Your Payments Are Keeping You Middle Class

This is the Ramsey Show, where we help you win in your life, win with your money, win in your work, and win with your relationships. So excited that you're with us.
888-825-5225 is the phone number. 888-825-5225.
I'm Ken Coleman, joined by the absolutely incomparable, the fabulous Jade Warshaw. We've got a great studio audience today.
I've got to just say, the studio's packed. They're a lively bunch.
Yeah, they look very excited to be alive, and that's always exciting. They're here.
They always give us a little extra juice, so we want to say thank you to all of you who are here. Let's get right to it.
It's time to coach some people up. Carly is going to start us off in St.
Louis, Missouri. Carly, how can we help today? Yeah, I recently purchased a home within five years ago with my ex-boyfriend now, and we are separated.
He has a restraining order against me, and I'm not sure where to go at this point. I have violated it a few times.
I'm trying to get my belongings back. Okay.
And I know I've been trying to make a partition suit or going on a route for what my rights are. And we have a dog together.
That's the most important part, really. So you were in the relationship.
You bought the house together. Are both of your names on the deed? They are, yes.
Okay. And he's the one still living in the house and you are the one who no longer lives in the house, correct? Yes.
Okay. You're legally not allowed to go to the house or you're just not allowed to go to the house when he's there um i am not allowed actually that's a really good question i'm pretty sure i'm not allowed to go to the house at all listen i'm going to ask the questions that inquiring minds want to know what did you do to get the restraining order can we ask i was i wasn't gonna do it.
He lied. He lied.
He lied. He just did a deposition and he lied.
So you didn't do anything. He said that you did what? Didn't do anything.
He lied. He lied.
He's on a deposition and I contacted the judge and he lied. And the problem is I'm not an attorney.
And I told the attorney this i talked to law enforcement i've contacted them at least 10 times they don't want to get involved or if they do and they're a nice police officer they tell me what to do and say hey you need to tell the judge contacted the judge but the judge can only do so much when i email them um okay so i don't i've lost my job i've lost everything and the only thing i have left is really my house and my dog really i don't care when they closed 95 of the house it's a very large home i don't even care you know, about that. Where are you living now? With my parents.
Oh, I'm so sorry. So you have a place to be.
You're not homeless, correct? No. Okay.
So, sweetheart, we are so sorry for you. You've got a lot going on here.
But I have a lot of legal troubles because of this, and I can't get a job now.

Because of the restraining order?

Because I broke it.

Oh.

So this is now, like, off.

It's really tough.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, this is tough.

I'm sorry.

You can't get a job because you broke the restraining order.

And he has filed property damage.

He filed property damage?

Well, personal property damage and theft.

Okay.

Even though it's from my own home.

Yeah.

That I'm on the deed and mortgage deal.

Right.

I just, it's insane.

So is your primary, sweetheart,

we got to try to figure out what little we can do here today. And so I want to help.
So a couple things. Did you call us today to figure out how to get out of this house? Is that? I want to move on.
I want to do something. I can't move on.
I can't buy a house. Yeah.
It's a very expensive house. What is the house worth? It's worth about a million dollars.
Holy crap. And what do you two owe on it? Like $340.
Okay. So I'm just trying to take some liberty here to try to get us going forward where we can help.
If you could sell it today, if you could somehow get him to agree to sell it, and you got off of this loan, and you started moving on, and you guys came to some settlement, that would be your ideal situation on the house. Obviously, I know you want to get the dog, but I can't help with the dog, so I'm trying to focus on what we can, and I'm so sorry.
Is that what's your idea? Is that why you called us today? I want to do something. I'm just...
Have you talked to a lawyer? Well, you've got to get a lawyer. I have two or three lawyers.
Okay. Okay.
And what are they telling you? Just take a deep breath. I don't know.
Nobody knows anything. Nobody can help.
It's just... I don't have any money.
Do your parents have any money? No, they don't anymore. Everybody's just...
So let's... Let me bring this down.
Let's talk about best and worst case scenario. Worst case scenario is you let this ride for a while, but since both of your names are on the deed, both of your names are on the loan, the negative side of this is if for some reason he decides to stop paying the payment, your name is on it, right? And so it affects your credit.
He's not going to do that. Yes, but you don't know that.
I'm talking about the worst case scenario. Let me talk.
Let me talk. Let me talk.
I'm talking about the worst case scenario. You don't know what he's going to do.
Okay. So the worst case is anything that you guys have your names together on the debt, whether it's a car or a house, if the person who's been paying the bill stops paying the bill, it has the effect on either of you since both of your names are on it.
That's the negative. So what the ideal scenario is, let's get our names off of this.
Now, you're on a restraining order. You can't go onto the property.
Let's honor that. Is there a way that you can contact him and say, I want to divvy up our assets and I want to split them.
Are you open to that? And just find out, what has he said? Is he open to selling the property? Do you know that? His attorney doesn't respond. Okay.
Have you, not the attorney, have you talked to him? Do you know that? His attorney doesn't respond.

Okay.

Have you, not the attorney, have you talked to him?

Do you know or will he not talk to you?

I'm not allowed to contact him.

Okay.

I want to jump in.

I can ask him tomorrow.

Okay.

Here's what I think. Or within the next couple weeks.

Yeah.

When you get a chance to, whatever the arrangement is, because there's legalities here, find

out what his sentiment is. If he's out to jack you, then yeah're gonna have to get a lawyer and here's the thing if your lawyers aren't doing anything fire them and get somebody who will yeah it sounds like you're not working with good attorneys and so you can change that you're overwhelmed and you should be but i'm i'm here to kind of grab you by your collar and kind of shake you a little bit because...
Please. Can I jump in there and shake a little bit? Yeah, shake.
Carly, I understand about the legality of the restraining order, but this idea, this notion that you can't work and make money right now, you're going to have to absolutely reject that. That's not true.
If I were you, if nothing else, you can babysit, you can walk dogs, you can do so many things. And you have the one benefit you got going for you right now is a place to be safe with mom and dad with very little expenses.
Sweetheart, you've got to make money doing seven jobs. Quite frankly, your life is an absolute disaster.
And the best thing for you right now is to put all of your effort into working. You can't be in pain if you're working and busy.
Number one. Number two, we need the income, Jade, because she's got to fire her lawyers and get a legitimately decent lawyer who gets you in front of the judge and we begin to unravel this thing.
You need money so you can get a good lawyer and get in front of the judge. That's it.
Those are the three things in your life right now. That's all you have time for.
Do that, and you'll get out of this mess. 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 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. Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman, and you have joined the conversation about you here on The Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225.
It's hard to believe. I feel like I sound like my dad right now.
Okay, let's hear it. But like, where did the year go? Like I'm that guy who says that now.
100%. You know what I'm saying? The fact that it's October? Yeah.
And the holidays are right around the corner. I stinking was in the mall last weekend and ran into a Christmas decoration.

Yeah, that's early. That's a whole other rant.

That's a whole other rant.

It is.

But I bring this up.

You're probably wondering where you're going with this, kid.

Have your meds worn off or you got a point?

You tell us.

The point is the holiday season is here,

and that means everybody's budgets are going to be a little tight.

We got all this pressure.

We probably didn't plan for it.

Some of us are in the baby steps out there that are listening and watching right now.

They're going, what are we getting everybody for Christmas?

And so it's time for a really great and relevant webinar.

How about our EveryDollar free live training coming up Thursday, October 24th, 1 Eastern, 12 Central.

You can register for free at RamseySolutions.com slash webinar.

Click the link in the description of the podcast, or if you're on YouTube, we've got a link there for you. We've got over 100,000 people registered.
That's bananas. That's a lot.
That's what it says. Are my eyes deceiving me, or is this right? Over 100,000 people registered for this free live training.
Oh, in the past! Oh, okay. I was about to say these people are lining up.
This is what happens when you don't read the entire sentence and you have ADHD, folks. But it's over 100,000 people in the past.
So this is a popular training. Again, it's coming up this Thursday.
This is a lunch and learn. Uh-huh.
And I don't know if you could do anything better with your lunchtime. So there you go.
RamseySolutions.com slash webinar this Thursday, October 24th, 1 Eastern, 12 Central Time. All right, Columbus, Ohio is where we go now, and CJ is there.
CJ, how can we help today? Thank you guys for answering my call, first of all. But my question is, so I bought a vehicle a couple months back, a RT Durango.
And I love the vehicle, obviously, but I feel that it stops me from investing. I'm 21 years old, and I watch your guys' podcast relatively often.
And my biggest goal was, obviously, I want to start a Roth IRA. but I feel that the payment on my vehicle is kind of like it gets in the way of that.
That's good. What's that payment? Tell us.
$625. Hey, ooh, yeah.
Yikes. I need to get my Tums.
Where are the Tums? Well, let's make it worse for Ken. He's going to have to go extra strength because what's your income every month? So I'm a union worker.
It's different every month. What's a good month and what's a bad month? I mean, one month I could bring home.
A good month is probably around $7,500 or $8,000. Okay.
That's on the top end. But on the lower end, $4,000.
So, I mean, minimum, I'm probably bringing home $1,000 a

month. Okay.
Yikes. Yeah, it's definitely getting in the way, Jade.
That payment's in the way. It's 100% in the way.
And I'm glad that you're realizing that because we say it all the time here. The car payment is what keeps middle class, middle class.
It's what keeps you broke and it's what keeps you from getting ahead because that $625, let me tell you something, that's suspiciously close to what you're supposed to be investing every single month. So let's find out if you're at the point of investing.
Okay. So you've been listening for a little while.
We teach a series of baby steps and investing is baby step four. Okay.
And before you can invest, we talk about clearing out your debt, saving up three to six months of expenses. So my question is, have you paid off all of your debt? No, I have the loan on the vehicle.
That's my only debt is the loan on the vehicle. That's it.
But any other debt, yeah, it's paid off. So before, I've watched you guys probably since I got out of high school.
Which obviously obviously it's only been like three years but uh so i had a decent emergency fund and then i how much how much because i got bored it was it was like eight thousand dollars which i was living at home at the time so you said was yeah what's it now nothing probably a thousand Well, is it nothing or is it a thousand dollars? Cause that's a big difference. I don't, I don't have anything in it right now.
All my money's in my savings or not my savings. I'm sorry.
My checking. Got you.
Okay. So let's clarify this.
Let's make it simple. So baby step one, you need a thousand dollars of savings.
Don't keep it in your checking account.

Anytime you have savings, you want to keep it separate from where your month-to-month money goes

because you don't want to, in quotes,

accidentally spend it, right?

And so you're going to take that $1,000,

you're going to drop it in, I don't know,

just a basic savings account

or a high-yield savings account.

Either one is fine,

but you're going to get it out of your checking account.

That's thing one.

That money is there for an emergency.

An emergency is something that is completely, but you're going to get it out of your checking account. That's thing one.
That money is there for an emergency. An emergency is something that is completely unexpected, completely necessary.
Like I got to do this. And there's got to be like a time constraint.
Like I got to do this fast, right? If it's something that you got to do in three months, then it's not really that much of an emergency, right? So it's got to filter. It's got to check those three boxes in order for you to pull from that fund now we focus on the car what all do what do you owe on the car 36 000 36 000 and if you were to sell it what could you get uh it definitely holds negative equity right now all right uh because i just got it three, four months ago.
I could probably get 27 or 28 out of it. It dropped that much because of negative equity.
Okay. And that's private sale or are you looking at trade in value? That's trade in value.
I think private sale, I might be able to push 29 or 30, but I don't think it's going to be. Well, look it up.
Because I got it $430. Okay.
Oh, wow. Okay.
Look it up on Kelley Blue Book and see exactly what you could get if you sold it on your own. Yeah, that's your best option.
Okay. Then, either way, you know, to your point, since you said, I want to get out of this car, if I were you, let's pretend you're actually $8,000 upside down.
I'd probably go to my credit union and get a loan for it and a little bit more so you can buy something in cash. Maybe you spend five or six in cash.
But at the end of the day, I'd rather have a loan for $16,000 than a loan for $36,000. Agree? Right.
That was my question. Uh-huh.
Yeah, that was my question is how you guys would go about it because I just feel like it weighs you down a little bit. Obviously, I have extra coming in every month still on top of the car payment.
I can keep it if I wanted, but I feel like I could be so much better off if I just didn't pay on the car. You're a smart guy.
Yeah, you're right. By the way, you do exactly what Jade said, exactly what she said.
That's the answer to your question, because you're going to probably cut your payment in half. And all of a sudden we have a much more manageable debt that we got to get rid of at $16,000.
And so that's going to motivate you. It's going to give you a little bit of breathing room because that payment's going to come down, obviously.
That's the textbook answer. So that's what you got to do.
There's no wiggle room on this. Because every week, month that you delay, this car keeps putting you in a bigger negative hole.
So, like, this decision needs to be made today. Like, we're trying to unload this car in the next week.
Okay? Intensity. So, the question is, if you did this, if you got off the phone today and did what we just told you to do, how quickly could you save up six months of expenses? Very quickly.
I have a significant other that helps me with utilities and rent, and she, I'll hear she's debt free and all that. I mean, we're obviously just dating, so funds aren't joined yet.
Okay. But I do have somebody helping me with half expenses at home as well, which does help.
Yeah, and the other question I have is what kind of work are you doing? Construction. Do you have, I don't know the rules where you are, can you do side stuff or does the union prohibit that? Certain ones do.
Mine doesn't because I'm just a laborer. Get after it, baby.
But I have looked into getting my own side gig and stuff like that. Get after it.
Yeah, I got to get everything figured out. No, no, you don't.
Just get after it. You don't have to figure out anything.
You have a skill, experience. You know your market.
You got pretty decent on those good months. That's a really nice paycheck.
But right now, you need to get out there and get that car paid off quickly and then get the six months emergency fund. I mean, this is just a function of you working really hard.
And can I tell you the opportunity cost? Here's why you're smart, because you figured out early, this 625 car payment is doing me and I need to get rid of it. If tomorrow you do what we said and you start investing that $625, dollars.
Oh you're 65, you're going to have $5.9 million, which is suspiciously close to $6 million if you don't do anything else with your life except invest $625 a month. Mic drop.
You don't have to figure anything out. Jay just told you what to do.
He figured it out. That smart he is i know but this is all about effort effort turns into six million dollars wow all right quick break we'll be right back this is the ramsey show all right dave you have some strong opinions possibly yeah i think so okay because you really prefer credit unions over big banks.
So why is that? Well, credit unions, for one thing, are non-profit, which means that the members, the customers, own the credit union. So any profits that the credit union makes goes back into customer pricing.
So you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking, and so on, that kind of thing. But what's more important than that, though, is the fact that the customer is the owner changes the spirit on the credit union.
So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer-centric. Yes.
Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible, and that's Fairwinds. They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer.
You know, that's why we're partnering with them, because they've got a scope to be able to handle the Ramsey audience, and they're the right kind of people with the right kind of values. And they've done a really, really good job with customer service, and the deals that they're offering, the Ramsey tribe is incredible.
Yeah, absolutely. And you're right.
Their customer service is unbelievable. Winston and I just signed up and we got an account and I'm not kidding.
It took, it took less than five minutes. It was so user friendly.
Like the step-by-step approach was unbelievable. And then the next day my phone rings and it says 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. Hey folks, welcome back to the Ramsey show.
I'm Ken Coleman and Jade Warshaw is in studio with me. 888-825-5225 is the phone number for us to coach you up.
She'll be leading on the budgeting and what to do with the debt calls. And I'm going to lead on how to make more money, how to move up in your professional life so we can make more money, more freedom.
That's the theme there. So we'd love to hear from you.
And how about a question from the Ramsey Network app, Jade? You up for one of those? Sounds good. Let's do it.
All right. This is from Ann.
She writes, I'm engaged and my fiance just bought an RV. You ready for this? Hard swallow.
$240,000. But he's not sure how he's going to pay for operating it.
Yikes. What? I'm concerned that he may take a loan out.
So he'll not only have a monthly payment, but also all the expenses and upkeep that go along with owning an RV. My question is, how do I proceed? Because we plan to get married next year and we disagree on money issues.
Yikes. Oh, wow.
Yeah, that's a big red flag dude went and bought an rv i don't think i realized that rvs were this expensive oh man yeah that's a house oh yeah on wheels basically okay yeah yeah oh but but doesn't go up in value right dropping like a rock yeah dropping like a rock okay you should be concerned the fact that she's concerned that he's going to take a loan out makes sense. He took a loan out for the RV.
So yeah, he'll probably take a loan out for the upkeep. The biggest issue is they don't agree, agree on the money issues.
Ken, I don't know about you. I believe that money, it's one of those big overarching themes.
You've got to be aligned on. It's money, politics, religion, and how you see raising your kids and family, that kind of thing.
I agree. And so this is a big one.
The best way, I think, to call this out is just to sit them down and say, listen, here's what we've said our plans are together. We obviously plan to get married.
I've started noticing that you and I have different views on how we view money and how we view debt. Can you tell me a little bit more of how you see that playing out in the future? And maybe just kind of set him up with some questions.
Hey, in the future when we want a car, what do you think we would do? Would we try to save up and pay cash or do you think we would take out a loan? And just kind of ask him, learn more about what he would say. And then you, once you've heard his response, then you come back and say, okay, well, here's my viewpoint.
I think that if we were going to buy cars, I'd like to pay cash. And here's why.
And here, and then lay out your side and say, I just want to have a clear conversation and see, is there a way that we can get on the same page with this? Because this feels like it could cause problems down the line and I don't want that for us. And you just have to have a hard conversation.
Yeah. I agree with everything you said.
I'd probably ratchet up the technique here. Tell me.
Yeah. I'm going to go with the, he needs a text.
What do you mean? I'm going to tell you. You're going to text him the questions? No, I'm going to text him and say, we need to talk.
Okay, now you know that. That strikes fear.
If you didn't have bubbles in your tummy, when you receive that text, you will have bubbles. You need bubbles.
We need bubbles. This is a bubbles.
This is a bubbles level conversation. Oh man.
So you want to create uncomfortability going in? He needs to know how serious it is. Okay.
This is not a manipulative power play. It is a, we need to talk.
It's time to define the relationship. Ah.
Because she says in this question, I am really concerned that we don't see eye to eye. And I think I agree with everything you said.
I just would put some seriousness on it. It's not a threat.
Serious sauce. It's not manipulation.
I'm just saying it needs to be. I don't know that we should be talking about getting married.
Or no, I don't know. We shouldn't be talking about getting married.
If we can't get this on point. We've got to press pause on this because this will break us down the road and this has nothing to do with my feelings for you i think it's that serious okay so i'm approaching this as if she were my daughter okay but here's here's let me push on this a little bit there we go this is why people show up let me push on this a little bit okay i would be afraid because love goggles make you can make you change parts of yourself can you and this is embarrassing but give me a real quick 15 second on what love goggles means i think i know but i'm not sure i've ever loved goggles are you see them and everything's perfect because you've got like these look you don't notice their back hair you don't notice you know the little things that after you get married you'll start to notice you know okay okay so you think she's got love goggles yeah she did she doesn't now no she doesn't but my point is if he has love goggles on if she makes it feel like an ultimatum uh-huh then he might change some of his answers in order to get what he wants and i'm not saying like maliciously you're like in a diabolical way.
I'm just saying that sometimes the pressure. Yes.
Because the truth is you are your best self when you're in your dating phase. You're your best, like you're on your best behavior.
And so he could be like, Oh yeah, yeah, honey, you know, we don't have to do that. So you think my approach helped me? How is my approach? Not how does she then? Because I think i think if she just makes it a conversation and we're talking she's more likely to get the real answer but if she puts the stress of we need to talk we need to define this relationship then he could feel the need to be like well okay okay yeah yeah no debt no debt that's fine that's fine but that may not be really where his heart is that i know okay so okay so let's say i go with your approach.
I'm not there yet. Okay.
Fair enough. Let's fine.
But that may not be really where his heart is. That.
I know. Okay.
So, okay. So let's say I go with your approach.
I'm not there yet. Okay.
Fair enough. Let's say she has that conversation and then there's no real, there's no real outcome.
Then I think she can ratchet it up. Oh, I see.
I think I would start a little more casual. So you like my plan.
You just aren't ready to push that button yet. Yeah.
We're on, we're on like level two and you were coming in hot on medium high. That's fair.
And listen, I can now say, I understand that, but you know what I was truly coming at it from? If it's your daughter. If it's my daughter, and she's having this conversation, she says, Dad, what would you do? I went, Dad.
I pushed the Dad button, everybody. Jade, thank you for pulling me off of it a little bit.
If it was my daughter, I'd be like, let me go talk to her. Okay, hello.
You just took me and said, hold my beer, and I'm going to kick the door down. All right.
All right, very good. But you get my point.
Yes, I do. I would say this.
I think you said it well, and I want to park it here. Okay.
Can we park it? Yeah, that's a good pun. Because here's why.
You nailed it on the things that cause marriages to splinter and unfortunately break. You gave a whole list.
Kids, faith, politics, money. Yeah.
Excuse me. And to that point, we have a lot of new people that are joining this program all the time.

Yes.

I'm parking it here because I think it's important that we share with people why this actually happens. There are deep-seated habits that come from beliefs, the environment, on all of those issues.
You could pick any of those issues. We're only talking money right now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when you have two completely different value sets, and you mentioned love goggles, let's just talk about money goggles.
Okay. If the two sets of goggles and the way you see money are so different, it literally can cause chaos in your relationship, true or false.
Is that too strong of a statement? No, I think that's exactly right. How does it cause chaos? Well, you know, think about it.
One is, let's filter it through the question. She is a person, obviously, a little bit more frugal.
She sounds like she's debt averse. She sounds like she understands the value of keeping your income every month.
And that might be because all of that belief is because of how she's experienced the world up until this point. And then he's the opposite.
I'm not saying he's a bad guy. I'm just saying that his beliefs are based on how he's experienced the world up until this point.
And when you want somebody to change what they believe based on how they've experienced the world. That is a hard fought fight.

Yeah, it's their default mode. It's their default mode.
So it's not just as simple as we'll change. Well, I got to go back in and I got to figure out how do I feel about this? And what does that mean about me? Because I've always operated like this because of this.
So it's not just a surface level request. That's right.
Hey, I don't want to use debt anymore. Oh, okay.
No problem. Like it's, it's never that these are.
And that's why I say when it comes to these money issues, we do say can, sometimes it might sound a little bit flippant. Get on the same page with your money.
Yeah. And the point is, it's not a light switch that you just flip up or flip down one day.
It's a journey. I agree.
And I would say on all of those issues, I think all those issues should come up in premarital counseling. Can I just put that out there? But I certainly believe money ought to.
Just press pause. Don't get married until you get on the same page with this stuff.
I think you're going to save yourself a ton of stress and everything else. My goodness, it's that important.
So just a little relationship thing. We talk about this.
Relationships and money, folks, you just cannot untie those. They are tied together, whether you like it or not.
So really good stuff. All right.
Quick break. Don't move.
More calls. They're all lined up, folks.
We're going to get to them. This is The Ramsey Show.
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That's nokbox.com slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.
I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is in studio with me, 888-825-5225.
Thrilled to have you with us.

We're here to coach you up.

Let's go to Brandon in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Brandon, how can we help today?

So I just enrolled in an HSA this year,

and I'm wondering if it makes sense.

Okay. I had a couple of hospital visits pop up this year,

and I'm anticipating the same thing next year.

So even with the compounding interest, if I'm spending thousands of dollars each year,

does it make sense to still hold on to the HSA?

Well, it depends.

I mean, when you do know that you're going to have qualified medical expenses,

it could make sense to pay for them through the HSA. And in that way, you're not taxed on that money.
So that could make sense for you. So you're thinking about it more through the lens of your actual health purchases.
You're not thinking about it as an investment vehicle, which a lot of our callers do, correct? Well, no, I am looking at it as an investment vehicle. I'd like to have it, you know, in retirement.
Oh, okay. Well, in that case, an HSA is a great idea if you know that you don't go to the doctor much, if you're willing to have that higher deductible because maybe you know that you're not going to meet it, that could be great for you.
And then, of course, if you're thinking about it as a retirement vehicle, that's great, but it would not be my first choice. It would be what I would do, maybe tertiary to a 401k or a Roth IRA, and then I'd go in and do an HSA.
Have you already maxed out those other options? I have not. Okay.
So yeah, for that. I've been paying for everything out of pocket so far.
Okay. So if we're looking at it through the lens of strictly investing, yeah, I'm starting with a 401k.
If I have it through my work, you know, start with that. If there's no match, you start with a Roth IRA first.
Now, for the use of, hey, I want to filter some of my actual health expenses through this, then yeah, you could fund it up to the point of, yeah, I know that I'm going to spend, I don't know, $3,000 on healthcare this year. So I'm going to put that in there and then I'm going to use that HSA to then pay for those expenses.
You could 100% do that. But I would not overfund it to the point of investing.
Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay.
It's set up weird where I have to have $2,000 in the regular HSA and then everything above and beyond I can invest. Yes.
And if you know, hey, at this point, the $2,000 that are in there, I'm actually going to use that on health care costs this year.

And this is a great funnel for it.

Yeah, I'm all for that.

But as far as you overfunding it to the point that you can then invest the rest, I would not do that until I've overfunded my 401k and Roth IRA. Make sense? Yeah.
And I'm giving the max up to the match for the 401k,

and I'm slated to max out the Roth IRA. Okay, great.
Good for you. Yeah, and if you do all three of those, you are what's known as winning at life.
That's amazing. Yeah, congratulations.
Thanks for the call. Yeah, good call.
By the way, speaking of winning at life, you dropped tertiary out there. I want to just give a little shout out to that.
It's a great word. Tertiary? Yeah.
Yeah. That's a word, by the way.
You figure out how to use that right. Drop that in a sentence this week.
You get a good brand at work. So there you go.
Just call that out. Thanks for the call out, Ken.
I was impressed. Tertiary.
I appreciate that. Yeah.
Very nice. Word of the day.
Connor's up next in Boston. Connor, how can we help? Hi, Ken.
Hi, Jade. Love you guys.
Thanks so much for taking my call.

You bet.

What's going on?

All right.

So my wife and I just got married.

We're in the process of combining our finances.

And I basically have a retirement question.

Okay.

My question is, should we convert the money that we have in our traditional 401ks into Roth?

Or should we just, from this point forward forward put money into the Roth 401k option? Okay. What baby step are you in? We're in baby step 3b.
We're currently renting and we're going to be renting for the next couple of years because we're not going to be in the city that we're in long term. Yeah.
I mean, how much do you have? Can I ask you a quick? How much do you have in your 401k? Yeah, so across my wife and my accounts, we have about $220,000 in there. Our household income is about the same.
Okay, good. Very good.
Typically, we would wait until baby step six to make a rollover like that because the truth is you're going to be on the hook for some taxes associated with that, obviously. Right.
And with the goals that you have up until this point, in this case, it's saving for a down payment. It could really eat into that goal that you have.
So for this matter, you may, you know, yeah, from this point on, I would do Roth style. That's what I would invest in, But I probably would wait to roll it over until you're ready to fit the tax bill and that it's not going to put a dent in your other very important goals.
So, yeah, you could wait until baby steps to do that. Okay, great.
Thank you very much. Absolutely.
Love that call. They're rocking.
Love hearing that. Spokane, Washington, near your birthplace.
Isn't that right? The city where, hey, before we go to Spokane, let me go back to that because somebody might be like, why do they want to do that? What's the purpose? So their 401k that they have now, they have not paid taxes on that money, right? And what they're trying to set themselves up for is a situation that when they get into retirement, they can pull money and not have to pay taxes on it. So if you do a Roth account, you're paying the taxes upfront so that when you're 59 and a half and older, you can pull money from that and you're not taxed on it.
So most people would like to carry that burden now instead of waiting for later. So that's the purpose of that.
And whenever you attempt to move that money that you have not yet paid taxes on it, well, then you will have to pay taxes on it. Okay.
No, good explanation. I'm glad you did that.
All right. Randy's up in Spokane, Washington.
Randy, how can we help? Hi, Ken. Hey, I was recently let go in my mid-50s from an executive position making more than 200 grand a year.
And since I'm completely debt-free, everything, and I have a pretty good nest egg set aside investment-wise, I'm thinking about making a career change. But to start out, I'd be making maybe 50 a year the first couple of years.
Later on, it goes up. But it's something that gets me out of the corporate stress and the hassle.
I don't have to move. It's right down the road from my house that's completely paid for.
Does that sound weird? No, it doesn't sound weird given what you just experienced. I mean, when you lose a job like that, that is a real shot.
We know from psychology studies that it's the equivalent of losing a loved one. So number one, I'm sorry that happened to you.
Number two, it's not weird for you to be thinking through this. My first question comes down to the transition phase.
So financially, can you make ends meet making this pivot to the $50,000 a year deal? And then how long would you have to live in that situation? Yeah, so I'm cash flowing it all out, and I have access to about a quarter million dollars in cash outside my 401k investments, Ross, all that. So my thought is that while I learned this new career path, maybe I paid myself three grand a month out of that month of cash that I have.
And, you know, we just live a little bit more than what we were doing before. Right.
So that's $36,000. Jayden and I are keeping track of the money.
So would that then get you to a place where we've got margin if you used $36,000 of the $250,000 that you got set aside? That's what my spreadsheets tell me. Okay.
Now, I'm just curious, what is this new path? Being a surveyor, a licensed surveyor. Okay.
And so how much is it? Excuse me. Is that a government job? Is that like a county level, state level? Or is it private? No, it's actually a little private company that they have their own little firm and run a little business.
All right, so $50,000 a year for how long before it goes up, and then what does it go up to? Probably the first couple years, and then as you get more experience and you're running your own jobs and everything gets into 70, 80, 90 grand a year. Yeah.

Well, at that point it's just me and my wife.

And you've got in your investment situation, you started off the call saying your investment situation is good.

In this situation, I'm okay with this.

I just wouldn't limit myself just to the, to the 50,000.

I'd be doing some other stuff in the meantime,

because I really don't want to use any of that 250 I've set aside.

That would be my advice.

If you love it and you can make that change, then I'm okay with it.

It's not my favorite idea, but not a bad idea.

This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome to The Ramsey Show where we coach you to win in your life,

specifically winning in your money or with your money, winning in your work, and winning in your relationships. The phone number for you to get coached up today is 888-825-825-825-825-825-825-825-825-8.
888-825-5225. We'll start it off in the Motor City, Detroit, Michigan.
Sarah is on the line. Sarah, how can we help? Hello? Hi.
How are you? Hi. Good.
How are you doing? Good. What can we help with? Well, first of all, thank you for taking my call.
I love you guys. You guys are absolutely amazing and helped me so far.
The challenge I'm facing now is I have $300,000 worth of debt, and I just can't see a way out. I'm working three jobs, and it just,

it just doesn't seem to work. Wow.
Well, break it down for Jade here. So start off with your income through the three different jobs.
Give us a range, and then walk her through your debt. My salary position, I bring in 80.
I'm sorry, my salary is 80. I gross, I'm sorry, I bring in 80, and then I net 55 when you take out tax insurance.

And then I have a second job that I gross 40, but then I'm an independent contractor, so I have to take out taxes and stuff. So I net about 30 to 35,000.
And then I have another part-time job that brings in about 600 bucks a month. Okay.
Okay. So 72 on the 85.
So you're somewhere in that 92, 93 range with those numbers. Is that right? Net? Yeah.
I mean, that sounds amazing, but that's, yeah. Yeah, but you can do something with that.
Yeah. Dr.
Jade is in today, so it's going to be okay. I'm going to pretend like you didn't say that.
The debt doctor, no? Oh, okay. Okay that you didn't know what i was doing i didn't know where you were going sarah now that i know where he's going you can do surgery on this i can help you there you go so you're bringing in almost eight thousand dollars a month which ain't too shabby um but you've got three hundred thousand dollars of debt so walk us through this debt it.
Okay. Private, federal? I have $12,000 with private.
I will have those hopefully paid off by December. Good.
The rest, the $300,000 is all government. What was it for? I'm just curious.
I went to law school. And are we practicing law? Yes.
And that's the number one amount of money you gave us? What kind of law are you doing? Yeah, I do estate planning, probate stuff. Gosh, it feels like we've got a path to be making a whole lot more than that.
Am I right? Or are you feeling like you're capped out and why? No, you hit the nail on the head. I've been looking on Indeed and stuff And that's actually the average pay for where I live.

And it's pretty, it's hard to deal with because I do feel that I should earn more, but it's about average. Is there anything keeping you tied to the Detroit area? Family, yeah.
Okay. Okay.
All right, one other silly question, Jaden, and I'll get out of the way. I am curious with what you've done so far.
Is there a pivot or some type of additional legal work that you could do that would add to your income based on your current qualification or specialization? So I got my real estate license about a year and a half ago, so that's my second job. Yeah, I'm talking just the legal field right now.
Well, the reason why I got a different type of job is I'm really burnt out practicing law. So I'm trying to expand on other things.
So that's why I got my real estate license to help bring in more money. But that's extremely part time.
But I really want to try to pivot out of practicing. I get it.
but I'm going to, and again, I'm about to hand it to you, Jay. No problem.
But you got $300,000 in law school debt. I don't think you get the burnout yet.
And I think that the greatest opportunity for you to make money is through your law, your legal work. You just don't have time to sell houses.
That's a full-time deal. So it's either or.
It's like you go all in on selling homes, and if you do that, then there's no limit to what you can make. But I'm just going to make that point.
You've got to bring in some more income here because $300,000 is doable. handing over Jade Jade Walker through the uh the process here okay so the loans did you consolidate them or are they single singular they're single okay good that's good that's good okay so as trite as this may sound all we're doing is listing them from smallest to largest and we're paying minimum payments on all of them.
Hopefully, I don't know, are you enrolled in any of the assistance plans? Are you in save plan or anything like that? The income-driven payment, I've been on that for about 13 years. Okay, and is it going to run out, or do you still have time to be on it? I mean, honestly, I try to re-enroll, and it takes months and months to get an answer, so I don't know.
I'm kind of in limbo right now. Okay.
What's your current payment for the lot of them? I don't pay anything. Okay, good.
So here's what we do. The fact that your minimum payments are zero is a good thing for you right now because that means you can put the full strength of your income on the smallest debt and knock it out fast.
I wish there was a way to tell you that there was an easy button here. There's just not.
And if you've listened to our show for any bit of time, you know, my husband and I had 280. Okay.
And at the time, we weren't making what to combined what you're making now. And so there's a part of this that you have to just, you know, ride that income until the debt is gone.

You know, once you have maxed out your money for your time, and I don't know that you have yet, Ken.

I agree with Ken.

I think that you can do more to max out your time and get better money for it.

But once you do hit that point, there is a point where you just go, okay, this is what I'm making and this is how long it's going to take. And as I've said many times before, you got to ride that horse to the old town road.
That's what you got to do. And then when it's done, it's done.
That song is going to be in my head now all day. And I'm having you to thank for that.
I'm kind of like torn because I actually make more money selling real estate in half the amount of time versus my salary position. Of course, I get that paycheck every two weeks.
Well, then what's that transition look like? Because that's what I'm getting at. If you get after it and you can double, triple your income, then this is a game changer.
Key word is consistently. If you can do that consistently, then that's a great sign.
It's almost like what would have to be true for you to change your schedule, stock some money up or something to be able to then go, all right, I'm dropping one of these jobs. My gosh, you got more jobs than you know what to do with right now.
So we got to create some margin time-wise, which means we got to have some margin money-wise. Right, Jade? You tracking with me? I'm tracking with you.
What would it take for her to get to a place to where she can now go all in on real estate? And that's going to take a little bit of time to build that pipeline up. Yeah.
I mean, we're always looking for you to be able to replace whatever your income was at its best. Right.
And if you can do that consistently with real estate, I say more power to you. The weird thing about real estate though is of its nature, it tends to be up and down.
What's the market like in Detroit area? It's slow. I get consistent, at least more or two listings and closings, but it's a roller coaster.
Yeah. See, so you got it to Jade's point.
You got to factor that in. The market determines what's going on in some degree.
You don't just, you know. I'm going to tell you.
Hang a shingle in it. Everybody wants to buy a house from you.
I'm going to tell you, when you have this kind of debt, there is something to be said for being able to count on. I know what's coming in and I know what I'm doing with it.
There's just kind of that assembly line. Yeah.
Assembly line that you can just, I'm cranking it out. I'm paying off the debt and this is temporary.
And when the time comes, you'll do what you love. Yeah.
I agree. Because of the market where it's at, I'm going to go with Jade's, decide what you can do and lock in on it.
And then if something changes, then the timeline changes, but get that mindset for the climb, right? It's going to take me a while to climb this mountain, but I will get there. Appreciate the call.
You got this. Stay encouraged.
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Helping you win with your money, winning your work, and winning your relationships. This is the Ramsey Show.
I'm Ken Coleman alongside Jade Warshaw. Today's question of the day is brought to you by why refi private student loans are different than federal student loans like Sally May, but they can hurt just the same.
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That's right. Today's question comes from Dean in New Jersey.
Hey, where can I find accurate market research on the salary of my current position and positions I'm considering in my field and making a case to my manager that I am underpaid or looking at other job opportunities in the industry? What websites should I be looking at or should I talk to others in the same role? Being respectful and coming to my boss with accurate numbers is important for me for obvious reasons. Yeah.
Well, to avoid coming across like I endorse any site, I'm not going to give specific names, but this is very easy to look up. I would be looking at job sites.
Okay. The well-known job sites that are all over the place.
Can I say like Glassdoor, Indeed? Yeah, that's where I would go. LinkedIn? Yeah, just pull up the research.

And what you want to do, though, is be very, very specific. I love how you just jumped right into that.
That was fantastic. You're welcome.
But what I would do in this situation is I would make sure that I'm also doing the second thing that he asked. It's yes and yes.
I would absolutely be talking to people in your area, in your field, with similar skill and experience so that you get a real-time situation. Now, here's the deal.
Not all these people are going to tell you what they make. That's what I was going to ask, Ken.
So again, you could say to them, if they want to tell you their situation, you say, hey, I'm just curious, based on my skill and experience, what do you think is, give me a range of what you think is market-based value. Then they will talk to you about that, because then you can say, give me a range, and they may say, and I'm making this up, 60 to 75.
Because what you're asking for is, give me a range, give me a low to a high. And what's the interval of that range that you're looking for? Because you don't want them to give you a $30,000 spread, right? No, that's why I said that.
Yeah, so you want to say, give me a low, and then you're asking questions, and you can come up with your own number. But between the two things, the research and the feedback that you're getting, you can come up with a pretty good number.
Now, the key thing that I want to talk about is not so much the number, because you can go out and get a number all you want to, but companies have budgets, and this decision is rarely made directly by your superior. Yes.
It is very rare that you're just going to go to your superior, and it's all in their hands. Right, right.
So, you know your situation in this case,, Dean. And so in that case, what you're going to have to do is you can say, okay, I want to get to this number.
But realistically, can my superior get me that number? And the answer is probably not, which means you've got to do as much as you can to help your superior make the case on your behalf. Right.
And so what you're going to do is you're going to go get real market research that is viable. You can verify it.
You go in and go, hey, I want to get here. Okay.
And I understand that that may or may not happen right away, but I'd really like to discuss a growth plan. I never want somebody to go in and go, I just want to get to this number.
What you want to do is say, hey, I want to talk growth. And so I want to talk about what I can do to get better.
Give me some areas where I can upskill. Give me some areas where I have some blind spots.
What if you already are there? Well, if you're already there, then you don't have to have that conversation. I'm saying on the skills, but not on the money.
Well, in that case, again, the growth plan is the way I'd want to talk about it because now I want more responsibility. I see.
Okay, smart. Because you're never going, just give me more money.
I see. You've got to give the leader a narrative.
Yes, got it. If, in fact, that I'm right, and this is my supposition, that it's rare that the boss goes in and you go, and they go, all right, yeah, let me correct.
Let me move some numbers around. I'll get back to you tomorrow.
It doesn't work like that. So in that case, we want to create a narrative where it shows some hunger, some humility.
I want more responsibility. And with more responsibility, can we measure that and those results? And then can we tie that to comp? That's different than saying, hey i did some market research i'd like a raise yeah yeah you can't come in guns a blazing like that's my take in the same conversation it's just we're not putting that leader in the defensive posture because then that never works out so that's that's my rule of thumb i'm with it back to the phones we.
888-825-5225. Amy's on the line in San

Francisco. Amy, how can we help? Oh, hi.
I called because I don't know what, I guess, my moral and

obligations are as a daughter. I am a middle child, and I know that my parents gave my two

sisters $40,000 more than me. But I also know that from past experiences that I'll be the one that's more expected to be there for them when they get older.
And when my aunt gets older, when my grandma is older too, because I'm close by. But I just can't help to feel it's unfair that I have to work harder.
because if I had the same same amount of money I would just be investing in it and not have to work as hard as someone that got significantly more than me 40k more for what are you talking about 40k more for what is this inheritance is this college why was this given out whatever we needed um my little sister used it for her down payment for her home. I used it for a down payment on my studio.
And then my sister, I think she invested it in stock. But you're saying they got more money than you? Yeah.
What did you get total? 60. 60.
And they got 100? Yeah. And you're the middle child and you're feeling some type of way.
Was this the same time? I do. No, it was different times.
That's the thing. So my little sister historically has made more.
So she was able to buy a home sooner than me and my big sister. So she got that money first, obviously my mom, you know, and then my big sister and I got $60,000 kind of in the same time.
And then I know she got another $40,000.

And then I remember I found out, you know, just hearing conversations like, oh, then I'm like, do my $40,000.

That stinks.

Did you ask?

Well, let me ask you this.

When you received the monies, did your parents say, and you're're gonna get this and they're gonna get that

was there any conversation from the parents or you found out about what they got through the grapevine basically i think i found out through the grapevine it was she never sat us all down and said i'm gonna give you each 100 000 it was kind of like oh my little sister got her thousand and then i found out okay like my sister got her full and then when i asked for like listen hold Hold it, hold it, Amy.

You are a Lay's potato chip.

You are so salty.

And I get it. Well, first of all, I know exactly.
I get what you're laying down. So we only have about two minutes.
So is your... Because I want to address what you said.
I didn't hear a direct question in there. So I want to make sure that we, I think I know where you're going with this, but what's the question? My question is, I feel like when they grow older, I'm the one that needs to take care more of them.
Because I live in San Francisco, but I'm made to feel that way. That's not your problem.
I thought that's what it was because you said that earlier. So I'll be quick.
I want Jay to jump in. There's two things going on here.
One I'm sure of, the other I think. The one I'm sure of is your parents exercise poor judgment.
I don't care what their reasons are. I think they're very nice people, but they just exercise poor judgment because of how this thing is played out.
Um, and, and I, and I also, whatever's going on, I believe you that when you say they make you feel like you're going to have to be the one that takes care. That's the thing I'm sure of that sucks.
And that's not on you. And you got to shed that the thing that I think is going on.
And this will be my transition to hand hand it to Jade for her take, I think you're codependent. And I think that you've built up some of this in your mind too.
Like you're the one that has to take care of them because you're more responsible than the other sisters. The studio audience is agreeing with me, which tells me I might be right.
I think you're on the money, but you got to release both. You got to release both.
Yeah, they can put something on you or you can put something on yourself about what the future holds. But what actually happens is up to you.
And your obligation is to you and your family. And if your parents had the money to give you all $240,000, then they should be able to take care of themselves.
And if your sisters were gifted $100,000, they should be able to take care of themselves. And that's the truth.
And the rest, like Ken said, you're going to have to let it go because that resentment in your heart is sickness to your body. So you got to let it go.
Maybe watch the movie Frozen tonight and sing the song from a different perspective. Might help.
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I'm Ken Coleman alongside the budget queen herself. Did you like that? I like the debt doctor.
The debt doctor? Okay, we can keep going. Are you? Okay.
But speaking of which, one of the things we've been doing lately on the show, and this is so practical, we've got Phillip on the line in Little Rock, Arkansas. Let's bring him on.
Phillip, how are you? I'm doing well, sir. How are you doing? Good.
Are you ready for a budget breakdown with Dr. Warshaw over here? Yes, sir.
All right. Take it away.
Sorry that Ken took that to the next level. Of course.
That's what I do. Okay.
So, Phillip, let me just set it up for the audience because what we asked is for people to send us their budget. Because starting a budget for the first time can be tough, and you don't know all the factors to it.
And so we wanted to give people a little leg up here. And so, Philip, you sent us the budget.
32 years old, Little Rock, Arkansas. You're single, yeah? It's just you? Yes, ma'am.
Okay. And so what do you do for a living? I'm actually a school teacher, band director, BXA.
Okay. So band director, you're making $51,000 a year? Yes.
But you're taking home 3 191 yes ma'am okay um so your goals that you told me you said okay my goal is i want to save three to six months of expenses i want to get out of debt and i want to purchase a car but it looks like there's a decent amount of debt that's standing in your way according to my my screen, you've got $69,589 in all one student loan. Is that right? Yes, ma'am.
Okay. So that being said, I was able to take a look at your budget and we're going to kind of go through some areas where we think that you can find some savings and some ways that we think that you can kind to get your head and your money around this student loan.
Yes, ma'am.

Okay, so let's go through this. First off, are you, did I ask you, are you investing at all? Not at the moment, no matter.
Okay, not investing. And can I ask you about your tax return? Because those are the areas where we're usually able to free up a little bit of money.
When you your tax refund every year what does it look like sometimes I think the max I've got was like 1200 okay so I would say there might be some room in there that if you adjust your withholding you can get that money back in your paycheck because the idea is free to break even maybe you pay a hundred dollars right as opposed to be getting getting back money because that's money that you could have had throughout the whole rest of your budget, $100 a month. So that's something.

So that's the first thing I do. I'd probably check out my withholding there and make that

adjustment. But let's kind of go through this budget here and they're going to bring it up

on the screen. So your rent is looking good, $535 for rent.
Electricity, fine. Internet looks good.
Gas looks good. Let's look at groceries.
$120 for groceries? What are you eating? Not much. Nah.
I do a lot of cooking because I'm dating, and so my lady, she likes to cook, so I would do a lot of cooking for her. Yeah.
But to Jade's point, what are you cooking? That's only 120 bucks. You got some meat in the freezer? Yes, sir.
Oh, but don't get that dollar store meat because that's sketchy. Okay.
Dollar store meat and the commercial break. I need more information on that.
Okay. Groceries, $120.
You are killing it. That's amazing.
Restaurants, $40. If you really wanted to go ham on this, you would knock that back.
I don't know what that means. It just means to really go hard.
Oh, okay. I actually hardly eat out.
And when I do eat out. He's just cooking for his lady.
Yeah, I do more cooking than anything. Okay, good.
Keep doing that. Phone bill, $80.
Again, can't get much better than that. And you're currently paying $0 on your student loans.
I'm guessing you're on a save plan, something like that. I love that you're giving.
And then there's $2,000 in your emergency fund over here, which is pretty good. So that also shows me another thing you could do.
You know, we say $1,000 while you're in debt is enough. And so you could immediately throw that additional thousand onto your debt.
My question about the student loan, did you consolidate it into one? No, ma'am. Actually, this student loan is not, My first payment is not due to December 2025.
So I kind of want to get ahead on the game, get a plan started so I can go ahead and get that out. Because I want to get that out two years.
Yeah. So so I want to get ahead of the game.
OK. No, that's all one loan.
So the way to get ahead, I mean, currently with your existing income and with the fact that you've got eighteen hundred dollars800. So if you look at the top of the budget there all the way up here, his margin is showing $1,831 of margin.
I mean, you and I can do the math on that and say, if you do that on the student loan, it's going to take you quite a while to pay it off. Right.
And so the key is we got to bring in some margin. So are you doing anything as a side hustle? No, I'm actually been putting in, get some second jobs working so I can go in and knock this out.
Okay. But no.
Well, if I were you, I suggest everyone do a side hustle. They need to be making at least $500 extra a month.
But for a guy like you,

if you can find a way to bring in basically another, like you said, part-time job, if you can pull in $2,500 a month, if you can pull in $3,000 a month doing another second job, that is going to cut this down to a two-year window for you. What do you do or what have you done? Tell us a little bit about your professional background.
Well, I recently got certified because I've been teaching school for a little minute, been on and off in different places. With Amazon, I used to work at Amazon.
I recently left Amazon to go teach school, and that's kind of where it's been from there. After college, it's been getting into the school system.
Okay. What were you doing at Amazon? At Amazon, I was in the store section.
I was a store there. Then I moved up to Learning Ambassador.
Okay. What were you making? That was like, I think, what, 40, 30, 30-something.
And you're a full-time teacher right now in the public school system? Yes, sir. Okay, what are you making? I missed that.
I'm sorry. 51,826.
Yeah, I wonder if the tutoring or I'm just trying to give you some ideation here on, you know, I like Jade's suggestion here. Like what would have to be true? Or in other words, we could say this way, what could you do to make an additional couple grand a month? And I'm wondering if tutoring or some type of training instruction, you got all this background as a teacher, you know, I wonder if you could get some part-time hours doing some type of training or something.
I would just be looking in that direction.

You're an instructor.

And to the extent that you could get some of that contract work, that's where you could stack up some decent money. That makes sense.
Yes, sir. So let's look at this in terms of real numbers.
I'm just kind of trying to do some rough math over here. So right now with your margin, $1831 a month over the course of the year that's almost $22,000 that you would pay off from this debt which means you'd be debt free in about three years.
But if you do what Ken and I are saying it would give you if you added $2,500 to your budget that would give you $4,331 of margin And over the course of a year, that's $52,000. You see where I'm tracking? Yes, ma'am.
And so this is huge. So, you know, I'm not saying tomorrow you're going to wake up with $2,500 of margin, but let's start $500, $1,000, $2,000, and let's stair-step this up to get to where you want to get, because suddenly that's not a big pill to swallow anymore.
No, it's very, very doable. Are you feeling that momentum? Yes, sir.
I've been feeling that for a minute. I've been back and forth to go talk with my pastor about things.
I'm like, Pastor, I'm ready. I'm ready to go.
You got to get there. I know.
That's right. And what did your pastor say? He said, well, yeah.
He said, you're a single guy. He said, faith without actions is dead.
Go do it. Wow.
When the student is ready, the teacher appears. That's right.
I think Jade did a wonderful job. Phillip, we're very excited for you.
I think this is all about intentionality, and I'd add some intensity into this. I think you could be making more money.
I'm with Jade on that. That would be my number one.
Let's go, Philip. Cheer.
Let's go make some more money and speed this timeline up. That's right.
That's what I like about that. He's got three acts of homework and these are probably homeworks that apply for you too.
If you've got additional money sitting in savings, that's above a thousand dollars. You need to put it towards your debt.
Number two, you need to check out your withholding if you're getting a tax refund that's money that could be back into your monthly cash flow and then finally are you side hustling 40 of americans are side hustling because they know we need this extra money in our budget and so that includes you to america look out there and see what you can get try to put five hundred dollars a thousand dollars,000, $2,000 back in your budget and see what it does. And don't forget another piece of advice she just dropped in there earlier.
Stay away from the dollar store meat. I need to learn more.
This is the Ramsey Show. 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. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.
So excited that you're with us. I'm Ken Coleman, and I'm joined by Jade Warshaw.
You learn something new every day, so learning a lot, learning a lot on today's show. Thanks to Jade.
she's getting me to be more and more culturally relevant apparently i'm very irrelevant which i'm increasingly aware of that's all right ken that's what i'm here for that's why you're there i need to hang out with cool people like you so there we go hey folks uh time is running out to book your cabin on the live like no one else cruise setting sail march 22th to 29 2025 anybody Anybody in the lobby going on the cruise? Oh, yeah. Oh, really? Oh, wow, several people.
Oh, fantastic. Well, this is fun.
This is not your average cruise. It's a premium Caribbean cruise, Turks and Caicos, Puerto Rico, St.
Thomas, and the Bahamas, Holland America's new Stottendom ship, incredible restaurants, great content, including all of the Ramsey personalities. You got the pools, the hot tubs, the fitness center, and pickleball courts where I will be the resident whatever.
Cheerleader. Pickleman.
Instructor. Oh, jeez.
And so it's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss this.
RamseySolutions.com slash cruise. It's going to sell out.
RamseySolutions.com slash cruise. We'd love to see you there, and I'll tell these fine folks that are in the lobby right now, I'm going to have some cruise outfits, if you know what I'm saying.
I'm going to have the top siders, I think, kind of the preppy sailor look maybe a couple of times just for fun. You're giving me Gilligan's Island.
I'll wear a Gilligan hat. Skipper vibes.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, not Skipper. Gilligan's more my speed.
Really? The red shirt with the white collar? No, I had to put that little, the bucket hat. I think I could pull off.
Oh, okay. Okay.
I was about to say his. Yeah, I think I could pull the bucket hat off.
We'll see. Depends if the hair is long or not at that point.
All right. All right.
We'd love to see you on the cruise.

It's going to be fun.

Now, Dave.

Dave on the skipper hat.

That's what people want to see.

Him rolling around the deck with a skipper hat on.

Oh, gosh.

So, I'm not going to say what I want to say.

Let's move on.

Well, I don't think I want to now.

I feel like, okay, during the break, and then I'll decide if we can bring that back up.

Okay.

Okay.

We'll run it by James as well. Annie is up in Boston, Massachusetts.
Annie, how can we help? Hi. So I have kind of an unusual question.
Recently, my husband inherited some money and we started calling it our money, but when it came time to decide where this should go, he kind of, let's say, put his foot down and decided that it should be invested as opposed to paying down our mortgage. How much money? So the total that was eventually invested was about $140,000.
We are on technically step six, looking to, we are debt-free. Our kids are all set with their 529s and there's money set aside elsewhere.
We're contributing to our 401ks and our Roths. How much do you guys have invested or how much did you have invested? Let me stop for a second.
Have you already invested the 140 or is this just something he said, this is what we're going to do? So we did it. You already did it.
It's in there. And I disagreed.
I wanted to pay down the mortgage, and I'm just struggling with that decision. I get it.
So we'll get to that in a second. So let me just ask.
He kind of made that without me. Can you tell me what that looked like when you said he put his foot down? What did that look like? Did that look like him going and doing that without telling you? Tell us how that happened.
No, we definitely did it jointly. I'm not a fighter, so I said, I'd really love to put it towards the mortgage, and he said, well, I'd really love to invest it, and then we looked at each other, and he goes, so we're investing it, right? And, you know, he kind of like trumped me a little bit.
How long ago was that? This was about two weeks ago. All right, so real quick, before we get into that, accounts set, hold on one second.
All right, so here's what I want to know. We'll get into that in a second, because this is a relationship issue, not a money issue.
But I'm just curious, how much was in the retirement accounts before you put the 140 in? So there is a separate investment account that we started. So in his 401k, his retirement account, he has about $450,000.
Okay. I have about $250,000.
We're just at different contribution rates, and he's a little bit older than me. And how old is he, and how are you? He is 53 and I am 46.
Okay. So you guys were at about $600,000 in your separate accounts and now we created a separate investment fund with the $140,000 in it.
Is that correct? Correct. We have both of our names on it.
Right. How much is left on the house? About $300,000.
Yeah. Okay.

Well, Jade, the reason I'm asking all these things is I just think all we can provide here is perspective, number one, because this is a relationship issue.

You guys are in great shape.

I can see.

I will say this.

I can see why he did what he did.

I can, too.

I can also see why you wanted him

to put it on the house.

Yes.

You're almost cutting it in half.

Financially speaking,

nothing is broken.

No, not at all.

Because this decision was made.

That's right.

On either,

if you guys had put it

towards the house,

yes, that's in keeping

with the baby steps

and that's what I would have

advised you to do.

By investing it,

nothing broke.

You guys are in a great situation to ken's point

this is um this is a relational thing it didn't sound like it didn't sound malicious the way you

talked about it it felt a little dismissive but if i might add i think it might was dismissive on

both ends i think that he dismissed you when you initially brought it up but i also think you

dismissed yourself if you didn't bring it up again more intently. So for that reason, I do think it's, but let's, let's figure out what's at the core of both of those sides.
I agree. And maybe it's because technically the inheritance was to him.
So I almost felt as if like, okay, well, you know, his opinion should matter just a little bit more than mine. I could see that.
I could totally understand that. Yeah.
I'm not saying that's right, but I can understand your way of thinking. Is he opposed to paying the house off? No, but I don't think he understands.
Like, I have a different urgency. He wants to retire in eight years, and I'm only making two extra.
I sound like a snob when I say this, and I'm very sorry. I'm only making two extra payments on our mortgage every year.
Okay. I feel like we could do more to pay off the mortgage

so that I wouldn't have a mortgage.

Right, and I think that's the conversation.

When I say that this is a relational thing,

I agree with Jade.

I think you've got to go back to him and go,

hey, well, first of all, two things.

Number one, I love that you called us

and I love that you admitted that you're resenting him right now.

I think that's important that you're expressing those feelings, and I'm guessing you've expressed that to him, and I think you should. I really think you should say, hey, I'm struggling with this, and I'm resenting you, and I don't want to.
And I think we've got to get together, whether that's with a therapist or a pastor, or if you two have a great relationship. This is just a chill conversation.
It's not a big fight. As Jade said so beautifully, nothing's broken here other than feelings are hurt.
And I think most of the feelings are on your side. And I think you've got to address that.
So here's what I would do. I would say, I understand what you did.
I need to get this out. But I want you to understand why I'm resenting and what's going on underneath this.
I'm not going to resent you anymore, but I need you to know that I'm fearful. I'm fearful with this mortgage hanging over our head and not being gone eight years from now when you plan to retire.
Can we please talk through this? I just need you to know why I'm feeling what I'm feeling. Jay, do you you agree i think that's the approach yeah i think you yeah 100 i think ken covered it um and just based on the way you're talking about i do think that you probably stepped lightly maybe a little too lightly um yeah and and yeah this is the truth is you are in a marriage it what's his is yours and what's yours is his and you both get this decision together.
That is the truth. In a healthy marriage, that is the way that should work.
That's a good point. Are you going anywhere, Annie? Are you going anywhere? Are you going to leave him? No.
No, God, no. Is he going to leave you? No.
Okay. I know you're chuckling, but do you know why I asked that question? That's the perspective you've got to take off this call.

We're in this for the long haul.

Yeah, this is just a little hiccup.

We're going to be okay.

But there was no wrong answer, right? No, no, no, no.

No, nothing messed you up.

You're still on a course to succeed.

You are going to pay the house off,

and the intensity level is determined by the two of you

when you have that conversation.

Thank you for the call, Annie.

You're a good lady.

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