What Are You Willing To Give Up for Financial Freedom?

from the Ramsey network it's the Ramsey show I'm Jade Warshaw next to me is George Camel we are taking calls all afternoon about your life and your money and if you'd like to get involved It is a live call.

You can call the numbers 888-825-5225.

That will get you on the line. George, you ready to get this thing started? Game on.
Let's do it. We got Chris.
He's in Seattle, Washington. Chris, what's going on? Hey, guys.
So happy to be on the show. Thanks for having me.
You're welcome. Um, my for the last two years, has wanted to get a mommy makeover.
And I haven't heard an answer to this question yet, so I figured I'd give you guys a shot. We collectively make about $180,000 a year.
We have two businesses that we own and operate. Um, and last year we jumped on the, we completed financial peace university.
Um, and we paid off $25,000 worth of debt that we had. Thank you.
Um, let's see. Uh, we cut up all our credit cards and, um, we have a net worth of about $950,000.

Wow.

Awesome.

Yeah.

So it's been a hard road, but last year I decided to spend some of my free time working more

and open up a handyman business, and I added about $75,000 on top of our regular income last year.

Way to go.

So is that on top of the $180K or that's what you're at now?

That's on top of the $180K.

Wow, good job.

So you upped it to $250K.

Is that sustainable?

Do you want to continue doing that?

You know, I turned 42 in March

and I want to kind of work hard in my 40s,

so hopefully it pays off and we can retire when we want to sell the businesses in our home and get out of Washington. Sure.
What's your question today? How much is the mommy makeover? It's somewhere between $28,000 and $35,000. and I have about $50,000 set aside on top of our emergency fund.
Thank you. Okay.
Is that what you earmarked it for? The $50,000? Is that what you guys said this money is for? Or was it originally for something else? No, we've been putting it away for this, as well as I have a daughter in college and that our responsibility for her is about $14,000 per year. And we've been paying that, you know, in full in cash when it comes about.
And, you know, my son just got braces and paid that in cash. It's your cash flowing everything.
There's no worry about the future and retirement and kids college. And you've got some extra money and you want to do the selective surgery for her.
Listen, mom is getting a new lease on life. Yeah.
Mom is getting an upgrade. She is amazing.
And she has trouble spending money on herself. And so like, you know, I told her I've been putting this money aside and I want to pay for it for her and and does she want the surgery or do you want does she want it or is this a you thing no she wants it okay she's just she's been going through a uh you know a health thing and getting herself in shape and changing her diet and all this stuff.
So this is kind of the icing on the cake for her.

For the good of the group and knowing this is a family-friendly show,

can you entail what this $35,000 includes?

It would be a tummy tuck and a lift.

Okay, good.

Got it.

Good.

Here's the thing.

I think guys do more to their forerunners and spend more on that. So I got no problem with the selective surgery for all the guys.
But I can't believe she spent all that. Listen, bro.
Let's talk about that underlight LED kit you needed to have. Live like no one else so later you can live like no one else.
That's what it's about. Right.
You know, I want her to be happy with her body and happy with herself. And I think that she deserves this so much.
Yeah. I think you can afford it.
You guys have been really smart with your money. Congratulations.
You guys are young and you've done a lot. And yeah, well, my only question would be, are you guys done having babies? We are.
Okay. No more babies for us.
We got. And are you having the elective, an elective surgery? No, I spend my money.
My play money money goes to cars got you okay there we go yeah all right you guys have done really well you're doing it by the book you guys are debt-free with the emergency fund you're cash flowing everything in your life you're on the verge of being a baby steps millionaire and so this might be a shock to a lot of people listening i can't believe they said like listen do it we never said don't spend money. I'm a frugal guy,

but once you've hit that different place financially, they make a great income. It's a small part of their world and they're super young.
Yeah. I love it for them.
That's a really, really good treat that they get to enjoy because they've done everything right. All right, let's go to Kevin.
He's in Spokane, Washington, the city I was born. What's up, Kevin? How can we help? Hi, this is Kevin.

So I have a question about what to do for the future. I'm 18.
I make around an average of $14,000 a month doing home improvement sales. And right now I'm saving about 96% of what I make and putting it between S&P 500 and some other funds just to pull cash out of really easily.
I want to retire by the time I'm 26. I want to have the ability to retire, maybe not stop working, but I want to have the ability through dividends and rent from my renters to retire.
How would you best position myself to get to that position by 26? Have you determined how much money that is? Like, do you know what that amount needs to be in your portfolio where you'll be like, hey, I'm working because I want to at this point? I want to make $12,000 a month from properties and dividends. I'm not sure the exact amount I'll need, but I do know that I'll need quite a few properties and quite a bit of cash in my accounts in order to make that income.
Okay. That was the other question.
What part of it is you, is this, let me ask this clear question. Is this you really drawing the money out or is this a more of a theoretical I could retire, but, or is this you really, you're pulling the money out of the portfolio? Pulling the money out of the portfolio.
I mean, I don't want to pull the money out. I just want to let it sit and give me money.
So you really would be drawing out that money to live on is what I'm saying. It's not just a theoretical feeling that I know I have it.
Okay. George, you're looking at some numbers over there.
Number one, way to go. You're 18 and you're making $14,000 a month legally? I mean...
Right? Is that true? Yes, sir. Number two, who hurt you? Where did this idea come from that I got to have this all done by 26 or else? Where did this idea come from? Well, when I was 14, I really, I was watching a bunch of financial shows, including yours, and I realized what I really wanted was to have the ability to say F you to anyone when I reach 26, and I want to be able to have a direct view in any direction in my life.

You work for yourself, so that's going to be right in the mirror, my friend, if you're your own boss.

But I like the attitude.

I just want to make sure the motive is a healthy one because I get a lot of calls and questions from people who are in your shoes. They don't make the money you make, but they go, I need a million dollars by 26.
And I go, why? You go, well, I just, I feel like I'll never be wealthy. And so there's this, there's element of just chasing and this element of, I don't want to get burnt out.
So I'd rather you sink your teeth into something that you love to do and continue to work. But the way you phrased it, you said, I just want to be able to let go of this.
So here's the deal. 144 grand a year, that's 12 grand a month invested.
Eight years of that at a 10% return, you'd have 1.6 million sitting in a taxable brokerage account. So that's one strategy.
That's without any other rental income or anything. That's just if it was spitting out 10% on average.
I understand that's a crazy thing to say, but. It's not crazy, George.
I'm right there with you. So that's one strategy.
Okay, 1.6 million. If I could take out 100 grand a year, that would probably last me a long time.
I don't know that you're going to retire off that forever, but that'll buy you some thinking time to figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life. Yeah, I don't know that I would draw off that.
I think I'd rather have it there knowing that I have given the middle finger and I'd be motivated to do other things in life. Just know the goalpost is always going to move, my friend.
So stop chasing. 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. These are the two options.
It's saying I love you to your family. Term life insurance.
Jeff Zander and the team at Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years.
They're the only people I trust. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282.
George, the truth is running a business is hard. It's so difficult.
If you're a business owner or you know someone who's a business owner, it's tough. It's very difficult.
And some days the challenges, they pile up and the fears creep in and you're just left wondering whether you're doing it right. I know that my husband and I ran a business.
My husband still runs it. It's been over a decade and it truly can feel overwhelming.
That's why Dave, Dave Ramsey, wrote a new book called Build a Business You Love, where he unpacks how he took

his business from a small card table in his living room to a $250 million business. It's the proven system for business owners to grow faster, avoid common mistakes and create something they're proud of.
Truly, it's the baby steps for running a business, which is what we all need. So pre-order now for $29.99, that's nothing.

And you get over $350 in free bonus items. That includes instant access to Entree Leadership, the Entree Leadership Hiring Playbook.
You get early access to the e-book and an enhanced version of the audio book. Pre-order that today at RamseySolutions.com slash store.
Or if you're watching on YouTube or podcasts, you can click the link in the description. Get that book today.
All right, George, let's go to Baltimore, Maryland. We've got Sam on the line.
What's up, Sam? Hi, thanks for taking my call. New listener as of about a week ago.
And my question is, should I be paying off all of my debt prior to starting to save for a down payment? And if yes, should we just keep renting? I think my future fiance, we're going to be engaged soon, will be ready to kind of buy land or a house before I am if I do have to wait till I get all of my debt paid off because I have quite a bit. Awesome.
Well, thanks for joining us. Glad you're a new listener.
Yes and yes. So yes, you're going to wait until you have all of your debt paid off.
You have a fully funded emergency fund before you begin saving up for the down payment. The answer is simple.
You want to free up as much money as possible to get out of debt as quickly as possible. And so trying to do seven things at once means you're not going to accomplish any of it.
You're going to stay in debt. You're never going to make progress on the down payment.
So just aggressively attack the debt and keep renting while you're at it. How much do you have left? So I'm just starting to pay it off because I just switched from a W-2 worker to a 1099, like consistent contract.
So I was making, I'm making enough enough but like to make all my payments everything's current um but i just haven't been able to get out of it because i was living above my means for a little while how much is it i i have 160 myself um he was debt free but he just got a truck so he's got about 50 um He makes more than I do. I make 85 and he makes 138 a year, but he also does some side jobs.
So that's kind of like his base. You said future fiance, you guys aren't engaged just yet? No, but we do live together and we split our rent and expenses pretty evenly.
So one conversation, I mean, this is kind of aside from the point, but also very important to it, is I would start having conversations now, since you do see that future of you guys getting married, I'd start having the conversation of what our philosophy is about debt and what do you think it will look like if you become a married couple? Because on the one side, I hear you saying, I'm working and fighting hard to pay off this debt. I want to know, should I pay that off before we buy a house? Which lets me know there's part of your brain that's like debt is bad.
I don't want to stay this way. But then you've got your future fiance who's just bought a $50,000 truck, right? So you guys need to align.
Now's a good time to start having those conversations is what I'm saying. So we have had those conversations.
I'm kind of bullish on it's my debt. Like even though're going to marry that's my problem to solve and you're right he's offered to like yeah he's offered to like um pay additional like money towards our rent to help me get more of my debt off my plate um and we're we are aligned but at the end of the day like if he wants a truck and he can afford it on his salary I don't want to like hold him back from that but once you get married and this is the question that you you should be asking when you get married are you going to view the finances as now we're one or is this like separate living going to continue because there's a reason that you're living separately now and And it makes sense.
You're not married. It makes sense that you do your debt.
He does his debt. And you have your thing.
He has his thing. That makes complete sense.
But when you're married, the healthy way to do it is to become one and to come together on that. So that's kind of why I'm bringing that up.
Because the truth is, who knows? I don't know what you. If it's, you know, six months from now or a year and a half from now, but that $50,000 has the ability to become yours as well when you get married.
So that's something for you guys to talk about here at Ramsey. You know, we believe that marriage makes you one.
So when you come into the relationship, it's our income, it's our debt. These are our assets, and this is our bank account and our budget.
We find that when people do that, not only do they have a happier marriage, and the studies do show that they're happier, but they have a more successful marriage. They're able to pay off debt faster and build wealth faster.
And so there's a lot of positives that come to sharing your money not just financial but also in the relationship yeah I come from separated parents and that like wasn't a great financial example so I'm like trying to make sure if we do buy a house like I have skin in the game and like it's not just all on him so yeah it's just been he's very good and we have healthy conversations about it. I just feel like guilty about it.
Hey, before you get off, let's send her a copy of Know Yourself, Know Your Money. That's Rachel Cruz's book.
I think it'll give you some insights on just how you feel about money and why, you know, why you spend the way you do, why you make the choices you make, why you're bent towards certain behaviors. I think that'll help you and your spouse to kind of see each other.
Also, I want to give you both Financial Peace University. I think that'll be good just to get you guys on the same page and get you started looking at things the same way.
And that's really going to help you in the future. What do you think, George? Well, you know, when you mentioned, Sam, that he can afford the truck, by definition, if he couldn't pay for it in cash, he couldn't afford it.
So what you're saying is he can afford the payment that's fair right and what I found to be true is that everyone can afford the payment until they can't and until it steals from their paycheck it steals from their future and so if he really cares about this future dream of land and marriage I would go you know what the truck is I'm gonna have some delayed gratification and buy the truck when I can afford it in cash and probably buy one that's a lot cheaper right now because we got her debt to clean up and I'm willing to make some sacrifices to get us to a better place financially. Do you feel a difference in that? Yeah, I'm actually selling my beloved car.
So you're making sacrifices, right? Yeah. Well, and he has offered.
He even said, like, let me sell the truck. I would feel really bad.
I would. That's true love.
If a man is willing to sell his truck for you, he might be the one. Why would you feel bad? Tell us more about that.
He's making a sacrifice that you've already admitted, hey, it's not the best thing. I mean, it's $50,000 of debt.
Why would that make you feel bad? Because he'll have his paid off in like two years, maybe max, because he works a lot overtime, But I'm going to probably be in this like three, four years if I'm lucky. What kind of debt is your 160? What does that make up? Student loans is 100.
I have the car for 38, which I'm going to let go of. And I have a consolidation loan for some credit cards because I was living above my means for a little while.
That's the rest of it. Okay.
So you sell the car. Can you get $38 for it? Will you be able to break even or make profit? Yeah.
So I can sell it privately for $46 or $47. But again, I owe the bank $38.
Great. And you'll use the difference? Hopefully coming.
Yeah, I'll put it towards that, that consolidation loan.

But you'll need a car to still get around, right?

Actually, no, because I work from home,

so I can either borrow a car from my parents,

which it's already paid off.

It was my car before.

It's in my name still.

Or we have a...

Would it be borrowing or they give it to you? Would they sell it to you just for not much that you could know that you have it uh no it'd be fine to borrow they they don't need it it just kind of is a is there for when they do so i can use that or you know if he keeps his new truck he does have a beater that he drives to and come work.

Yeah.

Oh, I just had him get rid of a car that was almost as old as me. Wow.
Listen, one thing I want to encourage you is I, you know, again, I don't know the time frame that you guys have for this and I'm not trying to rush you, but I would not delay moving forward in a relationship because of debt. I would encourage having those conversations because the truth is a good man and a good woman says, hey, I love you despite your debt and I'm coming alongside of you with that debt.
And I get it. You do feel guilt.
You can feel shame about that. Those are very real emotions, but emotions are meant to go through you.
It's when you stay there that they prevent you from moving forward. And so allow that to, you know, you can feel that and let it pass through, but let this good man or whoever's listening, let you get that relationship that you want to have and you guys can tackle this together.
For free tools and resources to help you reach your home goals, go to RamseySolutions.com slash real estate or click the link in the show notes. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down.
And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative

to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries.

CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like

yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981.

And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs.
They'll also help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event.
So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of healthcare costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month.
So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget.
George, let's take it back to the phone lines. We've got Aiden, who's in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Aiden, you're on the line. How can we help?

Hi, how are you guys doing?

Doing great.

What's up?

Hi.

So I'm a current University of Arkansas student, and I am basically on my own when it comes financially.

I'm having to pay for my own rent and basically my necessities to get by.

And I'm just really struggling trying to find a balance because obviously I want to focus on my academics, but the troubles with my finances have really put me under a lot of intense stress. And I could just use some help navigating that.
Are you working? Like, tell us about your working situation. Yeah.
So I have two jobs right now. I do Amazon delivery and I also am a brand investor for Anheuser-Busch.
But the problem with those two jobs is that they aren't really on a set schedule necessarily. It's more of like they just come up with offers during the week and I pick them up.
Got it. How much are you working? How many hours per week on average? On average, I'd say about 25.
Okay. And what are you making? I'd say weekly before my expenses, about $300 to $500.
Okay. I'm wondering, could we find you a job that's maybe 15 to 20 hours, but pays as much, if not more? That is a little more consistent.
Would that solve all of your problems? I'm not totally sure because I have, well, if you want to go through my expenses, I have $700 to pay for rent and then usually about $300 for groceries for the month and other various expenses for gas and things. Do you have a car note? No, I do not.
Okay, so paid for a car. And you're cash flowing college right now? How are you paying for that tuition? My grandpa, before he passed away, he had set up a college fund for me.
So I have paid for my college so far, but that money has run out now. So now I only have two years left.
I'm going to be forced to take out student loans.

Can I ask about your parents, where they're at in this, or are you just kind of on your own at this point? um they they want me to be more independent so they don't really like if i ask they might help

me here and there but they really get annoyed by that and they don't really like if I ask, they might help me here and there, but they really get annoyed by that. And I don't like having to ask them for money.
I wonder if the context changed. Like, I wonder if the context changed from, hey, mom and dad, and I'm not saying that you did this, but if you said, hey, mom and dad, I need money to go out and, you know, for food and clothes, like that has a different context possibly than mom and dad, this money from granddad is running out.
I really don't want to go into debt because I know that debt is a bad thing. Is there any deal we can make where we're working together to pay this tuition in cash or we're cash flowing this? I'm willing to do what it takes.
Like, I wonder if those are two different conversations. Do you think that they could value that second conversation? I think they possibly could, yeah.
Do they know the situation that grandpa's college money ran out? They do, yes. And they go, we don't give a rip, take out as many student loans as you need, bud.
You're a grown man. Yeah, they don't really feel the same about debt as I do.
They are like, take out student loans, and I really do not want to do that. But, you know, I'm gonna have to end up doing what I have to do to be able to finish school.
What degree are you pursuing? I'm in finance. Okay, and you have two years left.
What is the next semester going to cost you? Luckily, I'm not originally from Arkansas. I'm from Oklahoma, but I was able to get in-state residency, so I'm looking at about $6,000 a semester.
Okay. Okay, that's not as bad.
And you have all summer to work, too, to try to cash flow that i've yes i just got a internship as well that will be paying 20 an hour and i'll be able to work lots of hours this summer so that should be able to help a lot do you need to live on campus is there or are you close enough like would your parents let you live at home and save that 700 a month that way to go towards his tuition? My parents, they live in Tulsa, Oklahoma,

and my school is in Fayetteville, Arkansas, so I wouldn't be able to live at my parents. Do you have roommates right now? I do, yes.
How many? I have three other roommates. Oh, it's a party.
So you're doing the most. And have you applied for all the scholarships and grants? Is that part of your part-time work? That is, yes.
I do receive financial aid, and I have gotten, like, the max Pell Grant for school, but I don't really have any, like, excess from that. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
And you have no savings? I do not, no. I'm really just trying to figure out how I can get at least a baby step one.
Yeah, I mean, it's going to be a struggle when you have a lot of expenses coming out every single month to cover your normal life plus school, and so, you know, it's going to take a full-time job just to cover this, which is going to make it really difficult. So you're going to need to find something that pays more, but you can work less and still cover all of your bills and create a little savings cushion to cashflow.
Because your next payment is going to be in the fall. Are you paid up? Yes.
Can I ask a question? I'm not trying to throw a huge wrench in this, but I want to make this happen for you because I do believe that you don't want student loan debt. Is there a situation, have you looked in Tulsa to say, hey, I want to finish my degree there.
I can live at home. I can do it less expensive.
They'll take my credits. Have you explored that? Because getting the $700 back over the course of a year is going to make a big difference on all of, I mean, it's almost a thousand bucks a month.
Getting those expenses back is going to make, really could be the difference between making this possible and it not being possible. Yeah.
The thing is, I just feel like I'm already so far into this school here. And the thing with going back home is there's only one four-year university there.
And I don't know if I'd be able to get into it or not. But that's what I'm saying.
I want you to look into it because transferring schools, it happens all the time. Like, don't get me wrong.
I get that you're comfortable. Comfort is a real thing.
But transferring schools, as long as you know that they'll take your credits and you don't have to go back at all, then that's great. But if you look into that school and say, okay, here's where I am now, you get in with their admissions office and find out what it would look like.
This is all research is what I'm asking for. Just so you can really see what your options are because a lot of times we paint ourselves into a corner and we're really not in a corner.
There's lots of options. So I would look into that.
I'd also look into an online situation and see if there's a way that you can mitigate some of these costs and live elsewhere. What's the end goal with the finance degree? I'd like to become a financial advisor.
Okay. Here's the good news.
I'm going through a certified financial planning course right now completely online, and it is not nearly what it costs for even one semester at Arkansas. So I'm telling you that to say there are other paths to the thing you want to do.
And my friend Ken Coleman says it this way. Is it the only way? Is it the best way? And right now, you haven't explored all of those options.
And so I believe it's called the Boston Institute of Finance. I think that's the one.
They've got an online course you can take for a few thousand bucks total. We'll get you through this whole thing.
And so that might mean you don't need to spend another two years. You can go through this course in a year, get your foot in the door as a financial advisor and start getting some clients and get your experience hours.
Yeah, I definitely would like to explore my options for sure. I think the thing to take away here is there's going to be a level of discomfort in the solution.
From what you're saying, I don't think you're going to be able to go on as you have. And I think letting yourself know that, like just kind of taking a moment and standing in the mirror and going, okay, the way I thought this was going to happen is not going to be the way this is going to happen.
It doesn't mean it's a bad thing. It doesn't mean I failed.
It just means I've got to embrace a new solution. And if you can just get your mind on track with that, I think you're going to find that you have a lot of solutions.
And to George's point, I think you're going to end up with a better solution that's faster and cheaper and

gets you where you want to go. You know, that's the goal.
Take that off the table, get creative,

do your homework, and you will be shocked at how much easier it is to just do it. Go to school

debt free as a finance major. That's the guy I want to hire.
I know that's right. But it's so

hard. You know, when we have a way where we thought things were going, it's kind of hard to deviate from that path.
You feel like you failed. Yeah.
You didn't. You just chose a better path.
All right, George, we have a segment that it's one of my favorites. We call it asking for a friend because how often does a topic come up where we don't feel comfortable saying, I don't know, or I don't know what that means.
And so instead of asking directly, we're like, oh, my friend wants to know what a 401k is, or my grandma was wondering, what's the best place to keep her high yield savings account, right? When really you're the one who wants to know the answer. And so asking for a friend.
What's today's? What is a reverse mortgage? Oh. I like this.
All right. This is one that if you're my age, maybe your parents or grandparents have fallen into.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's a big one. You see commercials in between, I don't know, snuggies and timeshares for this thing on late night TV from a washed up actor.
Yes. So here's the definition here.
A reverse mortgage is kind of what it sounds like. You're converting your home equity into money for you.
So it lets homeowners that are 62 or older borrow against their home equity. So instead of making payments, the bank will send you money, either in monthly payments as a lump sum or through a line of credit, similar to a HELOC.
So here's the deal. With the loan repayment side, there's no payments while you still live there, which is why people are like, oh my gosh, that sounds wonderful.
But the loan plus interest has to be paid back when you move, sell, or you hit the old dusty trail and pass away. Ooh, that sounds risky because you never know what the housing market's going to do.
But then if I'm that person, you go, well, someone else's problem. Yeah.
Yeah, that's the people you love. It's going to be their problem.
So here's the deal. As you borrow, your home's equity dwindles down.
So let's say you start with a paid for home. Uh-huh.
It could end up where half of that is gone and you now owe $250,000 on a $500,000 home. Wow.
Yeah. So you're eating up your biggest asset and you're leaving less for your future and your family.
And by the way, they're super expensive. They're one of the worst financial products on the market because of high upfront costs, origination fees, closing costs, mortgage insurance, and then the interest keeps piling up, which by the way, if you're getting this as a monthly payment or a line of credit, the interest is gonna be variable.
Oh, boo, yeah, that's terrible. Which means the lender's passing on the risk of variable interest rates to you.
And you're still on the hook, George, for taxes, insurance, property, you know, HOAs. You still have to cover all that on your own.
Home maintenance. You still have to pay for all that.
And I mean, it's not on here, but, you know, a lot of folks, when they get older, they think, I don't have much retirement. I'll use this and this will fund my lifestyle until I, you know, take the highway to heaven.
And then they end up living longer and they've eaten through all of this equity. And then it's like, okay, now what? So it's kind of a scary thing.
There's a lot of risk there. So here's the pros.
Tell us the pros. The people fall for this.
It's immediate cash. I can get money during retirement because I didn't save.
There's no monthly payments. I get a break from mortgage payment.
That's great. And then flexible use.
I can spend it on whatever I want. Medical bills, travel.
Here's the cons. Here's where it gets real.
Super high cost, like I mentioned, loaded with fees. Then you're losing your home's equity bit by bit.
You have nothing to leave to your kids and they have to deal with this mess. And then there's foreclosure risk.
These almost always end in foreclosure. Yeah.
You miss property taxes, insurance payments, and you could lose the house. These are for broke people and they think it's some shortcut that's going to let them live their best retirement life and it ends up just making things worse.
So here's better alternatives. If you're thinking about a reverse mortgage or someone that's in one, downsize.
Sell the house, buy a smaller one, pocket the difference if you really need money. Investments or savings, use retirement accounts for income instead of one of these terrible products.
And then lastly, rent out part of your home. Oh, thank you for being a friend.
There you go. You can make it like a sitcom situation out of this.
You know, just have someone living in there in a spare bedroom, giving you 500 bucks a month. That'll replace the payment without the risk and that'll help you out.
So reverse mortgages seem like a quick fix, but they have long-term risks that could wreck your financial future. So look at other options, stay debt-free, make a commitment to do that and keep your home working for you, not the bank.
And if you need help, if you're sitting on a mortgage that you're like, hey, maybe I do need to downsize, check out our real estate hub there. That's a good one.
They'll put the ticket to it in the show notes. The ticket,

also known as the link. There you go.
We got the ticket for you. There it is.
Oh boy. Let's go to the phone lines.
Do you have more that you want to say? I needed a Tums after just reading all that about reverse mortgages. It's a bad pit in my stomach.
I know. Well, we've got Stephanie.
She's in Charleston, West Virginia. What's up, Stephanie? Jen, I'm trying to be, first of all, I just wanted to say hi.
Hi. And I have a question.
My father's 80 years old. My mother passed away in December of 2020 from COVID.
And during that transition, I realized how horrible their finances were. They make a lot of money.
They were retired and they had a lot. Um, but, um, my dad has since, um, had a stroke and a heart attack.
So I'm now power of attorney. Yes.
Now there are two children. And there's me and my sister.
I'm the oldest. I am the beneficiary on everything.

And that is because my sister is an alcoholic. She has never held a job for any reasonable length of time.
Her kids and her have lived off of my parents forever. Now everybody in this scenario is an adult.
So there's going to be, when my dad passes away, there's about $350,000 that I am going to inherit. But I have made the promise to my dad to take care of my sister, to help her.
And I want to know, with respect to his wishes, what is the fair thing to do, and how do you go about taking care of somebody who is an alcoholic? Because in my opinion, I cannot just give her half. Yeah, you can't give her half.
That really would be giving a drunk a drink. I mean, I hear Dave say all the time dealing with folks who are in addiction.
They don't get control over money, especially large sums of money. So in this case, you're putting just fuel on the fire of misbehavior by just throwing money at this.
So what I would do is define what it means to help take care of sister. Does that mean we enable her for the rest of her life and fund her in whatever she wants to do?

Or does it mean there's strings attached? Do we help her get on her own feet and cause her to be independent and have her go through rehab and put, you know, a certain dollar amount every month and increase it over time as she's able to stay sober? You know, I think we can structure this in a way where it actually helps her instead of just makes the problem worse. Has she attempted to get help before or does she realize she has a problem? Tell us about that.
She knows she has a problem. She's been forced to get help.
I committed her one time for her alcoholism. And but once you're past a certain date, you know, in treatment check yourself out and that's what she does she has no desire to get help um and you know i they've they've they've purchased everything for her um a house uh cars she she had brand new car that she took a loan out on and got it repossessed.

And her kids have all had cars.

They've had all their, everything they've ever done has been financed through my parents.

Me and my house and my children, we've never had anything.

We've never received anything.

We don't ask for anything.

I make a, you know, we, my husband and I are retired.

We make a great retirement every month. Everything we have is paid for.
How many children does your sister have? Well, she had three. One of them just passed away last April.
So that took her into a terrible tailspin, as well as the other children. And they're adult children? How old are they? They're adults.
The youngest is going to be 19, and the other one is going to be 23 next month. Okay.
And are they healthy? Are they reasonable and healthy and taking care of themselves? No. No? Well, the daughter, the oldest, takes care of herself, but she also has the drinks every day.

Oh, gosh.

So it's not a good option to give to her children.

The other one, the youngest one, is, oh, he's just a manipulative and has manipulated my father out of thousands. And when I say thousands since my parents, my mom died, it's about 182 185 thousand that they have went through with nothing to show for it nothing so you're going I mean you don't have a great option of who to give this money to instead of your sister-in-law that's directly related to your sister-in-law you know I would if I were you I'd probably hold on to that money and keep it somewhere and earmark it for if she's ever willing to get the help that she needs.
That's something like that. It almost feels like she needs to hit her own rock bottom and be willing to change before we throw any money at this problem.
It's just going to disappear into the ether. Exactly.
And then you're going to be more resentful. And so I don't think that honors your father's wishes either.
Oh, this is a tough situation. It's not easy, but yeah, I'd hold onto the money.
I mean, you're executor, so you have good reason why not to give that money. And I would just stand on business as far as that's concerned.
We see you guys after this break. 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. And then the next day my phone rings and it says fair wins on my phone 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 so, so appreciate that.
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. 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 to over 33,000 ATMs.
Hey you guys know how much I hate banks in general and so for me to do this is a big deal. 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. 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.
From the Ramsey Network, it's the Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw.
Next to me,

George Campbell, taking calls about your life and your money. George.
Hit me. You ready to get into it? Let's go.
I'm always ready. Listen, I'm ready to get right into some calls.
All right. Cindy in Kansas City, Missouri is on the line.
What's up, Cindy? I have a question concerning group life insurance to my company, who now are having me pay the taxes on it, the yearly taxes on it.

And it has just went up $300 since last year, and I have been trying to cancel this policy.

What's the problem with you canceling it?

Like, what happens when you let it lapse?

Or when you just say, I don't want it anymore?

Well, first off, I'm getting this, you need to talk to your employer.

And then my employer says, no, you need to talk to the insurance company.

And they're sending me back and forth. I started this process in December of last year, 24.
They ended up sending me a waiver paper to cancel the policy. And it is still not canceled.
Did you re-up it for the new year? Because usually you have to go in there and opt in. Did you do that or did you? No, I didn't do nothing with this policy.
In fact, I just found this policy out last year. You didn't know you were paying for it? Excuse me? You didn't know you were paying for it? No.
What does it cost every month or every paycheck? It costs, I don't know. They said it's being taken out to the other tax.
And what do you mean by tax? Are you talking about the premium for the life insurance? I don't understand what you mean by the taxes are going on. No, my employer is paying for

the premium. Okay, so they're paying for it, not you.
Not me. So what are you seeing on your pay stub? What's it being listed as? Okay, I was informed it comes out once a year that I have to pay the taxes on this policy because it is considered impunited wages.
And how much is that? Well, last year I paid $182,000, and this year I'm paying $485,000. So they're saying, hey, if we cover this, this is your fee for having full coverage for the entire year, $182.
Essentially, the IRS sees this as income from your employer because they're covering this expense for you. Exactly.
But it's on you to pay the taxes. Okay, I understand that.
It's on me to pay the taxes. And it's going up, and it's now $485 a year.
For the year. Do you know what the face value of the policy is? Yes, they just told me that today, matter of fact.
They're saying... Hold on a second.
They're saying that the face value... Hold on, I've got to get this paperwork back up.
Like, is it $100,000 or is it a million it's it's eighty four thousand five hundred for basic life and forty two uh forty two thousand two hundred fifty for personal okay do you have life insurance of your own no I do not are not. Are you self-insured? No, I am not.
Does anyone rely on you? Because I have no one to pass anything on you. Okay, so nobody relies on your income.
If you were, you know, God forbid, you were to pass away today, nobody's going, oh my goodness, what am I going to do? Nobody relies on my income. Okay.
Except for my employer. Well, they don't even because they pay me but i mean um well i mean the truth the truth is you paying for the truth is you might be able to if you if you want to opt out of this you 100 could and put that money into something else you could invest it or if you did want to have your own term life policy, you could do that.
But my question is,

what are they telling you when you say, hey, I don't want this policy anymore? Is it something that's like some sort of a requirement? Tell me what they're telling you. Okay, what they're telling me is it's not a requirement, obviously, but they didn't let us know about this until here recently, and who knows how long they've had this policy out on me.
Well, it's too late now. You're not going to get reimbursed for the years you paid for it, so I think we need to let go of that resentment.
I can tell you're up in arms about this. I'd be frustrated, too, and part of it is we weren't paying attention about what was happening with our paycheck.
And so at least, you know, going forward, I'm going to be looking at exactly what's taken out of my paycheck. If something seems off, I'm going to go to HR.
And so you need to look into your own policy, look at the contract and look at the waiver and go, what do I need to do to make this go away? You are so right. And be the squeaky wheel.
I can tell Cindy is the squeaky wheel and the squeaky wheel is going to get that grace. Yeah.
I'd be sitting in the in HR every day, just sitting there waiting. That's what they told me to do.
They told me to go to HR. Now, HR is telling me I have to go through the insurance company to cancel it out.
Well, have you have you called them up and said, hey, I have this policy. I don't want it anymore? Oh, yes.
Yes, I have called. Today was probably my fifth call in the last...
Okay, here's what you do. Keep a record of every single piece of communication, who you spoke to, what time, what they said, what document they said you needed, and get a next step.
Regardless of who you talk to, say, okay, what is the next step? Or what I'd do is I'd set up a meeting with someone from HR, and in the meeting, call the life insurance and say, I want you guys to figure this out because you're doing the Spider-Man thing where you all point at each other, and I want this figured out now. And you set up that kind of a, I don't know, a group call that you can kind of sit through and watch what's going on and give everybody permission to do what needs to be done on your behalf while you're sitting there that's what i would do george and i did that today and what happened and they said they're going to get back with me i bet they will i'd be having i'd have a scheduled follow-up email every two days until they finally go okay we gotta get cindy off our.
Can someone just freaking cancel this policy? Yeah. This sounds like something that is set in place.
Somebody in HR is like, this has never happened before. Nobody's asked.
Like we should have asked her how big her company was. Oh yeah.
Nobody's actually canceled before. So we don't know.
You got to figure this out for the first time. Yeah.
But the truth is, I mean, let's talk a little bit about these kind of work life insurance policies. You know, a lot of people, when you ask them, do you have life insurance? They're like, yes, Jade, I have life insurance.
And it turns out they've got maybe $50,000 or $100,000 through their work. Cindy, she's got $80,000.
That's not enough. No.
You need 10 to 12 times your annual income. Yeah.
And the purpose is for folks who do depend on your income. If you've got kids, if you've got anybody that says, hey, if something happens to Jade Warshaw, these people were dependent on me making money.
If that's you, then you need life insurance. And so, like George said, 10 to 12 times term life from Xander insurance is what we would suggest.
So if you don't have it, you need it today. And, you know, for the price that she's paying, if you're a healthy person, you could probably get

the same for the same amount, get way more coverage is what we're talking about. So if you haven't done that, you need to do that today.
Life insurance for clarification is not a baby step. It's not something you say when I'm at a baby step two, I'll do it.
Or once I hit baby step four, life insurance is something that you get in place as soon as you find out about it, if you are someone who needs it.

So that goes for everything across the board, right? Absolutely. So don't just rely on your workplace because guess what? You leave that job, you lose that measly insurance.
You need insurance on your own separate of that. Jump onto Xander.com and get a quote.
It's super easy and it's way more affordable than you even think. Yeah, way more affordable than you think.
Get that today. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers.
Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down.
AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball.

That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle,

the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system.

Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should too.

Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions,

NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions.
NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next.
And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey.
I talk to people every day who want to know how to do better in two areas, money and relationships. That's why I'm pumped to bring the money and relationships tour to a city near you.
Join me and Dr. John Deloney for a night that will challenge the way you think about this stuff and possibly change how you live forever.
Starting April 21st, we'll be in Louisville, then on to Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth, and Kansas City. Grab your tickets at RamseySolutions.com slash tour before they're gone.
All right, let's get into that Ramsey Show question of the day. Today's Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi.
When the payment on your defaulted private student loan is as much as some mortgages, it's hard to get ahead. Oh, I know that's right.
That's when Y-Refi can help refinancing to a low fixed rate loan that's built just for you. Find out more at Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey.
That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. May not be available in all states.
Today's question comes from Isaac in Maryland. Should I purchase term life insurance even if my employer allows me to purchase voluntary life insurance up to $500,000? Would a combination of voluntary and term life insurance be wise? I'm 41, so if I'm going to get term life insurance, I would like to do it now for 20 years instead of waiting.
It's a great question. We answered a very similar question just now.
I know. So yes, I would absolutely purchase a term life insurance, even if your employer allows you to purchase one.
Oftentimes the employer one is very affordable. And so if you want to have that as a little bit of buffer gravy on top, that's fine.
But I would definitely get your own term life insurance through Xander. You can jump onto Xander.com and get that handled.
And at 41, it should still be reasonably affordable. And you said you want it for 20 years.
You can do a 20-year term policy on that and do a combination. You may not need the employer one on top of that.
So you may just want to go 10 to 12 times your salary on your own and not pay for the employer one, unless the employer one is just such an incredibly cheap deal. It's like five bucks a month or something.
Yeah. And what would you recommend, George, for like a stay at home mom who says, hey, I don't I don't work, but I do provide value and people depend on me every single day.
This is a big one. Yeah.
At least half a million dollars. At least half a million.
Because you think about, let's say $50,000 salary times 10, you're looking at half a million on the short side, especially now with how much childcare costs. That's right.
Exactly. I mean, you got to hire Mary Poppins to do this thing.
And so daycare alone, you talk about all of the things they're running and doing and chauffeuring around and cooking and cleaning and taking care of all of the household pieces. That has real value.
Real monetary value. You need multiple people to fill that role.
So you need to have at least half a million on a stay-at-home spouse. So, so good.
All right. We've got Aisha in New Haven, Connecticut.
What's going on, Aisha? Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my call.
So my question is two parts.

I am on baby step two. I have $1,000 saved, and now I'm trying to pay off my debt through the debt snowball.
However, I'm 41, and my husband is 57. And, well, he has no retirement in place.
And so I wanted to know if I should do the debt snowball and put away for retirement. And the reason I say that is because by the time we pay off our debt, it'll be about four years.
And so then I feel like I haven't put anything into the retirement. Okay.
And then my My second question, I have a second question, sorry. My second question is, should I pay off my credit card, which is 5,000 with no interest for the first year, and then start the rest of the debt snowball from lowest to highest, or just do the whole debt snowball with my credit card? In situations like yours, like yours you feel desperate right like it's just like oh my gosh the time is ticking and the first instinct is let me let me get in here and we reweave this plan and make it better what you think is better for your situation um but the truth is i i would work it as is i what are your debts? How much do you have? So with everything, about $50,000.
Okay, about $50,000. I just rounded it up.
Is that between the two of you? Yeah, so there's a couple of hospitals. So that's no interest with the hospital.
How much is it? The only interest we total, I mean, I have, you know, maybe two, three, four, five, like 5,000 total. Okay.
Three different deaths. So 5,000 from credit cards, 5,000 from medical.
What else? No, from medical. So 5,000, yes, 5,000 for credit card with 0% interest for the first year right now.
Now tell us the medical. And then total...

I'm sorry?

Now tell us the medical.

Go through and list them out.

We don't care about the interest rates.

Just tell us the amount.

Okay, so, yes.

So roughly $5,000 total in health, medical,

$5,000 in credit card,

and then I have tax bills.

Tax?

$4,000, yeah. We owe back taxes.
Okay so four thousand to the IRS? That's one of them and then another four and then seven and then eight and then thirteen. Okay four seven eight and thirteen all to IRS.
Yeah and then then it's 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 in medical, and then 4,000 in credit, which totals 50,000.

And if I do it right, based on our income and snowballing it, I can knock this out in four years. Well, what's your household income? My husband would be like $50,000-something.
What's your household income between the two of you? And I want them separate. Can you tell me what you make every month, what you bring home in your paycheck and what your husband brings home in his paycheck? So I'm a stay-at-home mom, but my husband is self-employed, so we bring monthly is about 6,000.
Okay. And how many kids do you guys have? Sorry, I'm going through this.
I just want to make sure we have plenty of time to help you. So we're just getting the particulars.
No, it's okay. We have one child, one year old.
One year old. Okay.
Okay. So when we're talking about the debt snowball, let's go back to that right quick.
These IRS debts have to go first, smallest to largest. They get a fast pass to the front of the line.

They sure do, as lickety-split.

The other issue here is,

okay, so your husband makes $6,000 self-employed.

How many hours is he working a week?

A lot.

Okay.

You know, all day.

Okay.

What kind of business is this? What is he doing? A contract in New York. Could he do contract work for someone else full-time and make more? No, he's self-employed.
I know. I'm saying, could he make more working less for someone else versus on his own? I don't know.
I mean, he makes, I mean, we're, we're not,

I don't think we have an income too.

Well, you do when you look at the debt, you do when you look at the debt,

because if it was just, Hey, 6,000 bucks a month, we're debt free.

Our living expenses are fine. Then yeah.

But in this case we got to get this done in faster than four years is what

George is in myself are getting at, because to your point, you're on a timetable. Like you got to get this done in faster than four years is what George is in myself are getting at because to your point you're on a timetable like you got to get this thing zoom zooming um yeah what you're saying is I can only throw a thousand bucks a month at the debt total yeah what's your living how much does it cost for where you rent or where you are you renters or buyers okay so if I do because I did all the math out so if based off of one expensive so the house is paid off i can put yeah about 1100 to each debt so 11 so if i did the highest amount 13 000 then yeah i can put 1175 can you go Aisha? Did you say the house is paid off?

No, no. What did you say?

No, we owe a mortgage.

Okay, what's the mortgage?

$2,800.

So half of his income is going to the mortgage.

Yeah,

just about, yeah. Yeah, because when you add in

probably HOAs, taxes,

insurance, everything like that. We don't have HOAs.
No HOA, Okay. Here's the deal.
He doesn't have money to throw at retirement anyways. Total monthly is $2,800.
Okay. You guys are paycheck to paycheck.
No. And so throwing a little bit of some pennies into retirement is not going to solve this problem.
What will help you retire with dignity one day is at least being debt free and you having a lot more timeline to go back to work. You're going to need to do that

eventually unless he gets his income way up. Yeah.
Well, my plan is to go back to work once he's a little older. How much? About five years from now.
See, that's, I don't think you guys can float a mortgage that's half of your income for five years and tackle the problem that you have here. Like your, your timeframe is tight.
Can you tell me how much, how much the house is worth? Like if you were to sell it, would you, would it bring anything? Yeah. Um, we, it's up to five and we owe 300, about eight, uh, 300, 300,000.
I don't know how to do that. So maybe if you sold it, you could take home 170 or somewhere in there? Yeah.
I could knock out your debt and you could rent for a while. I might consider that.
You can sell a house? I would consider that because the truth is your timeline is really tight. Your husband is saying he's not going to want to work much longer, which I don't know how much I agree with that.
I don't think it's a choice he has. He's going to have to work until his body says no.
Yeah. And if you want to be a stay-at-home mom, selling that house and getting it right-sized with your income is what you're going to need to do.
You spent years trying to get everything just right for your family. Now you need an easy way to make sure your important financial documents are as organized

as the rest of your house.

Well, good news.

Knockbox, that's N-O-K-Box, as in next of kin box, is a complete system that helps you

be sure that you leave happy memories, not a mess, when you pass away.

Knockbox is a simple way to organize important paper and digital documents.

I'm going to go to the next one. helps you be sure that you leave happy memories, not a mess, when you pass away.
Knockbox is a simple way to organize important paper and digital documents, IDs, tax returns, insurance policies, estate plans, accounts, and other personal history in one manageable place. Your family will feel your love in every detail you take care of.
So start taking care of them at knockbox.com slash Ramsey. A well-organized legacy is a gift to your family.
That's nokbox.com slash Ramsey. Hey guys, good news.
Presale is on now for my new book, Build a Business You Love. If you're a business owner, you know running a business is hard.
That's why I wrote this book, to share what we learned over the last 30 years so business owners can grow your business faster with fewer mistakes. Pre-order your copy today, and you'll get access to over $350 in bonus items only at RamseySolutions.com slash store.
RamseySolutions.com slash store. Pre-order today.
George, budgeting is such a huge part of the foundation of everything we teach here, right? We teach the seven baby steps and a big part of that is saying, okay, you've got to get on a budget. And for a lot of folks, they start working out their budget and they run into a couple of walls that they're not quite sure how to overcome, which is completely normal.
And so one of my favorite things we do here are a budget breakdown where you send us your budget and we're able to kind of talk you through it. And so Tyler did that.
He's from Tacoma, Washington. He sent us his budget and said, Hey, can you guys help me out? Tyler, you're on the line.
How's it going? It's going good. Thanks for sharing your budget with us.
Of course. Okay.
so I'll kind of, George's got your every dollar

budget opened up, and I'll kind of go down the line, and we'll talk through it, and you tell us if we've got it wrong, or if there's something that we need to know, but for right now, you're telling us you're 21 years old, you're in the Air Force? Yes, ma'am. Okay, cool.
Married with two kids at 21. Wow.
Yeah. How old are the kids? First one is 18 months, about to turn 19.
And the other one just turned a month today. Oh, man.
You're in the midst of it. Wow.
Yeah. So you're bringing home $63,000.
That equates to $4,754 that you see in your paycheck every month. Is that consistent? Roughly, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Pretty consistent as long as they don't have a government shutdown or nothing like that.
Yeah. Okay.
True that. Does that include like a housing allowance or do you get one? It does, but it doesn't.
So the housing allowance is tax-free. So it's roughly $5,200 a month because the housing allowance is not taxed.
Okay. Okay.
So, but that's not, obviously, that's not, you said it's $5,200 a month? Yes. So that's not included in the $4,754 you told us? Oh, well, yeah, I guess.
I don't know. It's kind of hard to track down because I was like, oh, shoot, forgot to include the zero tax part for that.
But what ends up in your bank account? Is $47.54 every month? Roughly, yeah. Okay.
Now, I see here that you don't have any debt. You've got about $5,000 in savings? Roughly.
Okay. And I see if you can, I'm looking at the every dollar budget.
You are $73 over budget every single month based on all of the expenses you laid out. So you are definitely living paycheck to paycheck.
In fact, you're in the red a little bit. Does that sound right? Yeah.
Yeah. It's pretty right.
So let's help you out here. What is your next goal? It looks like your savings is low because if you're in baby step three, we need to fully fund the emergency fund.
Correct. Yeah.
And if I see this right, you've got 200 going into savings, but you're also, you skipped to baby step four and you're investing 248 a month. Is that true? Yeah.
So what I was doing is that the military matches a Roth IRA and i was just trying to get to the match so uh pretty much uh since basic training i've put all that money away and i've never really seen it okay if i told you you could be a multi-millionaire at 21 if you just follow the baby steps would you believe me probably yeah okay So what if we pause your investing to get you some financial foundation?

Because that'll free up $248 that can now go toward that emergency fund.

Because at this pace, it's going to take you two years to get a fully funded emergency fund.

That's too long.

Right.

So that's some money right there we can free up.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to move that to zero in investing and add it to your savings

so that you now have, what's that, $.48 going to savings? Tracking? Okay. Now we still have to find some more room.
We're still $73 over budget. So, Jade, look through the list here of the expenses.
I assume your income can't change. You can't do anything over time.
You can't get side jobs. How much flexibility do we have on the income side? Actually, for my career, I can start doing basically an extra thing.
It's called flying crew chiefs, basically. That's what I am.
I'm a mechanic on a big, heavy aircraft, right? What can you make doing that? In a 21-day trip, I can make roughly two grand in that. And how often can you do that um as much as they need me but i have to get to that point if that makes sense so i don't know exactly when that'll start but that's something i could is it a month away or a year away uh probably less than uh three months away okay okay so we'll just for this sakes budget we're not going to include that but that could be a game changer going forward for your next goal.
Yeah, it could be because honestly, when I look at your budget, the thing that stands out to me is your rent. And again, I'm not quite sure exactly how your housing allowance is working into this, but all I'm seeing is you're bringing in 47, but then your rent coming out is almost half of that at 23.
And so that feels very very high i don't know are you are you on base or what is that yeah i'm on base housing that's kind of a fixed thing i can't fix that or i can't change that much and uh i kind of look at the present cons of living on base versus off so like there's free security i don't have that off base and it's kind of a sketchy area to live off base. Got you.
Okay.

That is an area that's going to be tough because when it's almost half your income,

your margin is just so low at that point.

So that's one area.

What about gas?

We're actually pretty good.

We use probably $100 per vehicle.

So I have two vehicles, so $100 every two weeks.

Per vehicle, so it's $400 a month? That's what's in the budget, and there's not much we can do there? Are you driving a lot, or is it more your wife? It's not really driving a lot. It's more, I got a nasty truck where it's got a big old turbo on it and likes to drink fuel.
Oh, boy. Can we get rid of the truck? Yes, we could, but I'd rather or not how much wait a minute now you just made jade angry no i'm not mad right i just uh one of the things that you'll have to do we were talking about this in an earlier segment at some point you're going to have to look at this and go something has to give and it's not going to go if you want to get this budget right side up you're going to have to hold everything very loosely in order to do that tell us more about this truck.
I'm going to pull that string a little bit. What's it worth? What do you owe on it? I don't, so I put, I bought it for $4,000 back in what, 2017.
And now it's probably worth about 15 with everything to it. But like I said, there's a lot of work into it that I've done.
It's not like I brought it to a shop and did it. Sure.
It's a very sentimental thing, if that makes sense. It was me and my dad's project.
Okay, I understand. All right, all right, all right, all right.
So we can't really move the income. We can't move the rent.
But I see a bunch of bills here that can go. Who's all this cable yeah um yeah that's uh that's my that'd be my daughter she uh she likes to watch certain shows and it kind of sucks because it's on uh multiple things if that makes sense but i was also thinking about like just dropping a couple of those because well you got 47 bucks in subscriptions too so you got 88 bucks going out in cables and subscriptions listen they have they have Cocobelon on YouTube, and it's free.

My daughter just watches old Barney clips on YouTube.

So that's a much cheaper option.

Yeah, I would, tonight...

We just got her into the old Sesame Street, which is pretty good.

Yeah, tonight I think cable and maybe keep one subscription

just so you're not completely in the Stone Age. But I'd drop that i mean that's that's finding you almost 80 bucks right there right and then the phone bill you guys have two cell phones uh yes we do are the phones kind of being financed through the plan because i see that it's no no they they are they're everything's paid off there's no debt at all okay who's the carrier because you are overpaying for two phones.
It is T-Mobile. All right, you're paying 65 bucks a pop.
I would switch to a budget-friendly carrier like Tello or Mint or Boost and reduce that down to, you could get that down to 50 bucks easily. Right.
Which would save you a good, what, 80 bucks? Just by doing that this month. $80 a month freed up just by doing that.
In the greenish. So give me a sense of where we're at, Tyler.
Because now if I cut your phone bill down to $50, right? And I cut, let's say we can cut cable and we just keep one of the subscriptions and we cut a few of the subscriptions. We get it down to $30 for subscriptions.
Now, instead of being $70- in the hole, you're 63 bucks in the black just by doing those few things without changing your rent or your income. So I feel better about this already.
And on top of that, have you reshopped your insurance lately, your renter's insurance, your auto insurance? Yeah, I did. And I did find the cheapest one out of all the names.
Okay. There's not a whole lot else here, Jade.
I mean, groceries, you're feeding four people. Yeah.
That's $800 in today's world. The only thing your wife could do is she could get together with maybe some other wives on base and say, let's create some sort of a co-op that I take you guys' kids, you take my kids, and I go work, and you go work work and you figure out times.
She's actually going to school right now to become a teacher. So that's what we're working on.
Okay, good. Listen, you guys.
We're about two years out for that. You guys are young and you are in the thick of it right now.
And I think the horizon for you guys is good. I think if you do what George said, you'll make a lot of changes, but this is going to be slow going for you confusing.
I don't know about you, but when I hear, for me, when I first started learning about investing, I needed to hear it over and over again. I needed somebody to explain it in a way that made it simple.
And it's not something that you can just get in a 60 second social media post. I'm telling you right now.
So if you are unsure of where to start, or if you're afraid to make any mistakes, our Essentials virtual event is going to teach you everything that you need to know about how to get started, guys. I'm telling you, they're going to teach you how to maximize your investments.
It's happening March 4th and 5th, and tickets start at just $1.99. It's hosted by Dave Ramsey, the goat, and the guy next to me, the other goat, George Camel.
Plus, it's the only place where you're going to get Dave's personal playbook on real estate investing. He's going to explain how he made hundreds of millions in property investments.
So, you can invest with confidence and you can start building wealth. And this is the way to do that.
Get your tickets today at RamseySolutions.com slash events, or you can click the link in the show notes if you're tuning in on podcast or YouTube. George, what do you want to say about this? Because you're part of it.
Oh my goodness. Well, number one, I make it fun.
And so I'm the proxy for the audience. Last time, just so you guys know, I got punched by Dave and he threw a chocolate chip cookie at me.
So I know it sounds like nerdy and boring, but we really bring it to life. He was trying to get that gluten on you.
That's right. I remember that.
Missed me with that. But really, we answer your questions.
So you could submit the questions live via email and I'm taking them live. We're sorting them and going, hey, this one's going to really going to help a lot of people out there.
And so I'm getting a lot of these questions in my DMs. Hey, I don't even know where to get started.
Or hey, I'm in baby step four, but is there more? Or hey, I'm in baby step seven. What can I do beyond the baby steps? We go really deep uh more than we ever have on this show and it's a really good time you're gonna walk away with a lot of value for just less than 200 bucks to get you know five hours of coaching i know that's right and it's live like it's you guys in real time it's not one of those canned things that they just air over and you know how places will just air the same thing over and over no this is live in live in real time.
You're getting Dave and George at their finest moments. And you have seven days for the standard ticket of $199.
You have seven days to access the recording. And so if you want to go back, listen to it again, take notes.
If you missed it on the night it was live, don't worry. You have access to it.
Go check it out. RamseySolutions.com slash events.
All right. Let's get back into your calls.
But before we do, just remember after this hour, if you want to keep watching the show, you'll have to go into our Ramsey network app in order to finish it unless you're on radio. So if you're watching right now on podcast or watching on YouTube, just know that the Ramsey network app is where you go.
If you want to watch the rest of the show, if you need that, you can just download it for free using the link in the show notes, or you could just search Ramsey Network in your app store. And that's how you do it.
Of course, if you're on radio, just stay where you're at. All right, let's go to the phones.
Logan in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. What's up, Logan? Hey, how are you guys doing today? Doing good.
How can we help you? Yeah, I just had a quick question. I'm currently, I'm only 19 years old, though.
I'm a real estate agent just right out of high school. Didn't bother with college.
And last year, I made just a little over 50 grand. This year, so far, as long as it keeps us pattern, I'm projected to make right around 80.
And I've always been a frugal person throughout life. And I just wanted to see what you guys thought about taking a trip to Thailand.
I've always wanted to go. It would cost right around $3,500 to $4,000.
And, you know, just spending that much money on a vacation seems strange to me. Well, how'd the idea come about of Thailand? Thailand's great, by the way.
I've been. It's a bucket list place.
How'd you land on that? I've had family go there. And they all love it.
You know, I always see pictures online. People love it.
I've had friends go. So just kind of from word of mouth, I've been all over the Bahamas numerous times.
It's just, I've never been anywhere in that part of the world. Well, let's see.
Can you afford it? I mean, you're making, the projection is 80,000 a year. What's your living situation? So my living, I'm actually currently still with my parents.
So, you know, I don't have many expenses other than lifestyle. And you don't have any debt? I'm not in debt at all.
No, well, I do. My parents, they helped me invest in real estate.
So I have a loan out with them. It's for a duplex though.
Their plan is they are like, I have a mortgage through them. They're going to forgive that instead of usually for of usually for my siblings, they pay for college.
They're just going to forget that in a couple of years, once I move in. So I don't really consider that debt.
I'm still paying on mortgage. You know, I have tendons in there that pay it.
What would make them not forgive it? It sounds like there's a stipulation here. No, there's no stipulation.
The reason why they have it. So they'll pay it off just in a couple of years is because I'm not going to college.
You know, they paid for all my siblings college. Okay.
So they have the money to pay off this mortgage? Yes. Yep.
Yep. They're very well off.
Okay. So they basically bought you a house as a kind of a gift instead of funding college.
They went, Hey, if you want to get into real estate, you're doing well. We'll just go ahead and still give you that money in a different way.
That's cool. What's it worth? Yes.
Let's see. I bought it well.
I bought it at right around $240,000. And right now I could get it for probably $330,000.
Okay. And you would rent out one half and live in the other? Yes.
Okay. How much money do you have in savings right now? Savings, right around $40,000.
Whoa. Good.
Good. All right.
And what's the plan to move out the plan uh currently i just have a girlfriend at the time uh right now but most likely within the next 18 to 24 months okay why so long uh you know i just think i'm still young i'm 19 uh i have a few older brothers and you know they all still live at home so if you're old enough to buy a house you're old enough to move out and live in a house, right? Yeah, no, that's right. Who's living in the duplex now? I just have tenants in there on both sides.
Who's getting the money? I am. I'm cash flowing.
I'm paying them a mortgage. They have it amortized over 30 years.
I'm still paying one, though they're just going to forgive the rest, whatever is remaining. So you're going to kick out a tenant to live in one of them?

Eventually, yes. So let me, I'm just sorry, we're going to answer the Thailand question,

but I've got a lot of interest in what you're telling me. So right now there's two tenants

in the duplex. Who has the shortage? Like who's, let me ask you this.
Like, obviously,

if they're good tenants, you're like, I want to keep them in there, but you're also paying for it, so that doesn't leave a whole lot for you to go rent somewhere. Is that where the problem is? The problem is usually when I put money in the savings, like this 40 grand, I never touch it.
It's very strange to me just to pull out a few grand for a vacation when I'm so used to just stashing money away. Here's what solved this for me, Logan.
Let me unlock this for you. You need to label your money.
Right now, it's just labeled savings. It needs to be labeled emergency fund, high yield savings, vacation fund, high yield savings, car upgrade, high yield savings.
And that way there's no guilt when it comes to what this money is for and should be spent on. You've got it labeled.
So an emergency fund for you for six months right now doesn't even really make sense because you don't have a lot of expenses. But let's say it's $25,000.
That leaves $15,000 of money you can assign to whatever task you want. I would say, all right, we're going to take this $4,000 vacation.
The other $9,000 we're going to put as a car upgrade fund or a home maintenance sinking fund for the duplex, whatever you want. But I would label them and put them in separate accounts to help solve this in the future.
Okay. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Short answer, enjoy the vacation. You're doing very well for your age.
You've done a great job. Stay out of debt.
And I would move out as soon as you can, because I think you have a maturity beyond a lot of older callers that I talk to. Yeah.
And there's the kind of the comfort crisis vibe. You know, Michael Easter's book of, if I'm in mommy and daddy's house and I'm living rent free and I'm making money from my tenants, what real benefit is there to ever move out? Keep me here in my warm cocoon.
Yeah, but he needs that feeling of rent is due. You know what I mean? You need that feeling of, I need to buy groceries.
I need that urgency. Got to go find some problems.
Yeah. And especially if he wants to be in real estate, I mean, have a time where you're a renter.
So you know what it feels like. Learn what that feels like.
So I think that'd be good for him. He is the renter and the landlord.
It's going to be an awkward phone call when the HVAC goes out. Hello? Hello? But what he's talking about, I've heard from a lot of folks who are in the baby steps where it's like, okay, I finally got into baby step four or I finally got into baby step seven and they're just worried about, can I spend my money? Is this too crazy? Is this lifestyle creep? Am I going off the deep end? And so I felt that way as well.
And so I kind of came up with five pillars that if you can check green on, chances are you can say yes. Hit me.
So number one, if you're a person who lives on a budget, like no matter what, even if you're in baby step six, you're still on a budget. You're still doing that.
Are you a person who's out of debt and staying out of debt, right? Yes, I am. Do I carry the proper insurances? Am I, you know, doing my coverage checkup yearly? Yes, I'm doing that.
Okay. Am I a person who's saving for the future? If I'm babysat four, I'm continuing that process.
Yes, that's a green light. And is generosity a priority in my life? That month to month, I'm practicing that.
Yes, chances are, if you're hitting green on all those when you're beyond babysat four and above, that is a green light to go, yeah, I can take this trip. I can do this fun thing.
I can buy that couch.

You're doing all the things that make you a financially responsible adult.

And it's good to remind yourself of those things from time to time. Outro Music