Surviving the Money Storm Starts with Tough Choices

Hey 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, 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. Hope you enjoy.
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. Wow.
Magnificent and Kenneth in the same sentence. It's going to be a day.
It's going to be a good day. We're taking calls all afternoon long.
Your life long your life your money hit us with 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 triple eight eight two five five two two five 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 hey how you guys doing doing great how are you doing good doing good uh 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 okay um i have a girlfriend of about a year and a have and and we do live together. And she asked me, actually last night, if I could loan her money to pay off a debt that she has on a credit card.
So she's about $12,000. About $12,000 in debt.
That's not a little bit. That's not a little bit.
That's a lot. Well, yeah.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. It's not.
Yeah. Not a little bit.
But yeah, she had asked me that and I gave her. I told her I would call you guys.
I kind of know the answer. I'll get back to you on that, babe.
Let's put it on Jade and Kenneth. Sure.
Sure. Okay.
So it's $12,000. Did you say it's for a credit card yeah yeah for a credit card yeah 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 got to pay it back yeah absolutely absolutely she had gotten to a yeah she had gotten to a little, I guess, with her last partner.
He ended up using it without her permission. And yeah, that's how she ended up being in that situation.
Can I ask you this? How do you feel? How would you feel being in a position where your girlfriend owes you $12,000? That's the thing, too, because I've been looking to you guys for a while. And I remember one thing Ramsey says is, you know, dinner tastes a little different when you're sitting across to somebody that owes you.
And I know I wouldn't be the one owing anyone, but just the fact that that kind of tension would be there, I wouldn't necessarily feel too comfortable with that. Yeah, Joe, how's that going to feel when she starts missing payments that she owes you?'s gotta be weird hey we're going to red lobster tonight how's that uh payment plan coming along but she still got her nails done and still got her hair done oh yeah yeah joe yeah so can i j 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? My gut reaction was, I'll be honest, I was like, okay, like am I in a position to do so? Like, yes.
Like, yes. Can I help her like that? Yes.
But I just think like character-wise, I really feel like, you know, attacking that is a character builder too. And, you know, I definitely want us to grow in that regard.
I want her to take her finances serious, too, as well. Joe, listen to me.
Jade and I are on Team Joe. 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? I got you.
I got you. No, no.
All right. 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.
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 anti-debt here. 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. And if I don't ever receive it back, it's no big deal.
Like that might be a totally different conversation, but the aspect of loaning it, you're right, it does put a different taste in your mouth and it's going to make the whole relationship, the power shifts, right? You become the lender and she becomes not the lender. 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 because i think you called us to get us to go well this guy this guy and this gal said this are you worried about what her reaction is going to be if you tell her no um be honest a little bit she she can be yeah no no she can be definitely emotional you know when it comes down to things like that emotional like crying or emotional like i'm gonna hit you with this cast iron pan maybe a sandal i don't know about the cast iron but she'd probably do something like that, but...
I think that's important.

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 just wanted to, yeah,

I just wanted to get, like, affirmation on that just to say, like, you know, like, hey, you know,

I mean, me being in the position I'm in

is because I've listened to these,

you know, I've listened to these people,

and, you know, I really want to, you know, I'll call them, and maybe they can give you some more clarity, too, on my standpoint. Are you going to marry her? That's my question.
Yeah, that's definitely the plan, for sure. Okay.
Does she know that? Yeah. Does she know that? I wouldn't say that.
I mean, we've talked about it, but as far as like like a timeframe 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. So the reason that we want to keep this separate is you two are not married.
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, 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, and the minute that I give you money, it changes our relationship, and I don't want that because I'm looking long-term. Did I miss anything on that? I agree exactly with Ken.
There's a protection for both of you, legal speaking, when you become married. And so if nothing else, this is a great time to start that conversation of define the relationship.
Now's the great time to start talking about that. And I think it reassure her to say you know if the time comes and you agree that we should be married as I believe that we should be married then I am happy to take on your debt it would never be alone it would be us working together and you know I look forward to that day but unfortunately we're not there today I have a question for you Jade and and she's she this is for you Joe but it Jade.
I overthink everything. So the giant asterisk here is I overanalyze everything.
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 get married? And does this fast forward a marriage proposal? I'm a little nervous about that. I hope not.
Do you see, 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 now 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 she might. It's been a year.

It's been a year and a half.

OK.

I mean, in my mind, now is a good time to start talking about it.

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.

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

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 french

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see.

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.

Zachary, how can we help today? Hi, how are you guys uh we're doing great what's going on so um i'll cut to the chase monday i lost my house in the house fire what for at least four months yeah oh my god what do you mean at least for four months what was it totally uh 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.
Okay. Nobody was hurt.
No. The dog was inside, but thankfully they got him out.
Okay. Okay.
So pup is okay. And when you say it's only one room, is that downstairs, upstairs? What was in the room? It was our downstairs master bedroom.
Oh, no. We were actually supposed to sell the house four days prior.
Well, four days after the fire had happened. Oh, my gosh.
But that's not happening anymore. Right.
So, thankfully, a lot of my stuff was packed up and ready to go but like my wife's entire wardrobe everything like our our bed our newborn son's bed and everything is oh my gosh where were you guys when this happened um i was an hour away at work and my wife was at work oh my gosh and that your newborn son uh he was at uh grandparents oh my gosh goodness. But the rest of the house is okay? Yes.
My stepdad was driving by when it started to smoke really bad, so he caught it. What happened? What caused the fire? Do they know? 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. Oh, my.
That is crazy. Well, I'm so glad everybody's okay.
Well, a couple of things to be grateful for. Obviously, you guys weren't there.
Your wife was not there. Your baby son, the dog is okay.
My goodness. And your father-in-law is driving by.
Yeah, and I love it. And 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 but all things being equal this is uh you dodged a major major crisis yeah yeah yeah definitely all right so how can we help today so we were planning on selling the house because my wife bought it before me and her were ever together.
And that is a nightmare of a house, um, foundation issues and electrical issues. Yeah.
Um, so we were really wanting to get out of it. Um, we were buying a new house, um, closer to parents, and it's a lot nicer house.

Did you already make the offer?

Yeah, but we were doing a contingency buy.

Got it. Okay, good.

So we're probably going to lose that house now that we have to wait another four months.

Yeah.

We have just started the baby steps.

We've got about $85,000 in consumer debt.

Okay. We don't have much

savings, especially after the fire now. Um, and then what have you, what have you been doing? Yeah.
Um, we, we just started it. So we had the emergency fund, but now with the fire and stuff, we the thousand dollar emergency fund or yeah yeah thousand dollars okay so um um here's what i think so where are you staying right now right now we're at my parents okay you're at your parents you've blown through most of your thousand dollars what do you have left uh 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. And I do a ton of driving for work.
So I have to leave at least five to 600 in there for gas. Okay.
So, okay. Is insurance going to cover the total rebuild or is there going to be more cash you're going to have to come up with? Yeah, they're going to cover it, but they are kind of dragging their feet.
Right. Okay.
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.
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 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 was not the time for you guys to buy a house. Yes, I agree.
originally wanted to rent but we live in a small town and um leaving the town is not an option for us because of my wife's uh work and uh that's where our babysitting situation is located um and they there is no places to rent that wouldn't be the same amount as what our mortgage was going to be that has the space for two kids, us and a dog that allows dogs. There was one place that was available and we applied and we got denied because of our credit.
And then it went off the market like a week later. So, okay.
So to 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, 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. And if you had called us prior to that, I would have said, you could just got to keep looking, look for the right rental because something will come on the market.
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.
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. So the income is coming in there.
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.
Then you want to have saved up three to six months of expenses. That's not talking about a down payment.
That's just you having money, you know, when you move into this house. And then it's like, okay, I need a down payment.
So you guys were quite far from being there. When you sold the house, what was it going to bring? 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. Okay.
And when you got that gift from your sister, what percentage wise was that going to be towards your next down payment? We were going to be using an FHA loan, but it was going to be roughly 12 to 15. Yeah.
Yeah. 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% percent down on a house you want to make sure it's no more than 25 percent of your take-home pay these are the things you want to make sure of um and going forward now it's just not the time and hopefully what i would do what i would do for you guys if the house that you're in is a nightmare obviously there's electrical things that need to be fixed obviously there's other things 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. 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? And the worst, 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? Happens all the time. So push pause on home buying.
It's not the time. 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.
That's right. 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.
You know, you should get a new master bedroom. 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.
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, but let's hit the curve. Yeah, yeah.
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, Ken. But let me tell you something.
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. 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.

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.

All right, don't move.

She's Jade Warshaw.

I'm Ken Coleman.

We're here for you.

This is The Ramsey Show. 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 not 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.
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.
You're going to have a crisis here. 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 right.
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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. Nicole, how can we help today? Hey, I was just trying to see if you guys could help me undo the mess that I'm in.
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 I'll be close to retirement age shortly and I just, I don't know what to do. Okay.
How old are you? 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.
My highest debt would have been my car note, which was 772. Long story short with that, I ended up making a bad deal, up at 615 still but no gap insurance um since then the job that I had I have now lost I have a new job but it's $3,800 less that's a lot um it is per month yes and I'm to addiction.
I'm about to, I'm close to about to lose my car. So tell me, tell me what you're making now.
I'm, I'm averaging about 12 to 1400 a month, barely making it. Oh man.
Yeah. Okay.
12 to 1400. Tell us what your rent is.
My rent right now is $980, but it's behind and I'm close to eviction. So it's about $2,700 plus a $350 fee for their attorney fees.
It's crazy. What do you do for a living? I'm a barber.
And before that, when you were making the $3,800 more, what were you doing? I was still a barber. I was working at another barbershop, and I was let go.
What was the difference? Is it just the way that they do it, and the old place was sending more clients your way? Tell us. Yeah, I had more clients.
I was still on the low end, but I was on the low end, but I was still making, I was making weekly pay. This is only every two weeks and I'm averaging about 500 every two weeks or a little over.
And is it just a salary you get or is it based on the number of heads you do? So it's basically 50% commission or $12 an hour, whichever the greater of the two. Okay.
So yeah. Okay.
The problem, the glaring issue here is the income. Um, and this can't go on.
Um, because my, my thought here is if it's 50% commission or your, your base pay, then that means you're not making the commission, which means there's not enough people coming through, which means essentially essentially essentially you're kind of standing there like waiting for something to do right 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 rods 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 so it's it's it's not

it's it's not coming in I tried to get an uh been applying for other jobs like what nothing is

coming through like I'm great at customer service and things like that I love barbering okay um

I really do love it but I was trying to get an additional job like work at Amazon and I

Thank you. service and things like that.
I love barbering. Okay.
Um, I really do love it, but I was trying to get an additional job, like work at Amazon at night and it's hard to work at Amazon at night. See, six years ago, I lost one of my kids and my other children were there.
And so what's happening is I have to kind of be at home with my younger daughter because she's feeling the repercussions of all of that. She's got a lot of mental issues, you know, going on trauma stuff we've got going through.
So I can't really leave her at night and it's hard. 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.
I really wish that I could get a job that was financially stable where I could be at my child's disposal. You know, I just put one through college.
I just dropped her off at MTSU. And thank God she had a lot of scholarships, but I still have to pay a small amount for the next three months.
That's right. I don't know where it's going to come from.
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.
And for sure, for certain, I feel like you could go on. What do you do? Are you a braider? Do you do so? What do you do? No, I don't I don't do that part anymore.
I can do women's hair, but I love I love putting me. OK, OK, OK.
So 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. 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, if night times 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 so you know you can do it it's just a matter of filling in the puzzle to make sure we're putting the right pieces in to get that income um let's talk about the car so the car is not not running. That's the only vehicle, correct? Yeah, it's running, but it needs work.
Okay. What year is it and what's it worth? And what do you owe on it? It's a 2022 Volkswagen Tiguan.
I owe about $29,000 since it went up. I was at $26,000, but since I refinanced, it's back up to $29,000.
Okay, and what's it worth? Nothing? Probably not right now. 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 in it, possibly substantially, because I don't know what all you've done with this thing. But we may need to get out of this vehicle because it's costing you what $600 a month? It's costing me $615 a month.
Yes, ma'am.

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. 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. But if I were you to get out of that 30,000 what other debt do you have I have a $8,000 signature loan okay um I have some student loans uh which I gotta try to figure out how to get back because I was in a settlement and for some reason just tell me just tell me how much they are for the sake of the call.
It's like $60,000. $60,000? And they put it back on.
Yes, it's $60,000. Okay, and they're federal? It's not supposed to be on there.
They're federal? They're federal loans, yeah. It was one in a settlement that they were supposed to take that off.
Oh, because the institution is not, is no longer with us? It's not. They've come back, but it's gone through a lot of stuff.
They've been in the news and everything. How much of the 60K is that settlement? All of it.
All of it. 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? Is there anything besides that? No, just a $400 credit card that I was paying.
This is an income issue. 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 layer through here. 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.
I know you can find a way to get some care for your daughter. 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. You've got to get some people around you who can be with her.
We're in therapy, but it's not a lot. I mean, it's not a lot of help.
I know, but listen, I'm talking about people around you, in your community. 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 to $3,800 a month, Jade, she can work her way out of this.

100%. 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.

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. I need some support because I'm mama bear and I got to go make some money.
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, make over every dollar.
Give her everything. Give her everything we got.
Christian's going to take great care of you. And listen, if you don't, 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 going to 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 going

to take care of you. This is The Ramsey Show.
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Thrilled that you're with us. I'm Ken Coleman.
Jade Warshaw is with me as well. 888-825-5225.
Taking your money questions and your work-related or income questions. To that end, 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. 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? And we're talking about in the context of work.
Why am I wired that way? What do I want to do professionally and how do I get there? And that's what these two tools combined do for you. You're going to spend about a third of your life at work.
And I just believe with everything in my being that you shouldn't spend it just doing something that you're okay at or that you're good at, but you don't enjoy. It doesn't produce a result that motivates you.
So you can get the book, find the work you're wired to do. And it comes with the assessment, the Get Clear Assessment.
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. All right, to Susan is where we're going to go.
She is in Dallas, Texas. Susan, how can we help? Hi, I just went through a divorce or finalized it recently.
It took a while, and I and I've been a stay at home mom during my entire marriage for, um, the past 14 years. Anyway, um, I got what I consider a pretty good amount of money.
And I'm just curious. I don't really know what to do with it.
I let my ex husband handle every single bit of finances. I never knew how much money we had or anything.
How much are you getting? Well, there's a couple components to it. I got a check for $1.1 million.
I got a 401k for $715,000. And then $15,000 per month for the next seven years.
Okay. How old are you? I'm 40.
Okay. So you've got a guaranteed income for the next seven years.
That's nice. Okay.
Okay, great. So tell me your question.
Okay. So my question is I'm completely debt-free.
I also don't own a home because I just got divorced. Okay.
So you need a place to live. Right.
I'm renting right now, which is $3,600 a month, which I feel like is really expensive. It is.
It's also all bills paid. So my question, I guess, is I've got like $95,000 in a high-yield savings account.
I started a Roth IRA. I'm like totally, I know nothing about finance.
I've just been trying to learn just in the last month or so. Anyway, my question basically is, A, can I live off of part of this money, like off of the monthly income, or do I need to get a significant job? Well, the good news 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, and if I were you, obviously you don't need $15,000 per month to figure out what do I need? What's a fair budget for me? Maybe it's $7,000 a month, and then you take the rest and you invest it every single month, right? So 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. So let's say 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 $7,500 and then you've got $1.1 million. That's a check, right? Yes.
Yes. And I didn't know what to to do with that so I just put it in a money market account because I didn't even know how to deposit that 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 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 gonna need to invest this and you're gonna wanna understand it.
You don't wanna just hand a check for $1.1 million over to anybody and say, here, you handle this. You're gonna wanna say, okay, I get it.
And a great place to start is here. 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? 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 SmartVestor Pro.
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. I just want to learn.
Right. And they're going to ultimately have you invested in a way that's 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 a SmartVestor Pro to teach us. And then as far as the $715,000 401k, yeah, leave it, let it grow.
You're probably going to have to do a direct transfer rollover into an IRA. And so the SmartVestor Pro is going to help you do that.
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. I got a couple of questions on the money first.
So the $715,000, how old are you? I'm 40. Oh my gosh.
It's going to be so much money. So the $715,000 that is in the 401k, that is going to be a lot of money.
What is that going to be in 30 years? Okay. Did you tell me you're 40 now? Yeah, she's 40.
Okay. So let's just say you retire.
I don't know. Let's say 65.
Does that sound good? Okay. Okay.
Let's say you add nothing to it. That right there is going to be $8 million.
Holy cow. Just not touching it.
The reason I went to that, Susan, is because on this work thing thing this may or may not be a thing now how old are the kids? they're 14 and 11 my other thing is can I buy a house? I was going to say that which money do I use? I would take the 1.1 the 1.1 check is what you need to do, you already have $95,000 in another savings account. So, I was going to ask you, what is a modest house in a nice area? What is a house price, you know, your area for you and the kiddos? What does that look like? What's the money on that? I mean, right now, there's like nothing to buy.
I've been looking. I mean, there's a nice home for $500,000.
Okay. So let's just use that.
Let's just use that as an example. Okay.
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. Yeah.
So you take just a little bit less than half of the 1.1 and you've got a paid for house. Now that monthly budget, which I'm using as the 15,000 you're getting in the settlement.
Now that 3,600 was coming out of the 15K, 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.
So I would come up with the every dollar budget and budget off of the 15. And I would do some type of an investment strategy based on what a smart investor pro tells you.
Because Jay has already proved to you, you don't have to put another penny. And I'm not saying not to.
But I'm guessing their investment strategy is going to be, you're going to diversify some stuff because right now you are more than fine, Susan. You're going to be very, very wealthy based on just the 401k and what it does over time.
So for me, if I were you, I would take my time. 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. Let's see what happens after this presidential election.
The point is, grieve. Stay cool.
The $3,600, while it's a little expensive, it's not even phasing you. I would take my time.
I'd buy a nice house cash. And now you still have over half a million dollars to invest.
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, you know, before you're 60. I agree with that.
And that should be the advice that you can get. After my seven years.
Yeah. But for seven years, my goodness.
But here's the deal. You're going to have some margin in that monthly as well.
That's $180,000 a year for the next seven years. Yeah, you're good.
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 Access of it.
But that is a relaxed, like, what would I do if I didn't have to work? Which, by the way, you don't have to. You don't have to.
I was just talking purpose. 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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That's chministries.org slash budget. From the Ramsey Network, it's the Ramsey Show.
I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is one of my favorite guys out there, Ken Coleman.
Hello, everybody. 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.
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.
He's in Charlotte, North Carolina. What's going on, Tyler? Hey, how are y'all? We're doing good.
How can we help today? So I have about two and a half million in debt between mortgages, short term, different car loans, stuff like that.

I'm aggressively paying off kind of all the all the debt except for the mortgages currently okay and i'm just trying to see in that i should have that done in about a year to a year and a half based on the way i have it set up 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 yeah Yeah. Let's roll it back.
Let's roll back and see where this lies. Because when you first tell me I have two and a half million dollars of debt, my pulse quickens.
But then when you mentioned real estate, I thought, OK, that makes this a little different. So tell me about the real estate.
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.
Yeah. So first one is a duplex.
It's worth about $260,000. I have about $158,000 on it.
You owe $158? Yeah. I'm about $1,300.
Income is about $2,150. Okay, so let's go to the next one.
Single family, $270,000. Asset value, debt about $159.
Payment, $1,000. Income, $1,750.
Okay, and the next one? Worth about $310,000. Debt, $200,000.
Pay $1,481. Income $2,200.
Okay. Is there more? Yeah.
Another single family. That one we're actually trying to sell.
We have on Airbnb currently. It's worth about $540,000.
Debt $460,000. Payment $3,600.
And income about the same. I think after everything said and done, we're probably losing about 500 a month on that one.
Okay. Anything after that? Number five.
Yeah. We have a, we have a duplex value, 360,000 debt, 205, um, payment about 1460 income, 2,800.
Okay. Um, Anything else you want to keep going on? Yeah, it's quite a few more.
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 $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 be you paying off your 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 be you paying off your debt first and saving up to buy cash.
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.
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? 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? It's 18 units total, but we have... Mortgages how many mortgages uh nine mortgages counting the personal okay one that's paid off so flipping 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.
Have you sat down to kind of figure that out yet?

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

Is this your only income?

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.
And I think the best play here is to actually get rid of the duplexes. I sell the duplexes today.
Those are just bad investments in my opinion. But the point is, I think Jade's right.
You can still come out of this thing on top. You've got enough equity in these homes, just as you were listening through these, that if you sell X amount.
So I would take, I'm making this up. Let's say you've got eight properties.
I'd take the best four. I'd start there and go, what are the absolute best four properties if you're looking long-term, Tyler? And I think you probably know some of these are better than others, true or false? Okay.
So once you've paid 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 $1,750. That's $750 gross times 12.
That's about 10 grand, a little over 10 grand. And that's actually gross.
That's after your expenses and taking care of things. All I'm saying is, 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. I mean, the truth, the truth, what, what, what Ken is saying is right on.
And I don't say this to be 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. It would be very different if you're 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 a half million, but you're in the red.
So these are not good investments for you. What signals a good and healthy business is profit.
And so what you're saying, you're cash flowing, it's not actually profit. It is, what really should be happening is you need to be filtering back then in that end to pay off the debt.
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.
And that's not what's taking place here. Could four of these pay off the other four? Just gut check real quick.
Well, I have, so there's two. If I take my personal property out of here, that reduces it down to about $1.75 million in mortgages.
And then the value would be somewhere around $2.7 million. So we have about a million dollars in value.
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 a million dollars and and now you're paying off your personal home no debt in your life at all and now you get real cash flow plus cash why is that not the better play in your mind? Zero risk.

Yeah, and your place is paid.

Yeah.

Like, is that not a better vision?

If you don't agree, you just have to what?

You're acting like this is impossible.

Well, the thing is, we just crumbled your empire.

Like, I sense that.

You know, you've acquired this over time.

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.
You got cash, plus they're spitting off the four left. They're going to spit off what? How much per month? I would have to see which ones to run those numbers.
Just off the top of my head, I'm probably looking at like, if I just say three, they equal up close to that. It'd probably be somewhere around, I don't know, 6,000 or so.
Okay, but that's real money now. That's 72 grand in the clear.
Not paying any debt. You'll have some expenses on that.
Yeah. The truth is, Ken is right.
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. That's what should be happening here.
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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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, and I'm Ken Coleman, or Ramsey Personalities, and we're here for you. This is a listener of your 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? Hi, nice to talk with you today. You too.
What's going on? So I just graduated medical school about a half a year ago. Hey, congrats.
Thank you. So about three and a half years left.
Obviously, obviously residency salary is about 60,000. I have about 220 in student debt, um, but no other debt in my life.
Um, so my plan is like, you know, I can't pay off my debt while I'm a resident. I don't make enough, but when I graduate, I was going to live off of like 40,000 pay off my debt in two years.
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. So should I prioritize paying off my debt or should I start saving more for retirement? Well, Jade'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? 270 to 300, most likely.

Ooh, Jade.

You can do something with that, can't you, Coach? Listen, I'm excited for you. Thank you.
You know, you should be. 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. So luckily you came out of this with only 20,000 of student loans.
Can I just quickly ask you? No, 220. 220.
Yeah, 220. I caught that one.
Listen, I'm glad I asked because I was like, how in the world did you do that? All right. So you've got 220 of student loans, nothing else, right? Yes, nothing else.
Okay. And we've got a couple more years of 60,000 salary 60 to 80 or just 60 yeah like 60 to 70 probably okay um yeah I'm with you uh they're not going to become due until after you graduate right and then you've got well are they going to be does it does your residency count for that or is it separate? So they're on, I'm on an income-based repayment plan and also the save plan.
So like typically they gain a thousand dollars a month of interest, but those two plans allow me to pay 233 and the government pays the rest of the interest. So they're not going to grow in residency and I only have to pay $233 a month.
But when I graduate, that'll change. Okay.
Okay. Got it.
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 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 and I whenever I hear that I kind of just want to let people know like I've been there 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 pregnant with my my son and we hadn't started investing at all and i kind of want you to understand that you're going to be okay so let's just pretend i i love doing the investment calculator so let's let's just play around here how how old are you can i ask yeah i'm 29 right now oh my goodness you're 29 so let's just say i'm going to plug this and we have a really cool investment calculator and i'm just going to say, let's pretend you're 29 right now. 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.

Let's pretend that you plan to retire at age 62.

Let's just say that.

And you have zero in retirement now, right?

And let's just 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%.

I'm plugging that in. And 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.
Oh, okay. $5 million.
Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, I think you're going to be all right.
I think you're going to be just fine. So 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.
Once I hit this salary, I'll be able to knock out whatever remains. I'll save up three to six months of expenses and baby step three.
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. So you've got time and you might start to do baby step 3B and baby step 4, which is investing 15% at the same time.
Whatever you choose there, you're going to be fine. $5 million, that makes me sleep a lot better at night, Kendall.
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.
That's if you never make any more money. Yeah, you're going to pay off your debt.
You still have your starting salary. 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. Again, not an issue because of the amount of money that your 15% represents.
And the compound interest is insane. Okay.
So you don't have to worry about that. That's the point.
I know 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.
Is it just you, Kendall? Right now it's just me. I'm still, I'm still figuring that out.
Yeah. Yeah.
So that's a great point, Jade. That doesn't take into account a double income.
Oh, by the way, you know what else it doesn't take into account? 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. Yeah, you're going to have a pay for a house when you retire as well.
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. Be shocked.
That's incredible. And I'm not making that up, am I? I've never thought of such security, yeah.
I don't think that's a stretch. No, I don't think that's a stretch.
You know, so you've got this. You got it? Thank you.
Yeah, I really appreciate it. Follow the plan.
Hey, do you have any of our products? You got any books or anything that you kind of lean on? I don't. My sister went through your program, and she normally just talks to me about all of this kind of stuff.
I want to give you something. Jade, 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 EveryDollar Premium, and it'll give you $15 off. And what I love about EveryDollar 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.
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. So we'll make sure you have that.
And I think she's all set. 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. Yes.
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. 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? 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. That's a Dave Ramsey classic quote right there.
You need your income available in order to be able to invest it. And for most of us, we're living paycheck to paycheck.
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. Most 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. So you get your money back in your budget and then you save up three to six months 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.

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.

And you just proved it.

Once you start that investing, compound interest becomes your best power.

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. All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions.
Possibly, yeah. I think so.
Okay, because you really prefer credit unions over big banks. So why is that? 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. So you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking, and so on, that kind of thing.
But 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.
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. You know, that's why we're partnering with them, because 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, and the deals that they're offering, the Ramsey tribe is incredible. Yeah, absolutely.
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. It took less than five minutes.
It was so user-friendly. The step-by-step approach was unbelievable.
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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show, where we talk to you about you. 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.
Excuse me. Try not to say too many things at once when you're live on the air sometimes.
It's tough sometimes. Every once in a while, get on a roll a little too fast.
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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. I got nothing but attaboys and received no criticism for the job I'm doing.
Then they offered me a 50 cent raise per hour. I just wanted to know how you guys felt about that after a performance review of nothing but great feedback.
Am I being selfish or should I just accept it for what it is and hope for better compensation next time? Well, Ken, you are being selfish. But selfish in this particular interpretation, Jade, is not bad.
No, you got to look out for yourself. Thank you.
Thank you for picking that up. Of course.
That word selfish gets a really negative thing. But when it comes to your money and your compensation, you are your agent.
You are your manager. That's right.
This is your livelihood. So all of the feels around this scenario are what I would call absolutely normal, dare I say healthy.
That's good. In other words, he gets a good review.
He's sitting there and he's getting all positive. Attaboy.
And go i love how you 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 uh and so in this situation jade uh it's a it's a it's a shot to the chest. 50 cents.

Yeah.

I'm going to tell you something.

If you don't feel something when you get a 50 cent raise,

then something's wrong with you.

Yeah.

And so I would say,

Ken,

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. And I would feel that way because I'm objective.

I have no skin in this, and I would feel that way if I put myself in your shoes. So now let's get to the second part of this.
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.
I'm going to be your agent, and then I'm going to give it to my assistant agent. If Jay Jade and I are agenting for you, I'm going to say I want to find out, is that a normal raise? The average in the United States, and this is not a law, if you look at the numbers, annual raises usually fall between 3% and 4%.
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? 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 then you have to decide from there, okay, that's the now answer. But I want to look at next is I don't want to keep feeling this way.
That's right. Because you keep showing up year after year and you feel this way.
It's not good for you. It's not good for you.
Yeah, that's the thing. That's a good question, Ken.
If you ask and say, hey, what's going on? You know, I've done some research. I know the standard.
standard is company doing all right and it let's say he says well you know no we're not da da da da then then it's like okay well am i up for the ride of so sticking out let me hit you out until the last part of his question should i hope for better compensation next time no brother it's getting lower it's only going from here probably. I don't like hope when it comes to compensation.
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 raise time. Look at you in the mixed metaphors.
That was strong. Yeah, fatter gills.
We got to find some fish with fatter gills. That's good.
Truly, though with you i don't want hope in that i want to put my hope in me and and the lord and action i'm not gonna put hope in well it was 50 cents this year well can talk about motivation i hope they bump it to a buck 25 next year talk about the role that that sort of thing plays in the in the motivation of worker. Okay, so if you feel as though you've been devalued, it's a slippery slope to where you devalue yourself.
That's good. That's what happens.
That's very good. So you're saying he would start doing things to throw himself off.
What do you start questioning? I'm only worth 50 cents? That's good. That's tough stuff.
That is tough. But that's the real real.
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? 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, read the book. It's a 45-minute read.
For this reason, J.D., it'll help people go, where could I go? Yes. Where are my possibilities? I'm not stuck.
This is not the only thing I can do. Gosh, that's a really important theme for me is for people to see.
I options even when you can't see them i promise you you have got options 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 yeah it's about self-awareness and by the way on the 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 quick, 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.
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 paying off a mortgage. And until I wouldn't have made this call, I knew the answer in listening to your show and listening to Dave, but I was notified that my job is being downsized October 1st.
Oh, man, I'm sorry about that. Thank you.
And the thing about it is I still want to pay off the house, but I'm concerned that I should leave the cash in case we need it. Give Jade the numbers real quick.
Walk her through the numbers. Okay.
Would you want me to walk you through the numbers? Okay. How much is the payoff? Yeah.
Okay. Our payoff is $113,000.
The house is worth $400,000. Okay.
And my wife and I in the last two years have saved $190,000 in our savings. Okay.
What of that is your emergency fund?

It's not.

I don't.

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

Okay.

So it's $140,000.

You got $140,000 up for grabs.

Yep.

And that leaves you with $50,000 there.

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.

how to do anything major like jump into sums of money how quickly do you think you can find new work and is your wife also working those are my two questions my wife is working i i actually i i work two side hustles i listen to dave a lot so i started working two side hustles to to save to pay off the house 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? 100%. We're debt free.
Our cars, we don't know anything but the mortgage. Yeah, 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.
That's right. And now you're lowering your expenses by not having a mortgage.
It's just taxes and insurance. Yeah, I do that.
You getting a severance of any type? No, they don't do that. But you know what? You got a head start.
You're right. That's right, baby.
Listen, I'd be looking for a job as soon as you hang up the phone. 100%.
I already have been, and I'm fortunate. I'm a professional salesperson, but I also have a lot of experience in retail.
Great. Hey, you guys are awesome.
I'll be at Walmart or Target or Costco. Come on.
Pay the house off, Jade says. Yeah, you guys are awesome.
You've done an excellent, excellent job, and this is the fruit of your job and download kept me off the ledge and i pre i wouldn't be in this situation if i didn't listen to your show so good you like uh you like country music 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 you can take this job and shove it. Because he's paying his house off.
I know,

right? I'd be like, hey, you guys let me go. Guess what I did? Yeah.
I paid my house off. There you go.
Oh, yeah. 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.
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All right, let's see. We've got our 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? Also, I was wondering if Acorns and Robinhood are good

investment options.

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. Can you win

money with their apps? I don't have the foggiest idea anybody in there anybody the last kelly do you know what they're talking i have no idea the last game i played was words with friends and there was no like option to win money so i'm guessing it's one of these apps yeah like a candy crunch the only app that i play in in is a fantasy football, and that has nothing to do with any of this. That's just me.
Can I give a hot take? Yes, please. Bail me out, because I don't know how to answer this question.
All right. This is controversial, and I own that.
Oh, boy, I am here for this. I'm going to get here for this.
I feel like if you have time to play games on your phone, something's wrong. 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.
I have zero problem with this. This is not controversial to me.
And to put money into it, like money. I have no game apps on my phone.
So I feel like I'm in Jade's good stead right now. And I'm like, I just, I can't understand that.
I can't. Watch a show, like watch a show with your spouse or read a book, but to spend money, have a conversation, but to spend money on a game inside your phone that's called bingo winner?

Yeah.

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.

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

Robinhood is an investment platform. Yeah.
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 your answer to any of this. Yeah.
I don't like these apps because 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. 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. And so that's why I don't like these apps because they don't promote that.
So I would invest with my 401k through my job or I'd be a part of a brokerage and have my Roth IRA. I got to confess, I just put the old readers on.
I mean, look at the graphic, look at the graphic on that thing. I just typed in bingo winner app and boy, talk about getting me in trouble.
Yeah. Anything that looks like that is designed to suck the brain right out of your head.
Yeah, it is. That's my ruling on that.

It looks like it's designed to keep you addicted,

whatever it is.

So let me tell you what I know.

Successful millionaires aren't spending a lot of time

on bingo win.

There you go, Ken.

So now I've got a ruling.

Okay, now we can move on.

Move on.

Thank goodness.

Wow, that was something, wasn't it?

I'm never getting that time back.

Neither are you.

No, I'm not.

Matthew is up in Austin, Texas matthew how can we help well we're better now yeah we're glad you're here we're thrilled about your question what is it you sound like y'all always got it together son just need your help thinking i'm supposed to get married here in a couple weeks. Congrats.
Thanks there. But yikes, kind of.
And it has mainly to do with kids. I've got kids and how my new wife interacts.
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 I'm really kind of struggling with it. All right, real quick question, because my colleague is loaded up, ready to go.
I want to know this. How long have you two been dating? Two years.

Two years.

And in the two years, has there been moments of tension based on her maybe stepping into some situations that the kids weren't really cool with or you weren't cool with or there have been some comments?

I'm just giving you what I mean when I say moments.

Have there been several moments of tension that lead to this concern? There's enough. I knew the answer to that.
Yeah, my friend, I would just say this, this needs to be settled in premarital counseling stat. How old are the kids? Immediately.
They're not young, and so I got two in college. I have one that's a teenager.
Well, the two in college that's a non-factor she doesn't get to say anything about that and how old's the teenager she's 16 but for example like when the subject comes up and i don't like saying this 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 yes yeah because you're you're treating it like she's expendable and technically now I know this is different and and I I am going to step lightly on this but typically when you get married it's the marriage first that's why I said what I said and then it's the kids 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 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. Ken? I agree.
I'm going to default to you called us because you've got some real fear and i'm glad you called us if for no other reason than i'm telling you as a guy who went through premarital counseling um and i've been married 26 years long enough to know that had stacy and i not been on the same page about the major things, I don't know that we're here. Same, same.
You know? And so I'm just saying that, Matthew, 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.
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. And then there's the kid's side of this too.
There is the kid's 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 now we manage those decisions after that he's nice to my kids that's not it but we're kind of different when things come up like well i go uh what she said i could go if they're 22 they're going to be on their own like well yeah but i sure hope so but what if something happens and they need to

move back in you know that kind of thing again those those things come up or do you are you are you going to pay for the master's degrees too instead of us going to hawaii for vacation those it's some like 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 questions.
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.
There's a lot that must be discussed before this happens. And Matthew, look.
Oh, my God. Oh, wow.
Okay. Well, you know what? Is this a big fancy wedding when we got a lot of people coming a lot of money being spent no but i can't i can't move it it's not moving so you know what i appreciate matthew he's going listen ken i know where you're going pal i don't want to walk down that path um i would'd 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 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. You have a lot less choices once you say I do.
I agree. I'd get a session in at least and talk about these majors.
I really would before 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? The answer is, 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.
Aloha.a come on i thought you were going in a different direction

kids need to pay for their own masters i'm glad you did i'm glad this is the ramsey show Music