Do You Have Too Much Month Left at the End of Your Money?

Speaker 1 Welcome to the Ramsey Show America. This is where we help you win in your life.

Speaker 1 We want you to win with your money, win in your profession, and win with your relationships alongside the fabulous Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman.
Excited to be together for you folks today.

Speaker 1 The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225.

Speaker 1 888-825-5225. And the new year is off and running.
And I looked up today, Jade, and it's like, where did January go? Man, what? Come on.

Speaker 1 And so, hey, if you're trying to get control of your money, we're not talking about a New Year's resolution. You're just saying, listen, 2025, we just got to, we have to stand on business.

Speaker 2 Hey, come on, Ken Coleman. Yeah.
2025.

Speaker 2 This is life change, right? We are making real changes, real progress with our money.

Speaker 2 And we have just the thing to help folks out, Ken. That's right.

Speaker 1 Coming up this Thursday, my friend right over there to my right, she is going to be on the stage with Dave Ramsey. They are headlining our free live stream event.

Speaker 1 Tell them what it's going to be and what it's going to do for them.

Speaker 2 We are going to help you break the paycheck to paycheck cycle once and for all. That's really what it's about.
How many can know how it feels to have more month left, but the money is gone, right?

Speaker 2 How many of us know what it feels like to be over drafting our account? Then you pay that $34 fee. Embarrassing.

Speaker 2 Man, it's embarrassing when you're always checking your account before you swipe for your groceries at the grocery store because you don't want to, you know, you want to make sure there's enough money there.

Speaker 2 We're going to help you with that. The fact is people are feeling tightness with their money.
They're not sure where to go.

Speaker 2 And the truth is, people have tried to have goals in the past with their money and another year passes and they're still in debt or they still don't have that savings. So we're going to help you.

Speaker 2 It's a free live stream event. We're going to go over exactly what it's going to take for you to get on a budget, start paying off debt, start building up savings.
We'll touch briefly on investing.

Speaker 2 All of that, you can sign up right now at ramseysolutions.com slash live stream.

Speaker 1 And Ken. Yeah, this is fun.

Speaker 2 If you sign up, you're going to be registered to automatically be in our drawing to win $4,000 cash.

Speaker 1 We're doing five different giveaways. Yeah, isn't that crazy? Five people will win $4,000.
And after you sign up at ramseysolutions.com slash live stream,

Speaker 1 create a free Every Dollar account to get a bonus entry in the giveaway.

Speaker 2 Whoop, whoop, yes.

Speaker 1 Because you guys are going to be using Every Dollar during the live stream to show you the fastest, most practical way to get control over your money. So again, this Thursday, 7 p.m.
Central Time.

Speaker 1 Ramseysolutions.com slash live stream.

Speaker 2 And for anybody who was there on the last event, some of you are like, oh, are you doing an Every Dollar demo? I am going to go over Every Dollar, but it's a very small piece of what we're doing.

Speaker 2 So, still tune in. Even if you've seen me do an Every Dollar Demo, I'm going to do that like literally in five minutes.
So, tune in because we're talking about a lot.

Speaker 2 And Rachel Cruz and George Camel are going to join us today.

Speaker 1 It's going to be a cameo, so it's going to be a lot of fun. Don't want to miss that.
All right, let's get to the phones. Zane is going to start us off in Dallas, Texas.
Zane, how can we help today?

Speaker 3 Hey, am I on live?

Speaker 1 You're live, yes. Oh, cool.
This is your moment. Do you have something planned?

Speaker 3 No, I don't.

Speaker 3 I was wondering that, well, my problem, they told me to kind of get to my question. I'm $115,000 in medical debt as of right now, and I'm 19 years old.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. What happened? Give us the quick version of what happened.

Speaker 3 Three months ago, I got into

Speaker 3 a car crash at about 60 miles an hour, broke both my legs

Speaker 3 and had to spend a week or two in the hospital, and I've been out of work for the last three months.

Speaker 1 What's the status on being able to get back to work?

Speaker 3 I'm just now able to kind of waddle around my house like a penguin, but

Speaker 3 walking's still not that great right now. And the doctors are kind of telling me that I'm not going to be able to go back to construction for the next year or two, at least.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 is there a settlement coming out of this? I mean, were you at fault or are you going to get paid off of this?

Speaker 3 I think I was at fault, if I believe correctly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's tough, my man. man.

Speaker 1 That's real tough. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 3 sorry for interrupting.

Speaker 1 Oh, go ahead.

Speaker 3 Well, my question was, is that at 19, I've kind of been given two options of how to handle the $115,000 of debt that I'm in. And it's to either

Speaker 3 counter them and say that I'm not going to pay it and agree on a lower settlement of $60,000 to $80,000 or whatever, or to just not pay it and let it really, you know, hit my credit score and let the the credit score drop.

Speaker 3 And I don't know which of those choices to go with at this point because I've never had to use my credit and I don't think I will in the next seven years.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 3 And again, I don't want to be straddled with that debt.

Speaker 2 Tell me about, were you on it? Did you not have medical insurance at the time? Tell me more about that because what I'm thinking

Speaker 2 is no medical insurance.

Speaker 3 No, ma'am.

Speaker 1 Do you live at home?

Speaker 3 I was living on my own in a travel trailer because, you know, it's the cheapest thing you can live in as a young teenager. But now I am, my awesome mother is taking care of me while I'm recovering.

Speaker 2 So the truth is, if you don't pay these, they would roll into collections, and some collections agency would end up buying them for pennies on the dollar.

Speaker 2 And the truth is, when things go into collection, yeah, you're more likely to be able to strike some sort of deal and say, okay, I can pay you.

Speaker 2 If it's $115,000, I can pay you $40,000 or I can pay you $60,000. And it's usually a cash deal.

Speaker 2 I don't like that for you because, A, like you said, you're tanking your credit and it's kind of, it just feels like a hopeless thing.

Speaker 2 What I would do is I would start with, okay, is there any type of payment plan I can be on? And there's probably some sort of,

Speaker 2 I don't want to say the term forbearance, but you know, when you're going through a hard time and they kind of give you a break there until you can start working again.

Speaker 2 Because the truth is you're not able to work at this point. And we have to figure out what that means for you next, right?

Speaker 3 Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 3 I'm hoping to be able, I kind of, through my dad, my dad's an oil field man, and he, there was a plan for me to move out to the oil field and get kind of a desk job out there that would pay better than construction and allow me to work, you know, while sitting down.

Speaker 3 And that was the plan moving forward if I was going to be, you know, paying this off. That was the plan either way, but that was kind of my only way in my mind of

Speaker 1 pay us off

Speaker 1 when are you going to take that job as soon as i can walk again and get my my trailer moved out to midland fantastic okay so there there's income and i think jade's right you call the hospital get a hardship or something and you talk to him about what you'd like to do and if you can settle for jade what do you think about his initial idea of settling for a much lower number uh i I think that if it comes to that, that's okay.

Speaker 2 But I would not intentionally tank my credit. Like, I would not intentionally not make make the payments to tank my credit so that it gets sold off.
I wouldn't do that.

Speaker 2 If that happened because of circumstances that you couldn't help, which happens every time and people call in, fine.

Speaker 1 That was his second option. His first option was going to the hospital and saying, look, I just, I don't know if I'll ever be able to pay that back.
Can we do a lower number?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. I do like the idea of you going to the hospital and saying, hey, obviously, this is the extent of my injuries.
Obviously, I did not have insurance.

Speaker 2 Obviously, it's going to take me some time. Is there some sort of payment plan I can work out that takes into account my hardship right now? And I think they will do that.

Speaker 2 But I don't want you to go into this with a hopeless mindset of saying, I'll never be able to pay this off because I don't believe that.

Speaker 1 I think you can. I agree.
Yeah. I agree.
I think you tell them, look, I'm a 19-year-old kid.

Speaker 1 I didn't have insurance. Here's why.
Tell them your story. Yeah.
And if you could get it to 60, that was a number you threw out. That's very doable for you to pay that off.

Speaker 1 But as soon as you can get healthy, yeah, man, you're getting out the middling. And man, you're a young Billy Bob Thornton out out there.
Hey,

Speaker 2 I got to tell you. Ken, it's good, isn't it?

Speaker 1 It's so good. It's good.
I got ahead of it and got in trouble with Stacey, so I had to slow down. Yeah, you got to watch it.
Get Mama caught back up on it.

Speaker 2 And I got to tell you. It's not for the faint apart, though.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Whew. A great show.
Get your popcorn out for that one. All right.
We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman alongside Jade Warshaw.
The phone number for you to jump in is 888-825-5225.

Speaker 1 Today we'll focus on your money questions, of course, and also your professional questions so we can make more money and create more margin through the baby steps. 888-825-5225 is the number.

Speaker 1 Matt is joining us now in Phoenix, Arizona. Matt, how can we help?

Speaker 3 Hi, thanks for taking my call, guys.

Speaker 3 So we are snowballing our debt and doing everything we can, but we just got a letter from the IRS. It was

Speaker 3 a notice for intent to levy possessions for our 2023 taxes.

Speaker 3 We filed the taxes and everything, and we owed about $14,000 from 2023.

Speaker 3 So we submitted all the paperwork and a down payment to set up a payment plan to pay that back while we're kind of snowballing all of our other debt.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 But they somehow,

Speaker 3 they managed to cash the check for $1,000 as a down payment, but lost our paperwork to set up the payment plan.

Speaker 1 Classic.

Speaker 3 So it kind of got me thinking,

Speaker 3 is there debt that's like more important to pay off than other debt, or should I just throw this all into the snowball?

Speaker 3 Because I know I have a work bonus coming up pretty soon that would pretty much wipe out that IRS debt.

Speaker 1 Yes. Uh-huh.

Speaker 3 So like, should I use it for that IRS or just keep on doing the snowball?

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, you are 100% right, Matt.

Speaker 2 There is some debt that's important than others. And in this case, it's always IRS debt.

Speaker 2 So, when you're working your debt snowball, we always say, if you have IRS debt or if you're behind on your mortgage, that sort of thing, that jumps to the top of the list regardless of the fact

Speaker 2 because they can do so much damage. And let's be honest, nobody likes working with IRS.
It is a pain in the butt. And you want to get them off of your tail as quickly as possible.

Speaker 2 So, if you have this bonus bonus coming up, when does it come?

Speaker 3 End of February.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm knocking that out instantly. And just make sure you keep record of everything because listen, the IRS is notorious for making mistakes.

Speaker 2 I can't tell you how many times with our business we got sent a tax bill that was incorrect and we had to fight it and had to show proof. And, you know, you're always jumping through hoops with them.

Speaker 2 So whatever you do, make sure there's a very clear paper trail so that if this thing rears its head again, you've got everything documented.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Thanks for the call, Matt. Thanks for the call.
Excuse me. My voice just went out on me there.
Flimped. Yeah.
Kyle is joining us now in New York City. Kyle, how can we help?

Speaker 3 Hello. I have a quick question.

Speaker 3 I am looking to get engaged soon, and my fiancé has some student loan debt, about $65,000 of it. And I live at home.
I own my own business. I've been able to save up quite a a bit.

Speaker 3 I have about $180,000 saved up between different accounts, some in retirement, some and some brokerage accounts, and others in like just normal checkings and savings accounts.

Speaker 3 I was curious about how should I go about handling paying this debt? Would something like a lump sum just handling it right away be wise? Would doing it over a period of time be wise?

Speaker 3 I've never had debt, so I don't know like the best route to actually paying it off.

Speaker 2 Listen, that's a great question. When do you guys get married?

Speaker 2 we're planning to get married in october of this year okay so when and only when you get married after you've said i do i think it could be a good idea to pay off this debt um depending on how much of your eight 180k saved is in a non-retirement funds so can you kind of break that down how much of it is non-retirement

Speaker 3 yeah so about uh 30 000 is in a roth ira

Speaker 3 and then i have like 50 000 in uh just like the the SP 500.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 And the rest is broken up between like a savings account. So like

Speaker 3 the rest, 100,000 is in savings accounts, like how you'll save

Speaker 3 and checking accounts

Speaker 3 and also in like my business checking account.

Speaker 2 Okay. So of the 150, that's we'll call liquid because the index funds, if you don't have to touch it, you don't have to.
But of all of that,

Speaker 2 how much would you say would be three to six months of expenses for you and your wife once you're in your lifestyle.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I haven't yet calculated that out.

Speaker 1 I know what mine is currently. Okay.
But that's something that I would have to calculate.

Speaker 2 I think that you're going to be fine. But what I would do is I would just set aside three to six months of what, once you guys are married, set aside three to six months of what will be your expenses

Speaker 2 and keep that in a high yield. And then if you still have the 60,000 liquid or 65,000 liquid to pay this off, I would pay it off.

Speaker 2 And even if you only have 55, I would do it in a lump sum and then I would cash flow the rest of it until it's gone.

Speaker 2 Okay. Great.
Yeah. Hey, I love your heart behind this.
I love that for you, it's just as easy as saying, yeah, I'll write a check. That's a good sign, my friend.
He's a good dude.

Speaker 1 Yeah, very good dude. Let's go to Emily in Denver, Colorado next.
Emily, how can we help?

Speaker 3 Hi.

Speaker 3 I'm going through a divorce and have two high school funds.

Speaker 3 And I'm wondering if I should rebalance some of my cash to help fund college or if I should try to get the lowest mortgage possible when I buy a different home.

Speaker 1 How much cash are we talking about?

Speaker 3 Well, that's, I don't know. I don't know what their plans will be if they will go to a four-year school or do something more technical.

Speaker 1 No, I'm sorry. How much cash do you have?

Speaker 3 How much? Well, it would be coming out of the home equity when I move homes.

Speaker 1 Okay, so let's just back up so that we know what we're dealing with. We've got to kind of get an idea of what you're talking about.
So

Speaker 1 you're in a divorce. You're going to move.
How much equity do you have in the home?

Speaker 3 Well, I'm in an expensive area. So we have, I'm assuming

Speaker 3 I will walk away with about $700,000 in home equity, $6,000 to $700,000. But the cheapest thing I can buy is probably $800,000 to $900,000

Speaker 3 for maybe a townhome.

Speaker 1 And then how old are the boys? What grades are they in?

Speaker 3 Sophomore and junior.

Speaker 1 Do you have any college money set aside?

Speaker 3 About $12,000 to $15,000 per child.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 All right. And I'd like to help them pay for college so they don't have debt.

Speaker 1 Do you work outside the home?

Speaker 3 I do work full-time year.

Speaker 1 What's your income?

Speaker 3 $160,000 a year.

Speaker 1 Okay. Okay, that's good.
What would you say an all-in budget for you is? Do you have a pretty good idea what your budget is?

Speaker 1 on this is not frills but just paying for your basics and being comfortable what's that number

Speaker 3 I don't have an exact budget because everything's been combined yeah but I've been trying to crunch numbers and thinking I wouldn't want to mortgage more than $2,000 a month including you know insurance HOA anything like that

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah, just a rule of thumb for you to keep in mind, we would say no more than 25% of your take-home pay should be your mortgage. And that's including HOA, that's including taxes and insurance.

Speaker 2 So if 2K

Speaker 2 is 25% or less, then you're good.

Speaker 2 Something to keep in mind here: have you priced it out in the Denver area? So if you're spending $650,000, yeah, you're getting like a decent-sized townhouse. Is that right?

Speaker 3 I'm just outside of Denver, and

Speaker 3 right now the only two-bedroom townhouse is $900,000. It would be the cheapest I could afford.
$900,000 to $1,000,000 is what I'd probably be looking at for property.

Speaker 1 Have you considered going further out?

Speaker 2 Like I have friends that are, you know,

Speaker 2 25 to 30 minutes from the Denver area, family of four, and they're looking at things in the $600,000 to $700,000 range.

Speaker 2 And I've been to their house and it's

Speaker 1 fine. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Where I am, I'm between mountain passes, and I wouldn't want my kids to have to drive mountain passes in the winter to get to school.

Speaker 2 I hear what you're saying.

Speaker 1 Okay. So

Speaker 3 there is a balance for me on that cost.

Speaker 2 Two things to keep in mind here, and I'll speak on the home side. Can you speak on the college side?

Speaker 2 We have to have very clean and clear expectations and very realistic expectations because the money that's going to come from the sale sounds like a lot, but it's not a lot.

Speaker 2 And I think you're starting to feel that. And so

Speaker 2 expectations on college. Are they the types of kids that will go to college? You've got some money saved.

Speaker 1 They're going to have to work and they're going to have to come up with scholarships and grants. And then there's the father.
So I would tell you that this is not all on you.

Speaker 1 I think you've got to make the right decision for your home, keeping your expenses low as you're now out on your own. That's your number one priority, not cash flowing their college.

Speaker 2 And that's another good point. It's just you now.
You've got kids that will be coming home, but that won't be a part of the home full-time.

Speaker 1 And that's going to weigh into what you purchase when it comes to this home yeah so sorry you're going through this but take care of you first the the boys will be fine this is the ramsey show

Speaker 1 welcome back to the ramsey show alongside jade warshaw i'm ken coleman triple eight eight two five two two five five five s the phone number to jump in today's question of the day is brought to you by our friends at why refi why refi refinances defaulted private student loans Defaulted means when the borrowers can't make the required payment.

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Speaker 2 Okay, today's question comes from Jared in Florida. He says, my wife and I are trying to get our debt under control.

Speaker 2 We aren't drowning by any means, but we have been using credit cards to build our credit. We have some credit cards that are 0% interest for a certain amount of time.

Speaker 2 Since these have a higher balance and are at the bottom of our snowball list, they would revert to full interest by the time we started aggressively paying them.

Speaker 2 Would you suggest paying the remainder of the 0%

Speaker 2 interest off ahead of the other debts to keep them from jumping to 24 to 26%

Speaker 2 interest?

Speaker 2 Oh, okay. That's a lot of percentages.
What I think you're getting at is moving the debts out of order to avoid paying interest towards the end of your snowball, I might add. And no, I wouldn't.

Speaker 2 I would keep them in order because the truth is, you're going to be going so fast by then, and the amount that you're going to be throwing at the debt is going to happen so quickly.

Speaker 2 My guess is the math on this is going to be negligible because it's probably going to be the difference of a couple of months that this is going to take place. And

Speaker 2 I would use this as fuel. Like when I know,

Speaker 2 Ken, if they, if they come on the weather report and say that a snowstorm's coming, what do you do?

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 laugh at how Middle Tennessee is going to react and realize that if we need any bread or dairy product, I should probably go now,

Speaker 1 thus contributing to the problem I'm laughing about.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you prepare is what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 That's probably not the answer you were.

Speaker 2 No, that's fine. What you're saying is you prep.
You know it's coming, so you do what you have to do to be prepared for it.

Speaker 2 And it's the same thing. When you know that this interest is going to hit, you will have prepared for it.

Speaker 2 You will have thought, okay, and if anything else, you might have tried to avoid it by going faster earlier so that you don't get to that point.

Speaker 2 So I think that this can be used as fuel to pay off the other debts faster.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I agree. Good advice.
Levi is joining us now in Minneapolis. Levi, how can we help?

Speaker 3 Hey, so I guess to kind of jump into it, I'll give you guys my situation and where I'm at and everything with my life. I'm 22 years old.
I am engaged with a one-year-old.

Speaker 3 We had our little one not too long ago. And

Speaker 3 ever since we found out about her, I've been on a debt-free journey. I had about $15,000 in debt, which had a mix of

Speaker 3 it was

Speaker 3 home equity loan kind of thing, and then some credit cards and stuff like that. I got all that paid off in about eight months.

Speaker 3 I am a full-time electrician, making about $55,000 a year, and then I also do a lot of side work doing electrical stuff and handyman things on the side.

Speaker 3 Now that my daughter, she's getting up to the age of where she's kind of starting to realize like, oh, dad's around, dad's not around, I've been really wanting to spend more time with her.

Speaker 3 I have my three to six months emergency fund. I'm fully debt-free and we're getting married in September.

Speaker 3 We are cash flowing the whole wedding. We pretty much have everything accounted for.

Speaker 3 We have our tax returns going to be the last little bit of our money that's coming back to pay for the rest of the wedding.

Speaker 3 But my main question is, is I don't know if I want to keep on doing these side jobs. Like, I mean, I cut back a little bit.

Speaker 3 I was getting more calls from people the more I did on a daily basis to do stuff on the weekends, and I was getting burnt out, so I cut back a little.

Speaker 3 But I'm wondering if I should cut back even more now rather than only do a couple of months because I'm only being able to afford like around 6% of my income to invest in retirement.

Speaker 3 And I feel like I should be doing more even though I'm 22. But I mean,

Speaker 3 I got a good growth rate for my income. I mean, that's going to almost double in the next two years once I get past my journeyman's test.
So,

Speaker 1 I guess

Speaker 3 where you guys are at for that.

Speaker 1 Well, first of all, I want to congratulate you on you find out you got a baby on the way, and you talk about adulting and growing up and manning up. I just want to call out, way to go, Levi.

Speaker 1 Way to go. Thanks.
So, you're paying off your debt. You got a fully funded emergency fund.
I mean, I'm just very impressed.

Speaker 1 So my only question that I have, Jade, is, and Levi, for you, is you said you're not able to afford

Speaker 1 more than putting 6% away for retirement. And I guess I don't understand that.
What do you mean by I can't afford it?

Speaker 3 Well, I mean, I can afford it. It's just more, I guess, so for, say, the comfortability of everything.
Like, I'm thinking, like, I have, I have all this time ahead of me.

Speaker 3 I'm like looking at how much I'm investing now. If I continue investing what I have now, I'll have over $3 million by the time I retire, which is going to be more to live off of.

Speaker 3 But I'm wondering, like, if I kind of hold back so that way we don't have to give up all of our lifestyles, so I can do more fun things with a little one on the weekends and stuff like that, and just do this 6%

Speaker 1 for the next two years.

Speaker 3 And then, once I pass my test, I mean, that's a $10 an hour bump. And then from there, I can

Speaker 3 keep my same lifestyle and then invest that full 15%.

Speaker 1 Listen,

Speaker 1 I'm curious to know what my friend's going to say here. She's got a big old smile on her face.
So I'm going to get out of the way. But my reaction to this is

Speaker 1 you are rationalizing this. And if you rationalize it now, you're going to rationalize it later when you have more income to do more fun stuff.

Speaker 1 And I think that the crux of the issue is that started you down this path is you've been working like a madman, doing a great job. Can you cut back a little bit? Should you cut back a little bit?

Speaker 1 I think yes and yes, but I would use

Speaker 1 that extra weekend, one or two weekends instead of four. And that's how I would fund my 15%.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 I would go ahead and start doing it now because my friend,

Speaker 1 don't get Jade started on her investment calculator. That's all I would say.

Speaker 2 Well, he's already run it and $3 million is great. Listen, I'm smiling because you're 22.
You have so much life to live.

Speaker 2 And I love that you have a path for your income to go up and it will.

Speaker 2 Right now, my biggest, the questions formulating in my mind as you were talking are more so along. You said that you make $55,000 a year, which is really good,

Speaker 2 but that that's including side hustles. So my first question is, well, if you drop the side hustles, what will you be making a year?

Speaker 2 And I don't like that number only because it's already lower than the median in the United States.

Speaker 2 And I kind of want you at least above the median that's the median or above is what I would love for you the the next question I had was

Speaker 2 the wife you know when you guys get married here coming up

Speaker 2 you know what's the plan is she gonna have income because that definitely factors into this right now it will factor into it as soon as you get married so tell us about that

Speaker 3 yeah so um my yeah 55,000 that's my standard electrician my electrician job and then on top of that I have side hustles which this year has been better this year than the last two.

Speaker 3 I've picked up a lot more. I've probably,

Speaker 3 this entire of 2024, I probably made around $15,000 in side hustles throughout the year.

Speaker 1 $15,000. Okay.

Speaker 3 Yep. And then

Speaker 3 once we get married, we have one little one right now, and my fiancé, she's working part-time doing, working with my mom at my mom's home daycare.

Speaker 3 So doing that, we get free child care, and then she also makes an income of around $20,000 a year.

Speaker 3 But once we have this second kid, my mom can't afford to pay for have two kids there because that factors into her numbers. So

Speaker 3 the plan is to have my wife go be a stay-at-home mom at that point. And then I will just be the main breadwinner at the time.

Speaker 3 And then she would do like being like a sub and stuff for the daycare here and there when my grandparents could watch the kids and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 So it would be her income maybe be like $10,000 a year after that.

Speaker 2 Those are the numbers you need to run and run them clearly.

Speaker 2 and both you and your wife have to decide this is the life we've agreed on john john deloni and i have talked about this many times that sometimes what you're signing up for is the used camry lifestyle and if you decide hey i don't want to do these side hustles my wife's going to stay home that is 100 your prerogative but just know that making 55 000 a year that is going to mean you're on a used camry lifestyle and there's nothing wrong with that just just know i want you investing at least 15 off of your base income so that you're used to putting away $687

Speaker 2 every single month, whether you side hustle or not. And if that's a problem, check out where your mortgage or rent payment lies, because if it's tight, that's likely why.

Speaker 1 But congrats on just stepping into being an adult and being responsible at the age of 22. I got a sense that he's going to be okay, whatever he does.
This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman.
Jade Warshaw is alongside. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225.
Triple 8-825-5225. And we are here for you.

Speaker 1 And my friend tells me right before we go live, she goes, I got to throw a little thought at you.

Speaker 2 Did you watch the inauguration? I did. Of course you did.
So

Speaker 1 now we need to explain that because people make assumptions.

Speaker 2 I am a student. Well, you're a political, like you love politics.

Speaker 1 I'm a student of the process.

Speaker 1 I love the peaceful transfer of power. I like the tradition.
We're the youngest country out there.

Speaker 2 True that.

Speaker 1 True that. So it's kind of fun.
I did watch it. Nice.

Speaker 2 I did a media hit this morning about the whole tariffs. Yes.
What say you?

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 I'm not pro-tariff. I'm anti-tariff.

Speaker 1 And the reason is.

Speaker 2 On all imports, regardless.

Speaker 1 I think it's a lat. I think that they are a

Speaker 1 tariffs

Speaker 1 have been useful economic tools.

Speaker 1 Many times they get turned into weapons.

Speaker 1 And here's my beef with tariffs for all the pro-Trump people who are automatically canceling me or mad at me. Let me explain why.
Yeah, I was going to say,

Speaker 2 explain the pros and cons.

Speaker 1 Because a tariff is meant to penalize a foreign country. All right.
So let's just say that Trump puts a tariff on all Canadian products that American companies import

Speaker 1 in here and sell to you, the people. Yes.

Speaker 1 It is meant to penalize Canada by making their products more expensive and thus trying to motivate American companies to pick another product. Here's the challenge.

Speaker 1 When we say American-made, and nobody's more America-first than me, and I'd love to see American workers make American products. However,

Speaker 1 our people, and I'm proud of this, get paid more than everybody else in the world. So it is very expensive for a small business.
Let's take small business XYZ.

Speaker 1 Let's say they import a widget from Canada. When Trump puts a tariff on that widget

Speaker 1 from Canada,

Speaker 1 it doesn't just penalize Canada. It's going to pass on.

Speaker 1 It's going to penalize the small business because let's say they've got orders coming in all the time and they go, I can't find a comparable widget from some other country.

Speaker 1 And I certainly can't find one in America. It's going to cost me more.
So that tariff is paid for by the small business. Sure.
Well, that small business can't afford to change their margin.

Speaker 1 So what do they have to do? They have to raise the price of said widget. That's right.
So in all reality, and I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but this is economics 101. This is not Democrat.

Speaker 1 This isn't Republican. This is just, this is how economics works.

Speaker 1 Tariffs do become a tax for the consumer. Well, in the short term.
Therefore, I am never for raising taxes. Ever.

Speaker 1 Listen, I. So there you go.

Speaker 2 I think I'm with you.

Speaker 2 What did you say? Well, on the media hit, I was talking about how, obviously, like to your point, if you put a tariff on the importer, that that price is going to pass along to the consumer.

Speaker 2 And if we really look at what we're importing, the main ones that are affecting

Speaker 2 everyday people in the United States, crude oil. I mean, you're going to see oil prices go up.
You're going to see gas go up, like number one.

Speaker 2 And then even, you know, things like food, you know, we import things from other countries because we want avocados year-round. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 Like, we have gotten used to certain comforts here in the United States that we'll definitely feel that.

Speaker 2 We'll feel it on coffee and, you know, certain fruits and vegetables and I don't know, chocolate, that sort of thing. But

Speaker 2 is there a, I'm asking you, is there a short-term benefit, long-term gain thing here where we say, yeah, we might feel it in the short term, but long term, would we begin to see?

Speaker 2 it play out in the way of, I don't know, what's the end game here? More business being done internally?

Speaker 1 Well, again, we're talking about President Trump. This is his policy.
He's very pro-tariff and he comes at it from a, other countries need to be paying us more.

Speaker 1 You know, I want to bring more income to the United States and through the Treasury, so forth and so on. It's just not that simple.

Speaker 1 And so, therefore, the answer to your question, I can't even simplify that because it's a, the answer is we don't know.

Speaker 1 True, but traditionally, when you raise costs for American businesses, it leads to inflation. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So no one wants to go back to that again. Yeah.
So 2022.

Speaker 1 You know, I'm consistent on this. People have asked, I've been on Fox News and I made the host, he

Speaker 1 got his feathers ruffled when I just said, look, this is what I think about tariffs.

Speaker 1 I think the best thing that Trump can do or any president is cut regulations, so government regulations, things that cost businesses money to comply with,

Speaker 1 and cut taxes for businesses. When both of those things are cut, prices go down.

Speaker 1 When prices go down for the American people, theoretically, and this is what we're here to do, is that allows people more room in their budget if they aren't spin

Speaker 1 crazy. So, I am always going to be low tax, low to no tariffs, because I believe in a free market system that takes care of itself.
In other words, if the consumer wants to pull back, they pull back.

Speaker 1 That means if they pull back, guess what the companies do? They lower prices. Car prices go down when demand goes down.

Speaker 2 Right, right, right, right.

Speaker 1 Housing prices go down when demand goes down.

Speaker 1 This is called a free market system, and the market drives what's going on. I don't like government weighing in and

Speaker 1 I'm libertarian on that stuff. But again, that's just my position.
I got you. You don't have to agree with that.

Speaker 2 No, I think it's nice to hear. I mean, I felt like that was pretty...

Speaker 1 You know who needs less money? The government.

Speaker 1 You know who needs more money? Folks. You find people.
If you want to know, like, vote for me, because I'm pro-people.

Speaker 1 I'm serious.

Speaker 2 The people can win the people's president.

Speaker 1 I just don't want more money in the federal government. They don't know what to do with it.

Speaker 1 And I think each of you people that are listening today and watching, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I mean, James Child has known me a decade.
He knows I'm telling you the truth.

Speaker 1 Well, what do you think about it? I believe that you all can handle your money if you work with Ramsey Solutions and we teach you how to budget. Facts.

Speaker 1 But I believe the American people and the people of the world can manage their money better than anyone else can manage it for them. And I'm talking about government bureaucrats and politicians.

Speaker 1 That's what I believe at my core.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I agree with you. I do think that regardless of what the policies are, if you do the things that we teach, like I always talk about five pillars of personal finance, right? It's

Speaker 2 budgeting, like the idea you get out of debt, you stay out of debt.

Speaker 2 It's carrying the proper insurances. It's investing for the future and it's prioritizing generosity.
If you're doing those five things, you're winning.

Speaker 2 And obviously you can use the baby steps to do that.

Speaker 2 But the truth is like certain things can impact us in a moment in a positive or negative way. Like I would never sit here and say like, this doesn't really matter.
It doesn't affect you.

Speaker 2 Sure, it does. What do you think about

Speaker 2 the idea that like people who work on tips and things like that, that that might not be taxed?

Speaker 1 Love it.

Speaker 2 I like that too.

Speaker 1 I love any policy that lowers taxes. Now, I mean, you throw it at me.
I'm going to have a hard time saying, I'm not for that.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think people who rely on tips, they are relying on the generosity of the people that they serve. So, if

Speaker 1 someone, if you and Sam and Stacey and I are at dinner, and we were just at dinner a couple months ago, and that remember that guy, kind of an artsy guy, musician guy?

Speaker 1 Either way, you don't remember him.

Speaker 2 Maybe, tell me more.

Speaker 1 He did a great job.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, I do remember him. We sat outside.

Speaker 1 And we all, and the four of us, I feel like we all commented on guy.

Speaker 1 So, here's my point: he served us so well that then the Warsaw family decides at that moment of the check to go in. How much of our money

Speaker 1 beyond the meal are we going to give to this guy because we appreciate how he took care of us. And then the Colemans do the same thing.

Speaker 2 He should get to keep that.

Speaker 1 The government gets to tax my generosity. No, no, no, I'm sorry.
The government gets to tax my appreciation?

Speaker 2 Well, they've taxed it.

Speaker 1 I mean, they've taxed my appreciation. Yeah.

Speaker 1 My man did a good job. He's out hustling for us.
Yeah. I'm going to give him a little extra.
Plus, they already tax it?

Speaker 2 They already got their cut when I earned the money or when Sam earned it. And that's the other thing.

Speaker 1 And now they're just going to get it.

Speaker 2 Just because I'm going like this, you get to tax it again.

Speaker 1 They taxed you when you got it. Now they're going to tax him when you give it.

Speaker 2 Nah, man.

Speaker 1 Man, this is unifying the country.

Speaker 2 It is. I feel like a lot of people do feel that way.

Speaker 1 Everybody feels this way.

Speaker 2 No, don't tax my tip now. That's.

Speaker 1 So anyway, I hope that that goes through as well. But yeah, I think in general, I want

Speaker 1 people to have more of their hard-earned money. I agree.
So that they can give,

Speaker 1 save, and spend as we teach here at Ramsey Solutions. Give the way they want to give.
Yes. Save what they want to save and spend how they want to spend.

Speaker 1 This is what Thomas Jefferson meant when he said the pursuit of happiness.

Speaker 2 Get into it, Ken.

Speaker 1 It's just this idea that this is the life that I choose to live. You said it earlier.
If I want to drive a used Camry the rest of my life, then freaking drive a used Camry the rest of your life.

Speaker 1 It's your life. That's right.
And I think we need more of our money. So there you go.

Speaker 1 Good word, Ken. Economics 101.
Politics, by the way, is simple when you make it about that.

Speaker 1 This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Welcome to the Ramsey Show, where we help you win in your life. We're going to help you win with your money, win in your profession, and win in your relationships.

Speaker 1 Triple 8-825-5225 is the phone number. I'm Ken Coleman, alongside Jade Warshaw.
888-825-5225 is the phone number.

Speaker 1 By the way, our Ramsey Show annual listener survey is now live, and we would love to know what you think of the show, what you like, what you don't, what you want to hear more of.

Speaker 1 Whatever it is, we'd love to get your feedback. There's two ways to participate.
You can text the word survey.

Speaker 1 That's the word survey. Text that to 33789-33789.
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Speaker 1 All right, Alyssa is now on the line in Albany, New York. Alyssa, how can we help?

Speaker 3 So 2024, like many,

Speaker 3 it sent my family in complete financial turmoil. You can have one thing bad happen after another.
And really a lot to do.

Speaker 3 My husband and i we we're on the same page with things but like the execution it just doesn't happen and we're about to crash and i just need to help trying to get out of it

Speaker 1 tell us a little bit more what do you mean we're on the same page but it's about to crash give us the specifics

Speaker 3 so

Speaker 3 just to give context um i had my second child last january um I was on maternity leave until May.

Speaker 3 My daughter, my oldest daughter, had a couple of seizures. She's only only two.
She had a couple of seizures in April.

Speaker 3 So unfortunately, that kind of opened up the floodgate of a lot of issues that we're still dealing with now.

Speaker 3 And with that, you know, the medical bills and all that stuff, that's besides the problem.

Speaker 3 But anyway, I got back from maternity leave, and I got let go as soon as I got back.

Speaker 1 Sorry.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So then I went six months without a job,

Speaker 3 which was kind of okay because with finding out about my daughter's issue, my my baby also has the same problem so the only good thing is we know about it now now we're just trying to deal with things

Speaker 3 so throughout that six months where I didn't have a job we are our savings is is empty

Speaker 3 I had to dip into completely into my Roth IRA I still have my regular IRA I didn't have to touch it

Speaker 3 I had to totally empty my Roth

Speaker 3 and and now the good news is I have a job I start a new job next week

Speaker 3 but the problem

Speaker 3 my husband is really heavy.

Speaker 3 We talk about the money and he says one thing to me, but really, if there's an issue, he just covers it up and tries to do

Speaker 3 all the gig work and the ride shares and stuff and to try to just fix it because he doesn't want to tell me because he knows I'm so overwhelmed. I'm just going to get upset.

Speaker 3 So now that I'm about to go back to work and everything's going to change and I'm not here and I can't just settle up everything and try my best to

Speaker 3 start over again,

Speaker 3 I'm just afraid that everything's going to blow up in my face even more than it already has.

Speaker 1 Okay. Okay.
Well, first of all, you

Speaker 1 need

Speaker 1 some type of help.

Speaker 1 You can't go through this on your own.

Speaker 1 And this is a marriage issue, but you can just hear your voice. You can just hear how stressed out you are.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Take a deep breath.

Speaker 2 I need to take a deep breath after hearing that because I, I mean, you're transferring that feeling. We feel it.

Speaker 1 My chest got tight just listening to you. That's right.

Speaker 2 The good news, let's start with the good news. The good news is you've got a job.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 2 The good news is you at least have the information surrounding what's going on with these kids' health. Okay.
So

Speaker 2 it's good to know so you can know what you can do next. Let's talk about

Speaker 2 what's happened since. You've emptied out the Roth.
What's done is done. You can't go back.
It's spilled milk. You know, you kind of have to just move on from that.

Speaker 2 You've emptied emptied out your emergency fund. Good news is that's what the emergency fund is there for.
It's there for when it rains and pours. Okay.

Speaker 2 So let's look at things as they are now and give me a sense of what

Speaker 2 it is that you're trying to accomplish. Like if I said to you, Alyssa, what's next on your, what's most important on your things to do right now? Give me the top three.

Speaker 3 Our credit cards are crumbling.

Speaker 3 They're, they're, they're crippling. They're completely crippling.
Um, our cars paid off.

Speaker 3 We rent. So, you know,

Speaker 3 the rent's getting paid.

Speaker 3 The credit cards are getting paid, but barely.

Speaker 3 And then a lot of the issue really kind of stemmed from

Speaker 3 there are so many credit cards. I had a lot going into the marriage.
We've been married for eight years. I had a lot going into the marriage.

Speaker 3 And then

Speaker 3 just time goes by, things get worse.

Speaker 2 How much credit card debt do you have?

Speaker 3 Between the two of us, I think it's around 80.

Speaker 2 Okay, 80,000. But you said your cars are paid off, which is good.
What other debt do you have?

Speaker 3 Student loans. I think between the two of us, we have 130 in student loans.

Speaker 2 Okay, are you making active payments or is it a super low payment right now?

Speaker 3 He's making payments. I'm not making payments right now.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Do you know how much he's spending on payments every month?

Speaker 3 340, I think.

Speaker 1 It's not a lot. He's really tight minimally.

Speaker 2 Okay, tell me what you guys are bringing in.

Speaker 2 And I know, let's say it like this. What's at your disposal income-wise every month?

Speaker 2 Like, what are you bringing in? And I don't know what's going on with your husband, but if you feel like you can include that or can't include that in this equation.

Speaker 3 Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, no, it's fine.

Speaker 3 He brings home, I think it's like take home, I think it's 15 every two weeks.

Speaker 2 Okay, so $3,000 a month.

Speaker 3 And then the new job I just got, it's a little bit, it's less.

Speaker 3 So I want to say probably like

Speaker 3 $2,400 a month.

Speaker 1 What does he do for a living?

Speaker 3 He's a meteorologist.

Speaker 1 Oh, he's on air.

Speaker 3 No, he's not on air. It's complicated.
He works for a company where they like forecast for like cruising cargo ships and stuff like that. So it's kind of like private type of thing.

Speaker 2 And how much is your rent? How much are you guys paying in rent every month?

Speaker 3 We're only paying $1,650 for a small house.

Speaker 2 Okay, $1,650 you said only, but the truth is it's only 25%. It's over 25% of your take-home.
So you probably are feeling it.

Speaker 2 It's not much over, but it's $350 over. So you're feeling that a little bit.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 What's on fire here is I think you're just,

Speaker 2 I think you've experienced so much in a very little bit of time and it's still like reverberating in your day-to-day life.

Speaker 2 But a lot of it is, it feels like based off what you've said, it feels like a lot of it has kind of started to settle. Is that fair enough?

Speaker 2 Like all this craziness happened and now the ash is settling and we're going, okay. And you're kind of like surveying like, where do we go next? You've got the job.

Speaker 2 You guys are making $5,400 a month, which is not, you know, it's not a bad place to start. I think that's, that's good.
You've got $80,000 in debt and then $130,000 in student loan debt.

Speaker 2 So that's probably what you're feeling right now. But it's not because of the payment because you're not paying on all of that.
So it's just that idea of the debt resting on your shoulders.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 2 let's break it into small pieces because I think right now that's what you need to do.

Speaker 2 If I were you, it's the debt snowball on these snow on these credit cards. Are they current? Are they in collections? Tell us more.

Speaker 3 They're all current.

Speaker 3 The big problem was

Speaker 3 my husband had them on autopay, and he doesn't check them. So I guess there is a month where it didn't go through.
And then it's, you know, it does that thing where it's not getting a payment.

Speaker 3 So it adds and adds and adds.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 2 what you can do is it tends sometimes in relationships, there's people that are better at handling money than others.

Speaker 2 Everybody needs to be involved, but it might be for you to be the one that actually monitors that and pushes play on it. And it sounds like it's going to be that.

Speaker 2 I want you to be on top of this and try to drag your husband in to get on top of this as well. But Ken Coleman, they probably need to go into some counseling.

Speaker 1 I think they got to scrape some money together and you guys need a marital counselor so that a mediator can show him how you're feeling. And he's got to wake up.
This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman alongside my friend Jade Warshaw.
We're so excited to be together for you today, 888-825-5225. Triple 8-825-5225.

Speaker 1 All right, let's go to Salt Lake City, Utah, and Haley is joining us. Haley, how can we help?

Speaker 3 Hi, guys. Thanks so much for taking my call.

Speaker 1 You bet. What's up?

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 so to give you some context,

Speaker 3 me and my husband just got married last May.

Speaker 3 And since then, we've been able able to pay off his $15,000 car loan.

Speaker 3 We purchased a house and saved up a six-month emergency fund.

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so my question is, we bought the house knowing it would need a kitchen renovation.

Speaker 3 I thought I could last a little longer with the current kitchen,

Speaker 3 but it's it's literally falling apart.

Speaker 1 What's going on in my kitchen?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, she says falling apart.
So, Haley, talk to us. Paint us a picture of this kitchen.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so our house is a hundred years old. And

Speaker 3 yeah, it's awesome. But the kitchen probably is from like the 1940s, 50s.

Speaker 3 The flooring, I can see the baseboards to give you some context.

Speaker 3 The floor is crumbling. The sink is caving into

Speaker 3 the counters. And

Speaker 3 this is more of a luxury, I guess you could put this, but it doesn't have a dishwasher. The electrical is outdated, it's actually not up to code.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's dangerous. Yeah, but you fall into the floor

Speaker 1 is not a good idea, and feels like the sink is about ready to turn into a massive plumbing expense. Fair? Yeah, so

Speaker 3 it's functional, but yeah, it definitely needs to be updated, and we knew that.

Speaker 3 But so, we're wondering

Speaker 3 if we should one suck it up, save another year to cash flow the renovation,

Speaker 3 two, take from our emergency fund, or three, get a renovation loan with a 0% financing.

Speaker 1 No, no, no, you knew better.

Speaker 1 So three's off the table. You knew that, Haley, right?

Speaker 3 Yes, to an extent.

Speaker 1 Okay, so let's go back to one. Let's go to option one.
Okay. Suck it up and save for a year.

Speaker 1 How much are you anticipating that the reno would cost?

Speaker 3 We're thinking it will, like on the low end, it would probably be around 20K.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 And how much do you have saved towards that right now? We're not talking your actual emergency fund. Do you have any other savings?

Speaker 3 Yeah, we have probably

Speaker 3 like outside of our emergency fund, about $8,000.

Speaker 1 That's awesome. That's good.

Speaker 1 You're not going to like this answer, Haley, but I would absolutely, the two of you, go, okay, what's it going to take for us to come up with another $12,000 and how fast can we do that?

Speaker 1 And I would be so motivated by that floor and that sink. I would be selling stuff.

Speaker 1 I would be doing everything that I could do to come up with that $12,000. And to be completely honest with you,

Speaker 1 I would cash flow as you go. And what I mean by that is, if this were my house and you were my wife and I was your hubs, I'd be going,

Speaker 1 I got to fix the floor first. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like she, we can't fall through. So, okay, what is it going to take to fix the floor? All right.
And then I'm making this up, Haley, but let's say the, do you have any idea?

Speaker 1 Have you, have you line itemed it out? What's the floor going to take?

Speaker 3 We've done some quotes before. Unfortunately, the floor,

Speaker 3 I've thought the same thing.

Speaker 3 The floor has to unfortunately be like the the very last it has to be that's what I was thinking.

Speaker 1 Oh, is that right? Okay, all right, never mind. So especially if you're changing the footprint.
Well, what about the sink that's literally falling into something? What is it going to cost to fix that?

Speaker 3 That would probably be the most expensive part is like the cab, you know, getting new cabinets and, you know,

Speaker 2 do you have to get new cabinets or you can can you reface the old ones? That's what I'm doing.

Speaker 3 We have to get new cabinets because they're not,

Speaker 3 basically we have to redo the electrical and the sink is taking up all of the counter space because we don't have a dishwasher. It's like a really old

Speaker 1 so you're changing you're changing everything.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it basically, I mean, to an extent, it kind of has to be gutted.

Speaker 2 Listen, the thing I'm most scared about is the electrical because I'm like, how are you only going to, I mean, I'm not an electrician, but if you tell me the electricity is 100 years old or at the very least from the 40s, how can you only fix it in the kitchen and not fix it in the rest of the house?

Speaker 2 Like, I'm afraid.

Speaker 2 I can't imagine opening a 100-year wall and it only being, then there being no problems. So, part of me is like,

Speaker 1 I was trying to get her to pay for an appetizer,

Speaker 1 save up for the entrees. She's like, nope, we got to have a five-course.

Speaker 2 Does your husband know how to do works?

Speaker 3 Does my husband know electrical?

Speaker 1 Any of this stuff?

Speaker 3 Oh, does he know? Sorry, repeat the question.

Speaker 2 Do you guys know how to do stuff

Speaker 1 in your kitchen? Oh,

Speaker 3 we've thrown out the idea of doing stuff ourselves to save money. And I think there's some things we can do, but like

Speaker 3 I also don't want my husband to get electrocuted.

Speaker 2 100%. He has to.

Speaker 1 Well, again. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Haley, listen, back to the point I'm trying to make. Do you disagree with this, Jade? I think they just really hustle and come up with 12 grand.

Speaker 2 I think you need to come up with this money, but I think every plan needs to have a contingency. And in this case, I would be afraid for you to start knocking walls with only $20,000.

Speaker 1 I don't know how you're doing it on $20,000.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 unless this thing is a teeny tiny space, I don't know how you're doing it either. I want you to treat this like,

Speaker 2 I want you to treat this home budget, this home rental budget, as though, I don't know, somebody prominent has hired you to do their budget. Like

Speaker 2 you can't play around with it.

Speaker 1 Like Martha Stewart's hired you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, man. Like you need to go through detail and really make sure you know your numbers on this.

Speaker 2 Really make sure you've priced things out and gotten accurate because you can't, I've lived in a hundred-year-old house. You can't mess around.

Speaker 1 You can't mess around with it.

Speaker 2 And $20,000 feels light.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to lie.

Speaker 2 Try to get that number up.

Speaker 1 Don't finance it because then you're going to be stressed out over it. I would try to live around it and make that your motivation.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's you guys are saving every penny. I'd love for you to have like $30,000 to $40,000.

Speaker 2 to start this like just in case like this is the type of thing you open up the wall and then you find out there's mold everywhere or you open up the wall and you find out there's asbestos like oh yikes i'm only going off of what i'm only going off of what i saw on hgtv you're trying to depress her no but i'm trying to help her i've seen enough of these home shows

Speaker 1 homes on home i totally yeah you're wrong i totally get it

Speaker 1 i totally know what you're talking about oh she's so happy with herself she's she's watched a lot of hgtv watched a lot of tv she's watched a lot of hgtv but yeah yeah don't finance it.

Speaker 1 And the reason is, I know where you're coming with this because you were going like this. Well, look, it's our kitchen.
I mean, it's the house we live in. And

Speaker 2 but you knew that getting into it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And the finance charge on this adds to the stress.
Just avoid this at all costs. Get really innovative.
Let me tell you something.

Speaker 1 I've read a lot of books on innovation, and I'm going to steal something from innovation to give to you, Haley. And I hope it becomes inspiration.

Speaker 2 As long as it rhymes. Come on, Ken.

Speaker 1 Innovation to inspiration. I knew it.

Speaker 1 I know. Don't Don't make me do this.

Speaker 1 Here's what we know about the great innovators. They innovated, they created something because of a lack of resources.
It was the lack of resources, tools, elements, whatever,

Speaker 1 that led them down the process of what we call innovation. And innovation happens best and most.
This is a fact.

Speaker 1 when we are limited and we have to then dive deeper into our imagination. That's right.
And I really believe that if you treat this kitchen project like that, like we ain't got 20,000.

Speaker 1 We ain't got it. We ain't got 50,000.
We ain't got it. We got a problem that we got to solve.
How many different ways can we solve this?

Speaker 1 And next thing you know, you've got an episode of MacGyver.

Speaker 2 That's right. Ken, you're exactly right.

Speaker 2 We find it time and time again when people walk the baby steps when we say, hey, you now are cutting up credit cards and you have a $1,000 emergency fund, right? It causes you to think differently.

Speaker 2 Necessity is a mother of invention, and you start to go, Okay, what can I do to make this work?

Speaker 2 You start looking for other options because we know, Ken, that when people utilize debt, A, you don't have to be creative anymore. No, you can just spend and spend, and you tend to spend more.

Speaker 1 Slap some plastic on it, and that doesn't fix anything.

Speaker 1 So, I really would challenge you. I think you two can figure this out.
And I think on the other side of this, it's going to be less stress, better marriage, better kitchen this is the ramsey show

Speaker 1 welcome back to the ramsey show alongside my friend jade warshaw and ken coleman triple eight eight two five two two fisher for your call today uh you don't want to miss our two night virtual event with dave ramsey and george campbell it's called investing essentials we did this last year and it was just a huge success people want to know uh about how we we teach people to invest because it's overwhelming and confusing, to be quite frank.

Speaker 1 And you can't figure it out in a 60-second reel.

Speaker 1 But at our virtual event, we're going to walk you through maximizing your 401k, mutual funds. You get the most out of your money.

Speaker 1 It's the only place to get Dave's personal playbook on real estate investing.

Speaker 1 And he'll explain how he's made hundreds of millions of dollars in property investments. You can get clarity, which will give you confidence to invest and build wealth.
This is March 4 and 5.

Speaker 1 It's two-night event virtual, so you can watch it from home. Tickets start at $199.

Speaker 1 Wow. $199 on March 4 and 5.
Get your ticket today at ramseysolutions.com slash events, or you can click the link in the show notes. Have I talked about the show notes yet today? No.

Speaker 1 I'm going to talk about the show notes. Tell us.

Speaker 1 If we ever talk about stuff, and we talk about stuff, we know you all are moving around, you're on the exercise bike right now, or I don't know, some of you are on a snow plow. I don't know.

Speaker 1 And you hear something, you go, oh, I can't remember what the URL was. Some of you don't even know what a URL is.

Speaker 1 Just go to the show notes. If you're watching on YouTube, it's right there in the comments, right there below the video window, and your favorite podcast app.

Speaker 1 The show notes, Jade, it's a treasure trove. It is a treasure trove.
All right. That's all I want people to know because I'm that person.

Speaker 1 What did he say? And Stacey's like, what'd you say? And we went, what'd you say? And we were like, we don't even know know what we're saying.

Speaker 2 Yeah, click the link in the show notes. Don't

Speaker 1 call the links. That's all I wanted to say.
It's a PSA. Yeah, good.
All right, let's go to Green Bay.

Speaker 1 Oh, this is exciting because, you know, years ago, Dave wrote not too long ago, Baby Steps Millionaires. Love it.

Speaker 1 And from time to time, we have fun when Baby Steps Millionaires call the show and tell us their story.

Speaker 1 So we've got Alyssa who is waiting in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Alyssa, you're on the Ramsey Show.
How can we help?

Speaker 3 Hey, guys, hi. Thanks so much for having me on the show.

Speaker 1 So you're a baby stuff millionaire. I am.
Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 2 You sound young.

Speaker 3 Oh, I think I'm young. Thank you, Jade.
I'm 34.

Speaker 1 Hey, come on.

Speaker 1 Oh, my. You really, let me just say, Alyssa.
It's a baby. 34 is young.
I don't care what anybody tells you. That's young.

Speaker 2 I'm telling you, it's young. Yeah, it's a fact.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's very exciting. Okay, so tell us your net worth.

Speaker 3 So it's just over a million, about $1,020,000.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Nice.

Speaker 1 That's awesome. And how long ago did you crack the one million mark?

Speaker 3 It happened this fall. And then there are some ups and downs in there, certainly with the market.
But

Speaker 1 give us the mix of what is making up the $1 million net worth.

Speaker 3 Okay. So in investment, so that's regular IRAs, Roth IRAs, for ONKs, and our HSP, we have $430,000.
And our $529,000 for our four children, we have $42,000.

Speaker 3 We have about $480,000 in equity in our home, which will be paid off here soon.

Speaker 3 And about $68,000 in cash.

Speaker 2 Nice.

Speaker 1 All right. So I love this.
I mean, just hitting that $1 million mark, and I love how it's spread out. This is real everyday people.
Yeah. Are you actually in Green Bay or in surrounding area?

Speaker 3 Surrounding area is Appleton, which is

Speaker 1 25 minutes of Green Bay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. Gotcha.

Speaker 2 I love this because a lot of people think a net worth, like when people say, oh, I'm a millionaire, or this person has a million dollar net worth, Alyssa, they think it's they earned a million dollars or they made a million dollars in a year.

Speaker 2 And people forget that your home equity is part of that, right? Like for you, it's cash savings, your 529, your retirement. I just love this picture.
It is, it makes it feel so

Speaker 1 accomplishable. Well, you'll notice none of it's inherited at all.
You've just been building it up and at a very young age, as we like to point out.

Speaker 1 What's the income, household income?

Speaker 3 2024, we topped out at about $300,000.

Speaker 1 Very nice.

Speaker 2 Where did you start?

Speaker 3 We were married in 2013, and we started around $125.

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 1 Household income. That's a good start.
What do you guys do? Yeah.

Speaker 3 My husband's a high school teacher slash some like administrative duties and I am a PA, a physician assistant.

Speaker 1 Wow. Very process people.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 1 And GPA in college for both of you?

Speaker 3 Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 3 My undergrad, I was probably pretty good, like a 3-7. And then in grad school, closer to like a 3-0, just tough.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Good for you. My husband probably did better than me.
He was probably closer to like a 4-0 in his

Speaker 1 position. Well, I don't like people like that.

Speaker 2 How much did, like, having a plan for your money, having a budget for your money, how much do you feel like that played into you guys being able to accomplish this?

Speaker 3 It was everything, Jade. Honestly,

Speaker 3 I will go back and say, like, we got, someone gave us the total money makeover. We got married.
And I like looked at the book and said, like, oh, this is not us.

Speaker 3 I was like one of those classic people who didn't think like school debt was real debt. I was just like, oh, that's good debt.
And then I picked it up a few years later.

Speaker 3 And that's when everything changed, just being intentional. Because we were never bad with money.
We were never like super reckless or anything, but we were just super intentional.

Speaker 3 And now for the last probably five years, we have our every dollar budget that we're always looking at.

Speaker 3 And I think one thing I wanted people to really know from this call was we don't, like, we don't live in a cave either.

Speaker 3 Like, we don't, I know Dave always talks about like, were you like collecting winds and dust in a cave?

Speaker 3 No, like we have a budget, but we have a healthy income and we still get to do really like fun things and save and pay off our house. So

Speaker 3 yes, we were like very aggressive with some things, but we've also been super intentional. And definitely the budget and the program and just

Speaker 3 being motivated by things bigger than us was a big part of our story for sure.

Speaker 2 And I love, it sounds like you're still working to pay the house off. So I love the idea that you're a baby steps millionaire.

Speaker 2 It doesn't, again, it doesn't mean that your house is paid off and you're living in a million dollar mansion.

Speaker 2 Like this can look a lot of different ways and each of those ways is extremely, extremely successful and aspirational. Very, very good.

Speaker 1 Very cool. And you really,

Speaker 1 I was going to ask you, what advice would you give to somebody, that young couple like you? But I feel like you just gave the advice in telling us what you all did.

Speaker 1 But I would ask, you told us what you did, but is there a mindset that you would describe for young couples that are listening or watching right now and hearing your story?

Speaker 1 And they're going, man, 34, they just crossed the millionaire line not too long ago.

Speaker 1 They started out at 22.

Speaker 1 What would you say about mindset?

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 3 I think that's everything. I would say

Speaker 3 start.

Speaker 3 You know, have you, you're not going to reach a goal that you don't set. So I think having a goal is like number one.

Speaker 3 And I think we always talked, my husband and I always talked about we have to understand as a couple what we want.

Speaker 3 Not what, I mean, you can look at social media and you can even like talk to friends and everyone's going to have their things, right? So maybe you love going out to eat or you love vacationing.

Speaker 3 You can't love it all. I mean, you can, but you can't spend your money on it all.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 3 choose what you're going to spend your money on. And then, you know, don't spend money on other stuff just because other people do.
Like, we don't, we don't spend a lot of money on clothes.

Speaker 3 And I don't judge other people that do. We love to go on vacations.
We love, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 What kind of cars you guys drive?

Speaker 3 Really crummy ones.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 1 How crummy are we talking about?

Speaker 3 A 2013 Kia Sorrento.

Speaker 1 All right. That's nice.
That has like 130 miles, 1,000 miles on it.

Speaker 3 And a 2016 Kia Sedona. That's my minivan.

Speaker 2 You are like Sam and I.

Speaker 1 You guys are driving.

Speaker 2 I drive a 2013 Cadillac. I think he drives a 2016 UConn.
And the miles are about the same.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And they're not clear.

Speaker 3 And that's, yeah. I know.
They're perfectly fine for us.

Speaker 1 They're fine for us. Yeah.
Fine for you. They're certainly not flashy.
Good job.

Speaker 3 And they're worth probably less than $20,000 together.

Speaker 1 So what did you do?

Speaker 2 That moment that you logged on to, you know, whatever your app is, that moment that you saw your real estate value and you kind of calculated it and realized, oh my gosh, we made it. What did you do?

Speaker 2 How'd you celebrate?

Speaker 3 I was like, whoa. So I talked to my husband, but then we actually have some best friends who are the same age as us.
And it's like, she is my like Ramsey person that I talk to about all this stuff.

Speaker 3 And we have such a cool relationship that we can chat about that stuff. So I called her up.
They had just reached a million dollar mark. They went out for this amazing dinner together.

Speaker 1 It was fun.

Speaker 3 And it was super fun.

Speaker 1 Love it. Alyssa, thank you so much for calling and sharing your baby steps millionaire story.
34 years of age. Got started a young couple at 22, Jay.

Speaker 2 I love it. Yeah, really fun.
You got to have friends that you can share money wins with.

Speaker 1 All right. I hear you.
You know? I like that. It's good advice.
Hey, don't move. We'll be right back.
This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Colman.
Jade Warshaw is alongside 888-825-5225. Triple 8-825-5225.
Now,

Speaker 1 my partner and I here, we were talking earlier in the show, and

Speaker 1 we talk all the time around the office about this.

Speaker 1 Inflation,

Speaker 1 right? And just there is a natural progression of inflation over time. The Fed, just a kind of a quick review here, because

Speaker 1 Jade's got a little something to share here today. So teeing you up here, because everybody's heard about the Fed.
Jerome Powell, unfortunately, has become a name that everybody knows.

Speaker 1 And to his credit, the Fed is attempting, sometimes I agree with them, sometimes I don't, but they are always attempting to keep inflation

Speaker 1 in that 2%, 2.5% range or so. And when it gets above that, they start paying attention.
And this is where we get the monetary policy.

Speaker 1 And you all are paying attention to the headlines all the time when you see, are they raising rates? Are they dropping rates? All this kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 So it's always an interesting tension between wages, are wages going up?

Speaker 2 Are they outpacing the inflation?

Speaker 1 Are they outpacing inflation? It's very hard for that to happen over long term. So, anyway, nonetheless, what do you got here? You got a little something for us?

Speaker 2 Well, I'm just trying to, I'm trying to make heads or tails of all of it, right? Because it's like we knew in 2022 that inflation was going bananas.

Speaker 2 Like we felt it, the numbers were there, the data supported what we were feeling was true. But then we started to see inflation taper off.
And

Speaker 2 we saw wages start to jump ahead. But yet we were still saying, oh, it's so expensive out there.
It's so crazy. And so my thought was like, okay, what's really happening?

Speaker 2 Because, you know, you're a guy that's following employment. You're following those numbers.

Speaker 2 And I'm looking at this graph here that I saw that really around March of 2023, a little earlier, wages really did start outpacing inflation at a decent rate.

Speaker 2 And I thought, okay, that means that we've got a little bit more margin back as American people. Where is this money going? So I started looking around.

Speaker 2 And, you know, obviously we feel it at the grocery store. Like that's the main place people say, oh my gosh, it's so expensive.

Speaker 2 And around about the time I was looking at this, I saw that NPR came out with a grocery study that basically said they followed the prices of groceries from 2019 until today.

Speaker 2 They went to Walmart and they picked,

Speaker 2 I believe it was 100 different items. And they said, we're going to track this over the course of six years, basically.
And what they found is on average, out of those items that they tracked,

Speaker 2 21 of the items actually got cheaper.

Speaker 2 27 products got more expensive, and the rest of them basically stayed the same. And when you think about it, you're like, okay, that's interesting.
That's not as much as I would have thought.

Speaker 2 Like, I'm thinking everything has gone crazy. Everything's exploding.
And so, again, I'm like, okay, things have started to taper out. What's going on with this money?

Speaker 2 We're also seeing articles that are saying like people are spending more on their credit card than ever before. But at the same time, like investments are doing better than ever, ever before.

Speaker 2 So the question is, is there margin and what are people doing with it? Is it true that wages are actually outpacing inflation? And from your point of view, what do you think about that?

Speaker 1 Well, no, they're not. And they can't.
It's unsustainable. So for instance,

Speaker 1 if we look from a macro, so real big picture,

Speaker 1 you know, wages can't outpace inflation on the regular because it just gets to be too much. Like you just, and so there's this give and take between wages.
It kind of comes up and down.

Speaker 1 It's a bit of a roller coaster.

Speaker 2 So even if you see it in a moment, you're saying it doesn't generally last?

Speaker 1 It does not. So you don't want to get into an apples for apples, is what I'm saying.
The conversation, this idea that, well, inflation over the last quarter was this, so wages should have done that.

Speaker 1 It's not how that works. You're looking at the total.
This is kind of a complex conversation, and I'm trying to keep it simple. Keep it simple.
But

Speaker 1 you can't force on companies this idea when you're in an inflationary period, like we had been, if you go back about two years ago,

Speaker 1 and inflation is really, really high.

Speaker 1 You cannot expect companies to go, well, because inflation is up here, I got to raise everybody's wages because that, again, that drives more inflation. Right.

Speaker 1 Because when they raise wages, they're raising their expenses. They pass those expenses.
So you got to be careful is my point. So this...

Speaker 1 This back and forth and trying to keep that, that's not what you want. What's interesting about this article, as you were talking, that I saw the reason why people feel

Speaker 1 and really see it at the grocery store. By the way, we saw this talked about in the media leading up to this last election.
That's right. You saw it on MSNBC.
You saw it on CNN and Fox.

Speaker 1 My point is it didn't matter what side of the aisle.

Speaker 1 Everybody was feeling the pinch on a lot of consumer goods. And this is what's interesting.
If you look at 2019.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So this is right before the pandemic. Remember, just kind of a quick history lesson because this is crazy.
It doesn't doesn't seem like it was that long ago.

Speaker 2 No, it doesn't.

Speaker 1 But here we sit almost five years.

Speaker 1 We're almost five years to the day, not quite, but five years, a couple of weeks, when the pandemic really begins to hit the U.S. March.
March.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's when it started going bananas, but we now know it was at the Super Bowl

Speaker 1 in Miami. You know, nobody knew.
All right, so here's the point. So if we're January 2025,

Speaker 1 if you go to December 2019,

Speaker 1 U.S. prices cumulatively are up 23%.

Speaker 1 That's where people are feeling it. For instance, a four-pound bag of domino sugar now costs $4.46.
That's 74%

Speaker 1 more than 2019. Compared.
A dozen eggs, $4.90. That's 83% more.
Tide liquid, I could keep going on and on. Why? These are the staples.
So when you're buying these every week,

Speaker 1 these aren't your

Speaker 2 splurges. Yeah, you feel it.
So that's interesting.

Speaker 2 So, well, this is, then that's, that's kind of, I mean, it goes back to our conversation earlier when we were talking about the tariffs and new administration and that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 If we were feeling it before and it was because of other issues, you know, back then, right now they're saying the prices are up because of, you know, all sorts of, it could be utilities and insurances for businesses to run.

Speaker 2 And so they're passing that along to the consumer. It could be extreme weather, right, with crops.
And so because of that, that price is passing on to the consumer.

Speaker 2 But then, if you add, I don't know, other things coming into this. So, you're saying, basically, what you're saying is, no, the consumer has every right to feel this.
And even if they have,

Speaker 1 it's real. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, here's what's happened. You can't get all hung up in inflation cost per month because what happens is you have a large spikes.
So, back to the quick timeline. This will be helpful for folks.

Speaker 1 We go into the pandemic, Jade, starts in, let's call it 2020, early 2020, and the whole world shuts down.

Speaker 1 All right. So in that moment, you did have multiple, let's call it storms converging for a massive once-in-a-generation, I hope, financial storm.

Speaker 1 One, the scarcity, because we had supply chains interrupted. The whole world shut down for a while.
Every state was different. Every country was like, what are we doing?

Speaker 1 Secondly, demand did increase a couple months in when people started going, okay, I'm at home. I'm working from home, but I got to have food.
Remember, we saw liquor stores, things staying.

Speaker 1 So here's what happened. This is interesting.

Speaker 1 So all of that comes into natural economic factors, which makes demand higher and scarcity, and that created an increase. Here's what this article says, and it's absolutely right.

Speaker 1 I'm reading from this article, big price increases are rarely followed by equally big price decreases. That's right.

Speaker 1 Well, it's like, that's what I want to tell everybody.

Speaker 2 It's not going to go back to what it was.

Speaker 1 And that's the key point. While the inflation rate has cooled, your $4 sugar is here to stay.

Speaker 2 It's not leaving.

Speaker 1 That's what's unfortunate.

Speaker 2 Well, that, and that's.

Speaker 1 Unless you get into depressionary and very serious recessionary forces, that can make those go down. But by and large, if we stay in a somewhat healthy economy, Jade, these prices are here to stay.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, it's, like you said, it's gone up 25%, but over the last year, it's gone up less than 1%.

Speaker 2 So it's not still climbing at that ridiculous rate.

Speaker 1 Good news, bad news. Yeah.
Good news is inflation as we see it has cooled. Bad news is companies don't just go, well, you know what?

Speaker 1 For the last five years, people have been paying $4.66 for this sugar, and we used to sell it for only $2.

Speaker 1 Let's go back. They're not going to go back.
And so there comes in the evil capitalism prize and the rub between,

Speaker 1 and by the way, this is the tension that exists in America today. Absolutely.
Is people go, wait a second.

Speaker 1 You used to charge me this. Now you're charging me this.
Come on.

Speaker 2 Think about it.

Speaker 1 So there's the tension.

Speaker 2 Sam and I went out to dinner, and you know, everybody has the menus on the screen now that you do the QR, which I hate because it makes you get your phone out at dinner.

Speaker 2 But they figured out, that was one of the things that they figured out. This is a lot cheaper for us.

Speaker 2 And we ain't going back.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're not going to print menus. You know what else they figured out? Go to the coffee shop in my neighborhood.

Speaker 1 Sweet little gal makes me a coffee, then turns the screen and goes, Would you like a tip? I feel like going, no, I just want my coffee.

Speaker 1 This is the Ramsey Shark.