Surviving the Money Storm Starts with Tough Choices

Speaker 1 guys, it's James Childs, producer of The Ramsey Show. Hey, this week, Dave and the personalities are living it up on the Ramsey Cruise.

Speaker 1 So we've put together a compilation of some of our favorite calls and segments from the last year. Regular shows are back next week.

Speaker 2 Hope you enjoy.

Speaker 2 From Ramsey Network, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm Jade Warshaw.
Next to me is the magnificent Kenneth Coleman.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 3 Magnificent and Kenneth in the same sentence. It's going to be a day.

Speaker 2 It's going to be a good day.

Speaker 2 We're taking calls all afternoon long. Your life, your money.
Hit us with...

Speaker 2 all the questions that you have and we will hit you with an answer, a solution, a way forward, or we'll just spitball creative ideas with you, whatever it takes. The phone lines are open.

Speaker 2 888-825-5225. Let's get involved.
All right, let's go straight to the phone lines. We got Joe.
He's in Anaheim, California. What's going on, Joe?

Speaker 4 Hey, how you guys doing?

Speaker 2 Doing great. How are you?

Speaker 4 Doing good. Doing good.
I've been watching you guys for a while, and I got a quick question. I'm just looking for a little bit of affirmation here.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 4 I have a girlfriend of about a year and a half, and we do live together. And she asked me, actually, last night,

Speaker 4 if I could loan her money to pay off a debt that she has on a credit card.

Speaker 8 So she's about $12,000

Speaker 2 in debt. That's not a little bit.

Speaker 2 That's not a little bit. That's a lot.

Speaker 4 Well, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah,

Speaker 4 not a little bit.

Speaker 4 But yeah, she had asked me that, and I gave her, I told her I would call you guys.

Speaker 2 I kind of know the answer. I'll get back to y'all that, babe.
Let's put it on Jade and Kenneth to to see what. Sure.
Sure.

Speaker 2 Okay, so it's $12,000. Did you say it's for a credit card?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, for a credit card, yeah.

Speaker 2 And just to clarify, this is a loan. So when you say the word loan, that makes me sound, that makes it sound like somebody's got to pay it back.

Speaker 4 Got to pay it back. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. She had got into a, yeah, she had gotten into a little situation, I guess, with her last partner.
He ended up using it without her permission.

Speaker 9 And yeah, that's how she ended up being in that situation.

Speaker 2 Can I ask you this? How do you feel? How would you feel being in a position where your girlfriend owes you $12,000?

Speaker 4 That's the thing, too. Because I've been looking to you guys for a while.

Speaker 4 And I remember one thing Ramsey says is, you know, you know, dinner tastes a little different, you know, when you're sitting across to somebody that owes you.

Speaker 4 And I know I wouldn't be the one owing anyone, but like just the fact that, you know, that that kind of tension would be there, I wouldn't necessarily feel too comfortable with that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Joe, how's that gonna feel when she starts missing payments that she owes you?

Speaker 2 That's gotta be weird.

Speaker 3 Hey, we're going to Red Lobster tonight. How's that payment plan coming along?

Speaker 2 But she still got her nails done and still got her hair done. Oh, yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2 yeah. All right, so can I, Jay?

Speaker 3 Can I Joe? Listen, I appreciate that you told your girlfriend you were going to call us, but what was your gut reaction when she hit you with this idea?

Speaker 4 My gut reaction was, I'll be honest, I was like, okay, like, am I in a position to do so? Yeah, like, yes. Like, yes, can I, can I have a book like that? Yes.
But

Speaker 4 I just think, like, just like

Speaker 4 character-wise, I really feel like, you know,

Speaker 4 attacking debt is, you know, a character builder, too. And I, you know, I definitely want us to grow in that regard.
I want her to take her finances seriously too as well.

Speaker 3 Joe, Joe, Joe, listen to me. Joe, Jade and I are on team, Joe.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 Why don't you stop spinning and just tell us, how did you feel when she hit you with that did you want to do it yes or no

Speaker 4 I got you I got you no no

Speaker 2 there we go there we go I'm with you Joe and there's nothing wrong with that yeah you're not a bad guy

Speaker 2 she you know I do have more questions just because I want to know and I want the people to also get a clear picture of this you know first off We're not big on loaning money here, you know, to a friend, to a family member, somebody loaning money to you, debt in general is just, we're, we're anti-debt here.

Speaker 2 So now, if you called and said, hey, she's asking me if I can give her this money, that might be a different conversation. And you're like, I have it to give.

Speaker 2 And if I don't ever receive it back, it's no big deal. Like that might be a totally different conversation.

Speaker 2 But the aspect of loaning it, you're right. It does, it does put a different taste in your mouth.
And it's going to make the whole relationship, the power shifts, right?

Speaker 2 You become the lender and she becomes not the lender.

Speaker 3 I got to ask a question, Joe, because Jade's here and I love getting the female perspective on this. Are you worried about her reaction if you tell her?

Speaker 3 Because I think you called us to get us to go, well,

Speaker 3 this guy and this gal said this.

Speaker 3 Are you worried about what her reaction is going to be if you tell her no?

Speaker 2 Be honest.

Speaker 4 She can be, yeah, no, no, she can be definitely emotional, you know, when it comes down to things like that.

Speaker 2 Emotional, like crying or emotional like i'm gonna hit you with this cast iron pan

Speaker 4 maybe a sandal i don't know about the cast iron but she'd probably do something like that

Speaker 2 yeah but uh i think that you're just like

Speaker 4 yeah yeah no no it definitely is i know like she's not the type to like flare up if you tell her no but i i just wanted to um yeah i just wanted to get like affirmation on that just to say like you know like hey you know i mean me being the position i'm in in is because I've listened to these you know I've listened to these people and

Speaker 4 you know I really want to you know I'll call like I'll call them and maybe they can give you some more clarity too on my standpoint are you gonna marry her that's my question yeah that's that's definitely that's definitely the plan for sure okay does she know that yeah

Speaker 2 does she know that

Speaker 3 I want to say that's definitely well we've talked about it but as far as like a time frame on when we're going to get married that hasn't been all right so here's the deal so since you called us and I know where this is going, you need to give her a legitimate explanation as to why we think what we think and if you agree with us.

Speaker 3 So the reason that we want to keep this separate is you two are not married.

Speaker 3 Now, if you go down to the courthouse tonight, and I'm not trying to get you to do that, but all of a sudden this debt becomes your debt. But right now it's her debt.

Speaker 3 And the relationship needs boundaries. And this is because you believe in a healthy relationship.
And so you need to explain to her that that is your debt, not my debt.

Speaker 3 and the minute that i give you money it changes our relationship and i don't want that because i'm looking long-term

Speaker 2 i miss anything on that i i agree exactly with ken there's a protection for both of you uh legal speaking you know when you become married and so if nothing else this is a great time to start that conversation of what you know the define the relationship now is the great time to start talking about that and i think it will reassure her to say you know if the time comes and you agree that we should be married as i I believe that we should be married, then I am happy to take on your debt.

Speaker 2 It would never be a loan. It would be us working together.
And, you know, I look forward to that day, but unfortunately, we're not there today.

Speaker 3 I have a question for you, Jade. And she's, she, this is for you, Joe, but it's to Jade.
I overthink everything. So the giant asterisk here is I overanalyze everything.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 My brain right now is going, if he says that, which you and I are on the same page, does she put pressure on him to

Speaker 3 get married? And does this fast forward a marriage proposal?

Speaker 2 i'm a little nervous i hope not uh do you see uh what would you say he needs to guard himself with i hope not if you sense that if you sense that now all of a sudden she's trying to you know rush you then i think that could be a bit of a red flag that's good because that's what i want him looking out for now let me then ask you this question how long have you been dating because if you've been taking her for a ride for five years then

Speaker 7 she might

Speaker 2 it's been a year it's been a year and a half okay i i mean in my mind now's a good time to start talking about it.

Speaker 2 If she does say, well, you know, Joe, I've been trying to get married for the past, you know, six months and you're the one stalling.

Speaker 2 Like, if she starts saying stuff like that, then you have to be open to the things that she's saying as well.

Speaker 2 At the end of the day, if you both want to be in a married relationship, make steps towards that. And then, to Ken's point, that's when things become one.

Speaker 2 French, we, we. That's what Dave Ramsey would say.
This is the Ramsey Show.

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Speaker 3 Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman.
Jade Warshaw joins me. The phone number is 888-825-5225.
888-825-5225. Let's go to Indianapolis, Indiana, where Zachary joins us.

Speaker 3 Zachary, how can we help today?

Speaker 8 Hi, how are you guys?

Speaker 3 We're doing great. What's going on?

Speaker 13 So

Speaker 8 I'll cut to the chase. Monday, I lost my house in the house fire.

Speaker 2 Wow. For at least four months.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 What do do you mean at least for four months? Was it totally

Speaker 8 it was it was contained to one room, thankfully, but we had a lot of stuff in that room that the room is completely gone. They have to completely gut it and reconstruct it, I guess.

Speaker 3 Okay, nobody was hurt?

Speaker 8 No. The dog was inside, but thankfully they got him out.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 Okay, so pup is okay. And when you say it's only one room, is that downstairs, upstairs? What was in the room?

Speaker 8 It was our downstairs master bedroom.

Speaker 8 we were actually supposed to sell the house four days prior um well four days after the fire had happened oh my gosh um but that's not happening anymore right um so thankfully like a lot of my stuff was packed up and ready to go but like my wife's entire wardrobe everything like our our mat our bed our newborn son's bed and everything is oh my gosh

Speaker 2 Where were you guys when this happened?

Speaker 8 I was an hour away at work and my wife was at work.

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh. And your newborn son?

Speaker 8 He was at grandparents.

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh. Thank goodness.

Speaker 3 But the rest of the house is okay.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 8 My stepdad was driving by when it started to smoke really bad. So he caught it.

Speaker 3 What happened? What caused the fire? Do they know?

Speaker 8 It was one of the outlets by our bed. They're not exactly sure, but they think maybe a wire came loose and like touched the insulation or something or a mouse chewed on it.

Speaker 2 Oh my god. That is crazy.
Well, I'm so glad everybody's okay.

Speaker 3 Well, a couple of things to be grateful for.

Speaker 2 Obviously,

Speaker 3 you guys weren't there. Your wife was not there.
Your baby son. The dog is okay.
My goodness.

Speaker 2 And your father-in-law is driving by. Yeah, and I love that.

Speaker 3 And again, grateful that it's just the room. And four months from now, you've got a rebuilt master.
Now, I know all of the other things that come with that are awful, but

Speaker 3 all things being equal, this is you dodged a major, major crisis. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, definitely. All right.
So how can we help today

Speaker 8 so

Speaker 8 we were

Speaker 8 planning on selling the house because my wife bought it before me and her were ever together and it is a nightmare of a house um foundation issues and everything

Speaker 8 um

Speaker 8 um so we were really wanting to get out of it um

Speaker 8 we were buying a new house um

Speaker 8 closer to my parents and it's a lot nicer house but did you already make the offer

Speaker 8 yeah but we are doing a contingency buy. So

Speaker 8 we're probably gonna lose that house now that we have to wait another four months. Yeah,

Speaker 8 we have just started the 80 steps. We've got about $85,000 in consumer debt.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 8 We don't have much savings, especially after the fire now.

Speaker 8 And then

Speaker 2 what have you been doing? Yeah.

Speaker 8 We just started it, so we had the emergency fund, but now with the fire and stuff, we

Speaker 2 the $1,000 emergency fund or?

Speaker 8 Yeah, yeah, $1,000.

Speaker 8 Okay.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 here's what I think. So where are you staying right now?

Speaker 8 Right now we're at my parents'.

Speaker 2 Okay, you're at your parents'. You've blown through most of your $1,000.
What do you have left?

Speaker 8 Right now we've got... I want to say, well, she actually made an extra car payment, so we're waiting for that to come back.
But we'll have about 13 in our account, but we have bills and everything.

Speaker 8 And I do a ton of driving for work, so I have to leave at least 500 to 600 in there for gas.

Speaker 2 Okay, so, okay.

Speaker 3 Is insurance going to cover the total rebuild or is there going to be more cash you're going to have to do?

Speaker 8 Yeah, they're going to cover it, but they are kind of dragging their feet. So

Speaker 2 I think you're a little new to the baby steps, and so I kind of want to reset and get everything on so that you and I are at least on the same footing kind of going forward.

Speaker 2 I hate that this happened to your house and I hate that you guys had a plan and this just threw wrenches all up in that plan. However, in one way, like Ken said, you dodged several bullets here.

Speaker 2 And I'm going to add another bullet to the list that I believe that you that you dodged. Now, looking at your financial situation, fire aside, now is not the time for you guys to buy a house.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 8 You know, I originally wanted to rent, but we live in a small town and

Speaker 8 leaving leaving the town is not an option for us because of my wife's work, and that's where our babysitting situation is located.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 there is no places to rent that would be the same amount as what our mortgage was going to be,

Speaker 8 that has the space for two kids, us, and a dog, that allows dogs.

Speaker 8 There was one place that was available, and we applied, and we got denied because of our credit, and then

Speaker 8 and then it went off the market like a week later.

Speaker 2 So, so, okay. So, to address that, um, unless you were going to, unless by selling this house, let's pretend the fire didn't happen for a minute.

Speaker 2 Unless you were going to have this, this huge amount of equity that was going to allow you to get into the next house and pay off, you know, this debt or something like that, that would have been the only way it would have worked out.

Speaker 2 And if you had called us prior to that, I would have said, Geek, you just got to keep looking, look for the right rental because something will come on the market.

Speaker 2 That's what I would have said to you in that situation. But where you're at now is, okay, insurance is going to cover the rebuild of the master bedroom.

Speaker 2 You know, you guys are in a place that, you know, hopefully you're not spending a whole lot staying with family, but you are going to spend some, but you've still got, you know, you're still working.

Speaker 2 So the income is coming in there.

Speaker 2 We've got to prioritize this debt. And that's got to be the number one thing because technically, Zachary, when you go to buy a house, you want all of your debt paid off.

Speaker 2 Then you want to have saved up three to six months of expenses. That's not talking about a a down payment.
That's just you having money, you know, when you move into this house.

Speaker 2 And then it's like, okay, I need a down payment. So you guys were quite far from being there.

Speaker 2 When you sold the house, what was it going to bring?

Speaker 8 We were going to get about $15,000 in equity. And then my sister was also going to give a gift for a down payment as well to help us with that.

Speaker 2 Okay. And when you got that gift from your sister, what percentage-wise was that going to be towards your next down payment?

Speaker 8 We were going to be using an FHA loan, but it was going to be roughly 12 to 15.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think in many ways this was a blessing in disguise because I think you guys are about to get in way too deep. You always want to make sure that you're putting at least 5% down on a house.

Speaker 2 You want to make sure it's no more than 25% of your take-home pay. These are the things you want to make sure of.

Speaker 2 And going forward, now is just not the time.

Speaker 2 And hopefully what I would do, what I would do for you guys, if the house that you're in is a a nightmare, obviously, there's electrical things that need to be fixed. Obviously, there's other things.

Speaker 2 Those are things that you might have to shell out some money to fix in the meantime because the solution, and can we see it all the time? My car broke down.

Speaker 2 I'm just going to trade that in and trade up and get a new car with payments because we don't have the $2,000 to fix it. So we get a $20,000 car, right?

Speaker 2 And the worst thing, I said this to Dave on Friday. The worst thing is, and I'm not saying that this is you, but you buy a $500,000 house, but the AC breaks and you don't have $5,000 to fix it.
Right.

Speaker 2 That's right. Happens all the time.
So

Speaker 2 push pause on home buying. It's not the time.

Speaker 2 Rebuild, get your life back on track. Get the things fixed in the home that's going to make it a safe place for you to live.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 3 And hey, let's look at the positive on this. I think Jade's right.
And I think I'm going to give you just a little bit of a, I think hopefully a little mindset hack here.

Speaker 2 You know, you get a new master bedroom.

Speaker 3 Hey. You know, in the sense of, you know, did you lose some stuff? Yes, that stinks.
She lost her wardrobe. That's awful.
All those things are just awful. But baby safe, dog safe.
You're safe.

Speaker 3 You know what? You had a really old master bedroom. Now you get a new master bedroom.
And I like Jade's pressing pause right here and just kind of going, you know what? Life just threw us a curveball.

Speaker 2 But let's hit the curve. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know, like, I know, you know, I'm stuck in this baseball metaphor, but stay with me. You know, curveballs are meant to strike people out.
Come on. But let me tell you something.

Speaker 3 Really good hitters know how to hit a curve. And if you hang a curve, these people put it out of the park.
They smash it.

Speaker 3 And I think right now, I think through the coaching you just got from Coach Jade over here, I think you guys can take this curveball that life threw at you and you absolutely hit a grand slam and come out of this thing way better off.

Speaker 3 So please listen to what she said. I think she's absolutely right.
And I think you guys got a second chance. Not fun.
Not fun how you got it, but nonetheless, a second chance. So there you go.

Speaker 3 All right, don't move. She's Jade Warshaw.
I'm Ken Coleman. We're here for you.
This is The Ramsey Show.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 They think they're not going to die or something.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 And I immediately went and got term life insurance.

Speaker 2 That's a gut punch.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 2 You're going to have a crisis here. You know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 It's saying I love you to your family. Term life insurance.
Jeff Zander and the the team at Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years.

Speaker 2 They're the only people I trust. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282.

Speaker 3 The Ramsey Show continues. Thrilled to have you with us.
I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is alongside.
The phone number is 888-825-5225. Let's go to Nicole, who joins us in Memphis.

Speaker 3 Nicole, how can we help today?

Speaker 14 Hey, I was just trying to see if you guys could help me undo the mess that I'm in.

Speaker 16 I don't know if I'm cursed or what, but I'm in a lot of debt, and I'm a single mom, and

Speaker 5 I'm

Speaker 16 be close to retirement age shortly, and I just, I don't know what to do.

Speaker 2 okay how old are you

Speaker 15 I'm 46 okay and what's going on tell us some more details okay so last year my goal was to own a home and I know about debt to income ratio and my highest debt would would have been my car note which was 772.

Speaker 16 Long story short with that, I ended up making a bad deal, end up at $6.15 still, but no gap insurance.

Speaker 18 Since then, the job that I had, I have now lost.

Speaker 6 I have a new job, but it's $3,800 less.

Speaker 2 That's a lot.

Speaker 2 It is. Per month.

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 18 And I'm struggling right now.

Speaker 14 I'm close to eviction.

Speaker 6 I'm about to, I'm close to about to lose my car.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 tell me what you're making now.

Speaker 14 I'm averaging about $1,200 to $1,400 a month, barely making it.

Speaker 2 Oh, man. Yeah.
Okay. $1,200 to $1,400.
Tell us what your rent is.

Speaker 16 My rent right now is $9.80, but it's behind, and I'm close to eviction, so it's it's about $2,700 plus a $350 fee for their attorney fees.

Speaker 2 It's crazy. What do you do for a living?

Speaker 11 I'm a barber.

Speaker 2 And before that, when you were making the $3,800 more, what were you doing?

Speaker 6 I was still a barber.

Speaker 11 I was working at another barber shop and I was let go.

Speaker 2 What was the difference? Is it just the way that they do it and they weren't the old place was sending more clients your way? Tell us.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I had more clients.

Speaker 14 I was still on the low end.

Speaker 18 I was still on the low end, but I was still making, I was making weekly pay.

Speaker 17 This is only every two weeks, and I'm averaging about $500 every two weeks or a little over.

Speaker 2 And is it just the salary you get or is it based on the number of heads you do?

Speaker 14 So it's basically

Speaker 6 50% commission or $12 an hour, whichever, the greater of the two.

Speaker 2 Okay. So,

Speaker 2 yeah. Okay.
The problem, the glaring issue here is the income. And this can't go on

Speaker 2 because my thought here is if it's 50% commission or your

Speaker 2 base pay, then that means you're not making the commission, which means there's not enough people coming through, which means

Speaker 2 essentially you're kind of standing there like waiting for something to do, right?

Speaker 18 Are you spending a lot of your day kind of standing around waiting right so what I did was what I was doing the first when I first started there I was like this makes no sense I can do lift rides right yeah to make up the short but now my car is breaking down and it's still not enough lift lift rides sometimes are not as great as it was when I started right um so it's so it's it's it's not it's it's not coming in I tried to get an I've been applying for other jobs like what nothing is coming through like I am great at customer service and things like that.

Speaker 15 I love barbering.

Speaker 2 Okay. But

Speaker 16 I really do love it.

Speaker 14 But I was trying to get an additional job, like work at Amazon at night.

Speaker 17 And it's hard to work at Amazon at night.

Speaker 16 See, six years ago, I lost one of my kids.

Speaker 16 And my other children were there.

Speaker 6 And so what's happening is I have to kind of be at home with my younger daughter because

Speaker 14 she's feeling the repercussions of all of that.

Speaker 18 She's got a lot of mental issues, you know, going on, trauma stuff we've got going gone through.

Speaker 14 So I can't really leave her

Speaker 18 at night, and it's hard.

Speaker 14 And that's the other reason why I've also lost jobs because I have to stop and go to school and it's heartbreaking.

Speaker 14 I really wish that I could get a job that was financially stable where I could be at my child's disposal.

Speaker 15 You know, I just put one through college.

Speaker 16 I just dropped her off at MTSU.

Speaker 14 And thank God she had a lot of scholarships, but I still have to pay a small amount for the next three months.

Speaker 2 That's right. I don't know where it's going to come

Speaker 2 Well, let's let's look at this. Let's look at this.
Okay, you love barbering, but right now barbering is not making you money.

Speaker 2 And for sure, for certain, I feel like you could go on. What do you do? Are you a braider? Do you do sew-ands? What do you do?

Speaker 15 No, I don't do that part anymore.

Speaker 16 I can do women care, but I love, I love cutting men.

Speaker 2 Okay. Okay.
Okay. So.

Speaker 2 Here's the thing. I think barbering goes on the shelf for now because it's not making you money.
Maybe you do it on the side and that's your side hustle, but it's not your main core income right now.

Speaker 2 i want you to get a full-time day job go over to target go over to walmart go over to wendy's go over to chick-fil-a anything today because you got to make a little bit more than what you're making now and then make barbering the thing that you do on the side on the weekends early in the morning um if night times don't work for you that that's the only way here's the thing the good news is you were earning a salary that was making your life run and making your household run.

Speaker 2 So you know you can do it. It's just a matter of filling in the puzzle to make sure that we're putting the right pieces in to get that income.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about the car. So the car is not running.
That's the only vehicle, correct?

Speaker 17 Yeah, it's running, but it needs work.

Speaker 2 Okay,

Speaker 2 what year is it and what's it worth? And what do you owe on it?

Speaker 6 It's a 2022 Volkswagen Tiguan.

Speaker 18 I owe about $29,000 since it went up.

Speaker 14 I was at $26,000, but since I refinanced, it's back up to $29,000.

Speaker 2 Okay, and what's it worth? Nothing?

Speaker 18 Probably not right now.

Speaker 2 Okay, I want you to go. Your homework is to go on Kelly Blue Book and see what is it worth private sale.
You're probably going to be upside down on it,

Speaker 2 possibly substantially, because I don't know what all you've done with this thing.

Speaker 2 But we may need to get out of this vehicle because it's costing you, what, $600 a month?

Speaker 14 It's costing me $6.15 a month, yes, ma'am.

Speaker 2 Oh, my gosh. Okay.
So, yeah, we're going to have to sell this car eventually. And probably what you're going to end up doing,

Speaker 2 Kenna, if you have a minute, if you look this thing up, maybe you can give me a ballpark on it. But by the time we get off this call, maybe we can give you a ballpark on it.

Speaker 2 But if I were you to get out of that $30,000, what other debt do you have?

Speaker 18 I have an $8,000 signature loan.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 16 I have some student loans, which I got to try to figure out how to get back because I was in the settlement.

Speaker 6 And for some reason,

Speaker 2 just tell me how much they are for the sake of the call.

Speaker 6 It's like

Speaker 16 $60,000.

Speaker 2 $60,000?

Speaker 2 back on yes it's sixty k okay and they're federal it's not supposed to be on there

Speaker 2 they're federal

Speaker 17 uh they're federal loans yeah it was it was a warrant in a

Speaker 2 settlement that they were supposed to take that off oh because the institution is not is no longer with us

Speaker 14 it's not they've come back but it's gone through a lot of stuff uh they've they've been in the news and everything how much of the 60k is that settlement

Speaker 11 um

Speaker 10 all of it All of it.

Speaker 2 Okay, so you're going to have to do some due diligence on that and figure out what's going on with that because $60,000 is not a lot that you want to lollygag with. Okay, what else?

Speaker 2 Is there anything besides that?

Speaker 16 No, just a $400 credit card that I was paying.

Speaker 2 This is an income issue.

Speaker 2 Nothing.

Speaker 3 And by the way, we're running short on time. Let's get her a session with one of our financial coaches as our gift because there's a lot to...

Speaker 2 to layer through here.

Speaker 3 But Nicole, you have got to come up with a situation with your daughter, friends and family. It takes a village.
I'm not betting against a single mama.

Speaker 3 I know you can find a way to get some care for your daughter.

Speaker 2 It's hard.

Speaker 3 I know it is, sweetheart. But I'm telling you, I'm not betting against you, but you've got to get some help with your daughter.
She's been through a lot.

Speaker 3 You've got to get some people around you who can be with her.

Speaker 2 We're in therapy, but it's not a lot.

Speaker 6 I mean, it's not a lot of help.

Speaker 3 I know, but listen, I'm talking about people around you in your community.

Speaker 3 You have got to say, I need some help because you've got an income issue. And the more you work, if you were to get back up at $3,800 a month, Jade, she can work her way out of it.

Speaker 2 100%.

Speaker 3 And so, Nicole, all I'm saying is we're going to get you with one of our financial coaches who's going to spend more time with you.

Speaker 3 But listen, you've got to get more income and you've got to get a community around you who say, you say, look, I need help with my daughter who's still going through this trauma over here.

Speaker 3 I need some support because I'm Mama Bear and I got to go make some money.

Speaker 3 and the more money i make with our financial coach and we're going to give you all the resources by the way so christian if she needs total money makeover uh every dollar give her everything give her everything we got christian's gonna take great care of you listen if you don't

Speaker 2 i don't know if you go to church or not i want you stepping foot inside of a church this sunday i don't care what you believe you need people around you who want to help you and love on you and they will do just that yeah we're gonna walk with you nicole you're not on your own but go get some income and watch this thing turn around hang on the line we're gonna take care of of you.

Speaker 3 This is the Ramsey Show.

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Speaker 3 Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Thrilled that you're with us.
I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is with me as well.

Speaker 3 Triple 8-825-5225, taking your money questions and your work-related or income questions to that end.

Speaker 3 The get clear assessment, a tool that I was privileged to create a few years ago, it's helped hundreds of thousands of people and just wrote a new book called Find the Work You're Wired to Do.

Speaker 3 It came out a little earlier this year and it includes the Get Clear Assessment. So what does the assessment do? Well, it answers four really big questions.
Who am I? What's my unique wiring?

Speaker 3 And we're talking about in the context of work.

Speaker 3 Why am I wired that way? What do I want to do professionally and how do I get there? And And that's what these two tools combined do for you. You're going to spend about a third of your life at work.

Speaker 3 And I just believe with everything in my being

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Speaker 3 So you can get the book, find the work you're wired to do, and it comes with the assessment, the get clear assessment.

Speaker 3 You can get it at ramseysolutions.com/slash store, ramseysolutions.com slash store. Or you can click the link in the description of the show if you're listening via YouTube and podcast.

Speaker 3 All right, to Susan is where we're going to go. She is in Dallas, Texas.

Speaker 2 Susan, how can we help?

Speaker 6 Hi.

Speaker 20 I just went through a divorce or finalized it recently.

Speaker 6 It took a while.

Speaker 20 And I've been a stay-at-home mom during my entire marriage for the past 14 years.

Speaker 11 Anyway,

Speaker 6 I got what I consider a pretty good amount of money.

Speaker 20 And I'm just curious. I don't really know what to do with it.

Speaker 6 I let my ex-husband handle every single bit of finances. I never knew how much money we had or anything.

Speaker 20 So,

Speaker 3 how much are you getting?

Speaker 6 Well, there's a couple components to it.

Speaker 20 I got a check for $1.1 million.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 20 I got a 401k for $715,000.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 20 And then $15,000 per month for the next

Speaker 6 seven years.

Speaker 2 Okay. How old are you?

Speaker 15 I'm 40.

Speaker 2 okay so you've got a guaranteed income for for the next seven years that's nice okay

Speaker 2 um

Speaker 2 okay great so

Speaker 2 tell me your question

Speaker 20 okay so my question is i'm completely debt-free i also don't own a home because i just got divorced okay um

Speaker 2 so you need a place to live

Speaker 20 Right. I'm renting right now, which is $3,600 a month, which I feel like is really expensive.

Speaker 2 It is.

Speaker 15 It's also all bills paid.

Speaker 20 So my question, I guess, is

Speaker 20 I've got like $95,000 in a high-yield savings account.

Speaker 6 I started

Speaker 10 a Roth

Speaker 20 IRA. I'm like totally, I know nothing about finance.
So I've just been trying to learn just in the last month or so.

Speaker 6 Anyway, my question basically is, A,

Speaker 20 can I live off of part of this money, like off of the monthly income?

Speaker 20 Or do I need to get a significant job?

Speaker 2 Well, the good news is, the good news is, is you do have a monthly income for the next seven years. So you've got some time to reinvent yourself and figure out what you want to do with life.

Speaker 2 And if I were you, obviously you don't need $15,000 per month. Figure out what do I need?

Speaker 2 What's a fair budget for me?

Speaker 2 Maybe it's $7,000 a month. And then you take the rest and you invest it every single month, right? So

Speaker 2 that's thing one. You've been bought time to figure out a career path for you.
And I'm going to toss it to Ken in a moment for that. But let's talk about the rest of the income that you have.

Speaker 2 So let's say just for,

Speaker 2 just to keep it simple, let's say you invest half of what you're getting every single month for the next seven years. So around seven and a half thousand dollars or seven and a half thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 And then you've got 1.1 million. That's a check, right?

Speaker 18 Yes, yes. And I didn't know what to do with that.

Speaker 20 So I just put it in a money market account because I didn't even know how to deposit that.

Speaker 2 Great. I think that's a good place to start.
What I want, my homework for you is I want you to start learning about investing. I want you to start understanding.

Speaker 2 Okay, I know husband, ex-husband used to do it, but it's now time for you to start learning because the time is going to come where you're going to need to invest this and you're going to want to understand it.

Speaker 2 You don't want to just hand a check for $1.1 million.

Speaker 2 over to anybody and say, here, you handle this. You're going to want to say, okay, I get it.
And a great place to start is here.

Speaker 2 You know, here at Ramsey, we do teach that investing is a better place for you to build long-term wealth than a money market account or a high-yield savings account, simply because of rate of return, right?

Speaker 2 If you invest that money, you'll get a higher compound interest rate of return on that. So it'll grow faster.
And so I would tell you to get hooked up with a Smart Vestor Pro.

Speaker 2 They're going to have the heart of a teacher and they're going to be able to teach you about this. And that's the key thing.
Tell them, I don't want to invest anything yet.

Speaker 2 I just want to learn right and they're going to ultimately have you invested in a way that's um

Speaker 2 uh

Speaker 2 four different types we're spreading it out it's not going to be high risk it's not going to be just in a set of stocks but i want you to understand that so when the time comes we are investing that check but in the meantime we're getting with the smart vestor pro to teach us And then as far as the $715,000 401k, yeah, leave it, let it grow.

Speaker 2 You're probably going to have to do a direct transfer rollover into an IRA. And so so the Smart Vestor Pro is going to help you do that.

Speaker 2 And then for you, now it's all about career and what you're going to do with your life because you're super young.

Speaker 3 I got a couple quick questions on the money first. So the $715,000, how old are you?

Speaker 20 I'm 40.

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh. It's going to be so much money.

Speaker 3 So the $715,000 that... that is in the 401k and that then that's your that is going to be a lot of money uh what is that going to be in 30 years okay did you tell me you're 40 now yeah she's she's 40.

Speaker 2 Okay, so let's just say you retire, I don't know, let's say 65. Does that sound good?

Speaker 2 Okay. Okay.
Let's say you add nothing to it. That right there is going to be $8 million.

Speaker 2 Holy cow. Just not touching it.

Speaker 3 The reason I went to that, Susan, is because on this work thing,

Speaker 3 this may or may not be a thing now. How old are the kids?

Speaker 20 They are 14 and 11.

Speaker 18 My other thing is, can I buy a house?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 I was going to say that I was working.

Speaker 3 How much money do I use I would take the the one point one check the 1.1 check is is what you need to do plus you already have ninety five thousand in another savings account so I was gonna ask you what is a modest house in a nice area

Speaker 3 what is a house price you know your area for you and the kiddos what does that look like what's the what's the money on that I mean right now there's like nothing to buy I've been looking um I mean there's a a nice home for 500,000 that

Speaker 3 let's just use as an example.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 So if I'm you and then I'm going to pay cash for the house because right now you're paying $3,600 a month in rent.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So you take just a little bit less than half of the 1.1 and you've got it paid for a house. Now that monthly budget, which I'm using is the $15,000 you're getting in the settlement,

Speaker 3 now that $3,600 was coming out of the $15,000, it's not anymore. Right.
And your utilities and things like that are going to be nothing. You still got the two kiddos in school.

Speaker 3 So I would come up with the every dollar budget and budget off of the 15, and I would do

Speaker 3 some type of an investment strategy based on what a Smart Vestor Pro tells you because

Speaker 3 Jade's already proved to you, you don't have to put another penny. And I'm not saying not to, but

Speaker 3 I'm guessing their investment strategy is going to be you're going to diversify some stuff because right now

Speaker 3 you you are more than fine, Susan. Like you're going to be very, very wealthy and based on just the 401k and what it does over time.
So for me, if I were you, I would take my time.

Speaker 3 You just came out of this divorce. You've just settled.
I'm fine with you renting for a little bit longer. You're saying the market right now is not a lot on the market.

Speaker 3 We'll see what happens after this presidential election. The point is, grieve.
Stay cool. The 3600, while it's a little expensive, it's not even phasing you.
I would take my time.

Speaker 3 I'd buy a nice house, cash,

Speaker 3 and now you still have over half a million dollars to invest.

Speaker 2 And when you invest it, you're probably going to look for something that's non-retirement, something that you can get to sooner that's in some sort of a bridge account so that you can access it,

Speaker 2 you know, before you're starting to. I agree with that.

Speaker 3 And that should be the advice that you're for seven years.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 But for seven years, my goodness. But here's the deal.

Speaker 3 You're going to have some margin in that monthly as well. That's $180,000 a year for the next seven years.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're good.

Speaker 3 So from a standpoint of work, hang on the line. We'll give you the book, find the work you're wired to do, and the get clear assessment.

Speaker 3 But that is a relaxed, like, what would I do if I didn't have to work?

Speaker 2 Which, by the way, you don't have to. You don't have to.
I was just talking for purpose.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So, sorry, we're running out of time, Susan.
Hang on the line. We'll get that to you.
But thank you for the call. You're going to be in good shape.
This is the Ramsey Show.

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Speaker 2 From the Ramsey Network, it's the Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Morsha.
Next to me is one of my favorite guys out there, Ken Coleman.

Speaker 3 Hello, everybody.

Speaker 2 Hosting the show together. Hey, we're talking about your life, your money.
We'll throw in careers. Ken is the resident career guide.
I will help you with the money.

Speaker 2 You might have some relationship issues. You can toss those in as well.
The number is 888-825-5225. Call us up.
We'll get you on the line. Let's dig right in.
We've got Tyler.

Speaker 2 He's in Charlotte, North Carolina. What's going on, Tyler?

Speaker 2 Hey, how are y'all? We're doing good. How can we help today?

Speaker 9 So I have about $2.5 million in debt between mortgages, short-term,

Speaker 9 different car loans, stuff like that.

Speaker 9 I'm aggressively paying off kind of all the all the debt except for the mortgages currently.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 9 And I'm just trying to see, and I should have that done in about a year to a year and a half based on the way I have it set up.

Speaker 9 And I'm just trying to see if I should make bigger changes and try to attack everything a little bit more aggressively and get it paid off sooner.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Let's roll it back.

Speaker 2 Let's roll back and see where this lies. Because when you first told me I have two and a half million dollars of debt,

Speaker 2 my pulse quickens. But then when you mentioned real estate, I thought, okay, that makes this a little different.
So tell me about the real estate.

Speaker 2 Can you just go by property by property and I'll ask you about each one? So the first property you have, is it a rental? I'm guessing.

Speaker 9 Yeah, so

Speaker 9 first one is a duplex. It's worth about $260,000.
I have about $158,000 on it.

Speaker 2 So I'm paying about $1,300.

Speaker 9 Yeah. My payment is about $1,300.
Income is about $2,150,000.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 So let's go to the next one.

Speaker 9 Single family, $270,000, asset value, debt about $159,000,

Speaker 9 payment $1,000, income $750,000, $1,750.

Speaker 2 Okay. And the next one?

Speaker 9 Worth about $310,000. Debt $200,000.

Speaker 9 Payments $1,481. Income, $2,200.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Is there more?

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Another single family. That one we're actually actively trying to sell.
We have on Airbnb currently. It's worth about $540,000.
Okay. Debt $460,000.

Speaker 9 Payment $3,600. And income about the same.
I think after everything's said and done, we're probably losing about $500 a month on that one.

Speaker 2 Okay. Anything after that? Number five? Yeah,

Speaker 9 we have a duplex value $360,000, debt $205,000.

Speaker 9 Payment about $14.60,000. Income, $2,800.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Anything else you want to keep going on?

Speaker 9 Yeah, it's quite a few more.

Speaker 2 Oh, gosh. Okay.
Well, instead of going through these, here's what I would do if I were in your situation. I don't like that you're carrying

Speaker 2 $2.5 million of debt. And I love that you love real estate and I love that you want to get into real estate.
Here, we would teach a way to do that. That's in cash.
And it would.

Speaker 2 be you paying off your debt first and saving up to buy cash.

Speaker 2 You've gone far beyond that. And it is true that some of these may be good investments for you, but not at the tune of you being in two and a half million dollars of debt.

Speaker 2 So, what I would do if I were in your shoes is I'd list them all out and I'd say, which ones can I sell off in order to clear this debt out?

Speaker 2 And are there a few that in the end that I'll be able to keep that do you know create some income for me? Because how many do you have total?

Speaker 9 It's 18 units total, but we have

Speaker 2 mortgages. How many mortgages?

Speaker 9 Nine mortgages count in the personal property, one that's paid off.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 yeah, what I would do is try to get right side up on this and figure out which ones can I sell that are going to bring the right amount of profit in order for me to clear out this debt.

Speaker 2 Have you sat down to kind of figure that out yet?

Speaker 9 Well, the problem with doing that, I mean, I've thought about that in the past, but being that

Speaker 9 pretty much every one of these make a pretty good income after the debt, when I factor in selling them off to pay off the other ones, it reduces the income pretty substantially.

Speaker 2 Is this your only income?

Speaker 3 It's not as much income as you think. Your margins per house are actually not impressive.
And I'm not saying that to be unkind. I'm saying that because I agree with Jade.

Speaker 3 And I think the best play here is to actually get rid of the duplexes. I'd sell the duplexes today.
Those are just bad investments, in my opinion.

Speaker 3 But the point is, I think Jade's right. You can still come out of this thing on top.
You got enough equity in these homes, just as you were listing through these.

Speaker 3 That if you sell X amount, so I would take, I'm making this up. Let's say you got eight properties.
I'd take the best four. I'd start there and go, What are the absolute best four properties?

Speaker 3 If you're looking long-term, Tyler, and I think you probably know some of these are better than others, true or false.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 So once you've pay those off, as Jay told you, now it's straight profit. But on some of these, you were listing, you're like, well, my mortgage is $1,000.
I'm making $17.50,000.

Speaker 3 That's $750 gross times $12,000. That's about $10,000, a little over $10,000.
And that's actually gross. That's after your expenses and taking care of things.

Speaker 3 All I'm saying is that you're going to be better off with Jade's plan because now you're actually making a sizable chunk and you don't owe any debt and you have no risk. I'd get out of this now.

Speaker 2 I mean, the truth, the truth,

Speaker 2 what Ken is saying is right on. And I don't say this to be

Speaker 2 condescending in any way, but the truth is revenue minus expenses equals profit. And you're in debt.
You're in the red because you owe two and a half million.

Speaker 2 It would be very different if you were carrying all these properties and you're like, Jade, I've got, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'd be a proponent to this, but if you're like, hey, I'm carrying all this debt, but because of the way it's cash flowing, I'm in the green, two and two and a half million, but you're in the red.

Speaker 2 So these are not good investments for you.

Speaker 2 What signals a good and healthy business is profit. And so what you're saying, your cash flowing, it's not actually profit.

Speaker 2 It is, it is, what really should be happening is you need to be filtering back then in that end to pay off the debt.

Speaker 2 And so for that reason, yeah, what Ken said, what I said before, is your way out of this. I want you in the green, and I want you doing deals that end with a net profit.

Speaker 2 And that's not what's taking place here.

Speaker 12 Could four of these pay off the other four?

Speaker 3 Just gut check real quick.

Speaker 9 Well, I have so there's two.

Speaker 9 if I take my personal property out of here, that reduces it down to about

Speaker 9 1.75 million in mortgages, and then the value would be somewhere around

Speaker 9 2.7 million. Yeah, so we have about a million dollars in.

Speaker 3 Man, okay, so let me paint a different picture for you. Let's just real numbers.
Okay, let's say that you now have a million dollars,

Speaker 3 a million dollars,

Speaker 3 and now you're paying off your personal home, no debt in your life at all, and now you've got real cash flow plus cash. Why is that not the better play in your mind? Zero risk.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and your place is paid. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Is that not a better vision?

Speaker 2 If you don't agree,

Speaker 2 you just have to what? You're acting like this is impossible. Well, the thing is, we crumbled, we just crumbled your empire.
Like, I sense that. You know, you have, you've acquired this over time.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but those four are going to spit off how much? That's what I'm trying to get you to. Let's say you were left with four houses.

Speaker 3 You got cash, plus they're spitting off, you know, the four left are going to spit off what? How much per month?

Speaker 9 I would have to see which ones to run those numbers. Here, but if I, yeah, I mean, just off the top of my head, we're probably looking at like,

Speaker 9 if I just say three, they equal up close to that. It'd probably be somewhere around,

Speaker 9 I don't know, $6,000 or so.

Speaker 2 Okay, but that's real money now.

Speaker 3 Yes. That's $72,000 in the clear.

Speaker 3 Not paying any debt. You'll have some expenses on that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the truth is, Ken is right.

Speaker 2 If there's anything good about any of these investments, you should be able to sell off some of them, pocket some cash, get your residence paid for, and keep some of the properties.

Speaker 2 That's that's that's what should be happening here. Um, if for some reason you can't sell these to clear the debt, then something really is wrong.
This is the Ramsey Show.

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Speaker 3 All right, who needs some help out there? You're just going, I'm not where I want to be. I'm not where I want to be with my money.
I'm not where I want to be in my relationships.

Speaker 3 I'm not where I want to be in my professional journey. If that's you, no shame in your game, number one.
And number two, we'd love to help. We being Jade Warshaw, my colleague, co-host, and friend.

Speaker 3 And I'm Ken Coleman or Ramsey Personalities. And we're here for you.

Speaker 3 This is a listener viewer show. We are here for you.
We take your questions. 888-825-5225.
888-825-5225. Let's go to Detroit now.
Kendall is there. Kendall, how can we help?

Speaker 22 Hi, nice to talk with you today.

Speaker 2 You too. What's going on?

Speaker 6 So I just graduated medical school about a half a year ago.

Speaker 2 Hey, cool. Congrats.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 22 So I have about three and a half years left. Obviously, residency salary is about $60,000.
I have about $220,000 in student debt, but no other debt in my life.

Speaker 22 So my plan is, like, you know, I can't pay off my debt while I'm a resident.

Speaker 6 I don't make enough. But when I graduate, I I was going to live off of like $40,000, pay off my debt in two years.

Speaker 22 But my question is, I don't have like any money saved for retirement, and I'll be 33 when I start making six figures.

Speaker 22 So, should I prioritize paying off my debt or should I start saving more for retirement?

Speaker 3 Well, Jay's going to help you on that, but I'm just real curious. What do you think that starting salary is? And what do you think the range is maybe in the first couple years?

Speaker 22 $270,000 to $300,000 mostly.

Speaker 2 Jade,

Speaker 2 you can do something with that, can't you, coach? Listen, I'm excited for you.

Speaker 2 Thank you. You know,

Speaker 2 you should be.

Speaker 2 I'm excited for you. You know, you've got this big milestone, you know, coming up.
You've got three and a half years left of med school. So that's cool.

Speaker 2 So luckily, you came out of this with only 20,000 of student loans. Can I just quickly ask you?

Speaker 3 220.

Speaker 3 220.

Speaker 2 I caught that one.

Speaker 2 Listen, I'm glad I asked because I was like, how in the world would you do that? All right. So you've got 220 of student loans, nothing else, right?

Speaker 22 Yes, nothing else.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 And we've got a couple more years of 60,000 salary, 60 to 80

Speaker 2 or just 60.

Speaker 22 Yeah, like 60 to 70, probably.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm with you.

Speaker 2 They're not going to become due until after you graduate, right? And then you've got,

Speaker 2 well, are they going to be, does it, does residency count for that or is it separate?

Speaker 22 So they're on, I'm on an income-based repayment plan and also the save plan.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 22 like typically they gain $1,000 a month of interest, but those two plans allow me to pay $2.33 and the government

Speaker 22 pays the rest of the interest. So they're not going to grow in residency and I only have to pay $2.33 a month.
But when I graduated, that'll change.

Speaker 2 Okay, okay. Got it.

Speaker 2 You know, I would try to pay as much as you can with the salary that you have. I mean, that's all that you can do.
But what I really want to address

Speaker 2 is the fact that you said that you're only 33 years old and you'll be 33 when it's time to retire or when it's time to start saving for retirement. You don't want to be behind.

Speaker 2 And I, whenever I hear that, I kind of just want to let people know like I've been there.

Speaker 2 And, you know, when my husband and I were paying off our student loan debt, which was about 280,000, you know, we didn't finish that until we were around your age, 33, pregnant with my son, and we hadn't started investing at all.

Speaker 2 And I kind of want you to understand that you're going to be okay. So let's just pretend.

Speaker 2 I love doing the investment calculator. So let's just play around here.
How old are you? Can I ask?

Speaker 22 Yeah, I'm 29 right now.

Speaker 2 Oh my goodness. You're 29.
So let's just say, I'm going to plug this in. We have a really cool investment calculator.
And I'm just going to say, let's pretend you're 29 years old now.

Speaker 2 Let's pretend that you plan to retire at age 62. Let's just say that.
And you have zero in retirement now, right?

Speaker 2 And let's just say because you're, let's say because you're saving for a home, you're not investing the whole 15% that we would advise when the time comes. So let's say you're investing 10%.

Speaker 2 So $2,700 a month. Fair? Are you tracking with me?

Speaker 2 Yep. Okay.
So we're doing $2,700. I'm plugging that in.
And

Speaker 2 let's just be very conservative and say an 8% annualized rate of return. Let's calculate that and see what that'll be.
So when the time comes, you'll have over $5 million.

Speaker 10 Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 $5 million.

Speaker 6 Yeah, that's a lot.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think you're going to be all right.

Speaker 2 I think you're going to be just fine.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 that's what I want you to leave here with is, all right, I've got time. I'm working, you know, I'm doing the MD thing.
I'm paying as much as I can.

Speaker 2 Once I hit this salary, I'll be able to knock out whatever remains. I'll save up three to six months of expenses in baby step three.

Speaker 2 And by then, like I said, you might be wanting to save for a down payment too. And that's baby step three B.
And that comes before you start investing.

Speaker 2 So you've got time and you might start to do baby step three B and baby step four, which is investing 15% at the same time. Whatever you choose there, you're going to be fine.

Speaker 2 $5 million, that makes me sleep a lot better at night, Kendall.

Speaker 3 And those numbers, and by the way, Kendall, those numbers are going to be way bigger than that. She was just going real conservative here.

Speaker 2 That's if you never make any more money. Like you're going to pay off your higher starting salary.

Speaker 3 What, two years, you pay off your debt, then you got your emergency fund after that. You save for a house.
Let's just say you don't start investing until 36.

Speaker 3 Again, not an issue because of the amount of money that your 15% represents.

Speaker 3 And the compound interest is insane. Okay, so you don't have to worry about that.
That's the point.

Speaker 3 That's the whole thing that you called about. You're not too late.
You aren't going to be destitute. You're going to be very, very wealthy.

Speaker 2 Is it just you? Okay. Kendall?

Speaker 22 Right now, it's just me. I'm still

Speaker 2 figuring that out. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So that's a great point, Jade. Yeah.
That doesn't take into account a double income. Oh, by the way, you know what else it doesn't take into account?

Speaker 3 All the money you're going to make on a house because you're going to put a really big chunk down and you're going to pay it off.

Speaker 2 And you're going to have a pay-per-view house when you retire as well.

Speaker 3 I got to tell you, Kendall, I'd be shocked if you don't do what we tell you to do, if you're not in the 10 million range by the time you're 65.

Speaker 2 Be shocked. That's incredible.

Speaker 2 And I'm not making that up, am I?

Speaker 19 I'm not touch security. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I don't think that's a stretch.

Speaker 2 No, I don't think that's a stretch.

Speaker 3 You know, so you've got this.

Speaker 2 You got it?

Speaker 10 Thank you.

Speaker 19 Yeah, I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 Follow the plan.

Speaker 3 Hey, do you have any of our products? You got any books or anything that you kind of lean on?

Speaker 22 I don't. My sister went through your programs, and she normally just like talked to me about all of this kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 I don't have any.

Speaker 3 I want to give you something, Jade.

Speaker 2 Let's give her something to kind of cement this so that she can see the process for sure total money makeover yeah total money makeover and hey i want you to head to everydollar.com slash jade and i want you to pick up every dollar premium and it'll give you 15 off and what i love about every dollar premium is you can kind of the same way that i plugged in your numbers and gave you that snapshot of what your investing future could look like we've got a financial roadmap planner on there that you can plug in all sorts of numbers to figure out where you want to be and where you're going to meet certain milestones.

Speaker 2 So you can plug in numbers to figure out how long it would take you to save three to six months of expenses or how long it would take you to save up for a home, those sorts of things.

Speaker 2 So we'll make sure you have that. And I think she's all set.

Speaker 3 Kendall, you're a rock star. Okay, Jade, we got about a minute here.
We got new people coming in all the time. So I think it's really good to revisit what is a really sensible question.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 And that is, I've got all this debt. And if it takes me six years or five years or four years to pay it off, I'm so far behind the eight ball in investing.

Speaker 3 Why do we teach that the way we do that we clear debt first before we invest? Explain that to newcomers who might still be going, ah, really?

Speaker 2 I mean, there's a lot of reasons, a lot of good reasons. The first reason is your income is your biggest wealth building tool.
Like that's a Dave Ramsey classic quote right there.

Speaker 2 You need your income available in order to be able to invest it. And for most of us, we're living paycheck to paycheck.

Speaker 2 Like we don't have any money left at the end of the month, but after we've paid our bills, our car note, we've got groceries, we paid the kids' daycare.

Speaker 2 Most of of us don't feel like we have that breathing room because we have so many debts and bills. So the first step is to clear that out.

Speaker 2 So you get your money back in your budget and then you save up three to six months.

Speaker 2 Because if you don't save first and you start investing right away, if an emergency comes, you start pulling from your retirement or you start using credit cards and you go back into debt.

Speaker 2 So you pay off the debt, you build up the savings, and then and only then we start investing. And that's the way it works.
If you start doing it out of order, you start messing yourself up, Ken.

Speaker 3 And you just proved it. Once you start that investing, compound interest becomes your best part.

Speaker 3 And so it can work. You're not too late.
Trust the process. It works.
We're so glad you've joined us. She's Jade Warshaw.
I'm Ken Coleman. This is The Ramsey Show.

Speaker 21 All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions.

Speaker 2 Possibly, yeah. I think so.
Okay, because you really prefer credit unions over big banks.

Speaker 21 So why is that?

Speaker 2 Well, credit unions, for one thing, are non-profit, which means that the members, the customers, own the credit union. So any profits that the credit union makes goes back into customer pricing.

Speaker 2 So you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking, and so on, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 And what's more important than that, though, is the fact that the customer is the owner changes the spirit on the credit union. So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer-centric.

Speaker 21 Yes. Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible, and that's Fairwinds.
They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer.

Speaker 2 You know, that's why we're partnering with them because

Speaker 2 they've got a scope to be able to handle the Ramsey audience and they're the right kind of people with the right kind of values. And they've done a really, really good job with customer service.

Speaker 2 And the deals that they're offering, the Ramsey tribe is incredible. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 21 And you're right. Their customer service is unbelievable.
Winston and I just signed up and we got an account. And I'm not kidding.

Speaker 21 It took less than five minutes. It was so user-friendly.
Like the step-by-step approach was unbelievable. And then the next day, my phone rings and it says Fairwinds on my phone.

Speaker 21 So I answered it and talked to someone there. And they said, yeah, they give calls to every new customer.
And so again, they just really care about your experience. And I, I so, so appreciate that.

Speaker 21 So again, you guys, I know it can be a pain to switch banks or to open up new accounts, but Fairwinds, again, they make it so easy.

Speaker 21 Plus, anything that you can do at a traditional branch, you can do with them at fairwinds.org or on their app. And you'll have free access access to over 33,000 ATMs.

Speaker 2 Hey, you guys know how much I hate banks in general. And so for me to do this is a big deal.

Speaker 2 Talk to our friends at Fairwinds and check out the combined checking and savings bundle that they created just for the Ramsey tribe. You guys, it's incredible.

Speaker 21 Yeah, you guys, it's so easy to join Fairwinds no matter where you live. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more.
That's F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey.

Speaker 2 All right, business owners. Last call: the pre-sale for the brand new book, Build a Business You Love, ends April 15th.

Speaker 2 Pre-order now and get over $350 worth of free bonus items to help you hire smarter, lead stronger, and grow faster.

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Speaker 3 Welcome back to the Ramsey Show where we talk to you about you.

Speaker 3 Your money, your work, your relationships is our goal. We want you to win in all three.
I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is with me.
And the phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225 time. Excuse me.

Speaker 3 Try not to say too many things at once when you're live on the air.

Speaker 2 Sometimes it's tough sometimes.

Speaker 3 Every once in a while, I get on a roll a little too fast. It is time for today's question of the day, brought to you by YReFi.

Speaker 3 Now, we do not recommend refinancing on everything, but for distressed private student loans, there is YReFi.

Speaker 3 We trust Why Refi because they help you with a low fixed interest rate you couldn't get anywhere else, and it's going to help you stick to your budget and get out of debt.

Speaker 3 Learn more at yrefi.com/slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y,

Speaker 3 R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. May not be available in all states.

Speaker 2 All right, today's question comes from Ken in Mississippi. My man.
All right. He says, I had a work performance evaluation after being at my current company for six months.

Speaker 2 I got nothing but Ada Boys and received no criticism for the job I'm doing. Then they offered me a 50 cent raise per hour.

Speaker 2 I just wanted to know how you guys felt about that after a performance review of nothing but great feedback.

Speaker 2 Am I being selfish or should I just accept it for what it is and hope for better compensation next time?

Speaker 3 Well, Ken, you are being selfish, but selfish in this particular interpretation, Jade, is not bad.

Speaker 2 No, you got to look out for yourself.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 3 Thank you for picking that up. Of course.
The word selfish gets a really negative thing, but when it comes to your money,

Speaker 3 your compensation,

Speaker 3 you are your agent. You are your manager.
That's right. This is your livelihood.
So, all of the feels

Speaker 3 around this scenario are what I would call absolutely normal, dare I say, healthy.

Speaker 2 That's good.

Speaker 3 In other words, he gets a good review. He's sitting there and he's getting all positive.

Speaker 2 Bad a boy. And then they go.

Speaker 3 I love how you dramatize it, even in the question. It was like, I think she was in a few dramas in plays when she was in school.

Speaker 3 And so, in this situation, Jade,

Speaker 3 it's a shot to the chest.

Speaker 3 50 cents.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I'm going to tell you something. If you don't feel something when you get a 50 cent raise,

Speaker 2 then something's wrong with you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And so I would say, Ken,

Speaker 3 you are being what I would call properly selfish in recognizing real feelings that should feel that way because I'm objective. I have no skin in this.

Speaker 3 And I would feel that way if I put myself in your shoes. So now let's get to the second part of this.

Speaker 3 Should you accept it? I don't know because here's what I would be asking. And so I'm going to play your agent.

Speaker 3 I'm going to be your agent and then I'm going to give it to my assistant agent over. If Jade and I are agenting for you,

Speaker 3 I'm going to say I want to find out,

Speaker 3 is that a normal

Speaker 3 raise?

Speaker 3 The average in the United States, and this is not a law, if you look at the numbers, annual raises usually fall between three and four percent again no one's beholden to that number 50 cent raise is really really low that's right so the question becomes Ken why is it only 50 cents is the company struggling

Speaker 3 good question you got to ask that that's a good question and if the company's struggling we all got to tighten the belt in our personal budgets and so I'd want to know why only 50 cents and dig into that and and then you have to decide from there okay that's the now answer but I want to look at next because I don't want to keep feeling this way.

Speaker 3 That's right. Because you keep showing up year after year and you feel this way.

Speaker 3 It's not good for you. It's not good for you.

Speaker 2 Thoughts. Yeah, that's the thing.

Speaker 2 That's a good question. Ken, if you ask and say, hey, what's going on? You know,

Speaker 2 I've done some research. I know the standard.
Is the company doing all right? And let's say he says, well, you know, no, we're not.

Speaker 2 Then it's like, okay, well, am I up for the ride of

Speaker 2 sticking out, sticking it out until the last part of his question?

Speaker 3 Should I hope for better compensation next time?

Speaker 2 No, brother. It's getting lower.

Speaker 2 It's only going lower from here, probably.

Speaker 3 I don't like hope when it comes to compensation.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Do you? I love hope.
And I think in this case, there's probably a lot more fish in the sea that have fatter pockets when it's time for. I'm going to catch you in the mix metaphors.

Speaker 3 That was strong. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Fatter gills.

Speaker 3 We got to find some fish with fatter gills.

Speaker 2 That's good. Truly, though.
I'm with you.

Speaker 3 I don't want hope in that. I don't want to put my hope in me and the Lord and action.
I'm not going to put hope in, well, it was 50 cents this year.

Speaker 2 Well, Ken, talk about motivation.

Speaker 3 I hope they bump it to a buck 25 next year.

Speaker 2 Talk about the role that that sort of thing plays in the motivation of the worker.

Speaker 3 Okay, so

Speaker 3 if you feel as though you've been devalued,

Speaker 3 it's a slippery slope to where you devalue yourself.

Speaker 2 That's good. That's what happens.
That's very good. So you're saying he's going to start, he would start doing things things to throw himself off.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, you start questioning.

Speaker 3 I'm only worth 50 cents?

Speaker 2 That's good.

Speaker 3 That's tough stuff. That is tough.
But that's the real, real.

Speaker 3 So anyway, sorry about that, Ken. I would be looking for greener pastures if it were me.
I agree. But, you know, again, and by the way, anybody in that situation, can I just say this very quickly?

Speaker 3 Get the get-clear assessment in the book. Find the work you're wired to do.
It's one purchase price. Get the book.
And I'm going to tell you something. Lay it over.
Take the results of the assessment.

Speaker 3 Read the book. It's a 45-minute read.
For this reason, Jade, it'll help people go, where could I go? Yes. Where are my possibilities? I'm not stuck.

Speaker 3 This is not the only thing I can do. Gosh, that's a really important theme for me is for people to see, I got options.
Even when you can't see them, I promise you, you have got options.

Speaker 2 So that book is really going to infuse you with the confidence to know. 100%.
It's not just that. That's not my only option.
Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 3 It's about self-awareness.

Speaker 3 And by the way, on the other other side of self-awareness is confidence you cannot be confident if you aren't aware that's true so there you go just a quick that's why that's why i put that resource out it's a fabulous little resource so there you go all right to the phones we go uh ed is up in columbia south carolina ed how can we help hey ken and jay thanks for taking my call sure what's up i just have a question about um paying off a mortgage and until

Speaker 7 I wouldn't have made this call, I knew the answer and listening to your show and listening to Dave, But I was notified that my job is being downsized October 1st.

Speaker 3 Oh, man, I'm sorry about that.

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 7 And the thing about it is, I still want to pay off the house, but I'm concerned that I should leave the cash

Speaker 7 in case we need it.

Speaker 2 Give Jay the numbers real quick.

Speaker 3 Walk her through the numbers.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 7 Would you want me to walk you through the numbers?

Speaker 2 How much is the payoff? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Okay, our payoff is $113,000.

Speaker 8 The house is worth $400,000. Okay.

Speaker 7 And my wife and I in the last two years have saved $190,000 in our savings.

Speaker 3 Okay, what of that is your emergency fund?

Speaker 10 It's not. I don't...

Speaker 7 Well, if I was going to take the emergency fund out of that, it would be $50,000.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 So it's $140,000. You got $140,000 up for grabs.
Yep. And that leaves you with $50,000 there.

Speaker 2 Typically, what we would say in a time like this where you're kind of in a crisis mode, I would tell you not to do anything major like jump into sums of money.

Speaker 2 How quickly do you think you can find new work? And is your wife also working? Those are my two questions.

Speaker 7 My wife is working.

Speaker 10 I actually

Speaker 7 work two side hustles.

Speaker 8 I work in the Dave a lot.

Speaker 7 So I started working two side hustles to

Speaker 7 save to pay off the house.

Speaker 2 So will you be able to, if you keep those two side hustles, your wife works and you get laid off, is that enough to cover the bills and cover your life if you pay off the mortgage?

Speaker 4 100%.

Speaker 7 We're debt-free. Our cars are, we don't owe anything but the mortgage.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I do it. I think so, too.
I do it. You've still got $50,000.
You're still able to make your bills even without this job.

Speaker 2 And now you're lowering your expenses by not having a mortgage. It's just taxes and insurance.
Yeah, I do.

Speaker 3 You get in a severance of any type?

Speaker 7 No,

Speaker 2 they don't do that.

Speaker 3 But you know what? You got a head start.

Speaker 2 You're right. That's right, baby.
Listen,

Speaker 3 I'd be looking for a job as soon as you hang up the phone.

Speaker 2 100%.

Speaker 7 I already have been, and I'm fortunate. I'm a professional salesperson, but I also have a lot of experience in retail.

Speaker 2 Great. Hey, you guys are awesome.

Speaker 7 Come on.

Speaker 3 You know? Pay the house off, Jade says.

Speaker 2 Yeah. You guys are awesome.
You've done an excellent, excellent job, and this is the fruit of your labor. Good job.
And download it.

Speaker 7 You kept me off the ledge, and

Speaker 7 I wouldn't be in this situation if I didn't listen to your show. Oh, good.

Speaker 2 You like country music?

Speaker 3 I do. You ever heard of an old guy named Johnny Paycheck? I know who he is, yeah.
Download his song when we hang up. It's called Take This Job and Shove It.

Speaker 2 You can take this job and shove it. Because he's paid his house off.
I know, right? I'm like, hey, you guys let me go?

Speaker 3 Guess what I did? Yeah. I paid my house off.

Speaker 2 There you go. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, come on, man. That's real financial peace.
That's why we do what we do. Ed, you're the poster child.
We're happy for you. This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 2 Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? You can take control of your money and your relationships. And it starts with just one night.
Join me and Dr.

Speaker 2 John Deloney live in a city near you on the Money and Relationships Tour. We're covering the real life stuff that matters so you can break the cycles that have left you stuck.

Speaker 2 It's coming up fast, so get your tickets for Louisville, Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth, or Kansas City at ramseysolutions.com slash tour today.

Speaker 3 Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman.
I'm joined in studio with,

Speaker 3 or by rather, Jade Warshaw, triple eight eight two five two two five triple eight eight two five five two two five. All right, let's see.
We've got our

Speaker 3 Ramsey Network app question, and this is from Gabriel. He asks, can you really win money with apps like Bingo Winner and Mr.
Beast's new app? Or is it a scam?

Speaker 3 Also, I was wondering if Acorns and Robin Hood

Speaker 3 are good investment options.

Speaker 3 I'm 50 years old. I don't know what Bingo Winner is, and I barely know who Mr.
Beast is. So I'm unqualified to even answer this question because I don't even know what that means.

Speaker 2 I'm going to...

Speaker 3 Did they win money with their apps? I don't have the foggiest idea.

Speaker 3 Anybody in there?

Speaker 2 Anybody?

Speaker 3 Shack, Kelly, do you know what they're talking about?

Speaker 2 I have no idea.

Speaker 2 The last game I played was Words with Friends, and there was no...

Speaker 2 option to win money. So I'm guessing it's one of these apps, like a candy crutch.

Speaker 3 The only app that I play in is a fantasy football, and that has nothing to do with any of this. That's just me.

Speaker 2 Can I give a hot take?

Speaker 3 Yes, please. Bail me out because I don't know how to answer this question.
All right.

Speaker 2 This is controversial and I own that.

Speaker 3 Oh boy, I am here for this.

Speaker 2 I'm going to get you for this. I feel like if you have time to play games on your phone,

Speaker 2 something's wrong. Like, who has, like, if you're out working and crushing it and taking care of your family, you don't have time to play games on your phone.

Speaker 3 I have zero problem with this. This is not controversial to me.

Speaker 2 And to put money into it, like money?

Speaker 3 I have no game apps on my phone. So

Speaker 3 I feel like I'm in Jade's good, good stead right now.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, I just, I can't understand that. I can't.

Speaker 2 Watch a show, like watch a show with your spouse or read a book, but spend money. Have a conversation.
But to spend money on a game inside your phone that's called bingo winner. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I'm going to go ahead and say that I don't know if it's a scam, but you should not be spending your time on it. There's no ROI on your time, and I'll bet there's not much ROI on the money.
No.

Speaker 3 And then I was wondering if Acorns and Robinhood are good investment options.

Speaker 3 Robinhood is an investment platform.

Speaker 3 We are very clear at Ramsey Solutions what our investment strategy is. I'll hand it to my colleague to give a very quick, give a 60-second investment strategy.
That would be our answer to any of this.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't like these apps because they really, really, they enforce, they're really more about trading and the idea of I'm putting a little bit here, but I can move it at any time.

Speaker 2 And that's not our strategy. We are long-term investors.
We are people who dollar cost average. We are people who set it and forget it and keep it there for a long period of time.

Speaker 2 And so that's why I don't like these apps because they don't promote that.

Speaker 2 So I would invest

Speaker 2 with my 401k through my job, or I'd be a part of a brokerage and have my Roth IRA.

Speaker 3 I got to confess, I just put the old readers on.

Speaker 2 Look at the graphic. Look at the graphic on that thing.

Speaker 3 I just typed in bingo win app and boy, talk about getting me in trouble. Yeah.
Anything that looks like that

Speaker 3 is designed to suck the brain right out of your head.

Speaker 2 It's yeah, it is.

Speaker 3 That's my ruling on that.

Speaker 2 It looks like it's designed to keep you addicted, whatever it is. So

Speaker 3 let me tell you what I know. Successful millionaires aren't spending a lot of time on bingo win.

Speaker 2 There you go. So now I've got a ruling.

Speaker 3 Okay, now we can move on. Move on.

Speaker 2 Goodness. Wow.
That was something, wasn't it?

Speaker 3 I'm never getting that time back.

Speaker 2 Neither are you.

Speaker 3 Matthew is up in Austin, Texas.

Speaker 2 Matthew, how can we help?

Speaker 4 How are y'all doing?

Speaker 2 Well, we're better now.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we're glad you're here.

Speaker 3 We're thrilled about your question. What is it?

Speaker 4 You sound like you always got it together, son. Just need your help thinking, I'm supposed to get married here in a couple weeks.

Speaker 2 Congrats.

Speaker 5 Thanks there.

Speaker 4 But yikes, kind of.

Speaker 4 And it has mainly to do with kids. I've got kids and how my new wife interacts.

Speaker 4 I guess the question being, how much does my new wife have say-so into how I raise my kids, spend money on my kids, and that type of thing? Because

Speaker 4 I'm really kind of struggling with it.

Speaker 3 All right, real quick question, because my colleague is loaded up, ready to go.

Speaker 3 I want to know this. How long have you two been dating?

Speaker 3 Two years. Two years.
And in the two years,

Speaker 3 has there been moments of tension

Speaker 3 based on her maybe stepping into some situations that the kids weren't really cool with or you weren't cool with? Or have there been some comments? I'm just giving you what I mean when I say moments.

Speaker 3 Have there been several moments of tension that lead to this concern?

Speaker 4 There's enough.

Speaker 2 I knew the answer to that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, my friend.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I would just say this.

Speaker 3 This needs to be settled in premarital counseling. Stat.

Speaker 2 How old are the kids? Immediately.

Speaker 4 They're not young, and so I got two in college. I have one that's a teenager.

Speaker 3 Well, the two in college, that's a non-factor. She doesn't get to say anything about that.

Speaker 2 And how old's a teenager?

Speaker 4 She's 16. But, for example, like when the subject comes up, and I don't like saying this, and I know it's probably wrong, but I say I'm a dad first if you make me choose.
Is that a wrong thing to say?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because you're treating it like she's expendable. And technically, now I know this is different, and

Speaker 2 I am going to step lightly on this, but typically when you get married, it's the marriage first.

Speaker 3 That's why I said what I said. And then it's the kids.

Speaker 2 Now, also, traditionally, the person you're married to is the person you've had children with. So it's easier to make that statement, and

Speaker 2 I want to hang out there. It is easier to make that statement when that's the case.
In your case, I don't think it makes it any less true, but I think it makes it more difficult to stand on that.

Speaker 3 I agree. I agree.
I'm going to default to you called us because you've got some real fear.

Speaker 3 And I'm glad you called us. If for no other reason than then I'm telling you as a guy who went through premarital counseling

Speaker 3 and I've been married 26 years, long enough to know that had Stacey and I not been on the same page about the major things,

Speaker 3 I don't know that we're here.

Speaker 2 Same, same.

Speaker 3 You know, and so I'm just saying that, Matthew,

Speaker 3 you need to invest. time and money into premarital counseling to sit with a professional therapist and get this stuff out on the table.
Like you've got to say, she has created this tension here.

Speaker 3 I feel like she stepped over here. She needs to be able to say, I didn't like it when you said I'm a dad first.
Like, we got to get this all out before we lock in.

Speaker 2 And then there's the kids' side of this, too.

Speaker 3 There is the kids' side of it, but they got to solve it between the two of them first. You got to know what life is going to look like day one.

Speaker 3 Now, we manage those decisions after that.

Speaker 4 She's nice to my kids. That's not it.
But we're kind of different when things come up like, well, I go, well,

Speaker 4 she's like, well, if they're they're 22, they're going to be on their own. Like, I'm like, well, yeah, but I sure hope so.
But what if something happens and they need to move back in?

Speaker 4 You know, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 And again,

Speaker 5 those

Speaker 4 things come up. Or

Speaker 4 are you going to pay for the master's degrees too instead of us going to Hawaii for vacation?

Speaker 2 Wait a minute. So yeah, she's got to realize that there's a whole life here and there's other people.
These are good people.

Speaker 2 She's marrying into the family, not just you. And that's the case with anybody.
You marry into the family, you marry into the situation, whatever it is. So I think that you guys, Ken is right.

Speaker 2 There's a lot that must be discussed before this happens.

Speaker 2 And Matthew, look.

Speaker 2 Oh, wow. Okay.
You know what?

Speaker 3 Is this a big fancy wedding when we got a lot of people coming and a lot of money being spent?

Speaker 13 No, but

Speaker 4 I can't move an ex not moving himself.

Speaker 2 You know what?

Speaker 3 I appreciate Matthew.

Speaker 2 He's going listen ken i know where you're going pal i don't want to walk down that path um i would i would i would press pause i would because what i don't want i would never want you to feel like you don't have a choice or like once the wheels and are in motion you can't you know put a wood stick in it and grind it to a halt you can you have choices still um you have a lot less choices once you say i do i agree i i'd get a session in at least and talk about these majors i really would before the the wedding but can i also say that if she says, Hey, are you going to pay for their master's degree or are we going to go to Hawaii?

Speaker 3 The answer is,

Speaker 3 where is my grass skirt? That's what the answer is. The kids can pay for their master's degree.
Go with mama to Hawaii, man.

Speaker 2 Aloha. Come on.

Speaker 2 I thought you were going in a different direction with that.

Speaker 3 The kids need to pay for their own master's degree.

Speaker 19 I'm glad you did. I'm glad you did.

Speaker 3 This is the Ramsey Show.