Building Wealth Requires Trusted Principles, Not Popular Opinions

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>> Brought to you by the every dollar app,

start budgeting for free today. [MUSIC] >> Normal is broken, common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life from the Ramsey Network in the Fairwins,

credit union studio. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Worsha next to me, Dr. John Deloni, taking calls from you for the next couple hours at least. Triple 8-8255-225 is the number that you call

if you want to ask your question, and we sure hope that you do. All right, we've got Maria, who's in San Diego, California. Beautiful. How can we help out today, Maria?

>> I am 48 years old. My husband's for the three.

We've been married 13 years.

We have one son who's 12. I've been staying up for a month. This month was born. >> Maria, you're breaking up a good bit. If you can go to another part of the house or just speak directly

into your mind and make sure we can really hear you. >> Okay, should I repeat myself? >> No, I heard you up until then. >> Okay, so I'd be in a stay-at-home mom. I do not have any savings, nothing retirement.

And my husband and I are married is not in good terms.

“So I think I'm going to be walking away with nothing.”

So I want to know what I need to do to help myself. >> Okay, that's a good question. >> What happened with your marriage? What's going on? >> It's been volatile since we've been married.

>> Volatile like abusive or volatile, yelling and screaming, what does volatile mean? >> Yeah, a lot of yelling and screaming and he doesn't share money with me. I do not know. I just recently found out how much he meets.

He does the grocery because he doesn't give me in a money. >> Nothing. >> Well, that's, we call it financial abuse. That's, you're in an unsafe situation.

So first, I would say, if you all been together for 13 years,

you're entitled to a big chunk of what he's got. And so don't just walk away, you're in an unsafe relationship because you're being held hostage by the person you're married to financially. So if you choose to leave, make sure you get an attorney and do that in a, in a right way.

The second thing is, is you'll be faced with the reality that life you wanted to have. I want to be married, I want to be a stay-at-home parent. I want to be focused on my 12-year-old. You're going to have to go get a job. Maybe two.

And you're going to have to create a financial world where you are financially safe. And that might mean being in a one-bedroom apartment. You're in one of the most expensive markets in the United States. And so it might be moving. Because there's a whole bunch of things that's going to, it's going to stem from you choosing

to live in the scary word called reality. This is my new reality, not my new, what I want it to be. But this is the facts I'm facing here with my living expenses, my eating expenses, my 12-year-old expense, all those things, and we're going to just have to create a world around that reality.

Yes, I looked into all that, yes, so Maria, you just found out what your husband earns, how much is it? And do you believe him when he said what he earns or did you find out because it was written

“on a paper, or how did you find out and how much is it?”

He took out a he-lock to pay off of debt, $70,000, so it was on the loan application. He next night, 90 a year, 90,000 a year. And he took out a $70,000 he-lock to pay off all of your debt, is there any other outstanding debt, other than the mortgage that you know about? No, just a mortgation, that's six thousand.

How are you positive of that? Well, when it comes to debt he'll share with me, when it comes to spending he won't share anything. Okay. What does he have in retirement savings?

I have no idea. I've never seen it. He has a meal routed to his parents so I don't see anything. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Okay. Do you think that maybe he has been saving like does your sense tell you that he has been or do you think he probably doesn't have much? You may not be able to answer that, but. He's been in the company 40 years or 30 years.

Okay.

“So I think he has some type of investment, but I have no idea how much it is.”

Okay. Well, you should get half of it. Yeah. Or maybe in a half, but half since y'all been together. Uh-huh.

That's true. There might be your situation might not be as financially, emotionally and relationally, yeah. It's a mess. But financially, it might not be as bad as you think it is.

I hope it's not. What about the mortgage? What do you guys now owe or what did you owe and what's the property worth? I'll already account for the he-lock. So we bought the house in 2017 and we bought it for 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, and it's still 3, 4,

3 right now, plus and now the he-lock.

And I think the value is about 5, 5, 5, 5. Okay. Okay. So there's the numbers there, John's, right? You know, since the marriage, most of this should be split down the middle, um, that doesn't

give you, I don't think, uh, unless he's got this craziness to somewhere.

I don't think that's going to give you the ability to walk away, get your half and never

have to work again.

“So the question then becomes, what can you do for work?”

You've been out of the workforce for a while for 12 years. Were you ever in the workforce before you had the baby? Yeah. Yeah. I was, um, working to legal profession since I was 17 and, um, I had a good job before I quit

my job. My son was born premature. So I just didn't go back to work. Okay. And then, um, eventually I'll do pick up some contact work one month here and there.

Okay.

So you feel like you have, uh, exit strategy as far as careers concerned?

Yeah. But I'm 48. So, I mean, that's not all competing against a younger, uh, yes. But let me, let me, you know, inform you on this. A lot of people, they, they earn the most they've ever made in their 50s.

Like that's their, their clutch year. So you're approaching that. And obviously, you've been out of the workforce. There's some variables there. But I do want to encourage you on that.

And don't get it twisted, uh, raising kids has life experience all over it. That can. Those are transferable skills. Well, let's be honest about that.

“Um, what's, what's precluding you from making that step?”

When do you plan on making that step? Do you still feel barriers to making that step? Let us help you with that. What else is there? Well, because my marriage is not stable, um, divorce was not an option because I don't

want to share custody. I don't know what he's going to have to pay to my son about me. But I'd rather stay home and take care of my son, take him out from school, drop him off. And help him with homework and activities and a lot of that's kind of what's, what's preventing me from going back to work because if I actually went back to work for one year last year,

and my son didn't do well in school, so I felt like, you know, I should be in for now. The greatest gift you can give your kid right now is stability. Okay. Because there's no way that this is that your husband is being this, uh, insane with how he's treating his wife and so and also being a plugged in attentive good dad.

So John, be clear about what you think stability looks like because you could interpret stability as I'm not going to rock the boat right now. I'm just going to stay where I'm at. I'm not going to, yeah, and so I guess what I would tell you is for your kid, the boat is rocked.

Yeah. The boat is rocked in wild ways. The greatest gift, two parents can give their kid is a rock solid marriage and giving your kid something to anchor into and the data is pretty clear, hey, no, don't quote unquote stay together for the kids, fix your marriage for your kids, fix your marriage

for you and your kids benefit, but if a marriage is unhealthy, it's bad, it's abusive like yours is, um, then quote unquote staying together for the kids is not good for the kids, right?

“Um, you have to ask yourself is your personal safety and well-being and your child's”

health and safety and well-being worth your potential, I might have to share custody sometimes.

And the reality is this is still his dad and so his teeth still going to need his father.

Um, but sit down with an attorney, a good license attorney and ask these hard questions. So you can get a picture and you're not just living on made up stories. Hey George Campbell here, listen, if you've had your phone two or three years, your phone can now be unlocked. That means you can switch to boost mobile to get unlocked, bring your own device and keep

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To the phone lines where we have Leah, who's an acronym, Ohio, Leah, how can ...

out today? Hi, so my husband had a job offer for $62,000 a year salary, and then as he had started the position and he's talking to people with like HR and payroll, he's being told that you know, of course he wouldn't get paid over time, but he still has to clock in, clock out, and if he doesn't make 40 hours, he's being docked somehow, which sounds hourly

and fraudulent.

“Okay, so are you going to get clarity, or are you simply not going to take the offer?”

Oh, he already accepted the $62,000 salary offer, but we got us first paycheck and they're

not allowing us access to his pace though, and based off of the number we received, it would seem that he's being paid, something entirely different than what was a great deal. What does it look like he's being paid hourly, which we don't even know what the prices hourly, what's the pace of salary, what's a pace of amount there and how far off is it?

They're not allowing higher here. What do you mean, how do you not allow somebody to see that? But well, it's supposed to be on the app, which he has access to the app, but like when he goes to the tab, it essentially says that his employer has embarked. So can he, did he go down to HR and say, "Hey, I'm blocked on this, can you fix it?"

And did they say, "No, or how do you know how much he's paying in taxes and fine code and all that stuff?" Exactly.

You refuse to say that they're conducting business, and they tend to just be like, "Oh,

we'll get to it. We'll see. We'll talk to you later."

“Okay, so let's back all the way over second, because you're ready to go to war here, okay?”

A little bit. Yeah, because I don't understand what's happening, neither does he, and they're not answering any questions. Okay, so sometimes people get offered positions, I'm trying to think of like, if you didn't go to job as a state trooper, right?

It would say something like, "Can make up to $110,000." Base salary, $60,000, or something like that. But that number is a clock in number. It does have an hourly wage to it, and at some point in the HR process, they'll tell you that, or I have other buddies who work in industries where part of the management practice

is to track hours, but they're paid a salary.

And so I've never heard of somebody being paid a salary, but if you work 39 and a half

hours, we're going to take money away from you, right? Right? That's what it is. That's where I am having an issue with is that they're saying, "If you don't need the 40 hours, you're paid at stock."

“But are they getting to give him the 40 hours, you're not, sorry?”

Are they guaranteeing him the 40 hours? And so is it a situation to where we're guaranteeing you the 40 hours? But if you step in and say, "I got to go do a dentist appointment," or something that you're not, basically clocked in for those hours, then they're docked, is that exactly what you're saying?

Right. So, like, say, he is in construction, so it's very, like, based on the weather. And so, say, if he's late, or if he's done with a job early, it'll be that 40 hours. Because if he's done with a job early, he's not getting however much. That's interesting.

He would have to use, like, pay time off to account for him leaving a job early because the job is done. And that doesn't make sense. I see what you're saying. But how much of this?

I'm a little secure, because I mean, if you're not making your 40 hours and you're docking my pay by how much, what's the hour there, and also if you're telling me that in the opposite side of the coin, if I work 60 hours, you're not going to pay me 20 hours of overtime. Right.

Right. So, let's, let's, let's, two things here. One, is there a chance that your husband didn't ask what the hourly rate is when he took this job? Well, I'm actually looking at the job offer paperwork now, and it says you will be paid

an annual salary of $67,000 per year and paid in accordance with our every other week's schedule. Okay. So, that's the data monetization. So, in it, in all of the paperwork, it says nothing about hourly.

Okay. So, let's, let's, let's do two things.

Let's, number one, just focus on what you can control.

You can do one of two things right now.

“You can call lawyer, and you can write a demand letter, that's number one.”

Number two, you can suffer through this crappy deal, and he can immediately start applying for other jobs, because not because of, you know, it's an hourly or whatever, but because I'm not going to work for somebody who doesn't have integrity, and integrity is, I don't know if you're taking out taxes for me, I don't want to get hit with a tax bill at the end of the year also.

I don't know if you're pulling out social security for me, I don't get hit with that bill at the end of the year. Like, that's just, that's just business 101. Is he 1099 or is he a W2? He doesn't even know.

I know. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there.

I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there.

I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there.

I don't want to be there.

I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there.

I don't want to be there.

I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be there.

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Brooke is in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Brooke, how can Dr. John and I help you out today? So my husband is currently following a TikToker

who is promoting this first leave he lock.

And I'm very hesitant about it. In fact, my family gives me the name Dream Crusher, because I'm just not a real taker. But I'm actually a crusher. Hey, here's my big problem number one, Brooke.

Your husband's quote, following a TikToker. That should be your first problem right there. Well, that's what I say too, but he thinks that I don't really understand the process. He's following a TikToker.

Right. But I look at, but I'm looking at the number that I just don't feel, I just can't see how it could work. So tell us about it. Yeah, go ahead.

Tell us about the first link. It's not fair. This is my favorite call the whole day. There's no way it calls it my favorite of this one. Are you, are you 16 and he's 17

to jug it married real young? Well, no, I'm actually my 50s, but we did, we have been married for a long time. Please tell me your husband's a 50 year old. TikToker.

He is. He is. He is. I, every once in a while, I wake up and I just think, as a society, we're doomed.

And this is another vote for that. Right. Well, I think it's once you, you know, once you click on something, then you see all of the same things.

And so this particular guy keeps coming across. And the way that he advertises it sounds, I don't know, to him it sounds great.

But this first link he locked served as your bank account.

I know. I know. I know, I know. Why? And just to be clear, if you, typically if you take a he lock like in the order,

it's like you've got your mortgage and then you've got the he lock under it. So if you were to foreclose, the money would first pay off the mortgage and then the he lock would go next. With first lien, it reverses that order. So the home equity line of credit is first,

as the first thing that's paid, that sort of thing. My question is, why, why do you need this? Why, why are you guys to the point of doing these types of things? I don't think that we do need it. But see, the advertisement is that, oh, you can pay this off in three to six years.

Which. But what's he using the money? Like, what's the purpose of the, what's the purpose of it? The grand purpose in his mind.

We need to get the first lien he locked because I need to get a boat or because

we're funding college. Like, what, what is why? The why is this pay off in three to six years? I mean, we're trying for retirement. We're trying to get things settled before we retire.

And so that's the attraction is to pay off this early. But we don't have like this huge income like minus our debts that we have to even throw at this he lock.

“That's what it seems like to me that you need the huge income.”

Right. So the. The problem here is you still owe X amount of dollars. Yes. And there's not a fact.

There's not a way to not owe that much money. Well, we are income is okay.

That we, we only owe 220,000 dollars on our house.

It's worth about five to 600,000.

Okay. We have it at a two. Uh-huh. Like, I get that. I get that.

Here's what's important. You owe 200,000 dollars. Right. Divide that by six years. 72 months.

And I can't do that math in my head like Dave can.

“But like, do you have that much money to put towards this?”

No. Okay. There's not going to be a secret atomic way to make you owe less than 200,000 dollars in your mortgage. There might be a way that you can. Reduce your interest rate.

Maybe. And so technically you owe 200,000 dollars after six years. You're going to be paying interest also. So there might be a way to make it a little bit smaller. Maybe.

You get what I'm saying?

Like, no matter what you're doing, you still owe 200,000 dollars.

And you got 72 months that this thing is telling you to pay it off. There's not a way to contract time or to contract money from what you owe. Right. So your gut feeling is right. You know why?

Because it's just math. Yeah. Well, in our mortgage, it's only 2.75. Right. So I'm over to the key lock.

Yeah. It's a daily rate of like 8%. And it doesn't. Is it variable? Does it vary?

The key lock apparently would be. Yeah. Yeah. And that's scary too. Why would you?

There's I can see. And I'm trying to say this in a non-incredulous way. But truly, I can see no good in this. None. I can see no good in this.

“And if the goal, if you guys have sat around and said, what's our goal?”

Our goal is to pay off the mortgage. Yeah. That's actually a very simple process. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying it is a very simple process.

I pay my mortgage payment. And then anything in above my mortgage payment, I apply it to the principal. And I do that as often. And as many times as I can and as high amounts as I possibly can. And every time I do that, I'm affecting the amortization schedule.

Every time I do that, more of my actual mortgage payment is going towards the print. Like, that is the way it works. That is how folks do it. That's how millionaires do it. And that is probably if I were to really try to form an argument against this other than just kind of like sheer logic.

And in simplicity, I would go back to our millionaire study, John. And I would just talk about how we've studied what the practices of millionaires are. Every day millionaires, baby steps millionaires. I'm not talking about billionaires. Talking about millionaires.

And what they do is they pay for cars and they never do car payments again.

And they pay off their home mortgage and they avoid debt. And they budget their money. These are the practices of what I'm going to refer to as the 401k millionaire. The average millionaire in America. This is what they do.

And so for me, this sounds like a very complex, Heady strategy to do something that's actually simple to do. Why am I going to add steps in ad-rigamorode is something that doesn't require it.

“And honestly, adds risk to the equation.”

And let's like, let's say your home mortgage was at 10%. And you could get a first lean heloc at 2.75. Somebody could sit down and make the case that I have just, And even though it's variable interest rate. And so if interest rates go up,

think God, there's nothing going on in the world or the economy that makes me, any somewhat nervous at all about the future, right? I'm being ridiculous right now. So if you could somehow magically flip a switch to where you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%.

And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%.

And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 1.75%.

And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%.

If you're paying 2.

And if you're paying 2.75%.

And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%.

And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 1.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%.

And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%.

And if you're paying 2.75%.

And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%.

And if you're paying 2.75%. And if you're paying 2.75%.

“If you run a business, you already know this.”

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faster, and cut down on manual reporting. If your revenue is at least 7 figures, go to netSuite.com/Ramsey for a free product tour. That's netSuite.com/Ramsey. I'm thinking about TRS Live and I'm thinking about, we had some good times, and we had a good time recording that show in front of a live audience. We went on the road back in April.

And if you didn't hear, we traveled to four different cities. We did the Ramsey Show Live in front of like a 300. It's a rare theater there in Denver. One of the top five wireless things that's ever happened to me at a live event. I've done thousands of events for about the wildest thing.

I know what you're going to say. I don't know. Can I give it away? Kelly? Yeah.

Sure.

“The big thing that happened that we're not going to tell anybody, it was so crazy.”

We couldn't believe that it happened. I know. We were hoping. Super hoping it would happen. Let's just say it happened.

It happened. Yeah. It was a super fun time. It was. But we dropped the episode from Charlotte a couple of weeks or so ago.

We just now dropped the dinner episode and up next we got Phoenix and Anna Heim. Those are coming in the next few weeks. So stay tuned for those. It was super fun. I think you guys will enjoy it.

Hopefully as much as we did. I don't know about you, John, but for me, I love being direct contact with you guys. Like over the phone lines is great, but it's still over the phone lines. But if we can be in the same venue and we can breathe the same air like that to me is electric.

I love that. So be sure to go check them out on the normal Ramsey show channel. So where you watch the Ramsey show normally on YouTube Spotify and the Ramsey Network app. Any other memories?

All you say.

“We may have had a spontaneous, debt free screen that led to a spontaneous engagement that”

led to a spontaneous marriage. Each got to listen to the show. Yeah. It was a blast. That's good.

Good. Again, yeah. Check them out wherever you watch the Ramsey show. They will be there. You get the same information, just packaged in a more fun way.

Well, and there was sometimes we would push back on folks and then later on in the show they would come back up or they're spoused over the spoused, came back up and was like, "Hold on." And it got more fun and more fun. Yes.

It was a blast. It's just different. It's one thing, like when you guys call in, we can assume maybe the faces that you're making, or we like create a persona in our, but to see you standing there, to see the faces that you're making in response to what we're saying.

It is different. And it kind of changes a little bit of how we're making it. I'm giving an answer and the whole audience booze my answer. It's just fun. It's fun.

It's a different element. Yeah. All right. Erin is in Lincoln, Nebraska, Erin. How can Dr. John and I help out today?

Well, I want to buy my husband a really nice truck, but we want he needs to car. And he's getting cold feet and we decided you're the type breaker. I guess. I love this question.

These are our favorite questions, Erin.

So you want to get the new car, tell us, tell us all of it. So we're in baby step six and we have spent 15 years, you know, he and I had $450,000 of student loan debt. It's paid off, you know, we're in baby step six, we're paying off our house, but he needs like he needs a new car.

And you want to talk a really, really nice truck, because I always wanted it.

I think he deserved it.

“And how much are we talking for this new truck and like what model?”

We want to know that, that give us the gory details. He wants the, the loaded JNC, Silverado, but what he'll use it and where are the type of people that you, you know, cars for a really long time. Sure. What is something like that cost?

100 grand. The one, I mean, $79,80,000. Okay. So I'll put $80,000 and you guys are baby step six, how much is left on the mortgage? So we have $400,000 left on our mortgage.

We are on track, you know, the number moves a little bit every year, but I'm tracked to pay it off in 10 years. Okay. Yeah, back to that Silverado, is this brand new or is this a year used, like what year are you looking at?

Looking at brand new, there's just not a lot of good used trucks on the market, right? Really? Is that true, JNC?

“And I'll take my own here, like what's your total net worth?”

Like what your house is worth minus what you on it plus what you got in retirement. So we're baby steps millionaires in the sense of our house is worth about $8.50, okay. We make a really good income. What does that mean? $7.80 a year.

So you make $7.80 a year, you've got $400,000 give or take of equity in the home and what you have in retirement.

Combine between the two of us about $1.5 million, but the market's been good.

I mean. Sure. Sure. So you're almost worth $2 million then, did I calculate that, right? Yeah.

Okay. So the parameters that John was getting at and asking that, and this is not just for you air, and you might not already know this, but for those listening, when we're thinking about whether or not somebody can afford a brand new car, this is hot off the lot, we're looking at, is your net worth more than a million dollars, generally if it is, you can take that

that big 25% depreciation hit that's going to happen in the first year or so. And you're basically saying, I can take that cash, I could throw it out the window, let it roll out the window while I'm driving the car on the interstate home, and I'll be fine. It's not going to affect my wellbeing in any way, shape or form. Other thing that we look at, and this is not necessarily with brand new cars, but we look

at what percentage, if we were to compare it to your take home pay, we say, things with wheels and motors shouldn't be any more than half of your annual take home pay, obviously at $780,000 a year, which you guys are smoking it, like that's crazy, y'all are killing it. This doesn't even come close at all.

So here's what I'll say, Aaron.

Okay. So here's one more awkward, well not, you know, he lets me handle the money. Okay. Down once a month, so we haven't had a car payment in a really long time, but in our every, every dot like in our budgeting, I've paid ourselves a car payment.

Okay. And so for the most part, you know, I don't want to finance it, like maybe you don't need the most part. You make $80,000, Aaron. Aaron, I'm going to stop this conversation, but you just put it toward the market.

Well, I'm going to tell you the most wild thing of everything that you're saying that I hear has nothing to do with the GMC Silverado. The most wild thing that I heard you say is that making $780,000 a year, it's going to take you 10 years to pay off a $400,000 a year.

“And that's what I took away from this conversation and said, that's bananas.”

And the car is like whatever, the truck is whatever. Why is it going to take you 10 years? Well, we're just we're, that is the word we plan for the worst case scenario. No, hold on. What is that mean?

What is that mean? What is that mean? What is that mean? What is that mean? And what do you mean by that?

What does that look like? Does that look like I just squirrel away all the money into retirement instead of paying off the, like, what does that look like tactically for you? You know, saving for, you know, I got that elementary school age son, you know, saving for his college, which I feel pretty good about now, should help, you know, we had a little

bit helping, you know, a now deceased parent, financially.

So, you know, there were some variables to where up until the last, you know,...

years, you know, there were some, I don't want to call them expenses, you know, just things that you do maybe I got a little ahead, you know, give you.

“How much could they have, how much could it have knocked your salary down from 780 to 500?”

Well, and so, the last couple of years is the first time we made that, you know, my husband

was a medical resident. Okay. We had to tell you that. Okay. Exempting.

Yeah. And I was fortunate to where I, I run a business that, you know, finally in the last couple years, got off the ground. So, reaching that much is a value, this is new, you know, over the last couple of new. Fair enough.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough.

So, listen, I'm going to tell you, I drove an O6 truck up until a year ago.

And at one point, just private conversation, me and Dave on the road, he was like, hey, what are you, what are you doing? And he was right, I was trying to make a point to myself. And so, I'll tell you what I did, I went and got a fancy, that same year truck. But I found one, and it's beyond my wildest imagination.

It's like a truck, but it's like driving an iPhone, right? It's ridiculous. And I found one that somebody had driven for about 2,000 miles, and they brought it back because they wanted an even bigger one. They were more insecure even than me, right?

And, but that took 10 grand off of the same. Because it was basically a brand new truck that I got for 10 grand off. Yes, but you could have gotten, you could have just up and gotten the truck. But listen, yes, Aaron, go buy, tell your husband to get over himself.

Y'all, you make 3/4 of a million dollars a year, y'all have a million dollars to go get

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borrowers and select non-types only. In a MSID 1591, in a MS Consumer Access.org, equal housing lender, 1749, Mallory Lane, weak 100 print went in to see 37027. Well, welcome back to the Ramsey Show here in the Fairwins Credit Union studio. I'm Jade, this is John, we're going to Tiffany in Houston, Texas, Tiffany.

How can we help out today? All right, so me as my husband got married in March, we're a blended family, and about a month ago we were getting ready on our way to go to the bank to combine bank accounts, combine finances, and my husband mentioned that he was like to, that he has been contributing $150 a month to each of his children for savings, and he would like to do that.

That for all four kids now, with our finances combined, and I asked, is this savings for just college or is it for whatever he said, you know, should they choose to go to trade route, it could be for a house later, whatever, and then my question was, you know, well, how long have you been doing this, and he's been doing it for 16 years, and I said, well, you know, that's quite a bit more money than I have saved for my children.

Why don't we make it even so that they can, you know, can have the same equal opportunities, and that created a big risk, and we have since not combined finances. Oh. So my question is, what is the right way to go about this, because I, it just doesn't

“settle well with me, because in my mind, I think, you know, we should see our children”

as our children, either of the other parents are involved, his children's parent, mother, left, and ended up accidentally overdosing, and when they were three and five, and my children's father has not been in their lives, and they were very young.

So he's been the only one contributing to this.

It's not like out, it's not like Grandma said, I'm giving you this money, and I'm contributing

for these two children. He's just been there. No, that's right. Okay. Right.

And in fact, he didn't realize he could have been getting dust benefits for them. And when we were dating, I said, hey, you know, you could actually get this, and I got them to find out for it. And so now he is getting that income for them, which just wouldn't realize he could get it.

And so it's really just they created a big fight, and we're not fighting right now, but we're also not combining finances right now.

And so I'm not sure what the rightly is to go about this, because he seems very protective

of this money that he plays. Yeah, let me hop in here. Let me hop in here. Okay. And Jade, you tell me if I'm wrong.

“I always want to look at an equitable starting line, right?”

So when you all joined families and you all joined each other, these four kids and you and him started at a new starting line, right? But the finish line is going to be different, because two of those kids had another starting line in a previous life. And so I can't help but hear that you've got it's more about ego for you.

I don't have this much for my kids, and so it's not fair for them.

Instead of seeing the blessing that this is, which is, they're going to have more than they

would have had because we're going to be doing the same together moving forward. How old are the kids? How old are his kids and how old are your kids? So minor, 2017 is their 16 and 14. Okay.

Yeah, and that even changes it even further. Yours are older. Your kids are out of the house, right? Yeah. You know, they're in college already, but they're still living with us just going local.

I might disagree with, I might disagree with John on this, and not in the way that saying this is the fight. That's fine. Not saying that you're wrong. I just may have a different point of view on it.

“So, and I'll explain my, John has explained his if you want to add more add to it.”

Because I don't know, like I said, varying different different different point of views, I don't know that John is wrong. I'll tell you mine, when I think about combining money, when I think about marriage, I think about two worlds coming together, like I say at which. And everything we all had was in the middle.

So if it's like we read, we read peanut butter in the middle, the peanut butter in the middle is all of the assets, and now it's smeared on all of us, right? Like we're just sharing it together. This is a horrible analogy. And so that's what you're thinking, you're like, hey, if we're pooling our income, we

should be pooling our retirement, we should be pooling our assets, we should be pooling everything together in the middle. Everything's the peanut butter. I thought that that's the way it worked. Wouldn't that also include things like 529s, wouldn't that also include all of the assets?

So I kind, I understand your your thought process, which is shouldn't we share everything and shouldn't be shouldn't it be completely like even ground? And to John's point, uh, I think I see it as even ground starting now. Well, I think I see it as that is the new even ground as okay, the new starting point is now we're we are we're either a family or we're trying to pretend like we're kind of

over here, but I also am not over like there's part of that that I'm like, I don't know, I think I like the idea of if we're together, we're together and maybe I'm a sibling in this that before I had my own room, but now I have a step sister and she shares the room with me. So even though I've had my own room for this whole time, now I have a step sister and

we share a room like, but I think we're seeing the same thing, maybe I did a bad job. So I'm I'm saying it's for clarity, I'm saying that yeah, I agree, let's pretend there's $20,000 for his kids, I'm saying that now yeah, I think I would be okay with it being five, five, five and five, okay and I look at it as if he's got 10 grand save for one and 10 grave save for another and he wants to start, continue putting money in there, individual

counts and now I want to start putting money in your kids accounts, like 150 across the board for each kid, now we're going to up it to instead of 300, we're going to put 600 towards each kid, that's where I would look at it. Yeah, I think I would say both, I would go okay, whatever is in this pool of like kids money, I would have it equally distributed and then going forward, I would put equal amounts

“and all I believe that that's what I now, and I would say, yeah, I don't think it's a”

wrong or right thing, I think it's can you guys meet in the middle, I am going to say this

Here's what here would be my pushback, I'm thinking about how I would feel as...

kids on this and so if my mom got remarried and I was 20 and she married a guy who had

a 12 year old that he'd been in saving money for that kid's college, I wouldn't feel as a 20 year old as suddenly you owed me that amount of money that you'd say for him. It's not even a thing, I think that's the added to, okay, I think we're getting to it. So I think part of it is attitude, which is I don't think you can have the the thought of I'm entitled to this and kind of be like, mean or haughty about it, I think that

spirit is not right, but I do think of the spirit is we are now a family and we're going to go forward like a family and we're all on equal footing together, that's kind of more of the mindset that I'd have around it and I'm not saying that's easy, I do want to say that. Yeah, it's messy.

So Tiffany, is there a way to take the dollar amount off of this thing and look at the individuals and what they need in the season of their life? That's a good, that's good.

“Well, and that's what we talked about and he said, you know, I've been doing this and”

I want to keep doing this for my kid. Yeah. He said, I want to do the same for your kids and my argument was if we're looking at it as speaking in each kid an equal opportunity and because they have no ideas if this is even there.

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Go to CHMministries.org/budget and use promo code Ramsey. That CHMministries.org/budget and use promo code Ramsey. All right, let's go back to the phone lines where we have David, who's in Wisconsin. Hi, David, how can John and I help today? Hi, Jake and John, how are you?

Doing good. What's up? My wife and I are set to pay off for house in three weeks and we're curious on what that process actually looks like, anything to look out for. Do we get an official deed?

“Is there anything related to our insurance, so we need to adjust when that's that happens?”

Number one, congratulations, Mayor. So awesome. Thank you.

Um, it's going to probably feel both amazing and quasi anti-climatic, okay?

So are you giving like a big lump sum? Are you just taking in the final payment? We've been chunking it for six years, so it'll be a chunk payment, but it's not massive by any means. Okay, I'll tell you how I did it because I'm a nerd, but I like to go in the bank and

shake the person's hand. But like, Jade and I were just talking offline, she would probably just hit the button from her house. I'd sit in bed, mind you, I'm in baby steps six, I haven't paid off my mortgage. So I'd be sitting in bed with my coffee, I don't want to go out of the house.

I just want to hit the button and refill my coffee cup. So it's going to be up to you to have some cool celebration that y'all plan because you're going to walk out of the bank or you're going to hit the button and confetti's not going to fall from the sky. And so, but I want confetti to fall from the sky, you just got to set up the confetti.

Whatever that looks like, okay, so my wife, she knows we're close, but she does not know what's happening in three weeks. I got a date that we're going to go to the bank and do it. Amazing.

Any, any, like, fun things or suggestions that you think would be fun.

I mean, you know her better than we could ever know her, but I would have a reservation

of her favorite restaurant if you have a weekend get away. I mean, it's going to be life content like it's going to be depending on your life right now. But dude, plan something for y'all to go celebrate. Absolutely.

All of friends that've been walking alongside you in this journey, then invite them somewhere and you can meet for lunch or something. I think that would be really cool. Yeah. I mean, some practical things, like, I mean, you might want to update your home owners

insurance. Yeah. I mean, that kind of stuff won't change. You'll get the deed in the mail eventually, right? But they'll shake your hand and it'll just go to the process.

You'll get a thing.

“I wanted to print out that said zero balance, right?”

Mm-hm. Keep that forever. Yeah. Just all those documents. Just to hold it close to my heart.

Absolutely in a file by your safe. Your house is still worth, but your house is worth, right? Yeah. And so that kind of stuff is going to say the same. And you're still going to have your home owners taxes.

You're still going to have your home owners insurance and stuff like that. You're still going to have to pay every month towards a thing or you can make it annual now. And just write one big ugly check once a year. Yeah.

It depends on how you want to do that. There are some nerdy things you can do. You can, you know, check the property, rep records and make sure that everything is confirmed. Like, all the leans are satisfied. Everything is document and correctly.

Like you can do all that stuff. But I think that's good. You actually sound like the guy who would do that. Yeah. So I think you should do.

We talked about keeping all the documents documents forever, changing and just up, not changing, but updating your home owners insurance and making sure that if the lender was listed on the policy, they've removed the lender, they've updated contact information and all of that stuff. Those are kind of nerdy things you could do.

Obviously, you're going to be paying the property taxes and all that yourself.

“But I think that the bigger thing to discuss here is the celebration.”

The celebration. And really, I mean, we very rarely do we get this call while it's happening in process. So tell us, like, how much have you paid off? Tell us how long did it take? Tell us the goods of the journey.

Yeah. Six year journey, we paid off 333,000. This is our first home and just treated it like something we wanted to get rid of. How many of you guys are this? Or 28.

What? Holy cow. Brought you on. Do there's people in the lobby and they're cheering you on right now. You won.

You've started at age 22. You went out and got more kids. I started listening to days when I lived in college and I'm glad I found them. Oh, my word. Do you have kids?

We have one and one coming in a couple months here. This is probably the, this is amazing. Yeah. And you guys know that I'm so glad we asked the question.

“So 28 years old, did you have any other consumer debt?”

Or you just, since you knew the Ramsey thing, you never had the consumer debt start

right in on the mortgage? $5,000, I borrowed from my dad to help move. Oh, my God. We paid that off in about a month. And how much money were you making?

Like, what did you start at and what are you at now? Yeah. We've been married to the entire time, started at about 125, and closing in at 600 now. Holy, what do you do for work? You guys are rock stars.

Yeah. Sales function. Just lighting the fire and getting after it. Wow. Wow.

You're about to give your pregnant wife a big surprise, it's going to be awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, thank you. You know her well. Set up something great.

You, I mean, you make half million dollars a year.

You can have some fun with this celebration and if y'all can get away and you know what? You're going to be a gangster. You take care of the child care and you pay for your mom to come down and stay with the little one and you take your wife on a cool night away or a weekend away or whatever. But yeah, celebrate this thing, big time, man.

So yeah, what's the advice you would give to people listening and I know $600,000 is a grand income. Most folks don't make that 125 is a little bit more tenable. Tell us, give us the piece of advice for people listening, maybe they don't have that income.

But what would you tell them that you feel like is true across the board? If I'd put it to one thing, having a really good marriage, it makes it really easy for us because we're both rowing in the same direction and it motivates both of us when we're helping contribute to our shared dream. So I would say marrying up is my piece of advice.

I love that. I love the statement I saw recently that a great marriage is both spouses secretly thinking they got the better end of the deal. Yes. Right.

I love that, man.

It's awesome.

So, dude, you could do all that stuff, Jade said, I didn't do any of that stuff. Not necessary. That was getting ultra nerds.

“Also, because yeah, I tend to overlook details, but I wrote down a few things, I'm”

going to go check. Just to make sure something's open. It's been a long time. It's been a long time, man. I hope not.

But, you know, John, I love that call because, I mean, obviously he probably wasn't thinking that he was going to be interviewed, but when you embrace the Ramsey Principles, this is what's possible and what he did, he achieved the other end of the baby steps rainbow. And that's what we teach here.

If you can be as blessed as David to never have any debt to begin with, it's such a head

start. But if you do have debt, still walk those steps out guys because the time is going to pass anyway, this was a six year journey for them. So if you're starting today, start at Baby Step One, get that thousand dollar saved, that's so important.

And then if you have consumer debt, start not going away at that consumer debt, that's Baby Step Two. You're going to pay off all of your debt, accept your mortgage, using the debt snowball method. After that, save up three to six months.

That's your safety net in case life happens. So you're not going back into debt. After that, yes, invest 15% of your gross income every single month, that's Baby Step Four. And beyond that, at the same time, yes, you can put Baby Step Five money away in a five, twenty-nine for kids college, yes, you can start making extra payments toward whatever

mortgage you do have. And once it's paid off, now you are in Baby Step Seven, which is where David is going to be in three weeks where he can live and give like no one else. That's the point. And if you're listening and you're like, hey, Jade, when were we supposed to even buy

the house? That's back in Baby Step Three, we call it Baby Step Three B for the tribe who knows. That's when you can, as you're saving up your three to six months, you can also start saving up for a down payment. So that's how this works.

Let me call this out.

“One thing he did that's really important.”

And you said this, he makes 600 grand, very few people make that much money.

But here's what he also did.

He was making 125 and he worked really hard, got probably got lucky, whatever you want to say, and he's making 600 grand. What he didn't do, which most people do, which would I would have done at 22 years old, is my lifestyle would have risen to that of a guy who makes half a million dollars. And I got out of college, I had a small amount of undergraduate debt, my first job.

I ended that first year after my first job in double the amount of debt because I just decided I wasn't going to say no anymore. And my lifestyle went way past what I was making. If you can make your first amount of money and as you get raises, you keep doubling down a few lifestyles.

Yeah, keep your lifestyles. That's how you really win over time. Here's what nobody warns you about. You're behind on payments, you signed up with some debt settlement company, you're making your monthly payments to them, and then one morning a process server knocks on your door.

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And today, we're going to break down the most asked questions that we got from the week. So there were questions around things, John, like retirement savings, budgeting. But interestingly enough, the most asked question is, how do I choose the right investment options? So I know I want to invest.

How do I know it to choose? Okay. Can we say this real quick? I want to like have some deep compassion for folks thinking about investing right now with all of the insane amount of noise out there.

We took a call earlier about a first-lean heloc and somebody feeling like they're losing their far behind and they're missing out on a mortgage hack or whatever. And we hear about crypto and this and that and this.

If you're confused about investing, just know you're not crazy.

Absolutely.

The world is trying to make you nuts and then sell you something that is going to quote

unquote give you the way. Yeah, I think you're right, John. And I think that's an even better way to tee this up because there's a huge landscape out there. You can turn on TikTok and there's somebody in their room in their slippers telling you

how to invest. You can go on Instagram and you might find somebody like me and John telling you what to do. You can go on Facebook and you might find an old guy, you know, you can find there's information everywhere and it can be hard to decipher and to know what's good and what

actually works. The good news here is we've got 30 years of just proven financial turnaround. What we teach has been going on for so long and millions of people have done it and it works. It's what John and I do.

“I think what Dave Ramsey does to me the most important.”

Like I can say like he has sell this product kind of like execs and tech companies can say, look how many millions of our products we've sold, but then when you look at what they do with their kids, their kids don't touch those products. To me the biggest, the biggest sales pitch for what we're about to say and it's not even a sales pitch because we're not making money off this.

But like is this is what we do in our homes with our money for our family and our kids futures. What Dave does with his money, this is what I do, it's like this is how we do our money for our families. Well and I didn't plan on going down this road, but I think it's worth going down.

What I can tell you personally, what I find appealing about what we teach, what I found

appealing, you know, 15 years ago when we first started our journey and what I found appealing

enough to come work for Ramsey is that it should be simple to understand. Right. You should not have to have a degree. You should not have to have somebody explain it to you 90 times. You should not have to rewind the video over and over and over to get it.

“You should not feel like it's only for the scholars and you're down here and they're”

up here. If you've ever been in a conversation where you felt that, right, you're talking to people and they're like, oh, let me dumb it down for you. Trying to make you feel I hated that with all my heart. I hate that money is actually quite simple to understand and it should be and that's

what I like about these principles is that, okay, I can understand this. This makes sense and it's easy to understand and it's easy to put into practice. It's not overly complex and honestly, give me simple all day, John. So that main question, how do I choose the right investment options, right? I opened up my 401(k), I'm staring at the Roth IRA right here and there's a gazillion

things I can choose from to invest my money. How do I do it? So what we teach here is very simple again, we want you to spread your investments, we want we like diversification, we want you to put 25% into each and to fork different categories. So if I have, I'm just going to use the simplest terms, if I have a hundred dollars, I'm

going to put 25 in this account, 25 in this one, 25 in this one, and 25 in this one. And there's four types that we teach.

The first is growth and income funds.

You might hear these referred to as like mega cap or large cap funds. They're very predictable. These are giant companies that have been around forever. They generally pay dividends, they're extremely stable. This is kind of just like the music, like it's on the road, it ain't moving, it's a big

body. That's what we like. All right, from there, the next fund is a growth fund. You would usually hear this referred to as maybe a mid cap or a large cap fund. And these companies are growing a little bit faster than average, they're still big, they're

still dependable, but they're having, they're growing at a faster rate, okay? After that, the third account is an aggressive growth fund. These might be called small cap funds. A lot of times these are tech funds or things like that. These have a little bit of a higher risk, but they have a high growth potential.

We're looking at it and we're going, oh, this could really, really be something one day. So you're investing there, again, a little bit more aggressive, not quite as laid back. This is like a fast car, this is a little bit more like a Porsche. That's what I would say. We're going to have a lot more fun on the ride and you can die quicker if it rides.

That's right. Then we go to the International Fund Global. These are foreign companies, global funds. And that way you're going outside of the US market, right? Because if things are shaky here, they might be pretty good in the global market as

a hole. And so it's a way to balance out all these funds. So if we were going to make that a vehicle, maybe that's like a Emirates. We're flying to Dubai, all right, so it's an aircraft. We can go everywhere in that.

So that's the way we look at it for retirement investing. There is no set term.

“You need to stay invested for the long haul.”

So once you park your money in these places, assume that it's going to stay there until you're ready to draw it out in retirement. It's a long term play, okay? Keep principles that we teach and this is the same thing you're going to get.

If you ask AI and ask Ramsay, they're going to say, don't try to time the mar...

That's not how we teach here.

We say, do it every month, invest that 15%. It's like clockwork. It doesn't stop if the market goes up and it doesn't stop if the market goes down. And I'll just say, I've tried it before, I've been wrong every time. You've tried what timing the market.

Yeah, I'm going to hold. I'm going to, you know what? I think there's going to be a recession. So I'm going to not put in my investment. I'm going to put in later in the year.

I've been wrong every time. Yeah. And I live in this stuff. I live in it. And I was wrong.

“Yeah, I truly think the best way to do it is just like that dollar cost averaging every”

single month. Set it for you. Just set it and forget it. Let it come out of your account automatically, avoid target date funds. They shift really heavily into bonds as you age and those just aren't making the returns

that we want you to make.

Bonds are never the answer.

That's something that we would tell you. You need to be beating inflation with your investments. And so that's one of the reasons. Okay. So ask Ramsi can help you take the next step when it comes to investing.

And that's based on your specific situation. Ask your question today at RamsiSolutions.com or you can just click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. John, did we cover it? I think we got it.

All righty then.

“Let's go to Madison, who's an Indianapolis, Indiana, Madison, how can John and I interest”

you today? Hi, thank you guys so much for taking my call. So essentially, I did not have dreams growing up of being a stay-home mom. Now I flash-forward have been in a situation where I had my son went back at when he was four months old to get my master's degree, so I did research for two years, didn't make

him money as a grad student like all others. That's my husband and I in a time of like great financial stress money was very tight. I graduated in August of 25 and I was not able to find a job despite my best efforts.

I had our second child, a daughter and a October.

So I was home from the period of about August until January of this year. I went back to work. But I have realized how much I really do have a desire to stay home, but we didn't have enough margin in our budget. So since I started back in January, we also got a really nice texture turn.

So we were actually already able to pay off my vehicle. We had about $10,000 left on it and we paid it off actually last Friday. Great. So that was very exciting, but we are still $62,000 in debt. That's about $30,000 in student loans between the two of us, $5,000 in credit cards, $2,000

on another credit card. Actually, we just made a payment yesterday, said that's about $1,500. On another credit card, we had to use that in both of credit cards, we know interest currently. Okay, good. Good.

And then my husband has a card loan as well, which is about $24,000. The only other piece of the finances before I get to like the question is we currently own our house. When we strip away our wants from our needs, it is good for our family. We hope to have Lord Lilling three or four children.

Okay. It's a three-bedroom house. Well, we're coming up to a break that we need to take. I'm going to hold you over because I want to make sure John and I can help you get the answer that you need to your question.

So if you'll hold on the line just a little bit longer, we'll get right back to you after these messages. All right, so we're back to Madison. And in needapolis, Indiana, she called earlier, she's been a stay-at-home mom for quite a while and she's, they've got a little bit of debt that they need to pay off.

It sounds like it's around $62,000 a debt that they're working to pay off.

“She is on the line and wants to continue with the help Madison, did I get it right?”

Very close. I was only a stay-at-home mom for a period about six months. I came back to work to help get us in a better financial position than the question is, how long until I can be a stay-at-home mom again. Okay, perfect question.

So we've got the 62,000 in debt and that was broken down between student loans, credit cards, there's a car and you also have the house, no, the terminology that you used, you said you own a house, it's paid for outright or you still have a mortgage, give me some clarity on the house.

No, we definitely have a mortgage, we still have about 249 on it.

Okay, you owe 2.49 on the mortgage.

So how much do you guys, what's you guys' income and break it down like, what do you make versus what does he make? Yeah, so do you want, like, what are checks, are bank accounts or what are, like, technically our salaries are? No, tell me what you guys bring home in a month, like, you can tell me we make this

every two weeks or you can say in the full month we make this combined. Okay, so my husband is by weekly and he makes about 1972 project and then my checks are about 17,58. Okay, so the grand question is how can we make this work in an environment where you're

“no longer working and that's closely tied to the debt, right?”

If you have $62,000 debt, obviously, and this is just numerically speaking, you want as much money as you can going towards that debt, right? So if we were to stop working now, that would be an issue. I'm assuming, right? Yes, most definitely.

So have you guys decide, have you guys plugged the numbers into every dollar and actually said, okay, if we keep going at the rate that we're going now with both of our incomes, how long will it take and are we okay with that? Yeah, so it looks like it would be around three years. So by the end of this year, we expect that we would have this down down just below 50,000,

which is great progress, but still $50,000 in debt to be on a single income. So, yeah, I guess the question would just be, is there, is it okay to stop before the debt is gone? Because almost half my income actually half of my income does go toward just childcare. Well, that is a values question for you guys.

It's not a wrong or right. It's completely values. If you guys say, you know what, in this season, we really value debt freedom. Because if we do this now, it's going to set us up to be able to get the kids college funds rolling.

It's going to help us pay off the mortgage faster. And when we look up and we're 59 and a half years old, we are going to be able to retire and we like the nest egg that we're going to have. You plan it out and you've decided, okay, for that reason, or, and this is not no answer

“is more wrong or right than the other, you could look at it and go, you want to know what?”

We could elongate this journey a little bit by you staying home. And maybe you look at it and you go, if we do this, it elongates it by double. And we play out the numbers and we still feel like we'd be okay. And yeah, we might have a little less here or a little less here, but we're okay with that. That's the sacrifice that you guys have to make, but I would say this.

In order to make that, I would run the numbers because money does talk and it does inform is that really the life you want because if you stop working today, Madison, how long will that along get your journey, how much more time will it take? Yeah, definitely probably twice or three times the amount of time that it would take. And Madison, can I tell you just an exercise me in my life, too?

Yes, whenever I feel like I'm back into a corner, either in your case, I'm staying at home and we're going to have to get by on $3500 a month, which seems, I don't even know how the math would work on that with what your husband brings home or I have to stay working full time and I never get to see my kids and even half of my check goes to Chalk here, right?

So you've given yourself an either or option and exercise my wife and I do and we feel back into a corner as we just make up a whole bunch of other variables and dump them

on the table, just to remind ourselves that it's almost never either or and here's what

I mean in your situation. How important is this car to your husband?

“Can he sell it and get a $3,000 car because y'all decided we want you to stay home?”

Could you go one more year and he sell that car in your debt free? And because there's going to be some, right? And I'm just making up variables to put on the table, just to prove to y'all, there's other paths we can take that's not caustic option number one or caustic option number two and if you sit down and say we together really value me staying at home or let me ask

you a deeper question. You never dreamed of being a stay at home mom, could part of the reason you want to stay at home is because you hate your job and you're realizing this isn't worth trading my time with my kids for and so I'm going to continue to look for another job while I'm doing this miserable thing or I'm going to look for you, you know what I'm saying or a part

time job or all I want you to get from what I'm saying is there's almost always more

than an either or path. And then there's the part of it where is does the math even allow for it?

Yeah, I don't see how it allows for it in your life.

Yeah, because I do want to ask what is your mortgage payment? It's about 1850.

“Okay, so that right there is the that is the major decider for me almost, you know,”

beyond the values question, your math doesn't math because where you are right now you're fine, it's 25% of your take home, you're good. But if you go down to just his income and you're making $3,800 or $4,000 a month, suddenly you guys are 100% house poor and to be house poor Madison with $50,000 of debt, that is curtains.

That's emergency. And I don't think you would even enjoy your life. The way it feels on a day-to-day basis to be in that sort of a bind. Does that make sense? Yes, yeah, that doesn't make sense.

My husband is expecting to have a promotion this year and that will give us some more margin like come time when, you know, that is paid off and I mean is it double because it

it would truly need to be double because it it would basically need to be what you

were making. Yeah, that's true. It won't be double. It's just hard when you've already made decisions that you wish you had it. Sure.

I'm not sure how to backtrack where we're going to do so our house and then move into a two-bedroom apartment. That's right. Well, we're $1300. Right.

Yeah. That's not going to get you anything. Listen, what you're facing though is everybody faces that reality in one way or another. All of us face that. So this is no like finger pointing at you or you may bad choices.

We all do that. We all look up and go that. I mean, for me, Madison, it was I look up and I go, oh my gosh, if we had avoided that student loan debt, we would have been able to do this, this, that and the other. I can't go back and change it.

I can only go forward from that point of knowledge and go, okay, that was that wasn't the right choice for my future. I can't go back and fix it. What can I do going forward to make sure I am making intentionally the right choices for my future?

“And I think that's the crossroads that you're at right now.”

You can kind of keep the blinders on and go, but I really, really want this and I'm just going to kind of go forward and just hope it all works out. And then you're going to look up again and go, dang it, like we did not set ourself up for success. So if I had to advise you today and you did call, given the circumstance, given the 62,000

in debt, given the mortgage payment and the fact that you said, yeah, we're probably not going to move and downgrade to an apartment. And given the fact that you're not a stay at home mom looking for work, you already have a good job and you're already locked in. I would say, right, this thing out, pay off the remainder of the 62,000.

And that's going to give you mental clarity, yes, but it's also going to give you peace financially. And then you guys can re-value it and say, okay, what is our life have to look like in order for me to stay home from here? Is it still, uh, might look like you doing something because by then he will have had the raise.

So maybe now you're just doing a little bit of part-time work to close that gap and you can keep that same house. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, I see what you're saying. Or it may be in these are hard conversations.

He may quote unquote love where he works.

But when you all sit down and say, here's what we value, he'll says, I got to go get another

job. And, or for this season, you stay at home and I'm going to work two jobs because that's what it's going to take. But it's just, yeah, don't ball those variables on a table, but first ask yourselves, who

“do we want to be and what are our values and what's the quickest path to get to those things?”

Yeah, and we're going to give you every dollar because we want you to be able to see these numbers see it very clearly. We're going to hook you up with a year for free and make sure that you get there and you can see a clear path that you can get to together. You spend hours researching before making a major purchase, like a home or car, but it's

also a good idea to put in the work searching for the right insurance coverage. To protect your biggest assets, I recommend using Ramsey Trusted Pros, whether you're looking for car home or any other type of insurance, Ramsey Trusted Providers have been coached and vetted to serve you like we would find what you need at RamseySolutions.com/insurance. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show here in the Fairwins Credit Union Studio where we have

Cassie calling in from New York City, New York, Cassie, how can John and I help today?

Okay, first of all, thank you so much for taking my call and just to get right to it.

The overarching question is that what point, I'm a business owner with my husband at what point to file for bankruptcies, so my situation has a lot of emotions and fatigue

To it.

two, all right, exhale it all the way out. All right, we're with you. You're not by yourself anymore. Okay. No, you're good. You're good. No, you're good. Okay. So, okay. So I recognize there's emotion and fatigue and talk right at your phone for you. So I recognize there's emotion and fatigue, right? So what I'm able to do and I

“know I'm doing it properly, my husband is the same way and I honestly I value him when”

and anything is God perspective and I kind of randomly came across the show three days ago. Okay. But anyway, so I have been together for 17 years. We left our jobs and we went into business together and went from not having one to eat to being able to grow 419,000 a year. It took us a long time, but in the 17 years we saved 100,000 cash, we bought land. We still have that land and I'm giving you that perspective to kind of show you where we

came from and we were just not financially prudent at that time. I don't want to focus

on like blame whatever the most important thing is obviously answer whatever questions you

have. Where are you guys right now with your money? How much do you owe? Okay. Here's the issue. So all of it is SBA, EIDL because we kept putting the money that the business made back into the business. We didn't buy houses or cars. We just had that land and we owe 783, 829,000. The problem is the interest on it is accruing at $78 a day. So I went from being able to pull in 36,000 a month. And I can do better than that. I can now do 10 to 15 a month

“because that's why the COVID really affected our industry. I don't want to give too much”

information, but what is it? Consulting and just hospitality and adjacent industry. I want to say this. COVID was several years ago. I know it's still ripping through the economy in weird ways. But I want to bring you and I'm doing this intentionally. I want you to come to right now in the present because you're living in the past, in the future, and come right here with me right now. How much do you owe? 8 330 grand? Yes sir. Okay. 130 grand.

And you and your husband combined, not top line of your business, but what do you all bring

home each month? Right now, because we work together on the business we always have,

like the front face and selling. Okay. So it's combined right now. Maybe we would have bring in 15,000. And now we've fixed a lot of kinks into business together because we're kind of working a part for a little while there. And I can probably bring that up, but I recognize I need to stick to what can I actually bring not what can we possibly bring, which was kind of the mentality before and why we were in such a way. What about, what's the, what about assets?

Like what's the business actually worth? Honestly, it's not, it's very, another thing I've learned. It's very me based, right? I have the relationships and it's not scalable. There's not opportunities. You can sell. There's not. I put out, I put out. Yes, I can, I'm, yes, there are, I don't know, there's probably like 100 grand in equipment that we could on the loft.

Do you have a home? No, no, we, we've always rented, we own land. We're rich. How much land do you have?

An acre and half. Okay, what's it worth? We pay cash for it. It's worth probably like 300,000, I think, or maybe 200, I'm not, unless we could be paid for it and cash back in. That's okay. That's all right. This is what I think we need. I think we need to do a little bit of research. And I think when we come out of the research, we might find some things that give us some light

“at the end of the tunnel because that's what you need. You need some hope right now, Cassie.”

You need to feel like there's action that you can take that's going to make this situation feel better and feel different than it does today. And so that's what we're going to help you try to find. If you, if you're making a hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year on your business, that's a good business, okay? Yeah, so here's what's going on in where there's like a little bit of, or there was this agreement.

Now I think we've got, we've got it on the same page. But while we didn't, you know,

We're burning runway there, right?

of about seven thousand two hundred eleven, right? And again, I know there's a lot of

emotion there because the simple thing in my mind is we like go everything. We like go all these business friends because I can work from one off at like one area, but then he's argument which I agree with, what's it like, honor it for it's just value is, okay? We do that but we have two very small children, one and three, where are we realistically going to have the mental. Well, wait, I'm going to jump in on that because I want to know,

straight up, I hope that you guys let the office rental space go because you, you don't need it and you need all the profit that you can get right now. So I hope that you did let it go,

“did you let it go? I think that's imperative. You have to, you can't afford it. It's imperative.”

It's seven thousand dollars a month that adds up to more money year over year and you need

that money girlfriend like this is not even a, if you're talking, if we're in a conversation and we're talking about bankruptcy, then we got to figure it out, maybe the kids go to auntie's house in that way, you have the space in your home to work. But if it truly is just you and your husband and that you guys are the people making this engine run, there's no employees, there's no reason to have an office space that people are coming into. Absolutely, you got to let it go. Am I right

about that? Or is there used to be, there used to be employees, we had a bunch of employees into different places, but yet that has been cut down, we also, hey, let me, let me just

“for you just on two decisions. Okay, so if you file for bankruptcy, it's a seven-year process, right?”

I do the seven. Okay, so if you let this rent go and you multiply that by five years?

90,000 a year. It's, it's 420 grand and if you sell this land at $300,000, that's $720 grand on two decisions. Yes. You see what I'm saying? I, I do my husband's, so from one other perspective, okay, we let go of all of that and then we don't have the mental space to do. You will make the minute space now. Yeah, you're drowning right now, mentally. The two decisions, two decisions right now, and in five years, this is over. It's over. And, and it's not, and you'll have the piece

of knowing it will be over. That's right. It might not. You might not cross the finish line for five years, but think of the rest you will feel walking away with a plan that you know, if I just execute on this plan, I pull the two levers that John just said, I have a plan and in five years, I just keep riding that horse to the old town road and I will be out of debt. You get to keep the business that is profitable. Yes, you get rid of the land. Yes, you get rid of the office space,

but in five years, I'm free and clear and I'm making this thing go, oh my goodness, totally worth it. Figure out something to do with the kids. You can figure that out. You've figured out the rest. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade Worsha. Listen, summer spending adds up so fast between vacations and road trips and camp fees and events. And all the extra gas and grocery runs, money can get tight before you know it to really get your money under control and keep it that way.

“You're going to need a plan and that's what you'll get with the every dollar budget app.”

It helps you track your spending, free up cash to put toward debt and savings and it's the simplest way to make a plan for your money before the month begins. So, no more wondering where your money's going. You're telling it where to go. Download every dollar in the app store or Google Play and start for free today. All right, here we go. The Y-Refight question of the day is sponsored by Y-Refight. When you fall behind on paying back your private student loans, it can feel like your

life is being held hostage. But Y-Refight helps borrowers explore a fresh start with low fixed rate refinancing and a payment plan designed around their ability to pay. Visit Y-Refight.com/Ramsy. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com/Ramsy. Remember, it may not be available in all states. All right, today's question comes from Savannah in West Virginia. Savannah writes my fiance and I have four children. Our only debts are a truck loan in our mortgage. I'm a state home mom

and he earns $90,000 a year. He recently became very interested in investing. Not new or your marriage, but okay. I'm not against it, but I don't agree that now is the right time.

I have the $1,000 in my savings account as our emergency fund, but he wants m...

invest it. Okay. I just don't know if he's doing the right thing with our money. What are your thoughts about investing while being in debt and having nothing saved for our children? Oh boy, so... So many problems here! There are many problems, but here, if you don't know our way of teaching, let's just answer that. Yeah, we would be glad to hear that. I will pipe in with my drama. Yeah, if you don't know the way we teach you go, what's the big deal? He wants to invest

what a wonderful thing. And I agree investing is good. It's a way to secure your future. It's a

“way to love your family well. But I do disagree with him that now is the time to invest because I think”

this is like good better best. And the best time to begin investing is when you've cleared your consumer debt. And the reason for that is 2 to 3 fold. There's many reasons, but I'll go to 2 to 3.

First reason is, if you begin investing and you do not have savings, your investment becomes

your savings account, John. And what happens when you need a new roof or when all four tires need to be replaced or the AC goes out is you go, oh shoot, I don't have any savings. So now I go to two terrible options. I either go to debt. I put it on a credit card. I put it on a heat lock or I roll over and I look at, oh, that investing chunk of change looks pretty nice. And I mess around and I take a 401k loan or I take a 401k withdrawal. And now I'm on the hook

for that. And so it's so important to make sure you have the right foundation before you begin investing. So that that investment can stay locked in the way it's supposed to for the long term. So that's part one. And then part two is a little bit more. I'll be honest, you could take it

“if you take it or leave it if you want to, but I believe it's the smartest way. When you pay off”

your debt first, if you pay off your debt before you begin investing, then you have the full power

of your income working towards building wealth around here. We believe that your biggest wealth building tool is your income. And you do not have your full income at your disposal when you're still making payments, especially if you're making payments on things that are going down in value like trucks and cars and then there's other types of consumer debt, right? So that's kind of the crux of why I'm saying what I'm saying, which is I agree with Savannah in this case. Yes,

you need to pay off the truck first. And then after that, you need to save three to six months of expenses. And then you can begin investing 15%. And by the way, yeah, please do not take your baby step one thousand dollars emergency fund and invest that because then you're up the creek without a paddle. And I guess I just say this and we can move on. What we're seeking here is

ultimately safety, like that we have enough money in the bank when we retire as we age to take care

of us, right? And safety will like if you pull safety all the way up the river, safety starts

“right here. And right now, the way you're describing your life is it's you verse your fiance,”

your boyfriend. It's I got this savings and I want to keep a safe. He wants to take my money and make it his investment. Like you can't you all are not going to ever get where you want to both go, which is to a safe peaceful place if you all are competing with each other. And so you'll need to get aligned on are we rolling in the same direction in the same boat together? Or do I have my boat? You got your boat and he sees your boat as you and those four kids and he sees

his boat as wherever he wants to go. And by the way, you got some of my money. So give me your money. So I can get my boat further along down the road. You're going to find yourself very, very exposed. And so that's why we tell people to get married before you start sharing your money and tell people to get married before you start sharing your kids. Because that legal document forces y'all into the same boat and it forces y'all to have the hard conversations about which direction are we going to

row together. And if two people are in the same boat both rowing in the same direction, you will get wherever you want to go way faster than two people trying to row their own direction in their own boat. That's right. That's very good John. So there you go. I won't make any more judgments here. There you have it. Yep. Okay. Jessica is in San Francisco, California. Jessica, you're on the line, my friend. Hi. Thanks so much. You guys are taking my call. Well, absolutely.

Well, this closure, I am really nervous. So please forgive me too. If I'm, oh my god, if I'm a little clumsy, I felt no worries. Have you lost any of the show? I'm as clumsy as it gets. You're good. You're good. Oh, that felt like a hug. Thank you. I'm very, I'm really new to Ramsey. I just downloaded the audio book of Baby Steps, which I started yesterday. I'm like a new home. Welcome to our call, Jessica.

Okay.

tonight, tonight the reason I'm calling, I just turned 56 this week. And I'm really feeling

a cup. I'm like a combo platter of really overwhelmed, massively scared, and really, really embarrassed because I'm so late to the game. And I want to empower myself the best as I possibly can. So I'm not working until I reach my expiration date on the shelf, right? Tell us what you're concerned about. Tell us why you're the combination plan. I'm going to be able to, yeah,

“of my combo platter. I just really want to know, am I ever going to be able to retire?”

I've had, yeah. Well, you're not alone. There's a lot of Americans that feel that way. That feeling anxiety around not just can I retire, but when I do, well, I have enough money to carry me through my entire, my, all of my retirement years. So let's, let's play with the numbers. California. Yeah. So in the Bay Area. Yeah. Well, let's play with the numbers a little bit. And we'll try to see if, if we think you're, you're getting close or if there's hope for you or

there's always hope. So tell us your 56 years old. What do you have in a retirement saving so far?

Like nothing. I spent my entire 30s disabled and then I rehabilitated and went back to work and was checked to check in my 40s and then put myself through grad school. So I'll be able to double my earning and had started to save in a 401(k) and then I, I work in tech and we had a layoff and so I was laid off for a year and a half and just went back to work a couple months ago. So how much is in that 401(k) today? Even if it's not much, how much? Yeah, 127,000. Okay, which is not nothing

by the way. What's that? That's not nothing. You said almost nothing and give yourself credit. You have 187,000. And how much are you earning? 140. 140 a year. Okay. And yeah, with about 10% bonus.

“Great. And you will, annual bonus. Okay. And do you have any consumer debt?”

I have about, I have, I do. I only have, this is my only debt. I have lived debt free with the exception of a car. My entire life. I own my home. I have 10,000 on the car. It's worth 26. I have a 2000 emergency fund, even though Dave recommends 1,000. Oh, let it slide. I can't even buy a box. You can't buy a box of clinics here. Listen, I'm not going to take you to task on that. So you've got the $10,000 car. You've got a little bit of an inflated baby step one. Is there anything else that

I'm, well, I'm talking fast because I want to make sure we can help you. Yeah, yeah. And I have $16,000 in savings. Okay. And I own my home. And I own my home, which is $355. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to wait for it. I'm going to blow your mind on this. What I would do, I would take the $16,000 and I'd pay off the car today today right now. I would do it immediately. And then I would continue to invest your $1750 a month off of your salary. And if you do that from

“age 56 to age 70, grow, you're going to have $1.2 million. So you need to stop playing and feel”

good about yourself. And you got to pay for house. And you have a paid for house. You're going to be just fine. The fourth of July is all about freedom. But being broke and stressed out about money all the time, that's not freedom. Look, you can change that. Right now, during our fourth of July sale, select hard covers are $13 each or mix and match three for $33. If you're stressed out and living paycheck to paycheck, these books will help. Because real freedom begins when debt stops

calling the shots. Don't wait. The sale only lasts four days. Go to RamseySolutions.com/store today. Damn is in Los Angeles, California. I feel like we've had several Californians calling in today. How can we help out, Dan?

Thank you very much. I'm currently in a first-time situation that my house is on the market for

nine days. And I'm learning the rate. Maybe basically they're not every few weeks. And it seems like you're not going to be. Yeah. Hey, Dan, do me a favor. Talk directly into your phone for me. I'm talking exactly to the phone. You hear me better? Yeah, it's a little muffled. So whatever you

Can do to improve that we would all want to be able to get right to your ques...

Yeah, so my concern is if should I sell the house right now in a loss or should I keep the

property with a negative cash flow with $2,000 from my pocket every month in a way, a few years until I can refine or bad value of the property would go up there. So you're burning

“2,000 every month on it? I would. You're not currently, why are you saying you would?”

You're not because the house is still in the market is under any state. And the rent price is lower than my mortgage. Okay, right. And I'm saying your current because of that, you're currently burning $2,000 a month on it. I just want to make sure I understood that. I'm burning more. I'm burning 8,000 right now. But if you were to rent it, I'm only going to bring in six because of the market value. I see, okay, got it. Wow, what kind of property is this?

It's a property in the whole of the house. I got it for $1.6. I actually put 30% down two years ago. Okay. And I moved to a new primary. And I thought, okay, let's rent these out. And I understood that, I mean, the negative cash flow right now. So why do you think that is because I'm looking and it's showing that for your, you know, for Los Angeles area 45 to 70 days is like average days on market, you're sitting at 90 days. No, he's trying to, he's been on the rental market. He can't

rent it. He didn't try to sell it yet, right? Yeah, I'm trying to rent it. Yes, correct. So it's on the rent. You can't, you've been for 90 days. You can't get a renter. Exactly. So if you sold it, what would you do? If you sold it, if you put on the market today

“and it sold tomorrow, what would you, what would you do? I believe I bought it for $1.6 and I would tell”

it for $1.4 with this ticket market. Tell us how, tell us how this is occurring in this way. Tell us what do you think the barrier is for finding renters and tell us why you think it's going

down in value. Did you overpay for it? Tell us what you think the problem is.

I paid more than $1,000 square feet in the Hollywood Hills. Today's market from what I see, I think prices are sitting on the market for more than a month or two. They just, they're just dropping the price and the house is three bedrooms. It's $400, $400 square feet. So it's not for a big family and maybe it's a little bit expensive for one person or for a couple. Okay, so it just wasn't a good one though. Yeah, and right now the rent is, the rent is for $7,000

for 90 days, but I'm going to lower it to $6,000 and then I'm going to be negative cash flow of $2,000 or I'm going to put it on Airbnb and maybe going to be break even with the mortgage because my interest is 6.8% from two years ago. Do you think that you could realistically do the Airbnb thing and be at a break even to try to write out the market a little while before you sell it? Do you think you could realistically make that transformation? From my research, from my research, I could be

break even. Yes. I might do that in the interim. Otherwise, you're $200,000 in the whole on this. Do you have that money laying around anywhere that you'd want to take that loss? You said you put down 30%, so you put down 480 on it, right? Yeah, I have 500, so it's a little more than 30%

“year. I don't want to take the loss. I believe in a real estate that the price would go up even”

if I'm getting this negative cash flow, the appreciation would be better to hold this property for 10 years. You can't afford that, but you're getting the old one. I mean, if you're, is this the only property you have, do you have others? I have others, yeah. Are they doing their cash lying? Yeah. I don't have the same interest. I have 2.7% interest on the others. How much total

debt do you have tied up in it in real estate? In real estate? More than a million? I mean,

how much? Like give me a round number. If you think you could, like, is it 1.8? Is it million? Is it? It's about, I have 1 property, there's 1.6 plus 1, so it's 2.6 plus, it's about 3 million. Okay, and then how much is it all worth? Let's say, maybe 5 million? Okay, yeah, I think that, if I were, if I were you, not me, if I were you, I think that you understand

This and I think that you might be able to make that Airbnb transformation an...

at least break even for a while and you might be able to write this out to where you're not at least, you're not making any money, but at least you're not burning cash on it until maybe it's in a better position to sell. I might try that for a while and if you're not able to do the Airbnb, then yeah, I'd probably try to, I try to get out of it if I were you because this $8,000 a month loss is terrible and then even being able to rent it and still being at a $2,000 loss is

even more terrible. I'll tell you, based on your portfolio, you're exposed in a pretty big way. Right? Yeah. And so the only reason I'm saying this is because of how, well, that's not even

the only reason I'm saying this. I'm looking at the flip side is you have assets worth $3 million

and five million? I'm sorry, $5 million. You're, you're leverage $3 million against them, right? Yeah. Okay, so if you, if you went and sold every house you had today, tomorrow you would have a positive bank balance of $2 million approximately, right? Go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, minus taxes and yet. Yeah. I'd say what for me and I don't have a bunch of houses to take this with a grain of salt. I'd sell that house and I would pocket

$300,000 and I would have a very expensive $200,000 stupid tax and this is one of the prime reasons why in man got Almighty, we take a beating online because of how stupid we are. But this is why we say by, by with cash. So if you find yourself in these moments,

“you're at least not losing your soul, right? Right. But like, so that, that's what I would do.”

I would take the, take it on the chin because you're getting hit on multiple levels. You're getting hit on the, the home price has devalued the rent price keeps going down underneath you. And you got to almost 7% interest rate on this thing. Correct. Yeah. You're getting punched and kick and bit all the same time. And you happen to be in a position where you did put a big chunk of money down. So you're going to walk away the $300,000 check. You'll have lost money on this particular

investment. But man, you're hemorrhaging right now. I may have missed a point on this because I thought you said that you were, I thought you told me you still owe 1.6 on it and it's worth 1.4. He bought it for 1.6. People, I wanted to say 1.6, but with today's market, I believe it's I'm going to put it on the market for sale. I, it's going to feed for a while. If I'm going to

“post it for 1.6 again, I believe I'm going to feed a few months and I would have to lower it to 1.5”

and 1.4. For what I've seen today. Yeah, I'm going to see. Property was what on the market for

3 million and I bought it for 2.3. So it's very slim. If you can, if you can get out of it,

to John's point and you can get out of it without owing, yeah, great. If you're already, if you feel like if you list it for a realistic price and you'd already be upside down, I might hold it a little bit. [Music] Our Ramsay show scripture and quote of the day. James chapter 1 verses 2, 3,

one of my favorites, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters. Whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Love that.

Harrison Ford said, "I always see life this way. You just have to find a way to stick it out

and to prevail." It's almost like Harrison Ford knew a little bit about James,

“chapter 1, 2 and 3. All right. Let's go to Charles who is in Savannah, Georgia. Hey, Charles, how can we help today?”

Hey, how are you? Thank you for taking my call. Yes, sir. What's up? Well, now I was just wondering about investments. I live in a pinnural daughter and you know, we live pretty humble, you know, we live close to Savannah and it's a rural area. So everything's a little cheaper down here than it goes to Atlanta or New York, somewhere in California, you know, and we don't make a whole lot of money. But I've managed to save, you know,

My wife had saved about $60,000.

so he had an insurance policy of $120,000, and you know, we save every month.

“Then I'm purgled, so to speak, and you know, I don't like losing money. You know, I work my wife”

or we save about $5750 a month. Okay. We are about $40,000 in debt with the vehicles, which one of them we had to purchase. Usually we don't do more than one vehicle payment at a time, but somebody in my wife a few months ago and they told her that we did have to go to get a new or vehicle. So Charlie is that? That, that going back to the money you said you had saved before you get too deeply into the $60,000 and the $125. Is that the only money you have

saved anywhere, no investing, no nothing like that? I do have a CD that's about $250,000.

And I'm making about $10,000 a year off of that the last two years. I didn't have a $457 wall with about $17,000 in it. Okay. And I contribute five percent each month. Five percent. I'll work for an hour for an agency and I've got a retirement plan so they don't match me, but I do contribute five percent to that every month. And I've got, I've got a couple of ounces of gold and silver, which is that I've all, you know, six, five, six years ago. So,

you know, I've gained about probably $5,000 on that. Okay. And then I've got a little bit of, I've got about $10,000 in cash. Okay. And the bank and my safety will pause the bulk and then I've got about $10,000 in my safety. Well, my good news, Rose, you got money coming out your ears, my God. Do you call this a thunder? You're like down to your last brutal and you got money everywhere. You do. You have it everywhere. I just don't know if it's in the right places. It's not working for you,

“like you could, but I'm not. I goodness you're doing good. That's what I'm blinded, but, you know,”

I mean, personally, I don't need a whole lot, you know. Well, I think you might be more than you think. Yeah. And you keep saying that. Yeah. You keep going to get more and high in that places. Yeah. Because you feel good now, but there's going to be a day when you're not working. Yeah. Exactly. And, like I say, I do have a little camera point, but $325,000 in today's economy, I mean, that could be gone in a blink of an eye. It could, but it'll be bad. Yeah.

And I do want to say this because that, what you're saying, I think Charles is hitting on what a lot of people feel that are probably listening right now is they are afraid. It's like, hey, if I invest this money, what happens if the stock market tanks? And the truth of the matter is, we have to think about that. Like, let's think back, if we think back to $90,000, if we think back to $200,000, the great recession, you're right. The stock market did tank, but what did it do

two years later? It recovered. I don't know. And it was bounce back better and ever. Yeah. And I say, if you do it over a, you know, a 20 to 30 year period, you're going to gain regardless. Of course. But it's like, even on my full 57 Roth, that I have through my job, that it's got a blog say I checked about two weeks ago. It's got like $17,000 in it. And I wish I would have started the day I started to work. Yeah. How older you? But I'm 43. Okay.

“Here's the thing, Charles. Well, while you plug these numbers in, Charles, let me just say this,”

you and I have kind of a like spirit, which is kind of an eye on what if this all goes down, right? Yes, I did. I appreciate you saying that because I've been watching out videos. Okay. And I have been, I work half day going Friday and I've been calling you all every Friday for a long time. All right. I'm going to tell you something that's hard to hear. And I had a buddy of mine that's a bank executive tell me this. Okay. And he was right. If the stock market implodes and doesn't come back,

let's say it goes to zero. The little rocks you have stored in your safe, that one shiny silver, one shiny gold are going to become rocks. The paper you got stored under

your bed is going to be paper. Okay. So here's the thing. Here's the line he gave me when I was

Doing exactly what you're doing.

And what about this? And here's the line he gave me that for whatever reason, it set me free and

“maybe it will for you and maybe it won't. But he said, John, I don't have a meteorite plan.”

If the US stock market goes to zero, that's control all delete and it's going to be a it's going to get Western real fast. Okay. And so I got your planning for what happens if a meteorite hits us. You know what? I'm going to solve that for when that happens. And you're not even buying back hose and shovels and bullets. You're buying gold and hiding this over here and stuff it

under your mattress. And right? Like, so here's what I want to say. Give yourself the best

opportunity with the information we got in front of us. And what I would tell you, the best information based on the numbers you gave me and you gave me a lot of numbers. So I just took the 253 in CDs and I pretended as though you invested it today. So that gives you with the 17,000 and I wasn't sure if the 60,000, I didn't even add the 60,000 or the 125 insurance because I didn't know if that was what was in the CD. So the 60,000 is what me and my wife had saved together before my dad passed away

in our speed, you know, 125,000. And we like to say we try to save at least 500 because at the end of the day, between the both of us, we don't make about a hundred and ten thousand dollars a year. Well, we'll call that 60,000. We'll call that your emergency fund and I'll do you one better. We can

“add the cash and the money and the safe. We can add that to it too because I think you like having”

cash around. So I'm not even touching that. We won't even invest that. But if we took the money from the CD, we went ahead and invested it along with the 17,000. And let's pretend you told me, yeah, you guys put away maybe five to 750 every single month. That's the margin that you can save. If you just did that and you did that, Charles from today until age 65, that puts you at 3.8

million. And that's enough for you, I assume. So do whatever you want wherever you live. Yes.

And let me just say, Charles, we would say, hey, invest 15%. You know, pump that number up. That's not even with you doing that. That's just with you saying, hey, I got $500 a margin. I'm just going to plug that in over there. And you want to know what? I'm cool with that because I will just be happy with this call if you begin investing. I will be happy if you take the money from the CDs and you invested across the four funds that we teach here. And I do want you to get connected with a

smart investor pro because these are people that we vet out. Okay. So that means we trust them. We trust that they can take your money and that they'll treat you with respect and they'll treat you with the heart of a teacher and teach you so that you'll learn and feel great about how your money is being invested. And that that money can grow for you, not just for your current family, but for your legacy. And I think that that's, that's about as good as it gets John.

“So that's what you need to do. All right, guys, that does it for this hour. John did not reply to me.”

I took here, I did not toss me the ball here. There's ultimately one way to financial peace. That's

a walk daily with the principal piece, Christ Jesus.

Transcript

[MUSIC]

3 right now, plus and now the he-lock.

To the phone lines where we have Leah, who's an acronym, Ohio, Leah, how can ...

Let's, number one, just focus on what you can control.

If anyone is dependent on your income,

That we, we only owe 220,000 dollars on our house.

If you're paying 2.

These are our favorite questions, Erin.

So, you know, there were some variables to where up until the last, you know,...

So he's been the only one contributing to this.

Here's what here would be my pushback, I'm thinking about how I would feel as...

Any, any, like, fun things or suggestions that you think would be fun.

It's awesome.

If you're confused about investing, just know you're not crazy.

If you ask AI and ask Ramsay, they're going to say, don't try to time the mar...

No, we definitely have a mortgage, we still have about 249 on it.

Yeah, I don't see how it allows for it in your life.

To it.

We're burning runway there, right?

I have the $1,000 in my savings account as our emergency fund, but he wants m...

Okay.

Can do to improve that we would all want to be able to get right to your ques...

This and I think that you might be able to make that Airbnb transformation an...

My wife had saved about $60,000.

Doing exactly what you're doing.

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