Your Intentionality Will Determine Your Success With Your Money

this is the ramsay show you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story [Music] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where dad is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice anthony o'neil ramsey personality is my co-host today author of the number one best-selling book debt-free degree how to send your kiddo to school debt free or if your kiddo how you go to school completely debt-free no reason to participate in this student loan nightmare that is in america right now why would you sign up for that trip anthony can help you not do that we're here to talk to you about your life and your money the call is free some say it's worth what you pay for it the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five jonathan's in charleston south carolina starting off the hour hey jonathan how are you good dave how are you and anthony better than we deserve sir how can we help long story short military we're about to relocate from south carolina to connecticut uh the housing market is very expensive up there so we're fortunate enough to where we're selling here in charleston and we hopefully should make over a hundred thousand on our home here and when we go to connecticut based off the market up there we thought it'd be a wise decision just to go to base housing that way when i retire in three years i don't have to worry about selling and i can pocket a lot of cash amen my question my question is for the next three years what should i do with this large amount of money that i'm about to cash out of my home here and if we know where we want to end up at the end of my military career is it wise to go ahead and purchase land if we could pay cash for that and sit on it until we're ready to build a home in three years when i retire well thank you for your service yeah absolutely uh let me ask you this question um do you know for sure for sure where you want to be settled at i do we both my life is retired military already and then like i said after years left and we want to end up somewhere around asheville or knoxville somewhere and toward the eastern part of tennessee why i'm originally from memphis and uh close enough to family but far enough away and just we love tennessee we'll be at a point in both of our careers that we will have our military pensions so it will be at the point our lives to where we get to do what we want so the job it's a factor but it's not a huge factor because i believe i can find something wherever we end up here and that's three years down the road right yeah yeah correct and dave may have something different on this one but for me i'm fearful about making a three-year decision especially when it comes to dirt you know i'm just not cause a lot can change and a lot can happen within a matter of three years i'm not a fan of you uh purchasing that now i would be says a guy who's on four different pieces of real estate in the past two years [Laughter] exactly but see that's why because i got a chance to live in a tent is that i might be moving again yeah probably it's it's like a thing yeah i think he's right though i i think what i would do is i'd want to settle into an area and make sure i landed my career there yeah um and you know i i obviously love the mountains and the appalachian mountains in east tennessee that's where i was born is it's uh what causes my blood to pump so i love the area i'm with you on it's beautiful i'm with your general concept asheville is a considerably different city than knoxville like way different absolutely yeah one one is a conservative college town and one is a hipster craft beer town yes and so um just way different politics way different vibe way different everything the only thing they have in common is the market and a state line near both of them absolutely but uh both wonderful towns it's just a matter where you want to be so i think you settle in then and so where do you park it in the meantime uh you get you got two choices you can take zero risk and make almost no money sticking it in a money market or you can take a little risk and drop it into something like a no load uh uh s p 500 that's where i park money on the short term but i'm willing to take the risk that that hundred thousand might go down to ninety five thousand if you do that it might go up to 115 000 that's why you take the risk yeah but it might go down to 95 during that three years it's possible i mean uh but a three year period and just no commission on it so you're not you don't have to make that up over the long haul i don't mind paying commission on funds my funds and my 401k are commissioned funds but the um but they're in there for the long haul where you're just sitting on three years like that just a no-load with meaning no commission uh and or you could put 50 000 in that and 50 000 in the bank and that would limit your risk a little bit more kind of take a middle ground yeah that's the goldilocks approach just right but the uh one's hot and one's cold and you know so anywhere in there but i think anthony's giving you really good wisdom there and again thank you for your service but when you come out of the military you're gonna have a lot of changes uh i mean you've had a very structured uh obviously life for 20 years your wife has as well uh up until her retirement and and you're gonna land and you don't have to do anything because you've got two great sets of retirement but you're likely going to want to do something that gives your life meaning in your career and i'd want to settle all of that yeah and then buy the land yeah get to know the area well enough before you buy the land too it doesn't hurt to rent an area for that you don't know anything about for a year and right now is really hard time to buy real estate so yeah you know sneaking up on a deal right now is that gum near impossible jim's in atlanta georgia hey jim welcome to the ramsey show hey how are you doing dave better than i deserve what's up so i'm working on my debt snowball i'm down to my last three debts and my lowest debt to credit card my second lowest debt is a 401k loan and my elastic are a car lowest i'm wondering if i or by cheap my lowest balance yeah your largest amount my largest amount is the car correct and you haven't okay so you're down to your two largest debts yeah um last one okay all right just making sure i understand what you're supposed to say i'm misunderstood okay good yep so the my job could be changing they're shutting down a facility which means i would either have to find another job or i'd be pushed into a relocation so i'm wondering if in my case i should just attack that 401k loan and get it just done what's the balance i can be agile um it's about 90 200. what do you make uh about 112 base and i usually do how much of you paid off so far and over what period of time uh on for total i've paid off about twenty three thousand total on all other debts how long about 401k i'm sorry how long did that take uh it's been about five months okay so in five months you'll be done because you only got 20 grand you only got 20 grand left well a lot of that was tax refund and taking savings and dumping into it right now my burn rate's about two thousand a month out of 100 grand um yeah you need to you need to cut the lifestyle down dude yeah bro yeah you're bringing in eight grand a month how the world are you only seeing two grand yeah you you need a little bit more help uh no more eating out for you jimbo yeah yeah you need to dial it back son and get this knocked out and the faster you knock it out the less this question matters uh and the higher the probability you're going to get laid off the more the question matters so if you've got an 80 chance of getting laid off yeah maybe you do knock it out uh but if you're gonna knock it all out three or four months anyway doesn't matter much that's so does that make sense makes sense this is the ramsey show [Music] we were drawn to christian healthcare ministries because we both had young families and we wanted to have more children and we had also just started a real estate company and needed to find health care coverage that would meet our needs we were attracted to chm because of its low monthly costs and the ability to negotiate medical costs down established in 1981 and accredited by the better business bureau chm is here to meet the needs of your growing family or small business check us out at ch ministries.org backslash budget we absolutely believe in it [Music] anthony o'neil ramsey personality is my co-host today you can listen to him on the table a podcast that we put out here at ramsey network it's also on youtube and extremely popular be sure and listen to the table with anthony o'neil lots of cool people come to that table and get all kinds of information lots of other stuff going on yeah lots of other stuff dave and we're going to get you on the table one day we just got to get you cool first but until the meantime until the meantime you gotta catch a bill battle it's an uphill battle it might be a long way but you know until the meantime dave there was one point in my life i was not cool i remember being 19 year old 19 years old and i was in tons of debt uh taking on and taking out student loans in college and that was one of the biggest mistakes i ever made in my life and i took out student loans dave when my father actually had the gi bill and i had a partial scholarship and i didn't even need them and so i made some horrible decisions that kind of wrecked my financial would you try with that you didn't buy tuition with it because you need to no no no i didn't i got a car stereo yeah i bought a car stereo i bought the spinner wheels uh remember those the wheels when you stop they kept spinning that's cause you're cool yeah that's right that's right that was a very unwise decision uh but you know what here's the truth i've destroyed these student loans got my life together but you know dave one of the missions that i'm on is to really help young people avoid the mistakes that i've made help parents help their young people avoid the mistakes that i've made and we've all made because we've all made some financial mistakes and that's why i have the perfect graduation gift america for you to give your high school grad our team here recently redesigned rachel and i's book the graduate survival good that's not survival good the graduate survival guide and look at it i mean it's fire it got blue the the new look is good you see it right there it really does match my shirt they knew that blue was my favorite color uh and check this out it's only ten dollars dave now i was going to talk to you about this offline because uh it's normally twenty dollars but they said that you wanted it ten dollars and so i'll go with the boss uh but this is a great deal so it's graduation season yeah i get it all these people you want to charge these poor little broke graduates too much money hey man i'm trying to save money so my kids can go to college but you're right dave we want to help them out we want to help them out so for a limited time yeah 10 is a great deal so if you want to get this gift today for any high school graduate it's good for them text the word grad grad to 33789 again that's grad to 33789 and get this game changing book for only ten dollars before the prices go back up to twenty dollars because i'm i'm rooting for it to go back up but right now let's take advantage of this giving season there you go well it's uh uh buy a case of them because you got it you're gonna get like 9 000 of those college or high school graduation invitations and you need to send them something that matters yeah so instead of some stupid little thing that yeah that we all got you know remember that absolutely i don't even remember it that's how stupid okay open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five sebastian's up next in atlanta hi sebastian how are you hey there dave how are you doing better than i deserve what's up so i have a quick question for you just a little background i'm a recent college grad working in engineering recently just landed a job with a fortune 100 company here local to me that i plan to have my full career with i live in the mountains of north georgia my wife and i just bought our first home and hopefully our last we've got some property and we plan to settle there and make a life for ourselves but i have 17 000 in student loans and i am looking to pay those off hopefully here within the next six months now my company has just told me that they are going to cover all of my tuition to go back to school for a promotion to a senior engineering position my question to you is should i re-enroll before or after i pay off those student loans i'm sorry they're paying for it yeah they're yeah right right doesn't matter yeah doesn't cost you anything right right now how much how much are you making there sebastian right now i'm making about 45. okay and what are the loans outside of your student loans do you have what other kind of debt i have uh no debt other than home mortgage that i share with my wife obviously all of our cars are paid off i pay for school out of pocket myself working full-time in college so it took me a little bit longer but i graduated with as little debt as i possibly could good for you um and i don't have any credit cards or anything like that is this is this 45k home income or just your income just mine what what did your wife make uh actually the exact same 45 so you are doing it by 90k yes and then is is does she have any debt uh no debt okay great so yeah man i'm attacking these you'll be debt free if y'all live below your means in three to four months that's what he said yeah it'd be done in six months so i don't understand why it matters when you register for school since school's not costing anything yeah well our uh our loan forbearance as far as interest goes uh ends in november so my goal was to attack that and get that done in six months but um the tuition program is a reimbursement program so 100 of that two issue will be reimbursed oh they're not paying for it until you pay for it correct so there's there's the pinch okay so what's it cost um it's looking like it will probably be somewhere around six thousand dollars a year um so what's the first semester you only need one semester so three thousand bucks first first semester will probably be around three to four thousand dollars okay so let's do this right seventeen and three is twenty you make ninety i don't know why you can't do both right okay are you on the budget right now sebastian honestly we are we're actually budgeting pretty aggressively um i just started this job actually three months ago okay um and so we're we're budgeting as if we're starting from ground zero um starting as if if when you when you crunch the numbers and you're an engineer so you're good with numbers if when you crunch the numbers you have to choose then wait a little bit on starting the classes yeah let's get the student loans my one other option was wait until the spring semester re-enroll in the spring semester yeah that's what i'm saying that's cool that's what i'm saying but i really think that it's only three thousand bucks that's the only pinch right and that primes the pump and then they give you three back and you need that three to pay the next and then they give you that back and you need that three to pay then and so once you got the first three in you it rolls from there on the reimbursement program because assuming they reimburse reasonably quick yeah i hear i hear a little bit of stress in your voice man what's your mortgage payment uh sebastian uh i just put him on are you just putting him a hold okay he's gone but anyway but i think the bottom line is is that um that may be it you may be onto something there but but um yeah let's put actual numbers to the problem yeah and not discuss the problem in theory yeah when you put actual numbers to math numbers to these problems then you really find out if you have a challenge or not yeah uh and sometimes that helps me because then i don't have to think about the theory but overall if i have to choose i'm going to be debt free before i go back and start cash flowing something i would in this situation yeah in this situation i was going to stretch someday to go get that done in three months i mean it's about five six grand a month to get it done but i see now he has to pay for it out of pocket yeah and plus his other bills yeah so but he could be he could by the time he you know if you put up the first three in september and that gets him going and it's still november before he gets the student loans paid off or december before it gets them paid off that's good that's still good yep that's that's not a problem for me because you're still crunching all the way through it so anywhere in something like that but the point being that the actual numbers are not that's the the extra 3000 is not what's killing the deal here all right robert's with us in jacksonville florida hey robert how are you i'm doing well and how about yourself better than i deserve sir how can we help wonderful thank you for taking my call um i'm in a little bit of a situation i don't know what to do um i have uh some debt myself my home and no other debt um my father recently passed away and i inherited a home in another how old was state it's a very emotional thing uh 62 it was due to covert related things so i'm sorry yeah it's not not great and i just had a a child uh three months before he passed three months after he passed excuse me um so i'm trying to figure out what to do with his home and also his car and i have no debt personally except for my mortgage there is a mortgage on his home i'll tell you what i want to give you a good solid answer on this commercial sneaking up on me and this is an emotional time so you hang on for a second we come back from this break we'll make sure we give you a good long answer thanks for hanging out with us [Music] stop paying your overpriced wireless provider and switch to puretalk they use the same network as the larger providers for much less for just 30 a month get unlimited talk text and six gigs of data with no contract the average family saves over seventy dollars a month by switching to pure top just go to puretalk.com and enter the promo code ramsey to save 50 off your first month pure talk simply smarter wireless [Music] this is the ramsey show anthony o'neil ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today we're talking with robert in jacksonville florida just had a new baby and sadly his 62 year old dad passed recently from covet comp complications he inherited uh some property in another state and that's about how far we got in the discussion again robert so sorry for your loss what a horrible thing to go through thank you how old are you 32 okay and what did you inherit and what's your question so i have the house now there's a mortgage on it um i would say i could probably sell it um for about 450 and there's a 217 thousand dollar mortgage on it where uh new york and you're in jacksonville florida yes sir okay uh my house here is um i owe about 98 000. um house across the street same house just sold for about 260. um and i'm going to need to upgrade soon because of the baby and we're going to try to have another one soon um i have no debt like i said um i have a comfortable savings and i have a pretty good income i just don't know if i should turn the house in new york maybe into a rental or if i should sell it because the market is going so well and also i'm not sure if i should buy a house now because i want to upgrade a bit because i have a new child and we're going to have another one i only have a two-bedroom house right now so i need to upgrade a bit um so and i know that a lot of stuff is overvalued also right now you know so they say so i don't really know what to do honestly so robert let me let me first say man again we are dave and i both are just extremely apologetic and sorry for your loss and uh we're praying for you and your family uh to be sensitive with the subject um uh with this uh i think your father would want you to be wise i think your father would want you to not have any stress uh having a baby uh living out of the state of new york uh and i think you should focus first on in your family so with that being said um i i think you should sell the property uh so that way you can focus solely on you and your family having a family there a young family and trying to manage a rental property way over in new york if that's going to add on more stress to you as a father and to your family and i would say just get a very good realtor out there go to one of our programs to help you find one to help you get the best bang for your buck and in this market you probably can get a little bit more than what it's worth um and quickly and then take that money and bring it over to you and your family but i don't want you to be worth living in jacksonville uh preparing for you and your future uh your family's future and then also stressing about a home in new york yeah and here's how we know that that's good advice okay the house in new york is gonna yield you a couple hundred thousand dollars after it's sold after mortgage is paid right yes sir so if you call me up and said i have two hundred thousand dollars sitting in the middle of my kitchen table i'm thinking about going to new york to buy a rental property you would have never done that that wouldn't come out that's exactly right that wouldn't come up and so um you know the only thing that's it's just so emotional because it was your dad's place and you're trying to think and the real estate market's whacked right now so you're trying to figure out how to best do all that so if i'm in your shoes dude um i'm gonna cry some i'm gonna go up there and find some items that um that he had that will remind you of him like i've got my great great grandfather's bible uh you know i want that kind of stuff right but i don't care about the house houses aren't keepsakes and so um yeah and i would liquidate the car of the house whatever other miscellaneous things and let's bring the cash to florida and let that be your dad's legacy that he basically buys his grandkids next house right and there's no rush to buy the next house right you just had the baby i mean you saw there's not another one here yet and so if it takes you a year or a year and a half to get around to making that next purchase and getting yours sold you can delay that decision but i don't see any reason to delay the one in new york um even though it's fully laced in emotion tori is with us in uh celina kansas hi tori welcome to the ramsay show hello sirs how are you doing today better than we deserve what's up in your world excellent well um so two times in the last probably three years i feel like god has been nudging me to become a nurse these the idea of wow i should be a nurse i shouldn't be doing what i'm doing has hit me just out of the blue and it hit me most recently at a funeral i was at so and then a little bit of backstory um the company that i work for i'm actually one of the owners i'm a shareholder all that kind of stuff we do home care and they have graciously said that they will pay for me to go through nursing school because one of the owners who is you know our company rn is is older than i am and going to retire you know at some point so the thought is that i would just take their place when they retire um i'm calling because i'm very new in my christian walk and i have respected you uh for years and and you know being very god-led and so i'm wondering you know what i should do and how old are you you know the finance i'm i'm uh 33. excellent that's a great question thank you for honoring us with that uh question that's sensitive anthony yeah you know tori i think one of the things that i hear from you is uh let me ask this question real quickly why do you think god is calling like why are you so passionate about it why do you think god is telling you this is what you need to do other than what you may think yeah so um the first time that it hit me and it was just it was just like a mental thing like what are you doing with your life you're supposed to be a nurse it was i'm driving on my way to work at a at a pass job and i saw a lady in scrubs walking down the street and then you know i didn't really think much of it beyond that because it didn't really apply to me then um but the one that happened most recently i was you know at this amazing woman's funeral she was actually a client of ours and you know i was there for support for family of course and also for our our caregivers and again you know no no nursing really related and it just hit me as i was getting a little bit emotional about her granddaughters actually speech at her funeral and i was like what am i doing with my life like this this isn't what i've been called to do first and foremost there's not a perfect system yeah uh you know and i've been walking with god a long time and sometimes i find out it was last night's pizza talking to me not the holy spirit so um you just you just don't always know for sure until you look back right and you look back and you go well that was not god it's a disaster back there and he doesn't he doesn't sign us up for those or that was god so i used three or four things uh one is you need to have a peace when you start talking about this does your soul relax the peace that surpasses all understanding the bible calls it or do you feel angst if you feel angst it's probably not god the second thing i look for is circumstantial things because god will align things he runs everything he's there five years from now he's there five years ago and he's here now at the same time he's not bound by time and so he's lining things up and you've got some circumstantial things lining up here that make a lot of sense and the third thing i ask myself is what is this thing i'm hearing does it align with scripture for instance i believe in my study of the bible for 40 years that the bible does not say debt is a good idea and so if i've got to go into debt to do it i'm thinking that's not god because it doesn't align with scripture or if it involves uh you doing something else that's you know more blatantly even against scripture obviously being a nurse a caregiver would be a very godly thing to do it's a wonderful thing to do so if those three things are lined up the only other thing i heard which is beautiful i know that visiting brand new babies when they're born and going to funerals these are the tuning forks of life this is when you stop your everyday grind and you're looking at a casket or you're looking at a brand new baby and you get retuned to the lord retuned to where god's taking you it's a tuning fork it sets you back in place and so the fact that goes down to funeral home kind of gives me inspiration too i think it's him but i don't i could be wrong we're just talking it through together you don't have to get too spooky about it you can just go be a nurse this is the ramsay show [Music] [Music] um [Music] anthony o'neil ramsey personality is my co-host today hey you want to add anything to that how to hear god's voice discussion because you you mean you pastored you young people you were a youth pastor for many years yeah i'd be interested to hear your further take on that we got pinched by the commercial a little bit oh yeah dave i think he was hitting it right on i think one of the things that you said that resonates with me so well is when i know i hear from god at least 90 of it is when i can align what i hear with god's word and what i've learned is god is really never silent we're just not listening and when we're not listening it's because we're not really in in the word we're not really studying and getting connected and getting closer to him so for me i tend to say that was god was in my emotions when i wasn't really reading but when i'm reading when i'm when i'm listening god is talking and when he's silent that's still god talking and so for me when you said it has to align with the word of god that resonated with me so much because if i say that i hear something i'm hearing it through the word and that's that's that resonated for me dave yeah my counsel would be don't move on a singular spiritual event right there should be more than there should be confirmation in your spirit confirmation circumstances but i had a dream and i woke up that morning and i'm gonna go do it no no that's a dream yeah well it could it could be god right but if it is there's gonna be more evidence than just that yes over a period of weeks or months or years yeah and it may be a timing thing yeah you know and so uh you know you you singular events uh can you're more likely to make a mistake and miss whether it's really him or not off of a singular event but if you can get more than one data point as you're walking through that then you know uh like you said one another data point is what it aligns with the word of god another data point is the circumstantial thing lined up and then another and then another time i'm driving down the street and there's a lady in scrubs and i hear that hear this voice again saying this in my mind and then you know i get that but i don't uh come in here after my prayer time and um in 30 years maybe two times and say god told me something this morning we're gonna go do this ah man we just say you know okay i'm gonna just pause right here and make sure that's not last night's pizza yeah yeah you know i believe from our our spiritual belief i mean if god says this is what he wants you to do he's going to also give you the resources to do it and he got and he did he gave him the pain they're paying for exactly to be a nurse that was awesome so that's another big confirmation right there yeah like hey that that could be it sounds like god oh preacher said the definition of prosperity is having the money to do what god says to do yep and if that's a big thing it gives you all that if it's a little thing you'll give you that yeah that's uh that's a that's a sure sign that's a great discussion you guys it's um um in a world called crazy we need to talk about stuff like this more yeah and it'll calm some of you people down some of you people are out of control out there oh my gosh calm get off social media till you grow up well that just means you won't okay anyway see there it is all right ashley's in tampa florida hey ashley welcome to the ramsey show thank you what's up so i have a question that's at the intersection of marriage kids and finances um i have considered divorce and um there's a couple of different factors for that um a big one is finances since we've been married we have been in debt uh we i don't know if he was in debt before i married him but i was in debt i i wasn't well i had a small student loan um that i took care of within the first few years of our marriage um anyway we got to about 140 000 of debt uh mostly on credit cards and a lot of different factors went into that but there was a point i i was just stressing me out so much and um you know i did all the zero percent refinancing and all that and um anyway so a few years ago i listen i'm sorry honey i hate to catch you off but you're going to tell us what you need yes how can we help so i'm considering divorce and i guess i wanted to get your perspective on the best timing for that there's not good timing for that that's a horrible thing to have to go through darling so and it's due to disagreements over money uh and kids and kids uh what what do you mean about kids having them or how to treat them or what yeah i guess bringing them up i'm sorry i didn't know i was gonna get emotional it's okay it's fair it's an emotional thing yeah and how old are your babies 14 12 and 4. and so what is he doing about money that makes you want to end this so as i said i hadn't started listening to you a few years ago and so i put together a budget and i've been just really hammering on the debt i've got it down to about 60 000 without the mortgage where is he why is he not helping i have asked him to help i have had several conversations with him why is he not healthy he isn't unwilling why did you make did you make all the debt by yourself no it's been with the family i think i'm a big factor maybe that's what i i haven't considered that but uh no it's just he never said why he won't help no he wants me to handle it and then be involved once the debt is handled why why it's not logical he's not given a reason he's just that was the conversation and how it ended up is that i'll handle the debt and then when it's done then we'll talk and make plans and stuff okay um well obviously that's not a good plan uh and is that is that reason enough to end a marriage no but is it enough to be upset about yes and is it an unreasonable process yes so uh what i would tell you is this i i um i think you need someone to guide you through this relationship and before you just slap your hand on the table and say that's it i'm done and maybe can guide you through some tools conversationally to uh try to draw you guys back together and to work together and so what you need is a good marriage counseling my guess is mister i'm not involved it doesn't want to go to marriage counseling either but you can go without him but you can go without him and talk to a marriage counselor who can hear your whole story long form and who can injects better wisdom than we can here in a five-minute radio call because i'm definitely not gonna tell somebody unless there's domestic violence involved unless you're getting beat that your marriage is over on the radio that would be very unwise of me and very advised of you to listen to me if i did do that but if there's something other than that you've got some work to do before you throw down the ultimatum gauntlet and sit down with your pastor sit down with a marriage counselor someone to guide you through to where you can say okay i can't stay anymore after you've learned how to do this not from me but i can't stay anymore unless you're willing to do this with the kids and this with the money yeah and whatever this is and you fill in those blanks and uh but you've got you've got 15 or 20 years invested in this process with a 13 year old and so um you know you want to be very very wise and very systematic in how you walk through this that way you won't it won't be on you yeah and i can hear the stress in her her voice dave and i i want to encourage everyone who's married out there and if you're relate you can relate to her listen to dave advice i mean seek marriage counseling even if it's by yourself i can't speak too much of it because i'm not married and i've never been in that situation but we do know that the number one reason for divorces are finances and so uh but we could do better at just getting the council getting the wisdom before we run yeah so i mean you'd want to draw out why you won't get involved and see if we can solve that yeah so the other thing we'll do is put you guys into ramsey plus into financial peace university again i don't know if he'll go but we can help you through the process and hold on kelly will pick up and we'll definitely give you that as a tool hopefully to save your marriage this is the ramsey show [Music] have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of ramsay advice in their life let them know about the ramsey call of the day podcast it's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes check out the ramsey call of the day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts [Music] this is the ramsay show [Music] you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i'm dave ramsey your host anthony o'neil ramsey personality best-selling author is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life and your money open phones at triple h five 825 two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five josh is with us to start off this hour he's in chicago hey josh how are you hey dave it's a pleasure speaking with you guys hey anthony uh how are you guys doing great man how can we help um hi so i'm started listening to the show maybe about two months ago so still relatively new to the process working through the baby steps i'm on one step one right now um more or less my career i have a job work that pays relatively well but i'm just not really happy i did feel like god called me to do what i'm doing at the time when i got the job but it's kind of been a very difficult process i'm trying to figure out how to work in possibly looking for an alternate job into the baby step program i guess is my question in a nutshell you mean change jobs while you're working baby steps right okay what do you make now uh right now i'm i make about 50 a year yeah 5-0 yeah 50 000. yeah and you're how old at 27. what do you do i'm a biomedical technician so i uh repair dialysis equipment okay you know what and what would you change too that kind of becomes a little bit of a the thing like so i'm a very social person and i i very much so enjoy speaking with people and the kind of work that i do now is very socially isolating so it uh i guess the the easiest answer is it doesn't bring joy to my heart to do what i'm doing now even though i know i'm helping people so i want to find something that i'm able to invest into others yeah that's pretty broad yeah i don't know where you put that resume in right now you you got to be intentional and and it doesn't sound like you're being intentional so uh no i don't think it's a good opportu it's a good time for you to change careers now let's just say this all right you need to go through ken coleman's process right yeah and once you do that and you identify i want to work doing i want to be one of those whatever that is or something that has these components to it whatever that's a little more than just i don't want to work with machines i want to work with people i get that that's a but but that does that leaves the entire world open that you could do there's a lot of stuff you can do out there that that with that as your guidelines so you're going to have to get more clarity on where you're going number one and you can do that while you're working to get out of debt and once you know what that is then we gotta figure out what that pays now here's the deal if it pays fifty thousand dollars a year or more and you can land the job it doesn't harm your debt snowball at all as a matter of fact it helps it for you to make the move if it pays thirty thousand dollars a year and you make fifty now now we gotta stop and think about it maybe not but if it's a lateral or up move why wouldn't you yeah a lot of the jobs that i've been looking at would be uh not not as high of an income you know why because you don't have it clarified you haven't set a goal you just kind of generally went i want out of here and who's hiring well who's hiring his entry level always so we need to have a little bit better clarity on your career path and this might take six months for you to land a better job but but you're not gonna die there in six months i mean you're just you just need to see some human beings is all you're saying and you'll get there you're gonna be fine what we don't want to sign up for is 10 years of doing this and doing nothing about it right right but 10 10 months you can survive while you find the right clarity uh but no i don't want you moving down i want a matter of fact even if you were out of debt and you just called and went i think i want to be happy good move up that's that makes you happier if they if you found something paid 100 000 with people involved you'd be a lot happier very much so yeah so let's do that i mean why do we have to make the assumption that in order to be happy we have to make less money it generally works the other way around by the way but you know what dave this younger generation really they will prefer happiness over making good but they're not independent they're not on the same spectrum unhappy or happy does not mean broke [Laughter] it's not it doesn't mean you have to make less to be happy that is true you don't you don't have to do that you can just find a different way to do the thing that makes you happy that the society will pay you for yeah i'm not saying money makes you happy but a hundred thousand is a lot easier to work with than 30. absolutely i agree with you trust me i'm talking about this on my show i know i'm saying i know it's just but it can run coleman runs into this all the time i'm gonna i want to have work that has meaning and great so get some work that has meaning help a whole bunch of people and get paid a lot exactly you know i got i have work that has meaning i'm doing pretty good sure me too we're helping a lot of people so it's you know you don't have to be broke to be happy that or or work for a non-profit which by the way is not a biblical construct that is an irs guideline every non-profit is profitable or they close they go broke it's an accounting entry it's not a holiness factor there's no such thing you can't you know i'll guarantee you man the the uh the doctor that you go see is in in and it brings healing to your life is as much a ministry as your preacher so good i mean it's just that that's work is worship when done with the right motives and when you're serving and helping people so uh this this idea that you have to work for some entity to be holy no it's the work you do and how you do it in the spirit you do it with and by the way if you help a whole bunch of people as our friend says they will give you certificates of appreciation with presidents faces on them i love that rabbi daniel lapin in the book thou shall prosper one of our buddies says that all the time yeah so it's a great question it's a great question so what we want to do in your case josh is attack the construct that you're dealing with which made you call and say i think i need to make less to be happy and should i do that on the debt snowball no you shouldn't you should go make more and be happy and then you don't even have to ask the question yeah i agree go to kencoleman.com download uh some of his materials there's lots of stuff there free yeah it'll get you going he's got the seven stack steps the first one is to get clear yeah the seven stages of working and finding the dream job the first ones get clear clarity and you don't have that yet josh yeah all you know is you don't like where you are you don't know what you like and i recommend josh take some time call into his show tomorrow yeah he'll help you walk through the process real quickly on his show so go to kencolemanshow.com uh look at the hours there within your city give it give us a call he'll probably be more gentle than i was yeah a lot more that's why i didn't say too much but kim would take kim would take real good care of you uh bro call him tomorrow he'll even give you a copy of the book just tell him dave and anthony said you'll give us a call oh we can give him a copy yes all right why don't you think so don't you think so thank you being for nice dave yeah well you're you're the nice guy you brought it up yeah proximity principle number one best seller by ken coleman on helping you get a job and your thing you love kelly's gonna give joshua yes since i was mean to him thank you this is the ramsey show [Music] what makes our show unique is that we genuinely care about our listeners we're intentional about choosing the best advertisers to recommend blinds.com is no exception they offer high quality window treatments at unbelievable prices and they make it simple to shop blinds shades and interior shutters with easy online ordering free shipping and a guaranteed perfect fit go to blinds.com and take advantage of this week's special savings [Music] anthony o'neil ramsey personality is my co-host today hey folks have you ever made a dumb decision with zeroes on the end because you didn't do your research yeah me too most people make choices based on feelings or opinions especially when buying a house but when it comes to this real estate market feelings are not your friends facts are your friends so check your facts find out what you can actually afford research what's trending in home prices talk to a reputable real estate agent in your area someone who's done real estate a lot when a market is white hot like this a monkey can sell a house it does not all you just put a sign yard people line up but that doesn't mean you sold it for the most you could get because you don't have any idea what the flip you're doing you and your monkey you know really you need to put a sign in the yard with a pro who sells 50 60 houses a year and did last year and knows what they're doing and they know how to handle this white hot market and you'll get the most possible dollars for your house it's not amateur hour out there right now people although there's a bunch of amateurs out there never buy a house without the facts go to ramsey solutions.com agent find an endorsed local provider in your area that will help you make smart decisions these are people we have vetted they have not only the heart of a teacher not only believe in the ramsey principles but they also sell a ton of houses they know what they're doing ramsey solutions.com agent reggie's in chattanooga hey reggie what's thank you for taking my call dave and hello to you your guests there got a question for you my daughter is 24 years old i would like to know what can i do financially to put money away from her and potentially grandkids should that happen so that they will have a much easier time or be better off when she finally gets to my age or older if the lord allows that's such a great question uh reggie um well where are you at financially right now oh i'm following your steps i gotta i gotta i have a ways to go i have some uh realignment that i need to do okay so so you still have some debt right now no i don't we don't have any i don't have any debt okay houses paid for uh just bumped up the company 401 to the 15 um what else is there on that list um yeah you got some money put away okay so you see so cool great i just wanted to make sure because i think i wanted to make sure that you are good because the first thing that you can do i believe as a parent is to make sure that you're in a healthy place to when you do get older and you will need some help from your children you're not putting them in an uncomfortable place financially and have given them extra financial responsibility so that's the first way to give your child a head start is to make sure that you are good you and your spouse if you're married or good financially um on number two dave you're living this season out right now you know preparing to uh pass down some wealth and legacy to your kids what is one key thing that we all can do to really set our young people up successfully financially down the road if they can't make it on their own they're not gonna make it when you leave them money well that is true but if you train them up the correct way it's not going to be an issue she's she's she's out of college okay she has a master's she has a bachelor's it's just a matter of uh opportunity so that's not an issue you know so she's she knows how to work she knows how to give she knows how to save she doesn't spend and as she if she can handle her life and her money well and she won't need you because she's doing a great job with her life and with her money she won't need wealth from you that's when she's best prepared to actually receive wealth from you yeah that's i i understand that but i would like to have something there other than what i'm putting away from myself and my wife why that's what you know in other words go be a millionaire how old are you i am 50 i if the lord allows and i make it to the end of this month i'll be 54 years old okay cool well the average millionaire in our study it took him 17 years so when you're 70 you should be a millionaire what do you make about right now about 36 your wife work she does what she meant she's right around the same okay she got a 75 000 70 000 household income cool great no debt work our baby steps man and in 15 years you're gonna be in a really good position to leave her maybe not a million dollars maybe three quarters of a million um that you're living on and then when you pass you can pass it to her assuming she has the character to handle it but if you pass money to somebody that doesn't have the character to handle it it's not a blessing it's a curse yeah yeah so you taking care of you anthony said it right right out of the gate you taking care of you and not being a burden is step one you taking care of you and becoming wealthy and then leaving that whatever however you want to define wealthy i don't care if it's 200 000 or 2 million i mean anywhere in there is going to be good with me and you leave that to her and it supplements her life because she already has her act together that's when you've done your job man but there's no magic thing you can buy that just drops a bomb of money on her and makes her everything okay uh there's no such thing yeah and i like how you said that dave there's no magic think it's just discipline it's following the baby steps and when you hear dave say go out there and you become a millionaire what dave is is saying on top of that it's like hey when you build wealth uh you're building wealth not just for you but you better leave that to your kids and they'll be able to maybe invest that leave that to their kids but you can't go out here build a little bit for you and your wife and then also build wealth for them it's not your responsibility to build wealth for your kids it's your responsibility for you and your wife to build wealth live and enjoy your life and then once you pass you can pass that down to whomever you choose and that's the main thing that i think we have to really focus on yeah ourselves yeah and and here's the thing these things all go together because when you get a big pile of money regardless of where you get it from all it does is magnify your life all your weaknesses are going to be exposed in spades they're going to be everywhere all your strengths are going to become superpowers your good parts are going to get bigger and your bad parts are going to get bigger money magnifies that's why when somebody is a doofus and they win the lottery they become a doofus on steroids yes and that's what you see out there and this is the problem your life is not fixed by more money your life is magnified by more money and so reggie that's true for your daughter that's my point so if she takes this wonderful job she's done getting this education getting her master's degree all the stuff that make you so proud i mean you can hear his chest sticking out when he's bragging on his baby there that's awesome and then she throws her shoulders back and leans in goes and has a big time career starts making some money controlling her life not it gets out of debt or stays out of debt builds some emergency funds builds her long time investing her long-term investing uh that's setting her up her living her life properly is the best indicator that whatever you leave her is going to be a blessing and not a curse and i actually prefer that dave than actually getting a million dollars i would prefer to see my daughter my son with the wisdom and knowledge and making uh good decisions with their money being good stewards of their money then for them to be horrible with their money and then i leave them with my money that i worked hard here's the interesting thing is when you're leaving that money it's going to go away if they can't handle it right and if they have those skills they'll go get their own million dollars and then when you add to it now we're fixing the next generation come on dave i like that so it really doesn't kind of land in the middle if you leave a doofus a million dollars they're gonna lose it you know man dave you just said something can we repeat that again you said dad gets a million she gets a million when dad passes that million goes on top and that's two million pass it down to the kids that's three million that's that's legacy dave yeah this is changing your family look at them young people out there smiling he holding her real tight like baby let's do this that's how it works this is how it works right here oh i love it i like that one this is the ramsay show [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] anthony o'neil ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at two two 825-5225 chris and jess are in rochester new york it says on my screen you guys are debt free congratulations thank you thank you well done how much you pay off 107 hundred dollars in twenty months excellent how long i'm in and what was your range of income during that time we started about 140 000 and finished about 150 000. cool what do you guys do for a living i'm a mechanical engineer i'm a project manager very good excellent careers great and 108 000 of what kind of debt well it was mostly made up of student loans because this was my second career um but then we had a couple cars some stuff like a furniture mattress things like that and then just a little bit of credit cards ah so you guys were fairly normal we were very normal it was super uncomfortable yeah normal sucks so uh how long y'all been married six years since august six years wow so about two years ago something happened what lit the fuse on this yeah so um a little over two years ago i i lost a job and it put me in a real real bad place and i didn't know where to go and i remember conversations with jess about hey how are we gonna how are we gonna pay for the house like you know i or maybe we're gonna have to sell it and then um i found found a great place to work um and i met someone there at work who said hey you should you should listen to dave ramsey and i said sure and he he gave me your podcast to listen to i listened to it while on a work trip and i came back home and i said hey honey i think i think we have a good plan for us to not fight about money anymore whoa some money fights have been there huh it was it was strained i i was a financial person and he just didn't really understand everything that i was doing i was i was kind of one of those like credit card points people you know i was really into my my my points and my my airline miles and things that you talk about um and after he came home and told me about you and and showed me the podcast i was like yeah 100 let's do it you know i i'm very excited to be out of debt and if you're on the same page with me like i'll do anything you know let's follow this wow so it is interesting that his job loss resulted of course in getting a better job but also resulted in scaring the pants off of you yes it did oh yeah i mean like your heart your heart was ready in a special way you know the pandemic did that for a lot of people it scared the crud out of them and they're they're like okay never again never had their never again moment in 2020 you know i don't want to be here when the big bad wolf comes and blows unless i'm in the brick house you know and so i got to get my act together and that's what y'all did i'm so proud of you way to go thank you so much it feels you you feel uh strong don't you it's an incredible feeling like the financial piece that that you talk about all the time it's it's almo it's so much weight off of your shoulders that you know right now we're going through a hard time personally but the one thing that we don't have to worry about right now is our finances they're so strong that you know it's it's just like carry on with the rest of the stuff the other curveballs that you get in life you know you can handle them now that we're on the same team and we've got such a good strong footing financially you can you know look my son in the eye and say hey you know i know you're going to be okay like i know i know you're going to be okay and i think that's um that's a big reason why why we did this yeah so jess i'm curious what would you say over the last 20 months was the hardest thing for you all to do to pay off 107 000 in debt um i think we had a really rough time in the beginning about budgeting that uh you know we we had to understand you know what gazelle intense was for us and what that meant and what a need versus a want was and i think it was hard for us to just say like hey these are the things that are definitely wants and really identify those and come up with a budget for each one of our budget items and sit down agree upon it and that that really strengthened our relationship and and really set us up to be able to accomplish this goal oh man i love it i love it so who who was hardcore and who was a little lighter so we're both nerds i think it's probably the fair the fair comment here so we're both looking at the spreadsheet and we're like well do we do we really need to do this like can we can we wait we both had moments where we wanted to spend a little extra money doing something and the other one would give the look and say hey i don't i don't think we can do that you know i'm still going to say it was me i'm still going to say i was a little bit more hardcore yeah i was i was about to agree with you jess that sounds like jess was the hard one yeah she was already the points queen so we just converted her to being the head gazelle yeah that's cool you guys are both incredible i'm so proud of both of you very very well done so cool so you mentioned that you guys have struggles and was it your son so um we'll be honest we're expecting another um and it's a little complicated and so it's it's okay everything's going to be fine but it's just going to be harder than we thought it was going to be um and that kind of moted uh motivated us even further to get out of debt faster and so we made some extra gazelle decisions uh based on like that circumstance um but we have a great support system we have in we're almost done with our uh our baby step three and so we're ready you know we're ready to you know and here's another reason you're ready is that for the first time in six years or in a you in at another level not maybe for the first time in six years but at another level you have fought the dragon together yeah yes yeah and this is yet one more dragon to fight this uh the challenge the challenge that you've got in front of you and when you can lock arms and beat the money dragon you can lock arms and beat the next one that's the plan it's a tough road ahead resiliency is you know it's it's a really big deal yeah i'm sure it is and financial resiliency really leads to everything else yep your life yeah but the the teamwork that you developed on the money thing was a just a warm up for the next thing right that's it yeah we can interlock arms and know that whatever challenges are going to come our way we know that we can overcome them and we just got to focus and knock it out amen amen i'm proud of you guys you're heroes this is beautiful very well done sorry for what you're facing but i think you're up to it and uh yeah you got it you got it yeah you're gonna be you're gonna be fine it's gonna be all right all right very cool all right last thing what advice do you give to someone uh who just lost their job but then they got another job and they got the pants scared off and they said i need to do something what's the key to getting out of debt to me it's listen to the wake-up call there's a reason you got it answer the call listen listen to the call and say what do i need to do differently today to make sure that this is not going to happen to me again and not going to knock me down on my knees again what can i do to look at this i know i got this touchdown that was probably the best one i've heard in a while that's good yeah jess what about you um just more realistically is hey you know follow the budget have meetings get on the same page understand your needs versus your wants and take it one step at a time you don't get all this information just keep going i'm sorry that's exactly perfect excellent did y'all get all the information just from the podcast or you picked up the book or you went to fp financial peace university or what yeah so uh all of those we did purchase totally makeover we read we read through it got real excited about it went to nfu class coordinated an fu class oh wow um and we're we're you know we're a hook line and sinker and all the whole work so it's really a great plan and we're glad to share that with everybody we we know i think yeah we want to shout out to our parents and and our friends who inspire us and we inspire them and and uh you know so everything's been super positive with it well done well thanks for coordinating the class we got a copy of the legacy journey for you because that's for sure what you're doing you're building and leading your legacy we're also going to send you another copy of the total money makeover uh for you to pay it forward and give it to somebody who's right at the beginning of where you were just 24 months ago chris and jess in rochester new york 108 000 paid off in 20 months making 140 to 150 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one that's how it's done that's how it's done this is the ramsey show [Music] [Music] [Music] anthony o'neil ramsey personality is my co-host today pam's in charleston south carolina hey pam what's up good afternoon um i'm calling with a question regarding my home equity loan and i hope i don't get too emotional on you my husband passed away i did it last year very sudden and from the day he was diagnosed with cancer to death was five and a half weeks wow how old how old was he sick and all 62. oh my goodness how long you all married we were six weeks shy of 40 years 40 years about like sharon and me oh my gosh girl i'm so sorry yes thank you um we were both employed at the same corporation i received survivor benefits um the only debt i have is a 40 000 home equity loan we own our house outright we own our cars outright no credit card debt no other debt at all other than the equity loans it's at two and a half 2.25 interest my question is should i invest the survivor's benefit towards um how much was it retire i'm um i've gotta write about 170 thousands okay did you guys have any other nest egg not yet no okay and you're 62. so did you have a pension plan with that company yes i actually just retired last monday i went ahead i could not handle going into work anymore because we drove in together every day we ate lunch together every day and it was just too difficult so what is your what is your what does your retirement income look like um i'm going to be receiving um my first pensions will start at the end of this month and i will be getting about 5 000 an annuity um i have not declared uh social security income yet i will start that and your income not counting social security is going to be 5 000 a month correct and what did you used to make when you were working i made 72 000. he made about 75 000. okay so you're going from 150 000 household income to a 60 000 household income plus social security correct can you budget and live on that correct you can i think you can but can do you think you can oh i'm sure i can we had already actually started because i had been talking about wanting to retire in a year or two so starting back in january we actually started living as if we were only making one income yeah and we were handling it um i probably have about um outside of the survivor's benefit i probably have about 30 000 in the bank okay how many cars do you have two i'm going to be selling one how will it bring it's a 2013 so just afford um focus i mean i don't know what do you think it is five thousand dollars probably five thousand yes okay all right okay all right here's a couple of things your heart's broken mind with you something happened to sharon i would be just like you i wouldn't be able to breathe real good and you're still trying to catch your breath don't make big scary decisions when you're having trouble breathing in the fog of grief okay okay give yourself some space to just cry you don't have to be a professional investor you certainly don't need to listen to anybody on some investment thing of any kind right now you don't need to uh buy anything big to try to make you feel better grief spending is a real thing um and yes i would pay off the home equity loan that's not a big decision that's not a big problem so you're going to have 150 000 uh 170 minus 40. you have 130 left to put into investments later make sure you have an emergency fund you already have that that's 30 000 it's gonna have 35 000 with car so you're okay kid you're fine you're in good shape but there's nothing you have to prove but you do have to live on that income not touch it not touch the nest egg that's left beyond paying off this mortgage right that'll make it easier to live on the income because you don't have the mortgage anymore the heloc anymore and you do have to promise that i'm not going to go spend 100 000 on something or some neighbor or kid or nephew shows up and needs 50 grand you're not the source okay i just should just pretend like you don't have any money and and give yourself six months to cry put that money in a cd don't do anything with it after whatever's left after the home after you pay off the home equity loan get to get yourself on a budget and and no grief spending and no big time sophisticated investing just take your time give yourself some room yeah just like you couldn't drive to work just like you couldn't show up and not eat lunch there just like all that this stuff's gonna still hit you for a little while i mean you were married 40 years and you're hurting yeah and that makes you human it makes you a good wife pam here's another thing i would add on top of what dave is saying because he's giving you all the practical information that that i love so awesome job on that dave um next thing i would just say why are you taking this time make sure you make sure you have a good community around you you know a good community a family good community of church uh just give me good a good community that can encourage you give you wise counsel and just walk through this next season of your life because this you're going to be feeling like this for at least the rest of this year yeah and um i think that good friends who can hold you and help you uh make the wise decisions and remind you that hey this this could be an emotional decision let's back up let's go do something else productive before you make this decision because community is important yeah that's true also we're going to sign you up for ramsey plus for a year and let you go through financial peace university there's good community there it'll give you something to lay your hand to now that you're retired and you can you can jump in there and start learning about that to give you something to put your your mind on so it doesn't just cycle on all this and um you know and it'll give you a sense of confidence about the decisions you make with money going forward because you'll be more knowledgeable so we're going to pay for all that it's our gift to you we're christians and the bible's real clear we're to take care of widows and we love you we're sorry you've gone through this and we'll do anything we can to help you call us back anytime we're here here to help so um some of the worst decisions i've seen financially made by people anthony over the years is within six months of loss of a long-term spouse or of a child somebody will do some serious dumb spending and um and and you know the interesting thing was i've seen it happen even with my personal friends over the years and they're people that otherwise were real level-headed but stuck in this waves of fog of grief or whatever whatever you want to use waves of grief coming at you crashing on you um i mean you're just going along okay and then i'll suddenly start crying yeah you know everything's fine and then i see some some bush out in the yard that reminds me you start crying and uh and that is not a time to be making big decisions and i i've um because then you compound you look up two years later and you've got two things to grieve yeah the loss and then the the bad decisions yeah and so just slow down as much as you can make as few decisions as possible and that's what we were outlining for pam and um i mean she's going through a real thing there that's so so tough very but um we're here for you kiddo you call us anytime we'll walk with you or answer your questions and you're now plugged into ramsey plus you've got coaches available community available classes available the every dollar budget app there is to there to help you and get you going and all of that all of that will get you going that puts this hour the ramsey show in the books [Music] hey it's kelly associate producer and phone screener for the ramsay show if you would like to do your debt free scream live on the show make sure you visit theramsieshow.com and register we would love for you to come to nashville and tell dave your story [Music] this is the ramsay show can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story [Music] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i'm dave ramsey your host anthony o'neil ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five you can get in if you dial triple eight eight two five five two two five rick is in san antonio to start off this hour hi rick how are you i'm doing fine dave thanks for taking my call my wife and i love listening to your show well thank you sir how can we help well she retired after 32 years in the military a few years ago and we have a she has a retirement income of about 6 500 a month growth and out of that we pay a 421 dollar survivor benefit plan which is the annuity to protect her retirement uh in case she passes then i would receive 55 of that amount now we're thinking that we have an opt-out where we can we're in a period of time we can we can stop it and take that money instead and pay off our house it's the only thing that we owe we owe about 140 000 on it and um we're wondering if we should do that or continue and just pay the house out of uh for a part-time income and i'm a seasonal tax preparer so if you uh you're paying for uh okay i see what you're doing all right so your income will agree it's about four minutes basically what it is yeah i got it i'm i'm familiar with it i was just trying to remember how they did it okay um all right so you you're how old i'm 60 and she is 60 as well uh 50th okay tell her thanks for her service by the way um kids are grown and gone uh yeah that's for the only ones in the house okay all right and so if she passes away and the annuity passes with her because you cancelled this benefit uh what is your income what are you living on um basically off of our retirement uh we have about 850 000 in uh retirement funds and 50 000 in cash i mean i would just continue to work part-time and uh until social security kicks in way to go millionaire pretty stinky cool man well we're thinking that we should probably get to opt out of that and just yes you should opt out you should opt out of it okay okay okay if someone does not have 800 000 around i might have used a little bit of it to buy some term insurance to make sure you're okay if she passes but you're okay if she passes financially speaking you're you're not okay but i mean financially you'll be okay yeah financially yeah yeah yeah so i figure that we'll be all uh all right and she's her big deal is after 32 years she just didn't want to see it go away if she passes early because she just needs to stay alive [Laughter] you know she's a breast cancer survivor so she thinks she has bad genes and she's not sure but you know that but i'm trying to convince you we could probably give it up and be okay i i would give it up where i in your shoes this is basically insurance and yourself you're in a position of being self-insured yeah that makes sense yeah if you really want to be uber conservative go buy a half million dollars in term owner um how long ago was the breast cancer uh it's been about 10 years yeah she can get a half million dollars in term and you'll be surprised at how cheap it is is xander insurance i wouldn't do that but if that makes her feel better it's going to be a lot less than 480 a month a whole lot less and you can still turn and get the house paid off and yeah you need to pay off the house this week out of that out of that 800 as well didn't even ask how much it was but you probably need to pay it off this week so yeah very interesting well done good stuff yeah i mean that they uh survivor benefit 6 500 a month is a wonderful retirement for the military it is that's nice it's really nice she spent some some good time i need to talk to my dad and see how much he's getting he retired why you think you're going to get stronger i'ma get something it's my dad no no you're not either i know him he's a smart man he's gonna look at you he's just gonna look at you when you say that look at you like why are you asking that never hurt to ask amanda's with us in tucson arizona hey amanda welcome to the ramsay show thank you so much dave thanks for taking my call yeah my question for you today i am active duty military and my husband and i are wondering if we should plan to buy within the next year or so or if we should wait to buy we've been renting for eight years now and we don't really desire to live long term and concern we prefer to be on the east coast but my husband is pursuing prerequisites for med school or pa school currently and we just want to try limiting moving our family moving our kids but we're getting i'm getting kind of tired of renting but we don't see ourselves in tucson long term yeah before i answer this question i i'm curious why do i hear people say they're tired of renting why are you tired of renting well i think because we've rented for eight years now i'm 33 years old we're on baby step 3b okay and just feel ready we're ready to kind of take that next step we're debt-free like you feel like you're wasting money am i correct in some ways yes and we just um we started doing some investing in retirement over the last couple years but i just feel like we're pulled and we just had our third baby so we just bought a a minivan in cash which was so exciting um but yeah just wanting to limit uprooting the kids from school but also i think you know the answer yeah i think you know the answer that you're still in in a position of transition which is not a good time to buy no yeah and you're not making a bad decision by renting because you're in baby step 3b now dave correct me if i'm wrong i don't have a problem with you actually investing and still saving to go to war as a home yeah so i would say go ahead and go over to babysit number four go ahead and start investing 15 and starts continue saving for a home so that way when you all do um get out of the military or at least get into 20 yeah when he finishes pa school and you land where you're going to land yeah and and you're sitting down roots that's when you buy and you already knew that didn't you okay i did i just feel like i'm getting to the point in life where it would be nice okay yeah your point of life when you're ready to get a home is when you're going to be there a little while right and you've settled in after this pa thing this house could if you bought a house right now and then he ends up moving to a different city to do pa school or do his fellowship or do whatever any of that stuff this house is going to be an anchor around your neck not a blessing just like it would have been every time they moved you in the military that's why we tell folks in active duty when they're being moved all the time don't be buying a home because you end up with a home in every city you're stationed in pretty much and you can't get rid of them and so yeah you're i appreciate your frustration and i appreciate your you know ready i'm ready to put down roots you know but you got really one more step to do that and that's the transition after pa school and after the military and you're going to be there it's not going to be there in a heartbeat won't be that long kids are going to be fine you've done a good job you're winning you're staying out of debt you bought the minivan with cash rockstar good stuff this is the ramsey show [Music] hey folks i got a great option to help you pay for your education the army national guard the army national guard believes you are the next greatest generation because you have proven that even in adversity that you have what it takes to succeed that's why they offer benefits like tuition assistance career training and a paycheck to help you avoid debt no matter what your goals are the army national guard can help you get there visit nationalguard.com to find out more [Music] [Music] [Music] anthony o'neil ramsey personality is my co-host today you probably get a lot of financial advice these days some of it's bad some of it's just plain confusing so-called experts using big fancy words to sound smart but they never really explain what they mean and may not even know what they mean learning about money should not be this complicated it doesn't have to be complicated it's not complicated that's why we created ramsey plus we break down the financial topics that are important to you so you can tackle whatever you're facing right now with ramsey plus you get our best digital courses including financial peace university all the tools you need to start feeling confident with your money including the world's best budgeting app every dollar you'll even get help with the super confusing business of filing your taxes that's right ramsay plus is now offering a free federal classic e-file with ramsey smart tax an easy and secure way to get your taxes done right without the stress money can make sense and you can do this to start your free trial of ramsey plus text trial to 33 789 text trial 233 789 our question of the day comes from blinds.com find out for yourself why blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings you get free samples free shipping and with the new promos they run every month you'll save even more use the promo code ramsey to get the best possible deal so dave today question comes from joshua in the most beautiful state i believe california the beautiful sunny california his question is my parents want me to go to college when i graduate high school this year they have saved fifty thousand dollars in the 529 plan and i would have to take out loans to fund anything over that amount i want to go to culinary school which would only cost forty five thousand dollars leaving five thousand dollars for one of my siblings to use what should i do well number one let's take out you're gonna have to take out student loans we're gonna take debt off of the table that's number one number two um i would honestly have a conversation uh joshua with your parents and asking them what's your game plan for your stu for your siblings is this 529 for all of you all or can you use all 45 of it if you can then you're going to school 100 debt free but i would definitely have a conversation with your parents to see exactly what was their game plan if they're only giving you 20 000 of that but if they're saying no you can use all 50 and we'll worry about your siblings because we have another 529 for them or another game plan then you're gonna take out the forty five thousand dollars go to culinary school and before i choose this particular culinary school i'm gonna do my research and make sure that that's the most affordable one uh within my price range yeah so um i have several chefs joshua that are uh award-winning you've seen some of them on tv that are friends of mine as a matter of fact i was with one of them last night that was won several awards and um i don't know anything about culinary except i'm good at eating it um and i'm really good at that it's i'm like a professional um it's like my favorite sport and so i like hanging out with these guys uh but one thing i have noticed about them is uh that the ones that make substantial money are few and far between a lot of culinary school graduates don't end up being chefs they end up being cooks and sous chefs for a long time waiting on their break to be the chef um and it's in a hot kitchen and it turns out it's really hard work making beautiful gourmet tasty food i think i need to take a break right now and um but yeah it's uh but it's really hard work and it's not a um you know 50 of the graduates of culinary school do not make uh great money they end up uh you know cooking somewhere uh which you can do by the way without culinary school right uh so you need to have gotten your fingers into that business a little bit i'd love for you to spend this summer in a kitchen somewhere uh if you can sous chef great if you can just do prep work or something that's great but i want you to get in there and feel the heat of those stoves and the sweat and i want you to listen to the customers and i want you to experience what it's going to be like doing what you're talking about doing before you make this choice i'm not saying you should not go to culinary school i'm saying that television has romanticized it to the point that i'm a little bit afraid of you having an unrealistic expectation of exactly what you're stepping into sir yeah so go in that kitchen sweat and chop some asparagus spears for a little bit and figure out if this really what you want to do before you invest your entire saving your parents savings for higher education on this i would do that i'd say that about a lot of different things by the way if it had been unfairly romanced by television yeah yeah and so uh you know that's where i would tell you to go on it is uh and it is not as glamorous as it looks like when gordon ramsay's yelling at somebody and his is spelled s-a-y by the way the number of times he and i are confused is unbelievable but um anyway it's not only spelled different he has great hair i don't have any he yells i don't much i was about to say uh let's talk about that offline dave sam is in santa fe new mexico hey sam welcome to the ramsey show how you doing mr ramsay and mr o'neill it's an honor to talk to you guys you too sir how can we help i'm i'm in engineering school right now and i um i lost my internship at the first part of the year due to you know covet slowdowns and stuff like that so i ended up having to take out a student loan in the in the first part of last year um i'm sorry the first part of this year and it's uh nine thousand dollars and i i just got a new internship that i'll start next week and it's a 30 bump and pay and i was wondering should i use that 30 percent to cash flow next semester yes which is my graduating semester or pay off the debt no cash flow you next semester man get through college don't worry about 9 000 right now i wish you would have called this uh before you made that decision i'll be able to walk you through that process but that's there we can't go backwards that's cool uh but the next thing is we want to make sure this 9000 doesn't turn into 18 000. all right so cash flow it get through college uh 100 uh without borrowing no more money and pile up as much cash as you can yeah in the process that 30 percent included if you don't need that 30 percent i want you to graduate college always still be in the bank after you land the new job when you land the new job you got that money laying there that'll jump start towards the nine right yes yes sir but let's hold it as an insurance policy yeah let's hold it as an insurance policy through graduation and through the first apartment okay yes sir the insurance policy is a to ensure graduation be ensure graduation debt free yes yeah so first goal do no more harm yeah second goal clean up the debt yep good stuff very good stuff yeah a lot of people are you know it's uh because if you in your he's not going to do this but sometimes we get the same question it's like you know do i pay off the student loan and then turn around take out another one to go next semester no i mean you'd be better off just to pay you're swapping dollars you're swapping pockets right you'd be better off to just pay it and pay your way through and then go back and address the student loan later don't swap pockets uh he's not he's not got that exact situation because he sounds like he's got a track all the way out debt-free and that's a good plan so uh and then this extra money should still be laying there yeah i sure hope so sure hope that's the way it works out for him that's good good stuff real good stuff i i like that question man i mean thanks for thanks for calling and asking because we need to remind the people moving forward hey listen don't pile up anymore dead stay away from it yeah exactly anthony o'neil ramsey personality my co-host today this is the ramsey show [Music] so [Music] [Music] anthony o'neil ramsey personality is my co-host open phones a triple eight eight two five five two two five debbie is in columbus ohio hi debbie welcome to the ramsey show hi dave thank you so much for taking my call my honor how can we help i just got done paying thirty one thousand eight hundred and forty six dollars um in debt i am a single female um i'm currently living in an apartment way to go and i have started way to go thank you i i currently have 1410 dollars in my money market account and i've been working with an accountability buddy to help keep me on budget he got me to help me get a budget and um now he wants me to i'm working on baby step three it should take me to the end of the end of 2022 to get 12 000 into my money market account and he said he also wants me to start saving up for a house for a 20 down payment on a condo and he said he wants me to put the money in a roth ira so it can get a little more interest than a money market and then he said as soon as you have a 20 down payment for your condo i want you to pull your money out of your roth ira plus whatever else i had saved up and we're going to put that on a condo and i i would be buying this on my own um i know you you want people to do 15-year fix but i'm 55 i just turned 55 and i don't want 1200 mortgage payments in my 70s and i told him that and he said well maybe we need to go to a 30-year mortgage so you can get smaller payments and then i said i could just treat that like a debt snowball in baby step two so if i my current rent is 844 dollars which is 25 of my take-home pay because you said don't get a mortgage greater than 25 of your take-home pay so that would mean i would need a mortgage right around 850 well your mentor is telling your mentor is telling you a lot of the same things we tell you but he's telling you a few things different than we tell you right i need to know your way what is the best way or the wisest way to do this what do you make you're making 40 000 a year 67 308. when do you plan on retiring 70 72 71 somewhere in there okay all right uh before dave comes back in to give you some more some more wisdom because he could definitely help out with this this age break-in uh one of the things i i don't like that your uh mentor is telling you to park the money in a roth ira that's a bad move um i would i could i could definitely see you parking that into like a mutual fund like an s p 500 um if it's going to be about three to five years and that's a great route but if you put in time if you put it inside a retirement account you're gonna pay interest and penalties uh not interest you don't pay penalties um and so i i don't want that to happen uh so that's the very first thing and then for me i could be in here and dave please quit me if i'm wrong but i at this age bracket i'm not in a rush to move like do you have to move into a home like do you i don't need to move in um he just said you're paying 850 a month in rent right now and he said rent is only going to go up but debbie you're 70. i agree i agree that it's going to go up and i don't want you i do want you to get in the home ownership position because it'll stabilize your budgeting as you go into retirement um but i would not do more than a 15-year fixed i think you can do better than end of 2022 to finish your emergency fund that sounds like that's taking too long to me definitely don't use a roth completely agree with anthony on that use a roth for your retirement savings but not for your saving up for a house and no we don't do a 30 we do a 15. because you don't want a 30 you'll pay off in 30 years you know what 15 will pay off in 15 years and and you're going to do it you're going to be okay you're going to select a home that fits that and you don't have to put down a full 20 to purchase it just saves you pmi if you do it saves your private mortgage insurance if you do so what i would do is finish this emergency fund faster i would not use a roth i would do a 15-year fixed where the payment's no more than a fourth of your take-home pay but i think you've got some other stuff coming out of this check that you're not counting here take-home pay when we say a fourth of your take-home pay we don't mean after health insurance after retirement or after payments you're paying out of your check we mean after taxes yeah and 67 000 should be bringing home more than you're bringing home or just after taxes so you got something else coming out of your check there or you're getting a big refund and you're going to need to adjust your w-4s and get your refund down to where it's zero you don't want to be getting a big refund every year so you should be getting home with more cash than you're getting home with unless you've got it going to health insurance or something inside your your check there but take-home pay is not um uh it is only only means after taxes not after everything else so i think you're gonna be able to afford a house a little condo like you're talking about get it on a fixed rate a 15-year and um you know you do not want to go into retirement the ending the end of your life with a bunch of debt still on a house because you took out a 30 and hoped you were going to snowball it no just don't buy it if you can't put it on a 15. yeah but i think you can and i think you'll be able to figure it out good call and you're doing really good great she knows her numbers she does she knows exactly where she is she does she does now dave let me ask you this question though because uh it's a learning experience for me when i hear someone of that age and educate me and tell me where i'm wrong at my thinking i i get a little nervous to tell my grandmother to go to go buy a home you know what i'm saying like because there's so much more responsibilities than just the mortgage payment that comes with that well a condo i mean a condo doesn't have the exterior maintenance you're absolutely right the interior maintenance and stuff here's the problem the number the largest item in your personal budget the typical person's personal budget is their mortgage payment true and it's a rent payment and it's if it's a rent payment it's going to go up every year if it's mortgage payment it's not it's going to stay flat and when you can get it paid off yes you got rid of the biggest item in your budget in your last years yeah and you've stabilized you're destabilized when you're a renter because you're at other people's house yes and they can do all kinds of stuff like make you move and everything else and so but you've stabilized your life by owning okay and by fixing the payment and or by getting it paid off completely it's even more stabilized makes sense so it's a stabilizing factor for your uh last 20 years of life you know whatever that is if you go say from uh you know 70 to 90 or something like that that kind of a thing now you know the older you are the more you think okay but um you know my grandpa used to say i'm not buying green bananas you know so uh you know you you do start to think about what you're purchasing and so forth but um coleman and i took a call the other day from a lady said she was going to sell her land to her 85 year old uncle and i'm like why is he buying land you know it's just but but but it's okay i just you know what what is the thought process behind that in his case he had a good thought process but but um it's the same reason we teach people with the baby steps millionaire the everyday millionaires to people doing the baby steps to become millionaires they become everyday millionaires to get their home paid off because that's one of the bigger elements of wealth building yes as well that's one of the two things that most of the millionaires have done they've got their home paid off okay and uh so it's still all parlays in there together but but uh you know if you're 92 it makes no sense you know maybe not yeah you know i you know i hope you lived 107 right but um but the statistical averages are not in your favor at that point so no i probably wouldn't go by then but she's only 55. i mean she's got life expectancy of uh 30 years at this point so average death age of a female in america right now 74 of a male is 72 but that includes infant mortality and teenage death and so when you make it healthy into your 50 late 50s early 60s you've got a very high statistical likelihood of making it into your 90s very high uh and so that i mean that's just because that's the way the averages work out yeah so it's good questions good discussion this is the ramsey show [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] our scripture today proverbs 14 15 the simple believe anything but the prudent give thought to their steps bobby and i said the key is not the will to win everybody has that it is the will to prepare to win that is important there you go robert sweaters robertson minneapolis hi robert how are you good how are you better than i deserve what's up um the question about going through a divorce long story short my wife and i went through your program paid everything off and now she wants a change of lifestyle and so i need to buy her half off the house is paid for 401k savings accounts all fully funded question is do i use a qdro and roll my 401k over to her or with the interest rates can should i go borrow money against the house not sure what to do [Music] i'm sorry yeah uh what's the house worth uh probably 350. why are you wanting it um just because i don't feel like going through more change right now and until i figure out which direction my life's going i just thought i'd just keep the house for now so you need about 150 to buy her out right for the house but all the other assets i i need probably around the 300 price range what other assets uh 401ks uh i mean you gotta yeah so how much is in the 401k uh i have about 340 in there right now okay so she's getting half that she's getting half the house right pretty much yeah so you could give her the whole 401k and keep the house correct do you have anything else well all the cars i get boats uh she has a small 401k but that's all tallied up in there basically i'm gonna have to give her about 300 000 for her to walk away she doesn't want anything she already she's just up and left she wants to start living like no other now rather than later what do you make uh with overtime i'm right around that 120. how old are you i'm 47. okay is it just bothers me that you have no money in a paid for house because that's where you're going to end up and so you got to go you got to go like you got to go gangbusters into retirement now and build it right right and that's that's what basically i'm asking is do i take out a mortgage and go gangbusters on that no i no go gangbusters or do i half and half it or no i would i would just do the the qrdo on the 401k and clear the house but i'm not sure i want to do that i i'm uh but i mean if you're going to keep the house that's the way to do it i'm just questioning whether you should keep the house yes probably in the future uh once i you know like i said i was pretty taken aback from all this and uh you know just right now you know i got to make a decision quickly and i just looking at options and thought you know until i figure out what i want to what do you uh what do you do for a living i am a maintenance supervisor how long have you been doing that uh i've been in the maintenance field pretty much my whole life but i just got promoted a supervisor here about two years ago how long ago was this announcement made by her that you were divorcing uh four weeks okay um this is not what you want to do but it's what you should do you need to drag this out a little bit slow down okay because you're still reeling from the news and six months from now you're probably selling this house and so i think you're selling this house and giving her her half and you do the qr do on her half of the 401k and then you come out with 150 000 to go buy another property and uh she comes out 150 000 cash and you've got uh you've still got your 401k going and i think that's going to end up five years from now having been a better decision yeah i would have echoed that you know i i i want you to take as much time as you can as you need to be able to process emotionally the change that's why i'm telling you to drag it out absolutely and that's why i was saying i'm just going to stay in the house for now until i figure out process the change i guess so yeah does she not want the house herself no no she wants the money she wants to start living like no other right now okay yeah she she actually brought that up like six months ago that you know we should sell the house and move to a you know apartment or something and start you know retirement early i guess is in her eyes but here's another thing too that i want to add it may not happen but i'm just saying if you could drag this out a little bit like dave said she may end up changing her mind about this situation as well yeah yeah you're you're you're you're making the decision in the heat of battle right now and i um and i don't blame you for that i would be too i understand that and but we have the anthony i have the benefit of standing on the sidelines and making the call rather than being in the game and have to make the call um and so it's easier to be a monday morning quarterback i understand that but yeah i i um i just got a feeling that that if you had a little bit more time to emotionally process this you could release this house and just to be sold and i'll split it and i think five years from today that's going to have been a better move for you i just want you to give yourself time to emotionally process it you feel like it's chop chop you gotta do it right now and nobody says that you can say this is gonna take three months and we're gonna have to think about it all right hard to do that though it really is so it's easy to bring something to an end if something's coming to an end it's easy to get it to the end you know yeah but um yeah very hard robert i'm so sorry i can hear the pain in your voice brother you know dave this is why i spend a lot of time talking to you know i have a huge tribe of single people just make sure that you're making the right decision upfront don't want to make people feel bad who are going through divorces but if we can help you get married the right way and stay married one time it's a whole lot easier down the road you know and as a single person that's why i'm looking at people like yourself and sharon and my parents because we're going to go through some hard times but i'm going to go through the hard times and i want the hard times to end me and my my future wife so you know you know it this is sad you know it's this is our third call today around divorces and just hearing that the stress behind the money what do i do do i cash in my 401k do i do this you know a divorce turns a marriage into a business transaction one of my buddies says it does divorce recovery and it occurs to me then at this point really what you're doing assuming it is 100 over okay this is a negotiation now and um the law will give her 50 that's the truth but if she's really desperate to just take off into whatever you probably could negotiate for a lot less than 50 yeah if you're willing to make the decision quickly yeah yeah you know i just want to be free okay how free you want to be how quick you how much you willing to pay for that quick freedom because otherwise it's going to take a little while and uh you know because he with the most patience in a negotiation wins america may hate me after this one but this is why i'm i'm strongly james considering a prenup as a single man uh-oh now now we got a whole another show to do that's why i said it right towards the end of the show just as the music comes up he drops a grenade in my studio same sends it right over hey don't drag me into this [Laughter] good show anthony good show james and kelly what great work today that puts this hour the ramsey show in the books we'll be back with you before you know it in the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace christ jesus [Music] did you know you can listen to the ramsay show on your smart speaker just tell alexa google assistant or siri to play the ramsay show podcast check out all ramsay network shows on your smart speaker today [Music] you

Channel: The Ramsey Show - Full Episodes

Views: 38,071

Rating: 4.8693285 out of 5

Keywords: dave ramsay live, dave ramsey, dave ramsey channel, dave ramsey live, dave ramsey live show, dave ramsey live stream, dave ramsey podcast, dave ramsey radio show, dave ramsey show, dave ramsey show full show, dave ramsey show live, ramsey, ramsey solutions, the dave ramsey show, the dave ramsey show live

Id: QXiwjx7fwOA

Length: 121min 40sec (7300 seconds)

Published: Wed May 12 2021