and I'd start with the tax pro before I switch, go, okay, what do you think I need to hold aside?

By the way, change anything that I'm saying wrong.

But I'd start with the tax pro and go, if I move to 1099, what should I do?

And kind of saving, holding money back.

And then they're going to tell you.

and then my guess is they're going to say let's check in once a quarter would be my guess that's what i would prefer is okay here's how much i've made this in the last quarter here's how much i've set aside a good tax pro is going to go okay a little bit less is okay or a little bit more and i think other than that I don't think there's anything to it.

It's a real breeze, actually.

Yeah.

And then when the time comes for you to invest, just, you know, it can be, I do find for folks who are self-employed, they can get a little, you know, lazy on the investing side because it's not just there set up for you, ready to contribute.

You've got to kind of put a little bit of thought into what's the best vehicle for me.

Yeah, you could start with a Roth IRA or you could do like an individual 401k, that sort of thing.

And yeah, I think other than that, you're off to the races.

But I think Ken has a good point.

get the people in your corner that you need.

You know, just off the top of our head, we're going to tell you, yeah, put aside 25% for withholding.

And if you start doing that at the end of the year, you know, when it's time to pay taxes, you're going to be in a really good spot.

And it sounds like 1099 is the way for her based on what she's saying yeah i you know when somebody calls on something like this i always ask where were you leaning before you called us and i think we you think 1099 is the way to go yes

i think so i make to i don't know to help you guys with where i am um i make 29.57 an hour currently

the gig pays anywhere from 70 to 165 per case which could take 30 minutes to like four hours

but when i've been talking with my colleagues they average about six cases at the 70 range per day.

It sounds like that

still puts me over if I were to save like 30% for taxes.

Right, exactly.

Well, you've run the numbers.

This sounds like a great movie.

I know.

I just need validation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, listen.

Well, first of all, you've got the validation, but again, I would go to ramseysolutions.com and look up tax pros in your area.

and interview them and get somebody and get them on board before you make the switch.

Okay.

But only to make you feel very secure in what you need to do.

But we don't see any problem with this from what you've given us.

So good for you.

And by the way, thank you for serving us.

Thank you.

We appreciate that.

You're a great American.

Thank you, guys.

I appreciate your help and the vote of confidence.

You can do it.

You got this.

We're behind you.

Matt is in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Matt, how can we help?

Thanks.

I'm ready to start investing kind of more for retirement.

I'm more or less self-employed, so I don't have anything in my company.

But my question today is,

I hear a lot of comments about financial investors, a large percentage of them can't beat the basic S ⁇ P 500-type funds.

And so how do you, when you're sitting down with like a smart investor pro and asking questions, how do you determine, or what are some good signs or questions to like, pick out who's going to actually beat just the general funds that you could go get yourself?

Well,

your advisor is there to advise you on what they think you ought to do, right?

But they don't, they're not deputized to make the decisions for you.

At least you shouldn't do that.

You should have a clear understanding of if they suggest something, if they say, hey, we're suggesting this fund for you, you should then be able to understand why is that?

And do I feel good about that?

And do I sign off on that, right?

And to kind of answer your question about these mutual funds, plenty of them do.

You're right.

Plenty of them don't, but plenty of them do.

Mine do.

They outperform.

Feel good about that.

Anyway,

what you're looking at, what I would look at is kind of when you look at the fund, you can go through and look at the track record and see how has this fund performed over the past, you can see

when it was created.

You can see how well, how long it's been a fund.

I would not choose anything that's brand new.

I'd want to look for something that's been around 20 years, you know?

So I'm looking at that track record to see how it's done.

And you can actually see that.

And that way you're not guessing.

It's not as much of a guess as people think it is.

You can actually look and see how is this fund performed.

And so if you have an

professional who you're working with, you can ask to see that.

Can I see, you know, can I look at the perspectives on this?

Can I look at the track record so I can be in the know as well?

And so those are things that I would, if I'm interviewing someone or I'm working with an advisor, if they kind of get frustrated when I ask questions or they're kind of annoyed at the fact that I want to know what's going on or they kind of get a little huffy or whatever when I'm, you know, poking my nose in, quote, their business, I'm not working with them.

I want somebody who knows this is my money.

I care about it.

I want to understand what's going on.

I am keeping my eye out.

I want somebody who encourages that, not somebody who's annoyed by that.

You know what I'm saying, Ken?

Yeah, and I love what you said.

The only thing I'd add, this is personal to me, Matt, but I give you this as an example for you to go, well, how do I like people to communicate with me?

So if I were you, I would think about maybe a professor that you really enjoyed, a coach that you enjoyed.

And I would be looking for some of those attributes.

I know for me, when it comes to this, because of the minutiae of our plan, so Stacey and I sit with our advisor every January.

And even though I'm sitting here and co-host the Ramsey Show all the time, I'm not an investment expert.

I don't even know half of what Dave has in his pinky.

You know what I mean?

For sure.

But what has been big for us is, can he explain it to me and to Stacey to where we both walk out completely clear and completely confident?

That's always been the test for me because we're very different personalities.

You know me, I got 47,000 questions.

Yes.

You know, and she kind of dives into things that she cares about.

And so I just think it's really important that you get somebody that really does get you and can adjust to you.

They're all different personality types or whatever.

But that chemistry to me, to where you get what they're saying and they teach you to where you go, oh, okay, how are we doing on this?

And what are we going to do on this?

I think that's key.

Yeah, you got to, they have to want your shared vision and care about that, as opposed to them just having a vision of what they think you ought to be doing.

Yeah.

And that's that's a huge part of it.

Just remember, you're hiring them to do a job for you.

So you're interviewing them and they work for you.

Sometimes it can feel the opposite and you don't want that.

Our scripture of the day comes from Job 23, verse 10, but but he knows the way that I take.

When he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

And our quote of the day from George Bernard Shaw, a government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

Oh,

wow, that's them.

That's shots fired.

The team bringing some, that's one of my all-time favorites.

I'm going to leave that alone because that's a rabbit trail that James doesn't want me to go down.

But I love that statement.

I think that's great.

You know, you're my go-to vote, right?

I appreciate it.

If it all goes down, I'm voting for Ken Coleman.

I appreciate that.

All day.

And you would be on the ticket.

Who's going to say no to a Coleman Warshaw ticket?

I mean, that's a landslide.

Yes.

Are you kidding me?

People be like, the only problem with that is you need to be on the bottom of the ticket.

It needs to be Warsaw Coleman, pal.

I don't know, Ken.

Know your role.

It'll be a puppet regime, and you'll be controlling the whole thing.

I love everything about it.

Let's go to Aaron in Dallas, Texas.

Aaron, how can we help?

So, I want to see if you can clear up a debate that me and my wife are having.

Ooh, my favorite.

Me too.

It's a credit card usage only for getting the points and paying it off, you know, before any interest occurs.

Okay.

Are you team credit card points or are you team no credit card points?

I'm team credit card points.

Oh, boy.

Oh, you're team credit points.

Have you ever heard us talk about this on the show?

And it's an honest question.

Not about the points part of it oh great well i'll see the balance of my time to the lady in the yellow okay so i think that it's pretty clear whose side we're on if it's your wife who doesn't want to do the credit card points we side with her let's talk a little bit about why

fair enough okay okay so you tell me you tell me how the point system is working tell me how much do you have to spend to get x amount of points

well it depends on which credit card for instance you use my Hilton honors one okay every time I go to work you know I put it on there so I get the points you know get like 10 times the points for per dollar so you know $160

1600 points and how much so $160 gets you 1600 points and then how many

how many points equals a dollar

so you have to hold it you said it you have to spend $160 to get 1600 points.

Right.

And do the points equal when you go to spend the points, do they equal dollars?

No, they only equal, you know, stay.

So, like a room at the Hamptons, about 30,000 points, which would be about $3,000 in credit card usage.

Okay.

And how long does it take you to get $3,000 in credit card uses?

About 10 business trips.

And that gets you a stay for how many days?

A weekend?

One night.

Oh, that's terrible.

You got to spend $3,000 to get a one-night stay?

I mean, on top of the Hampton points that I get, too.

So it's like double of the points.

So really, it's five stays, I guess.

But just from the credit card, it's.

But if I go on Hilton,

let me just say this real quick.

If I go on Hilton.

Do this for me, Ken Coleman.

Pull up one night, a one-night stay at a Hilton

in Orlando, just a vacation destination.

Because you're telling me you got to spend $3,000 to get what I'm pretty sure you're going to get for about $120 a night.

That's about right.

That's where my, there's part of the crux of my argument right there is you're.

So range, cost of a one-night stay at a Hilton hotel in Orlando couldn't vary between $131 up to $500 a night.

So you were spot on.

So you got to go, you got to work a whole month and put a whole month's worth of work on this credit card to get one night, which is not a vacation on the credit card.

So, which means to just get a weekend, you got to put $9,000

onto this credit card just to get a weekend stay at a hotel where you really could just,

I don't know, at that point, probably cash flow it.

Yeah.

I just, that's, that's where my reasoning starts is we're stepping over quarters to pick up pennies.

That's just where the reasoning starts for me.

And then we can keep walking down the road of now, in order to pick up these pennies, we're putting ourselves at a habitual risk.

And the reason I say habitual risk is because the whole point of credit cards is to create a habit forming

way of life where it's my habit that I put all of my money on these cards and I'm dependent on these cards to where when it's time to let go of the cards, I actually feel a little bit of fear or like, I can't let go of these cards because I've created this habit-forming lifestyle.

So, that's step two of why I'm like, no, to credit cards.

Step three of why I say no to credit cards is I'm stepping over the quarters to pick up these really expensive pennies.

I'm creating this habit-forming life.

And now I've got this piece of debt to where, if any rain comes in my life, Junior needs braces, I fall and break my arm, and I have a hospital stay, and it's $500 to go to the ER.

Or Brenda gets married in the Caribbean and you're going to be the best man and best woman at the wedding.

Now I've just got this credit card laying around that I said I was only going to put points on and I was only going to put my normal budget on, but now suddenly I could get more points.

And now you go to Brenda's wedding in the Caribbean.

Did you see what I'm saying?

I see what you're saying.

It just creates this domino effect.

Oh, I got to hear his butt.

Okay, so what if you have no debt, like everything, like including the house paid off,

and then the only thing that you are putting on that credit card, like for the Hampton, like the Hilton credit card, is just the hotel.

I don't use it for anything else.

I would say, is that true?

Do you have your house paid off?

Yes.

Way to go.

That's pretty awesome.

I would say, I think to that, and I am saying, I'm just shocked that you care enough about the $130

that you would work to put $9,000 on a credit card to get it.

It just feels like a lot of

rigamaro.

There you go.

There's a word.

There you go.

Rigamaro.

Yeah.

She's not for it.

You're not going to talk her out of it.

So I feel like you two are at an impasse.

Because when your house, when your house is paid off,

when your house is paid off.

You've got two women against you.

You should go ahead and surrender now, my friend.

Jade and your wife.

This is a lost cause.

I'm just like, when your house is paid off,

you're not going through the rigmarole to get $130.

You're just like, oh, my house is paid off.

I'm not going to introduce debt into my life.

Listen, here's the deal, Aaron.

Jade is speaking on our behalf, my behalf.

That's what our answer is.

Every time we get this call, we get this call a lot.

It's going to always be the answer.

You can play the mind game that, well, I have no debt.

Other people aren't disciplined.

I play it off.

I pay it off every month.

He probably does.

Maybe he does.

By the way, that's true.

I know people that do that.

credit card.

Yeah.

That we don't always.

Uh-oh.

That's the one that,

you know,

that's the other one.

That's that one we get 5% cash back at times.

It's just the Chase Freedom card.

Yeah, but again, the reason we're against all this, and I don't think you're going to change unless your wife puts her foot down, and at which point you need to listen to that.

Trust me, I've been married 27 years.

Just

go with the flow on that one.

But 5% cash back.

That's a game.

That's a game.

And Jade's right.

They play those games with points and cash back to keep the plastic in your wallet so that when life happens,

you will use it.

And then they make money off of you at an absurd interest rate.

You agree with that?

Yes or no?

The interest rate is a point.

We talk about an emergency fund three to six months of cash so that you don't need the plastic.

So I want to make sure you understand.

I don't want to be glib with you, but that's our position on why cashback or points isn't worth the temptation.

And we didn't even talk about how your spending increases when you use plastic of any kind.

So

credit cards are at the top of the list of spending increases.

And it really depends on what it is that you're buying.

They've even done studies that show if you're buying something like experiences or concert tickets, people are willing, in some cases, willing to spend 100%

more than what they would have spent had they had cash.

So for instance, I'm going to Beyonce.

If I had a credit card, I'd be willing to spend double the amount

versus cash.

And those t-shirts are overpriced.

Listen, I'm giving about five bucks.

I'm getting what are you going to drop on Beyonce?

I don't want to talk about it.

I do.

America wants to know.

I'm not talking about it, Kim Cole.

Oh, she's going to spend a lot.

Let me just say, let me just say, I'm going to be able to reach out and touch.

Oh, no, you're close.

I'm getting in there, Kim.

I need footage.

I need footage on Instagram where it didn't happen.

This is the Ramsey Show.

Hey, you guys, I was shocked to learn that 88% of you out there are sharing the Ramsey Show.

I mean, that is so incredible.

Thank you so much.

And I want to tell you that we're making it even easier to share.

So this June, we have pulled together the brand new Ramsey 101 YouTube playlist, a quick start collection of how to get started walking the Ramsey Plan.

Now, this playlist is perfect for that one person in your life who needs help winning with money and just doesn't know where to start.

So here's what's inside.

What the baby steps are and why they actually work, how the debt snowball helps you pay off debt fast, and how to build wealth and invest for the future, and so much more.

So here's what you need to do.

click the link at the top of the show notes.

It'll take you straight to the YouTube playlist.

Copy it, text it, send it in a group chat.

Just say, Hey, I thought this might help.

Because one playlist shared at the right time could be the turning point.

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