Don’t Take Financial Advice From Broke People!
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help you win, build wealth, do work that you love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney, bestselling author and host of The Dr. John Deloney Show, and we're taking your calls. It's totally free. Just call 888-825-5225. We'll do our best to help you take the right next step for your mental health, your relationships, your

your money, and your work. Savannah's going to kick us off this hour in Seattle, Washington, Siena. Savannah, how you doing? Welcome to the show. I'm doing good. How are you? Doing great. How can John and I help? So I was diagnosed with bipolar one about two years ago and have been stable for about a year now. It looks like I don't need stable for the foreseeable future. I take my medications prescribed and see a psychiatrist, go to therapy every other week, and use my cognitive skills. Um,

When I had my manic episode, I spent about $30,000 in five months. So I transferred $24,000 of my money into my mother and her name for her to keep safe while I got stable. Now that I am stable and probably will be for the future, I am wanting to transfer some of that money or all of it back into my name.

I'm thinking about opening up a number of accounts into my name. All accounts would be a joint account with my mother, so if I were to have a manic episode, I could give her my debit card and from the checking account she could pay my basic expenses and give me cash to do things like buy groceries, gas, and some spending money. The problem with this system is that I could get access to the money without my mother's oversight by opening another checking account and my own name and pulling my money from the joint account. Is this a good idea or is there another way that I should go about doing that?

I'd say the first, I just want to applaud you. A year of staying on meds, that's like an impressive feat. I'm proud of you. Thanks. Good for you. How do you feel? I feel really good. I've never been stable since I was 10 years old. So it's kind of- And how old are you now? How old am I now? I'm 21. Wow. When's your last manic episode?

When I was 19 turning 20, so September 2022. Ended in December 2022. Okay. When was your last basement episode? Ended in August 2023. Okay. Okay.

So, I mean, I would high five you if you were sitting right in front of me. I'm really proud of you. It's awesome. It's awesome. Thank you. So you painted me two different pictures here, okay? You painted me one picture where you are very, very wise. And that is saying, I know that I am, I'm going to make up a story here. I am five foot one tall.

And I have dishes in the top shelves of the cabinets in my kitchen. So I have a stool in there. And in your case, that analogy would be, I've got bipolar one. I have a decade plus of ups and downs, radical ups and downs.

I am doing great right now, but for my own, just as a tool for getting through the world, I gave my mom access. I gave her my money to hold it for safekeeping. Awesome. Proud of you. The question I have is, the next question you posed seemed to assume that you're going to go back and do this whole thing again.

So tell me what is being well feel like, look like, I mean, tell me what it feels like. Tell me what that plan looks like moving forward. Can you handle 24,000 bucks? It's in your checking account right now.

I think I can. I have been managing about $5,000 on my own. And then before I had my big manic episode, I have a total of like $60,000. Some of what is in a brokerage account. And I managed that completely fine until I had my big manic episode. Okay. I think you manage this the best way you know how to moving down the road.

And knowing that you're going to have stumbles, and that's okay, and that you've proven to yourself that you can get back up and you can have long periods of success, especially when you do the things that you know you need to do to stay well and whole. And everyone around you is going to say, oh my gosh, I can't believe you give your mom access to your checking account. Well, you've got a special situation and you're managing it with great maturity. And I was going to suggest that you practice with smaller amounts and you've been doing that. You've been knocking it out of the park. Let me ask you this. What do you need that $24,000 for?

Some of it is my college expense savings because I'm in college right now. Okay. And she transfers $700 of it a month over to me for me to use every month. Some of it is like sinking funds. Another part of it is my emergency fund. It's just bits of multiple different things. So paint me a picture as to why you need it right now. Or is it just you want it?

I don't need it right now. I just feel uncomfortable because it's in her name. My name is not even on the account. It's all in her name. And I feel uncomfortable with it on her account. We set up a transfer upon back to the account, so if she were to pass away, it would immediately go to me. But I just feel uncomfortable. If she were to get sick, I'd still be alive, and I wouldn't be able to get back to her. You're breaking up with her, Savannah. Here's the deal. I think that's a good next step. I think it's a good next step. So,

George just walking through she had a manic episode so she transferred she blew a bunch of money and she she learned that when I'm not well here's one of the things I do and it makes me not safe makes my future self not safe so she transferred all the money to her mom and said safekeeping mom seems like she's trustworthy and is paying her college expenses is sending her money that they have saved up for college expenses so she's

So she wants to slowly regain autonomy after a year of being well. Awesome. And so she practiced with $5,000, manages it great, and then now says next step, what about me joining those checking accounts with mom? I think that's a great next step. And...

Mom knows if anything gets sideways, we can get in between here. I'm okay with that next step, especially given that her commitment to continue to take her meds, continue to go and meet with other professionals and licensed professionals. I think that's great. Yeah, and I'll give you a modern tip here, Savannah. This might work for you. What if you open a high-yield savings account online,

and you don't have the password your mom does so your mom's on on the account but she knows the password i like that there's no debit card attached to it and if you really need the money for a real reason mom can sign in and transfer the money over to checking i like that the account is in her name but the account is in savannah's name only and that avoids some of this you know the scary weird situations we've seen on the show or hey mom drain the account and it's gone who knows

Your mom sounds trustworthy, by the way, so I'm not saying that would happen. I like that plan. I like that plan. And then she only transfers as much as you need to cover your monthly expenses that month. And if there's a sinking fund expense, she transfers that amount if it's a big insurance bill or something that comes up. I think that's the best case scenario. And then maybe you guys have a game plan of saying, hey, if I do really well over the next 12 months, here's what we're going to do next.

I'm going to have access to the login, and you're still going to have oversight. Who knows what you guys decide then, you know, if everything goes well. So I like this plan, but I think we need to make some tweaks to it in order to protect you and give you some autonomy as well. But there's no need to have more in the checking account than what you need for that month. That's right. Especially while you're in college. And there's no need...

regardless of whether you're 5'1", whether you've got bipolar disorder, whether you have any number of physical or psychological challenges. I just wanted to bring you into the picture, into the conversation, George. Of having help and having support as you need it, as part of life. And also, there's a moment for people to grow up if that's appropriate for you. And we often conflate the two

Not necessary here. It's what's happening right now. I'm proud of Savannah. She should hold her head high. She's done hard work, and she'll continue to do hard work. Thanks for trusting us with the call, Savannah. More of The Ramsey Show coming up. 888-825-5225.

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Next up, we've got Rachel in Fort Worth, Texas. How are you doing, Rachel? I'm doing great, guys. How are you? Great. How can we help? Okay. So my husband recently had a job opportunity get presented to him, and we are flip-flopping back and forth whether or not we should take it or whether we should stay where we are. So I'll try to give you as much as I can so you understand kind of the challenge of the decision. So

The job would take us to the Houston area. We're currently in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I am from Houston. That's where I grew up. My family is still there. We still have a bunch of friends there. So that definitely makes the move appealing. Hey, can I just cut you off real quick? Can I tell you what else makes that appealing? You get to be an Astros fan instead of a Rangers fan. And that's a big deal. No, I'm a diehard Astros fan. So we literally go watch the Astros play the Rangers here. You're my favorite caller I've ever taken on this show.

I didn't know you were an actress, yeah, John. I love it. I have a huge H tattooed on my chest. It's all he talks about. They're the best. I freaking love it. No, I got to go to game six when I won the World Series. That was awesome. I got to be there. Okay, back to the call. Back to the call. So clearly the answer is yes, you moved to Houston. My God, get out of there. No, I funny enough said that to my husband. He's like, hmm, con. But anyway, but yeah, so we would get to move back to Houston, family, friends, all that good stuff. So there's definitely a financial component to this.

to the decision and there's also like a heart personal component to the decision. Financially, where we're sitting, so

Um, the offer would be that my husband would be guaranteed 600,000 for 18 months. He's in sales. So his, you know, he never makes the exact same thing every year. Um, so he's guaranteed 600 for, um, 18 months. And then after that, it's what he's kind of grown his territory to. It could be that same amount. It could be more, could be a little less. What's he make now?

So currently he technically could make like 525 this year. That's about the highest he could make really. I think realistically he's going to be closer to the 450 to 5 range. Okay. What does he sell? He's in the finance industry.

They sell air. They sell air. Bitcoins and NFTs? No, he sells to financial advisors or his clients. So he works for one of the bigger firms. Snacks? Does he sell them snacks for their machines? No, he sells different funds.

different solutions for their clients. He sells that stuff. And he's really good at it, clearly. What's the con here? So he's going to make more than a half million dollars. He's getting a significant raise. A massive raise. You get to be Astros fans and you get to live in Houston. Hashtag hurricane. So what's the negative? So here's the negative. The financial negative is he would lose like $80,000 to $90,000 in stocks.

With his current company, because he'd be moving companies. He'd be leaving his current company. And also is our housing situation. So right now where we are, we got a pretty sweet situation. We have a beautiful home on almost like 0.7 acres. We are like on a cul-de-sac, walking distance to all the things you would want. And at a 2.9 interest rate.

And looking into the housing market of what, if we tried to keep where we're at, yes, we're making significant more money, but almost all of it's going to your mortgage because it would increase our mortgage a solid $2,000 to $3,000. How big is your mortgage now? We're at like $3,700 a month. How much total? What's left on our...

Yeah, so if you, yeah, what's left on the balance? It's like $500-ish. Okay, so if you sold and got a new property, what would your new mortgage be? We would guesstimate somewhere around $6,000 to $7,000. How much equity do you have built in? So, it depends on what you could sell our house for, which we've been told it could be anywhere from $1,000 to $1,200. What do you owe on it?

We owe another $500,000. Okay, so you'd get like $600,000, $700,000 out, put it toward the next one, but you'd still have to buy like a $1.4 in Houston? Yes, so what we've been looking at, if we wanted to stay somewhat comparable to where we are, it's around $1.2. So it would just be depending on how much equity we get out of the house when we sell it would make slightly more or less on the new mortgage. Okay, there's something you're not telling me here. Here's why. I skipped a final to go on a date with the woman who has become my wife.

Yeah. I have made some loop-de-loop intellectual gymnastics in order to justify me taking a job that in my guts I knew was right, and I've turned down jobs that paid well because in my guts they were wrong. Everything on paper says this is a good move, and you are finding ways to not take it. What's the real reason you don't want to leave? Do you have friends there? Do you have community? What is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's the heart part of it I was going to kind of get into. Right.

logistics, all of that, like on paper, it makes sense, right? Yes, move. So get to the heart of it. So the heart of it is like, we love where we are. Like we're happy where we are. We're content where we are. My husband makes obviously really decent money here now. And we've built a community here because like neither of our families are here with us. They both live

hours and hours away. So we've had to build something where we are for ourselves. And we've done that. And we have a community here now. And we've had two kids here now. We have a three-year-old and almost five-year-old, and we're in the process of trying to have another. And so there's just this... So don't move. So don't move. Like, seriously. Does that give you peace?

Some, but my husband's on the other side. He's the long-term vision, logic guy. So here's the deal. I don't see a way y'all lose here. And I don't see a way that y'all don't make this move and it's not going to cost you something. You're going to have to create new community. And that's not going to be fun at first, but you did it once and you'll do it again. Or you're going to have to let $150,000 go. And your husband's a killer salesman. He's always going to have money dangling in front of him for the rest of his life.

Right. And he's going to have to decide, am I going to have make peace with living an amazing life or am I going to, is, is peace for him going to be chasing something red? And there's not a right or wrong to that. You just have to be aligned in it. And that's where we're struggling. We flip, we have truly flip-flopped. He has said he was like, go with staying. And then, and then now he's like, it just makes sense to go. And so we don't know. What if either way it was going to be okay? What would you do? I,

I think you'd move. And see, I think she'd stay. I think there's enough upside on this. Oh, man. Y'all guys. You're killing me. There's two guys' opinions. And we're telling you there's no bad options here. There's not a bad option here. But I think you're burning so many brain calories and toiling over this when really there's no destruction either way. Let's say you move and you hate it in 18 months. Yeah. He was guaranteed $600K. You pay down the mortgage. You move back. And by the way, our families live hours and hours...

Fort Worth is like three and a half, depending on how you drive, or four hours away. It's not long. It's half a day. No, it's not. And we've been able to make that work. We started talking in the conversation of aging parents, because our parents can come visit right now. We can go down there. It just starts being a lot more challenging once parents get older. They're not going to keep being able to come visit. But your husband's a salesman. A really, really good one. Yes, he is. He'll always have a job.

Yeah, for sure. Always. And so if your parents are aging and they're 60 and you're all starting to think about what 70s and 80s are going to look like, that's a decade and a half away. Your kids will be out of the house.

You'll have one kid left in your house. Or the reverse, if your parents are in their 70s or 80s and aging parents is the next year or two. Yeah, I would totally consider that. I think you have to live in this tension that we don't talk about very often. There's not really a bad option here. And both options, you're going to gain something and you're going to lose something. And whatever you do decide, you've got to make peace with it. And then go all in on it. And don't go, but what if we had stayed? What if we had gone? You've just got to make peace. You'll be all right. Thanks for the call, Rachel. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. The number to call is 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life, your money, your relationships, and whatever else you want to chat about. Henry is up next in Cincinnati. Henry, welcome to the show. Hey, how are you guys today? Doing well. How are you? I'm good.

What's going on? Just to get to the quick question, there's a bit of a background story and you guys can ask whatever you want to after that. So right now I want to or I'm looking at buying a duplex with my two oldest kids. I am debt free and actually they are too. I have money they don't. They have the older one has good income.

The younger one is a recently single mom. And so I'm just looking at how best to do this because I can do this without debt, but they cannot. Why are you wanting to include them? That's part of the back story. Because of my kids, I'm looking to help especially my daughter.

uh, during this time. So instead of them, my oldest son is looking to make a move to, uh, so that they could rent together and get our area. The rent is absolutely ridiculous. And so I said, maybe it's a good time for us to get into a duplex to where the rent is staying in the family as opposed to, um,

going in somebody else's pocket. So are you saying you would live on one side and son and daughter live on the other? I'm not moving.

I'm not moving, no. My son and daughter would live on one side and the other side would get rented. So if I was you, I'd buy this duplex with cash and I would let my son and his family or whatever rent one side and I would help my daughter out when she was in a tough season. But I would not include them on the note or anything like that. You're going to end up in a war with your kids and the relationships you're trying to preserve and save, you'll end up in ashes. I'm just telling you that's what we do.

But I love that you're taking care of your kids, but I would just buy yourself a duplex, man. And if you want to give, gift her money every month, then gift her money every month. But I don't think you need to wind it through this sort of business transaction. That feels like it's going to get messy. And I would just because we wouldn't have a show if these things didn't go sideways all the time, I would have my son sign a lease.

I would tell my daughter, we're going to do this for six months and then we'll reevaluate. It just keeps them from feeling parasitic. It keeps the dad-kid relationship solid and then there's a business relationship as well. So in your view, in no way should this happen like as a...

as co-owners or anything. No, no, no, no, no, no. Let's walk through this. It's awkward. They're broke. They don't have money. You put all the money down. They're going, okay, well, what's our equity versus yours? And what it appreciates, and what if we want to sell? Let's back up a minute. I would say that my daughter is... My daughter is the closest to being broke, but she's not exactly broke. My son has...

So he has no money. It takes money to buy real estate. I'm not saying they're great kids. They're debt-free. I'm not saying this has anything to do with their financial acumen. But as far as making this business transaction happen, you're coming to the table with 100%. They're bringing zero, and yet they're co-owners. And so it creates inherent awkwardness.

Nope, that's not it. That's not it. It would be like, I could potentially buy it outright, but that would burn up more money than I'm looking to burn up. Well, I wouldn't tell you to take a mortgage on this. We don't tell anyone to buy investment property with a mortgage. Here's the deal, brother. You can do what you want to do and help your kids out the best way you think you can help them out. What I'm telling you is one of your kids is going to get a job and they're going to have to move.

One of your kids is going to find the love of their life and it's going to happen quicker than anybody thinks. And that person's going to either want to move in or want to get their own place. And then we're going to have to sell this place, but the other person is not going to want to move and you're going to have, it's just going to turn into a mess.

And I just wouldn't buy a house with anyone other than my wife because there is a legal detangling of that relationship if it ever got that place. But it's just a recipe for somebody wants to move, somebody wants to stay there. Well, I got this house for you guys. It's just a way to create unnecessary chaos. I would just buy the house outright. And if you can't afford to or you're not interested in that, you need to have that conversation with your kids.

but bringing them into a financial relationship that they can't pull their full weight on that you want to kind of pull their weight but hey dad we're grown-ups now but yeah but i'm paying for this house it's just gonna make everything so messy man but you do what you want i mean you love your kids and you're a grown-up you can do what you want that we're just telling you what we would do in our situation and what we've seen and what we see day in and day out and day in and day out okay

Sorry, Henry. We failed him as far as what he wanted to hear. But I just, my heart palpitates with all the things that could go wrong. And it's like, well, we're paying rent, so I feel like that should go towards our equity. And it's just, I can see this going poorly in so many ways. Or I don't want you guys having this guy come over to your house. This is my house, and it's just going to create chaos. So the cleanest way is...

Buy the house and then let your kids rent it from you. I got no problem. Let your kids live there for free while they get their feet underneath. That's amazing. You can be as generous as you'd like on that front. Yeah. But trying to weave it all together just makes everything really tough and chaotic. Thanks for the call, Henry. It's an interesting one. Eric is up next in Philadelphia. What's going on, Eric?

Hi, thanks for taking my call guys. Sure. Um, I, my company was bought out by another company and when they did, they had to roll my 401k over into the new company's plan. And so when this happened, I was charged the $17,000 MVA, a market value adjustment, even though I took no money out myself.

And I was wondering how I could fight something like this and see if there was any avenues I could go through. Because right now we were told that we wouldn't lose any money in the rollover. And then I lost $17,000 and one of my colleagues lost $32,000. It sounds like you're not invested in mutual funds or in 401k. What was this investment account?

Well, the funniest thing was I was invested in the 401k. And when I ended up speaking to the representatives from the company that was holding my money, they guided me into the fund, which took my money. Are you talking about an annuity? This is an annuity. Because that's usually what, when market value adjustments happen, it's on annuities, which is a contract with an insurance company for payments later in life.

Well, see, that's what these people are telling me. But I did this over the phone with these guys. I went from a 401k into one of the funds in the 401k was the stable market value fund, which was supposed to be there. The way it was explained to me was that this was going to be an actual number on the account so that it wasn't going to fluctuate during the transition of my money from one

from the 401k into the new 401k and and i've heard what you're saying from other professionals saying oh you weren't in a 401k but i've i've always been in a 401k

It wasn't until a month before the switch that I was moved into this fund with the help of the people that were guiding me. And then all of a sudden it was $17,300 something dollars was just pulled from my account. What was the total balance beforehand? $257,000 and some change. Okay. Okay.

So we're talking about, I'm just doing the math on this, there's about a 6% market adjustment. Yeah, 5.96. So the market adjustment happens when, you know, the underlying funds, the value changed. And so the value changed by 6%. And when they moved it over, they made that adjustment. I don't think you're going to be able to get that back, unfortunately. Now, see, this was done a month before into that account. It was never in that before. And

So my question was basically, is there anything I can do to see if we can argue with these people about, hey, there's no way that the market changed 6% in one month. It actually went up. It was charged as a fee to me because of... Eric, we're out of time. Go to RamseySolutions.com, get in touch with one of our SmartVestor pros, and maybe they can dig into this for you. But it's hard to do on a short call. Thanks for the call, man. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel with John Deloney here, taking your calls at 888-825-5225. John, it's time for our long-running segment, Talk Nerdy to Me.

Man. I just want to know your thoughts just on that alone. We've been traveling a lot. And there's many nights you and I are driving late nights to an airport or to a speaking gig. And you're like, John, talk nerdy to me.

And we get into it. Yeah, we do. And that's what we do on the air. So we're going to make it a segment. We're going to explain a financial concept that maybe you've never thought about all that much. Or you hear it and you go, I think I know what that is. And I try to pretend when I'm at a party that I know. Because when you're at parties, what you talk about, John, is don't say it because I got a clip to tease it. You ready? Let's do it. Let's see if you can guess America based on this clip from Seinfeld. I'm not an investor.

People always tell me, you should have your money working for you. I decided, I'll do the work. I'm going to let the money relax. You know what I mean? Because you send your money out there working for you, a lot of times, it gets fired. You go back there, what happened? I had my money. It was here. It was working for me. Yeah, I remember your money. Showing up late, taking time off. We had to let him go. That's good stuff, John. That's gold, Jerry.

Is that any good to you? No? Okay. Well, John, what we're talking about today is not investing. It's the cousin of investing, which is savings. So there's a big difference. Savings, think short-term. Investing, think long-term. And the word of the day is high-yield savings accounts, or HYSA. Talk nerdy to me, George. What is a high-yield savings account? So this one's kind of what it sounds like. It's like onomatopoeia. I think that's what that is.

A high-yield savings account has a higher yield, higher interest than a traditional savings account. So let's talk about those numbers. A traditional savings account, the average you'll get is 0.46% in interest on your balance, which is not even a half a percent.

High-yield savings accounts, we're seeing some record numbers here, John, at 4%, 5% that you're getting on your money. So you have $100,000 sitting in there. If that balance just sat there, over those 12 months, you would make $5,000, which is pretty sweet for doing nothing. Mm-hmm.

And so we talk about having your money work harder for you. And that's why I recommend people store their emergency funds, their big savings, like a home down payment, you're saving up for a car. Because once you get that ball rolling, it's nice to make a little bit of dough. So the goal here is not to make 10, 20%. We're not investing. This is for short term goals. Think one year, two year, three year, four year goals. A high yield savings account is a great place on top of your emergency fund. And what you're going to see is this word APY, annual percentage yield.

So $10,000 in a high-yield savings account at 5% APY, that's $500 in interest at the end of the 12 months. It's that simple. And so with a traditional savings account at 0.46%, you get a measly $46 a year versus, you know, the $500.

And so that's why I recommend those high-yield savings accounts. It's a great place to store those things like the emergency funds, sinking funds. But again, this is not a long-term investment strategy. So do not think that you're investing by putting money into this type of account. And if you're spooked by the stock market, people go, well, I'll just put it in savings.

Well, you're going to hopefully maybe keep up with inflation at that rate, but your money's not going to grow. So long term, think five plus years, you want to invest it into the market, into your 401k IRA brokerage account, short term, high yield savings. So just practically speaking, here's a couple of ways I've used high yield savings accounts. When my wife and I were saving for house.

And we were, basically it was a sinking fund, but it was where we put a ton of money for our down payment. We went and put a huge chunk down. We used a high-yield savings account. And we did. I looked up after 18 months,

I couldn't believe how much interest we'd made. It was remarkable. Yes. Also, I use a high-yield savings account for, I pay my taxes and insurance and lump payments every year. And so I basically pay a bill every month, but I put it into that high-yield savings account. So it earns money over the course of the year. And at the end of the year, I'm never surprised by something. That's right. And so those are two ways that we just use it in the Deloney household.

And if you're wondering, well, how are they able to offer these? Well, they're generally offered by online banks, which have lower overhead because they don't have to create a thousand brick and mortars and hire a bunch of people. They can be a little more nimble and they can pass the savings on to you. So that's where you're going to see these. Recently, John, I partnered on my YouTube channel with a company called Laurel Road, a great online bank.

And they've got an APY right now is 5.15%, which is impressive. And so if you guys want to check that out, this is not like a sponsored segment. I just am a fan of what they do. Laurelroad.com slash George. You can check it out. And John, you use probably a different account for your. Yeah, my smart investor pro Craig with Swan Wealth Management. He put me in Cambridge Stonecastle and works. It's been in that in that range. It's probably around 5%.

Yeah, give or take. And it's been awesome. Here's the thing. Don't go chasing like, oh, well, this account. Don't go chasing waterfalls and don't go chasing the spread because you found another company that offers a 0.05% higher rate than you were getting. The juice ain't worth the squeeze there. But the key is don't go with one of these scummy companies that are like part of like SoFi or Capital One. You're seeing a lot of these debt companies start to offer high yield savings accounts as a gateway drug to get you into their business.

you know, grimy little grubby fingers, don't do that. So, you know, there's some credit unions out there that have some great high yield savings. Ally, I think is one that Jade and Rachel have used. I use Laurel Road and John uses a different one. The key here is it keeps your money safe. You want to make sure it's FDIC insured, which means your deposits, if the bank collapses, you're going to keep your money safe up to 250 for a single person per ownership category or 500,000 if it's a joint account.

And the other thing is watch out for monthly maintenance fees. So that's one thing I love about Laurel Road. No monthly maintenance fees. No, you know, heebie-jeebie minimum balance required here. You don't have to worry about that. So those are some of the things to look out for. We've got a great blog article on this. We're going to link it in the show notes if you want to learn more about high yield savings accounts. Love it. Painless, John. Painless. Let's get to a call. Isabel is up next in New York City. What's going on, Isabel?

Hi, Dave. I'm so glad. That's what they call me these days. He wishes he was Dave. Oh, thank you. That's such a compliment. It's okay. It happens to the best of us. He asks us when it's just us. He's like, hey, will you guys call me Dave? So we do. It's cool. What's up? Go ahead. Okay. So this is my question. Should I pay off my mortgage on my second home with the money that I originally saved for an emergency fund? What's in the emergency fund? How much?

What's left on the mortgage? So you're telling me you could knock both of these out and still have like 50 grand left over?

The answer, that was basic math. It was rhetorical. Today. Do it right now. Pay them both off today. Do it right now. If you were going to drain your emergency fund down to $0, I would say, hey, let's hold off. Let's get, you know, leave three months in there. Anything beyond that, we can chunk the mortgages. But you can knock both mortgages out today. You have two paid-for houses and 50 grand in the bank.

I was just saving some of that for the next car because I like to pay for cars in cash. Good. Well, here's the thing. A car is not an emergency to upgrade a car. You're going to do it with cash and leave as much as you need in the emergency fund, three to six months of expenses. Create a different savings account for a car because what happens is people get confused over what an emergency is and all of a sudden you just bought a cruise to Cabo as an emergency. And here's what's also cool. You pay off those two houses today.

They're worth more than that tomorrow. You're not losing that money. If you take that money and buy a new car, it's worth less tomorrow. Right. No, it won't be for a while. I just like to have that. I think you're so great at savings. Your savings muscle is amazing, and now it hurts to let go of that money. It feels like it's disappearing, doesn't it?

Yeah. But it's not. It's a forced savings plan. Because guess what? You just freed up two mortgage payments that you can now throw into a savings account. Yeah, wait till August 1 when you don't have any mortgage payments. It's going to feel dope. Do it right now. What do those mortgage payments add up to if you add a principal and interest on both mortgages?

Principal, like $35,000, $3,500 a month. A month? For each one? Yeah. So we're talking like $40,000 a year. One is like $2,000, yeah. Right, and the money that I'm saving on the interest. What do you make a year, Isabel? $150,000, and my husband makes like $150,000. So you guys were making $300,000, and this year you're going to make $340,000 thanks to the raise you just gave yourself because it's not going to the lenders anymore. It's going to you, Bank of Isabel. You just got a $40,000 a year raise.

That's awesome. Congratulations. Cha-ching, Isabel. I'm proud of you. Way to go. Pay it off. You're not going to regret it. And if you do, we always joke you can go back into debt. But we haven't got that call yet, John. Yeah. Dear bank, I hate owning my home outright. Give me some cash so I can have something to pay every month. Yeah, I just need a challenge. I need the hustle. No, thank you. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Thanks to Dr. John Deloney, all the folks in the booth keeping the show afloat, and you, America. We'll be back before you know it.

Hey folks, Dave here, and I know some of you listen to the show waiting for a call that answers your specific question. Maybe you need help with budgeting or investing or saving your emergency fund, but wouldn't it be great if you could get the answers you need right when you need them? Well, I got great news for you because you can. When you download the Ramsey Network app, you get our advanced AI search that lets you easily find the calls that matter to you.

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From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by bestselling author Dr. John Deloney, and we're here for you, America, to take your calls to help you take the right next step. The number is 888-825-5225. Betsy is going to kick us off in Portland, Maine. Betsy, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi. Thank you. Absolutely. What's going on? Yeah, well, my question is, I was married 15 years with somebody, and they just recently, well, two years ago, walked out and left me with...

everything to deal with. And I kind of went through a period of trying to fill that hole. So I'm $20,000 in debt now and I don't know where to begin. I mean, I worked 60 hours a week trying my best, but do I try to bank all my money? And, uh,

do I have it for retirement or should I pay off all my debt because my dream is really to own a home someday before it's too late. I'm so sorry Betsy. How long, how old are you now? 58. Okay and any kids grown and gone or? Grown, grown grandchildren so yes I have no children at home it's just me. Do you have any family around?

I do. Yes, I have a daughter that lives close by and I have a son actually who made me start listening to Dave's show. He lives in Texas and would love to have me down there, but it's so hot there. Amen. Hey, Betsy, did y'all go through a formal divorce?

No, I do not know what is going on around here, but I filed, it's been about a year and a half ago I filed, and we still do not have a court date. We've gone to mediation and can't agree, and we're still waiting for a court. Do you have an attorney? And he's living with somebody already, so I would think they would rush it along, but I guess they... Do you have a lawyer? Do you have a lawyer?

I didn't because honestly, I don't think he really, he did all that. He paid all the bills and did all that. And I just helped out here and there and put money away for our dream home. And then I went through it all when I was kind of just left suddenly. But Betsy, he left you with $20,000 in bills that you can't pay. Well, that, a lot of that was my,

My fault because, well, I had to pay the bills while he was gone. And he has nothing. I don't think he doesn't have any. Yeah, but he doesn't get to just opt out and stop paying bills. That's not an option for him. Oh, I know. I know. So that's why you need some legal defense. Okay. So let's head this off like right this second, okay? Okay. Are you in? Because here's the deal. You're going to have to change a switch. You're going to have to flip a switch from...

I just got run over by a truck. I loved this person for a decade and a half. And probably you've been through some things in your life and you let yourself believe again. And you knew things were a little bit shifty and a little bit shady, but you, man, you let yourself love this guy and he absolutely set your heart on fire. Right, exactly. Right? Okay. Yeah, correct. Not by your hand, but in your lap. Here we are. You're 58. You're working 60 hours a week. You owe 20 grand and you want to own a house someday.

Yeah. I'm telling you this because I love you. You're going to have to flip a switch from victim. I just got hit in the mouth to you watch me. Right. And if, if I know that's easy to say, I know that's easy for me just to say, and it sounds like an Instagram post, but I'm telling you, that's going to be the difference between you not owing anybody any money this time next year.

or you being $40,000 in debt this time next year and trying to find some guy that you know is not good for you to move in with you. You see what I'm saying? Like just repeating the cycle again. And that is the thing, though. I'm such a strong person that it just – it was like so out of his character. He did a 180. I mean, it was like I never, ever –

ever saw it you know coming so it was such a shock I wasn't prepared I had I thought he was like that I could have been squirreling money away for 15 years but I but Betsy when someone when someone leaves you when someone cheats on you we often hear that but we think it's going to hurt because of the betrayal but often the most painful part is you lose trust in yourself I should have seen this coming I should have put money away I know I know but Betsy listen listen

We don't have a psychology for when someone we love, we know people stab us in the back. We know enemies are out to get us. We don't have a psychology when someone we love stabs us in the face. And that's what happened. And so when that happens, you got to just put your hands down and grieve it. Right. Right. And then you have to ask yourself that terrifying question. What am I going to do now? I know. Yeah. So let's walk through some tactical things, Betsy. You got $20,000 total in debt. Yes. What kind of debt?

Uh, credit cards, mostly, uh, a loan, a small loan and, and credit cards. I, I just was so, uh,

Was this grief spending, or did you have to cover the gap in bills? Oh, absolutely. Okay. It was both. It was both. Can you cover your bills today? And both. Yeah, I'm making decent money. Okay, what are you making? As a matter of fact, I wrote it down, because I just got my six-month thing done.

This year, I should make around $67,000. Wonderful. And for a single person, it's not bad around here. That's incredible. You're amazing. Okay, so here's the deal. We can get out of this debt. So barring whatever happens with the mediation and is he going to pay? Is there alimony? Is there back pay? I don't know what's going to happen there. But I can tell you how Betsy can get out of this mess and move on with her life regardless. Do you have any savings? I'm sorry? Do you have any savings right now? Anything? Anything in savings in the bank? Oh, yeah.

Not really, no. No. Maybe $500. I mean, that's so sad, isn't it? And I do have, I just got a 401k at least. Okay, well don't invest money in the 401k. You need to be focused on this debt temporarily until it's knocked out. And to make in 67, how much margin could you throw at the debt every month? So if you make minimum payments on everything, you cover your four walls, your food, utilities, shelter, transportation, how much money can you throw on top of the debt, on top of the minimum payments every month, on the smallest one? Uh...

Well, I'm...

With this new job, that brings in probably... Let's say you're bringing... How much are your bills every month? $1,000 a month. Your basic bills to cover your needs. Is it $2,000, $3,000? Basic bills... Yeah, no. Rent... They rent table lights around $1,800. Okay. That's not food or anything like that. So let's say you're bringing home $4,000. There should be about $2,000 you could throw at this debt if you got focused, right? Right.

So now think about that. Basic math. $2,000 for 10 months is $20,000. Oh, yeah. That makes you feel a little better. Good. That's exactly what hope does. It makes you feel a little better because you're going to be debt-free within a year. And Uber on Saturday and Sunday, and it's going to be awful, and they get this thing done in six months.

And then build up your emergency fund to three to six months of expenses. Then we can begin investing in the 401k, 15%. I'm going to send you Financial Peace University, Betsy. It's going to walk you through all of this in detail. And this is the seven baby steps that have helped millions. And you are next. And I'm so pumped for you. Hang on the line. Christian's going to pick up. We're going to send you Financial Peace University as our gift to say we believe in Betsy. Thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Open phones at 888-825-5225. If you're enjoying the show now or anytime, do us a quick favor. It's completely free. It'll take you a second and share the show.

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and take the one-button poll. It means a lot. All right, let's continue on with Franklin in Miami. What's going on, Franklin? Hey, how you doing? Doing well. What's going on? All right, so I got myself in a bind, probably a total of about $650 in debt. What is it, man? $650.

It's a little bit, that includes the mortgage. I took a heat lockout, got a couple of credit cards, hospital bills,

The thing is, I was, I had a very, in the beginning, I had a very savvy, like, thought process, you know, trying to take some money out and invest. I mean, real estate, I do wholesaling, and that was, like, the brunt of my income. I got into a little health situation at the end of last year. I had to do open-heart surgery, and then starting in January and February, it took some time for me to get the ball back rolling, but business hasn't been, I

As it was, and just like right now, I'm literally right now, as I'm talking to you guys, I'm pulled over on the side of the road because I just got done picking up an Uber Eats order just to supplement my household income. I'm married. I have five kids. My wife will stay at home because we have a one-year-old.

But as of right now, we're trying to bring more income into the house. Franklin, speak directly into your phone for us. We're having a little bit of a hard time hearing you.

Sorry about that. No, it's all good. So you're doing side hustles right now to supplement the wholesaling stuff, which isn't panning out. You've got five kids. Wife stays at home with the kids. You've got credit cards, medical debt, HELOC, mortgage. It all adds up to $650. If you remove the mortgage and the HELOC, what's the consumer debt section? How much does that add up to?

Uh, consumer debt, I'd say probably about 60 in credit card. And then after that is like hospital bills. You know, since, um, we have, uh, we have like a, we probably have like another 60 to 70 in hospital bills and that hospital bill just being different, different things. I know my heart, my heart surgery, bought in some bills, um, are, are, uh,

One of our second to youngest daughters, her birth wasn't covered by the insurance, so we had to pay for that. Do you have insurance right now? Yeah, we have insurance right now, health insurance. Okay, is it just Marketplace? Say that again? Is it just Marketplace health insurance? Who is it through? My wife is on Marketplace. I'm on private. Okay, I imagine that's very expensive, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay.

I think we need some stable core income, and that might mean you need a career change. If wholesaling is not working out, I think you need to do something full-time with benefits to kind of get your head above water, especially with five kids. Yeah, that's right. Does that sound right? Yeah, that's right. Because wholesaling was pretty good. For the past five years, I've been... What were you making? Well over $100,000.

Last year I was at 137. Before that, I was at 150. Before that, I was at 190. And then 2020 was one of my biggest years at 250. Amazing. So it has been steadily decreasing. And even now, I'm still actively doing it. I have some deals in the pipeline. I got one closing scheduled for next week. And I'm working on another, potentially, in the name of Jesus, I got a six-figure deal that I'm negotiating with

But it's, you know, it's like you said, it's not stable. You know, and unfortunately I don't have a team. I'm working by myself. I'm doing my own calls. I don't have any cold callers calling for me. Hey, Franklin, Franklin, I can hear how tired you are. Yeah. I got two kids and I don't even know what day it is. I can't imagine having five, not to mention a wife staying at home, not to mention all these deals. I can hear it all. My oldest is in college. I know. I know.

You thought this whole thing is going to look different. I'm telling you right now, and George will back me up on this, with your character, the kind of guy you are, and I know this because you're a dealer. You know how to set up deals and wheel them and talk them and move them, but you're also a good man, and you're on the side of the road because you're working Uber Eats so that you can provide for your family. You're a man of character, and I know that's who you are, and you got to believe me when I tell you

If you work that hard and you're as smart as you are and you're as good at working with people as I know you are, there's not a lot of jobs you won't get involved with or you're not making 150 grand at the end of the day. That's who you are. You could start a car washing business tomorrow and in 18 to 24 months, you'd be making that kind of money because that's how you work and that's how you honor people. But you're locked into this. The wholesale game was so crazy in 2020 and now you're just chasing ghosts, man.

You know what I'm saying? Like, it's never going to be like that again. It was a wild, weird moment in history. And it feels like, okay, the next deal and the one next deal. And like you just said, now we're on our hands and knees praying to the grace of Jesus this deal goes through. And George and I want you to have stability, man, so you can play with your kids and you can sleep in your own house and pay your bills. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And right now you're staring at a mountain, Franklin. What I want you to do is disconnect the HELOC and the mortgage for a second and just focus on this consumer debt. If you got back to making $150,000 in the next six months, how quickly could you pay off $120,000 in that consumer debt? Less than two years.

You could throw 60 at it, right? Making 150, cover the bills, the rest goes to debt. That's the one thing you're focused on. And so I don't think you're too far, you know, you're not too far gone. You don't need to file bankruptcy. You're going to hustle your way out of this just like you did to get to where you are with this wholesale business. But it's going to take a little while. And it might mean you got to tell the credit card companies, hey, listen, here's what I can pay you right now. It might mean you got to negotiate with the medical bills and go, listen,

I don't have the income that I had before. I'm doing my best. Here's what I can pay you right now. But the most important thing to do is cover the four walls. They don't get paid before you put food on the table, the utility bills are covered, and you've got your housing covered and your transportation. Got it?

Yeah. Can you afford this house, or is it time to sell this $500,000 house? That's what I'm thinking. We bought it in COVID. We bought it in COVID at a great price, $250,000, low interest rate. But then I tacked on my HELOC, and the HELOC is $150,000. What's it worth right now? Maybe $520,000. So if you sold for $520,000, what would you walk away with after paying the mortgage, fees, and the HELOC? Ballpark. Ballpark.

100? Yeah. That sounds awfully close to getting completely debt-free, doesn't it? You'd pay off the medical bills and credit cards.

So I think that's the backup plan. If we don't get income up soon, that needs to be the next step. And I would sell this house. Dude, I'm just telling you what I would do, brother. I'd sell this house and I would put $50,000 in a high-yield savings account so I know I've got my rent covered and I'd go rent a place and kids can share rooms. I shared a room growing up and somehow I survived. Your kids could share rooms. Y'all can make it work and you'll have six months of rent in a high-yield savings account so you know I'm going to be okay on that front.

You got too much house and not enough money coming in, and it's going to give you a chance to control ultimately the career move and then make your next move, whether that's going to become the manager of a Walmart or a local restaurant or going to start your own plumbing. I don't know what your skill set is and what you want to do, but, man, you work too hard and you're too much of a man of character to just be stuck on the side of the road like you are right now trying to get into this wholesaling flipping game, man.

You've got too much to offer to your neighborhood and your family and to yourself to stay in this game anymore. We've got to restart with peace, and that might mean selling the house because right now this is not sustainable, and it's stressful, and you've got a little starry-eyed, you've got a little greedy, and we can reset and move forward with peace. Hang on the line. I'm going to send you my book, Breaking Free from Broke, to give you some hope along the way. This is The Ramsey Show. ♪

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel joined by Dr. John DeLone. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Our question of the day comes from Amber in South Carolina. What's she got to say, John? All right, Amber writes, I was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder and I'm on medication and I see a great therapist. My husband and I have a healthy savings fund and our only debt is our home mortgage.

Where I need advice is how do I get out of a car mess? I've lost us a lot of money with car depreciation. I'll just stop. No, you didn't. Cars depreciate. It's what they do. Maybe you bought a new car or a fancy car and it's depreciated a lot, but you didn't do that. It's just what cars do. I drive an extremely expensive car that's worth more than my annual income, but not our household income. All right, there we go. Ha ha ha.

So you drive a fancy pants car that is depreciated. I want to drive a cheaper car and move away from the luxury brands that I love, but I'm afraid if I go to a dealership, it will trigger me into purchasing a new expensive vehicle. Please help. Well, I think this goes with A. I'll just shout out Amber like we had a caller in a recent episode. Good for you. This is amazing.

Taking your medication, getting the professional help and care that you need, and recognizing where you need to put hurdles in your life. And this doesn't just apply to people with bipolar disorder. This applies to all of us. I have a hard time walking by a jar of jelly beans without eating 70% to 80% of it. So sometimes I have to take a different lap around our office because Sweet Caitlin puts out those...

A whole fishbowl of... That's true. If I ever can't find John, I just leave a trail of jelly beans leading to my death. Chocolate peanut butter cups or whatever. I have to take a different route. And that's okay. But I know. I got to put a hurdle in front of myself. And Amber, you're here too. So I think there's a couple of ways you can do this. Number one, your husband can come with you.

And he can be on the car purchase with you, which I think he should be, be on the title with you when you buy a car. And he will be the person who can help you, for lack of better ways of saying this, protect you from yourself. Another way to do that is to go out and look at cars and make sure you intentionally leave any way that you have to pay at home.

and go out to just look and then go home. And if you and your husband decide this is the car we want, then you can call them and most car dealerships, almost every car dealership now will deliver the car to you, the one that you want. They won't upsell you. They won't try to force you in anything like that.

And so those are two things I would do. What other ideas you got, George? You buy more cars than me. Wow. Yes, multiple cars, John. Well, number one are a car rule, just so everyone knows. Here's the parameter, and it's not to be legalistic. It's just so that you don't get in over your head with a depreciating asset, is you don't want all things with wheels and motors to add up to more than half of your annual income. That includes motorbikes, boats, cars, trucks, RVs, mobile homes, whatever. So...

To that end, it may not be more than your half. I don't know. You said your car is more than your income. I don't know what your husband's income is. So there's a variable there. If you do want to get rid of it because you have so much shame and regret and you're going, I got a downgrade, you need to come up with a difference in cash if you're underwater. So if you owe, let's say you owe 30 on the car, it's only worth 20. Well, you need to have $10,000 cash in order to pay off the loan and clear the title. So that's one option. Then you go pay cash for the next car.

If you're going to go that route, that's how to do it. If you want to go get a different car, a used car, one way to stop yourself from getting triggered by the new car dealerships is to not go to a new car dealership. Go find an independent used car dealership and do all of your research online. So you know your budget. You find the car. Contact them and say, hey, I want this car. Is it available? What's the out-the-door price?

That's what you're looking for. Don't let them nickel and dime you with all these warranties and we're going to put nitrogen in the tires, whatever stupid crap they do and dock fees. Say this is the price. I'm going to pay this price plus sales tax.

And once you find that, that dealership, get the deal done, and then you can go pick it up or have it delivered, like John said, if you don't want to go in the dealership lot. But to John's end, you do not go alone. You have your husband there. You have your budget. You know what? Write out the check ahead of time for your budget, your out-the-door budget price. Then you can't be tempted.

To go into the financing office and have them go, no, no, no, but do you understand? We'll give you a thousand bucks off if you finance with us. In your brain, here's what most people do, John. Well, it's a good idea, and then we'll just pay it off later, and it'll be a little bit of a no-brainer. We're going to really stick it to the man. No, they've already stuck it to you. So there's some fail-safes you can put in place, those hurdles John talked about, to help you with this. But I think the key here is you've got to pre-decide, we're not going to buy a new car. I love the, I had a buddy's dad who did that back when we were in our early college years.

Man, I just remember him saying, I just wrote a checkout at home. And then he looked in the newspaper, saw a car and said, I'll pay that for it. Wrote a checkout, walked in and said, I want to give you that for that.

I'm going to hand the check. I'm going to give you this check for that car. And they're like, well, you know, he's like, I want to give you this check for that car. He came home in that car. Yep. He came home in that car. And you got to be able to walk away. You've got to have willpower when you walk onto those dealerships because salespeople are trained to convince you to buy and do it their way with the financing. They always put you in the financing office.

Well, you still have to go to the financing office and they're going to pitch you. Like I had a call when they went, hey, this is the financing office. We want to know why. Why are you paying cash? I went, well, I don't do debt. I don't understand. It makes it makes so much more sense to you should lease. Leasing is actually the smart way to buy a car. And I went, you don't know who you're talking to. And I don't have the time to explain it. I'm not doing this. Goodbye. We've agreed on the price. My favorite one was not the last car I bought, but the one before that.

The guy looked at me and said, hey, you know, here's a sheet of the projected repairs this car is going to have. So your best option. To scare you into the morning. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

are you telling me this car is going to fall apart within the year? He's like, well, no, no, it's a great. I was like, whoa, you just told me that I'm going to pay thousands of dollars. I'm out of here, dude. And he goes, no, no, it's a good car. And I knew it was a great car. And I said, am I buying any of your warranties? And he stopped. He looked at me and goes, why? Like I was the idiot. And I said, cause I have cash in my bank account and I'll take care of them if and when they show up. And by the way, I've had that car for four years now. None. Zero.

zero of the anticipated big repairs that are coming. And that's the power of having values and principles and pre-deciding and having the accountability of bringing someone with you because they can talk you out of that when the guy zeros in on you and you lose willpower. But thanks for the question. Juno's up next in Memphis, Tennessee. What's going on, Juno? How can we help today?

Thank y'all for taking the call. First of all, I got to say, this is not going to be as interesting as half of the people I've heard from. Thank God. Thank God, Juno. We need some straight talk from Juno in Memphis. This will be easy. My son just graduated high school, started an electrician apprenticeship. He's never had a job. So now he's making $500 a week, bringing home $500 a week. You know, with this apprenticeship that goes up every year, I'm not sure how much it'll go up, but

Basically, he's a blank slate. And I don't know. I haven't succeeded financially, so to speak. But I want him to. So given a blank slate, what does he do with his $500 a week? He currently has no bills. He's still living at home. Can I tell you the greatest gift you can give him? Go for it.

We're going to send you as our gift. We're going to send you a every dollar app from hit for him and for you. And we'll also send you both a financial peace university, but you have to promise me you'll make him watch it. Okay. So we've got the info taken care of. I did a practicum with a buddy who's about 10 years younger than me. And he was this real famous psychologist. He's a smart, smart man.

Long story short, we were working with traumatized kids, and one of the young men that we were meeting with, a really young kid, was saying some pretty awful things about women. And I also had a two-year-old son at the time, and he wasn't old enough to speak or anything, but as we were going from room to room, I looked at my professor, and I said, hey, what are you supposed to tell people?

What are you supposed to tell little boys so that they'll respect women? And he laughed and he said something that stuck with me. And this is years ago. He said he laughed and he goes, you can tell them whatever you want. Kids don't listen to you. They watch you. And if you're telling me, hey, I haven't done the best job. The greatest gift you can give your kid is to take him to breakfast to a local waffle house and sit down across the table and say, I'm going to be honest with you, son. I'm going to tell you something I've never told anybody. I didn't do this well.

I didn't budget well. I put our family in some hot water. This is dad being vulnerable to son and then dad doing this. I'm going to start living differently and I want to encourage you as you start your life to come with me. Here is the EveryDollar app I'm going to give you for a year courtesy of our friends over at Ramsey and I want you to watch the FPU videos with me and we are going to make a budget together.

And he's going to get to watch his old man change, which is one of the greatest gifts a father can give his son. That's the way to go.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. You've heard us mention EveryDollar on this show and shows previous. If you're wondering what that is, that is an app that our team created to help you live out the Ramsey plan. This is an intentional spending plan. We created a very sophisticated and yet simple way to take control of the money for you to make the most of it. And that's what it does. You list out your income at the top, every dollar, and you make the most of it.

Every single month before the month begins, list out your expenses and watch the margin happen. Watch you achieve your goals by just simply focusing on it. And so you can download EveryDollar for free in the App Store or Google Play today. And I recommend you do. It's fantastic. All right, let's get to the lines. Janice awaits in Lexington, Kentucky. Janice, what's going on?

Hi, so I have family in Louisiana, actually, and we just found out that pretty much all of our parents are sick, me and my husband. His mom just recently had to have surgery, so she needs help. My dad just got diagnosed with cancer. My mom is still going through a lot of health stuff, and his dad has really bad diabetes to where he's about to leave the school.

And we also have $50,000 in debt. And we were in the middle of paying that when we got all these calls simultaneously at once. I guess they all just got together and decided to get sick together. But so my question is, do I pay off this debt and wait a little longer to move? Or do I...

Save up all that I can and move in December, which is when my dad is going to start his treatment, when his dad will start, you know, physical therapy and stuff like that for us to help them. What happens with your jobs? Are you both remote to where you could just make this move easily? Or do you need to find new jobs? So my husband is able to relocate.

I am a baker, and I actually own a bakery. I don't really focus on it right now. I have a job where I make about $40,000 to $45,000 depending on the day, and then I was planning on just focusing on my bakery because I have a lot of friends and family in Louisiana. So you could restart the bakery business there. He can relocate. So this is pretty easy. Yeah.

Yeah, it'll be, you know, a kind of sort of an easier transition. Do you guys have a house to sell or are you renting? We're renting right now. Okay, and you'd rent somewhere in Louisiana or would you stay with family? So I would rent in Louisiana and my dad has been talking about helping us with a down payment for a house. So Janice, what does, this is a lot of information you took on all at once. What does help look like in your mind?

um like help yeah like you said you're going to move to help them so we often when we when there's a hurricane when there's all kinds of family storm we want to jump in and solve stuff but y'all don't have the money to pay bills and so is this about like is this about taking them to their appointments like what where do you what do you envision help being because this is a huge mess

So I will be taking or just spending more time with my dad, really helping him around the house, helping with the kids, because I do have a younger son.

brother and sister. Sorry, I'm nervous. No, it's okay. You're okay. And you guys have no kids? I do have a younger son. We do not have kids. I've actually been going to the doctor myself to try and get my health in order as well. What does your husband make? My husband makes anywhere between $45 and $48 and he gets a raise every 18 months. So here in

Right after we move, he's going to get another raise. Okay. My fear is that you guys move, you basically lose your income because you're a full-time caretaker, essentially, and we're now trying to live off his income while trying to pay off $50,000 of debt, and you guys can't pay your bills and your stress while trying to take care of ailing family members. Is that a reasonable scenario that could be true?

I mean, yeah. And like I said, I have basically a job if I wanted to waiting for me there as a nanny. And when I was working for them, I was making about as much as I'm making now. Okay.

That would be my caveat. I think if you want to make this move to be close to family, that's fine, but don't let it slow down your snowball progress knocking out this debt. Yeah, let me say it this way.

You're not going to be the help that you can be and you want to be to your family members if you move across the country and ride up and you're barely able to make rent and you are stressed and you're sick and your marriage falls apart too.

Okay. So I want you and your husband, if you'll make this move, it's, I think it's noble. I think it's great. And I think December is a great time to do this. Um, I probably wouldn't George tell me if I'm wrong here, I'd probably go into stork mode. I'd start stacking cash as much as we, I would try to stack as much cash as humanly possible. If I was you, I would bake my fingers off. Not literally because I'd be gross if somebody ate that, but I would bake and bake and bake and bake and bake and bake and then drive on the weekends. I would do whatever we could to stack up as much cash as possible.

And then I would make this move for as inexpensively as possible, meaning I'd leave. If you got junky old furniture, I'd leave it and get some junky old furniture when you get to Louisiana. Good. Good.

Good. Once you've got your moving expenses saved, you've got first month's deposit saved, maybe you even move in with family to save money on the front end. I don't know what that looks like for your situation, but that could be a way to where you're able to make progress on the debt and be with family at the same time, at least as you start when you make this move. Then you guys can figure out where you're going to rent.

But I want y'all to sit down and make a plan. Here's how much money we're going to make. Here's the job, not just, oh, I got one waiting for me. No, no, no. Here's the job. I've called those people. I start on this day. Here's what the payment, the salary is going to be. And we're going to make a budget that way. We're going to be able to pay our bills that way. And then once we are anchored in and we're safe-

We're going to be able to help our family members as much as we can with the resources that we have. We're not going to drown ourselves trying to help people because then we're no good to help them out. And John, how do you...

address this issue where we want to make this move we want to help we're not in a position to do so but you know there's ailing family members over there and you just want to do something and you want to at least be with them physically how do you help people navigate that um yeah there's only so much we can do it goes back to the great dr young who trained me on crisis response he he always reminded me um

You walk as often as you can to a chaotic situation. And that's not always practical, but the idea being if somebody comes in and says, hey, there's an emergency over there, and I go, ah, and I sprint and run over there, I've brought my chaos to an already chaotic situation. If I say, okay, I'm coming to help,

and I walk and I drop my shoulders and I breathe, I bring peace and calm to a chaotic situation. And if you see well, well trained special forces guys, man, they are smooth, right? They are smooth. Their heart rate doesn't change. They've trained on this. They bring, they bring like stability and peace to chaotic situations.

And so this is just another version of that. Mom's sick, dad's sick, dad's sick. Like everybody's, ah, let's move, sell everything and run. And we've just brought chaos to an already chaotic situation. That's different than, honey, let's go out this weekend and we're going to map out what a budget's going to be. We're going to map out how much money could we save between now and December.

We're going to save it like mad. We're going to open up a high-yield savings account. We're going to dump it all in there. We're going to get rid of everything. We're going to move with our two cars and nothing else because we're not going to pay for movers, and we'll figure out nightstands and whatever off Facebook Marketplace when we get there. We are going to bring peace and calm to a chaotic situation. We're going to have our lives anchored in so that we can then show up and be present with our hurting parents. That's the beauty of the Ramsey Plan. If, not if, but when life hits you, be ready. Yeah.

You have the margin and freedom to just go do it. You've got the money. You've got the peace. You don't owe people anything. That's the power of that. Good hour, John. Thank you to all the folks in the booth keeping the show afloat. And you, America, thank you so much for listening. We'll be back real soon.

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined this hour by my good friend, some say best friend, Dr. John Deloney. And we are taking your calls at 888-825-8255.

You jump in, and we'll talk about your life, your money, your relationships right in front of you for the good of the group because we all want to grow. We all need some hope. We all need to cheer each other on, and that's what we do here on The Ramsey Show. All right. Paymon is going to join us up first in Vancouver. What is going on, Paymon?

Hi, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my call. I'm drowning and I really need help of you guys. I can explain and start with my death or wherever you want me to start. You tell us. You said you're drowning. That's pretty aggressive. Let's start there. What do you mean by that? Me and my wife, we're making around $300K growth every year.

We live in Canada, Vancouver. My monthly fixed cost, I can line it up for you. My mortgage payment is $7,200. Property tax, $420. Leasing instruments, saxophone, $50. Gym costs $150. Groceries, $2,000. Utility, I paid $350.

Car loans, I paid $1,000. Water, city, cost $250. And insurance for my house and the two cars, about $530. So right about like $12,000 of my cost. And what's your take-home pay every month? Right now, my take-home is about $8,500. Why is it so... Oh, okay. I thought it was combined. I got scared.

No, no. My wife's take-home was $4,000 before she leave for maternity leave. We have a 10-month-old baby. She's not willing to go back before a year and a half. So right now she's making $1,600 gross from insurance employment.

And I'm making 2K on the rental property that I, like, it's, I have a mortgage helper in my house, a two bedroom that I'm renting out. Okay. What are you making from the rental?

2K. 2,000. So that's extra on top of your $8,500. So currently, as it stands, if your wife continues down this road, hey, I'm not going to go back to work full-time right now. I'm making $1,600. You guys are spending more than you make, correct? That's correct, yes. I can see why you're drowning, my friend. Okay, let's try to develop a game plan here. Number one, your mortgage is the glaring problem here.

So here's the story. Two years ago, I bought this house, $1.4 million. And the payment was around $5,400. $5,400. I was okay. So I was a variable. Now I'm paying $7,200. You have to sell your house, Pamela. You have to sell your house. It's too much.

In October, I can reduce it back with the fixed cost. I mean, fixed rate of 4%. I can bring it down to maybe $5,800, $5,900. That's still half of your income. You have to sell your house. That's still over half your income, so it's not going to solve the problem. Our parameter for housing is 25% of take-home pay, and right now you're at 60%, and you're saying, hey, one day maybe we can get it down to 55%. It's not going to be a sustainable solution. You guys simply have too much house to...

Even with an amazing income that you have or had, it's still a lot of mortgage for where you're at. And obviously the car loans are the other glaring problem. Now, if you sold these cars, could you get out of this thing or are you underwater on them? The explanation for my car is stupid. I'm still calling it a stupid choice, but I found this rebate from the government. I'm an on-road salesperson, so the only thing I can write off

It's my car expenses and the home office expenses. Last year, I found this rebate from the government that I bought this car for $75,000 and I wrote off $63,000 of it. So my return on tax was $30,000, which I have $10,000 and I already spend $20,000. No one built wealth through tax savings. The problem is you're throwing away $1,000 right now.

plus interest on all of this while you're drowning. So, you know, I think at every turn we were like, hey, this is going to be the life hack. We're going to rent out this room. The government's going to give me a tax break and we're going to get out of this thing. And then life happened. You had a baby, which is a wonderful thing. And your wife said, I don't want to go back to work right now. And it's putting you guys in a bind. I'm assuming you guys aren't on the best of terms because you want her to go back to work because you feel the pain of the finances. And she's going, I want to be with this baby, right? Yeah.

I'm okay with her staying out of work, but I don't want her to go back to the regular job that she has. I really want her to open the smallest business that she can. We need a corporate company that I can write off some of the expenses. I think that's the way I like to go. Where are you getting this idea that you're going to write off your way into building wealth and getting out of this debt?

I don't think write-offs are the solution to your problems. You have to sell your million-dollar house and your $75,000-a-year car. You can't afford them, man. Right now in Vancouver, this house is a suburban house and it's 20 years old. Dude, I know. It's chaos. It is chaos expensive in that market. I cannot defend or explain what the heck is happening in Canada. Don't worry. Ha ha ha!

If I sell this house today and I go, I don't know, for example, I found a rent somewhere, the two-bedroom, the smallest apartment goes for $4,500. Guess what? $4,000 is actually a reasonable amount for you to pay, and you might have to do that. And you're not throwing away money on rent. That's you building back a foundation because right now you told us you're drowning. And the reason is not because of a write-off or whatever. The reason is because 60% of your take-home pay is going toward the mortgage.

Using your words, brother, you're in the ocean floating, and you used to be on a really nice boat, and somebody just rode up next to you in a canoe, and you're like, yeah, I'm not getting into that. That's not really how we roll. They paddled away, and then a small fisherman came by in a small little john boat, and you're like, yeah, that boat's gross. I'm not getting into that boat. And the whole time, brother, you're still bobbing in the ocean.

My calculation could be off, but $7,200 that I'm paying right now, I can break it down to $6,000 if I go fixed rate right now. And then I'm making $2K on the rent, and that's going to put me on the $4K same spot again. Do you remember 24 months ago when Canada shut down? Shut down? The whole country stopped spinning? Yeah.

And people who were renting decided to not pay and they didn't have to. Do you remember that? Yeah. Just a minute ago. Your life is teetering on this one tenant. And if they leave and you can't find another or they don't pay, this whole plan falls apart.

We need a sustainable plan that doesn't involve this side rental business. So either you need to get your core income up or we need to sell, downsize, rent for a while, get rid of the debt and restart. But no more tax write-offs, no more justifying, no more the government's going to do this. We've got to figure out a plan that works for the future of your family.

And I wish you the best. And I know Canada, the numbers, John, are astounding in Canada. I know it's madness. The housing's madness. I can't fix that. But you've got to make a choice. And you've got to choose reality. And the reality is this is unsustainable. Thanks for the call, Pamela. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney.

As you guys know, this is a call-in show. You call 888-825-5225 while we're on air. If you're lucky, you get patched through to Dr. John. If you're unlucky, you get Ken. I'm kidding, but here's how this works. Occasionally, we'll get voicemails when we're off air, and we thought it would be fun to actually play one of those voicemails. Sometimes we get to schedule these calls, John, and sometimes, like today, we get to schedule these calls.

We're going to do a new segment called Sorry We Missed Your Call. So explain how this works, John. What are we going to do next? Well, like, when you call me, I just don't answer. And then I see you in person, I'm like, ah, sorry I missed your call. This isn't that case. We get cards and letters and...

We get countless, thousands and thousands of direct messages and emails, and we get phone calls calling into the Ramsey Show, and they leave messages on the machine. So we're going to play one of those messages here, and then we're going to answer it. All right, let's get into this. Sorry, we missed your call. Hello. I'm a huge fan of Dave Ramsey. I've got a net worth of roughly $8 to $9 million, and my wife is totally frustrated with me.

that I only have one pair of shoes. I wear them everywhere. I wear them with suits. I wear them to go on the boat. I wear them everywhere. And I won't spend any money. She's like, you make $100,000 a month. She thinks I'm crazy, but I'm paranoid. I just don't want to spend any money. I'm always thinking about the future, and I think that's how I got to where I am because I've been this way for 30 years.

Have a good day. What an amazing call. That's one of my favorites. My favorite line is, she thinks I'm crazy. I'm paranoid, which is, yep. I also love the Dr. Seuss vibe he had. He was like, I have one pair of shoes. I wear them with suits. I wear them with boots. I wear them on boats. I wear them with toots. All right, so here's the deal. When it comes to wearing one pair of shoes everywhere, I'd like to call you my hero.

I'm down to two pair. I have one that I run in and one that I wear everywhere. And you're a hero of mine. I switch pairs midday. I have my evening shoes. He does. I have special creams for his shoes.

It's just the whole thing. But this feels kind of disgusting. You told me earlier today the name of your shoes. Yeah, you don't know the model? You get like a make and model. Because a fan out there said, John, love the dunks. And John had no idea what this man was saying. I said, John, those are Nike dunks. That's the model. It's fine. John is a man of simple taste. This is why you struggle with friendship. So, hey, I love this. Here's the challenge.

You are living out of a heart and head space of scarcity. And so there's this illusion that it's all coming down past the point where it's rational. And so when we talk about emotional health, do we continue to feel things that are no longer real?

And the data is, proves it out in front of us. Yet we continue, our body continues to sound the alarms as though these things are coming at us right away. Right? Put in a quick high yield savings account at 5%, what's $8 million? $8 million.

Oh, what it would grow? Yeah, a year. Okay. So like just sticking $8 million. That's 400 grand a year. 400 grand a year. That's not bad. Which puts you in the top 1% of earners. He said he's making $100,000 a month. So he's making $1.2 million a year. Yes. And he's not spending any of it. Yes. And so when he says, I don't want to, great. Don't buy anything you don't want to buy.

If you don't spend money because you are waiting for this next shoe to drop, if you grew up very poor or you grew up where money was a stressor and your body sounds alarms around money and so you have created an imaginary future that you're trying to hedge against, then you're not well. And George and I have taken this call a lot. We recommend people, A, get not reckless but close. Get really over the top about generosity. Give. Give.

Tip 100% at the Waffle House or with your waitress. You can see she's stressed and restaurants have cut their waitstaff all the way down. There's one person running 20 tables. Double the bill for her.

And leave her a note that says, we saw you and we appreciate you. Be very generous. Go to a local college and say, if you'll cover the rest of this bill, I'll cover that back half. Get super, super generous. Fund a nonprofit for a year just for fun. Just for fun. And then the other thing is, this is going to be opposite of 99% of people in the world. Budget forced spending.

You will go buy a nice thing. You will go out to eat. You will buy a new pair of shoes for X, Y, and Zs. I'm going to practice letting this scarcity mindset that's built into my nervous system. I'm going to practice letting this thing go. I can buy another pair of shoes and I'm going to be okay. I can buy underwear that were purchased this century.

I'm going to feel it, and then I'm going to get to the next month and be like, all right, we didn't all fall apart. And if you're making $400,000 on basic interest, right, we're going to be okay. Yeah, there's definitely a flat tire here where he's great at saving and investing. I applaud him. But he's saying, well, that's how I got to where I am. Now, you got to where you are because you're really talented at something and you worked really hard at it and you had a good savings muscle. But if you want to get to the next 30 years of a great marriage, this ain't it. Yeah, now we're going for a great life.

And you've got someone else in your life. So it's not just you. If it's just you, go live in a cave, do what you want. There's another person in your life, and this is not the way, this is not the picture they had for, man, when we have $8 million one year, we're not going to spend any of it. Because it's all coming down, right?

So I don't know what our friend needs here. It might be some therapy, some third-party professional help. It might be to go budget for some spending. It might be to go give. I think it's all of it. Yes. But the savings muscle, we got that. Let's start to work on another muscle because those are atrophying. And this was going to be practicing the living muscle, practicing the giving muscle.

And by the way, if you're listening to this and rolling your eyes, don't. Everybody's fighting a war every day and none of us know what's going on in other people's lives. And so let's cheer this guy on. His generosity may just make its way into your life someday or his appreciation for your craft or whatever you're working on. He might be the new benefactor, right? But everybody's working through something. This guy just needs to practice saying, I wasn't okay then.

I am safe and okay now. And it's cool. Let's practice it and let's get it on, man. You got $8 million. You worked really hard. Let's go have some fun in your life and let's give like crazy. Love it. All right, let's get to the phones. Caleb joins us in Charlotte, North Carolina. What's going on, Caleb? Hey, guys. Can you hear me okay? Yep.

All right. I'm 23 years old. I just finished paying off all my student loans. That was all my debt about a month ago. And so I'm on baby steps three. I've almost finished setting up my six day month of expenses and I'm going to start maxing out a Roth IRA this upcoming, this October. And I'm wondering if it's smart to hire a financial advisor to take care of my Roth IRA and then in the future, my brokerage account, or if I should just do that myself.

I hired somebody. Yeah. Do you want to manage it yourself? I mean, not really, but I also don't want to spend money on somebody for something that I could do myself. So like upfront, it's 5.75% commission on the amount I put in. And then there's nothing like on the interest or whatever I make in the account, but I just want to make sure it's not something dumb.

Well, it's up to you. And also know that nothing is final and forever. You can do it and hire them and go, all right, they're going to manage the investments. And five years down the road, if you feel like, you know what, I'm going to take this on myself, I know what I'm doing, then you can do that. But you've got to realize that there's a lot more at play here. There's a lot more advantages to having a financial advisor. Of course, they can help you determine what investments to make. They can help reduce your income tax liability. They can analyze your cash flow and help you make those decisions. Planning purchases of

life insurance, real estate, other types of insurance, saving for kids' college, maximizing retirement income, estate planning, legacy planning, all of that is part of it. And so I don't want to look at binary of, well, they're just going to help me choose a fund. If that's all you're doing, sure, you can go do that yourself and it can be great. But I don't want to minimize. When I pay a plumber, I'm happy to pay the plumber because I don't want to screw it up. I don't want to fool with it. I don't want to burn the brain calories figuring it out watching YouTube videos.

And the same applies to finances. You'll know when you're like, I got to reach out to someone. I'm liable to screw this up. And so it may not be now, but there's no rush either.

Yeah, I definitely don't want to handle the brokerage account myself, but I just, I didn't know for the Roth IRA. I mean, 5.75% commission. I don't know if that's high or low. That's a normal front load. That's a normal commission for some products. And if you want to reach out to some SmartVestor pros, you can do that at RamseySolutions.com. These are investment pros we trust around the country to help with this next step. And the people that George and I use in our house to protect our families. So it's not just us selling you something. That's who we use.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney. With or without cell phone bands, Foundations in Personal Finance helps with the distractions in the classroom because of its engaging content. The video lessons in this are captivating. They're geared toward high school students, and students can practice using real-life money skills with hands-on activities and

and interactive budgeting tools. So if you want to make sure the students in your life know how to handle money the right way, go to ramsaysolutions.com slash foundations. This is a gift for parents out there who are going, how do I teach my kids about money? I don't feel capable to just tell them and convince them. Well, don't worry. We've got that covered. This curriculum is amazing. Dr. John Deloney is in it.

I am the host of it. I teach in it. Rachel's in it. The whole gang is in there, and Dave Ramsey included. And it's super fun. It is not the boring curriculum you're used to when you were in high school, I promise. John and I's segment was Sticky Notes Alone, I think was a bright spot for me. I hear about that almost every time I'm out on the road.

We were covered in thousands of sticky notes that were brightly colored. I think it was a lesson on compound interest. Yes. I think when we're older, we're going to find out like, man, you have a Leviathan-sized cancer. Did you happen to cover yourself with a bunch of adhesives? And I'm like, one time. I think that's how George's girlfriend died in Seinfeld is from licking the envelopes. The adhesive, man, very dangerous. Yeah. I learned my lesson. Way to bring down a country there, George, with your sad news.

Let's get to the phone lines. Melanie's up next in Charlotte, North Carolina. How can we help, Melanie? Hi, George and Dr. John. I'm so excited to be on today. I told my husband I was not going to fangirl, but I did not know that it was going to be you guys on here. Wow, you're a fanboy, and so it's awesome. It's so kind.

Okay, so I guess I'll ask my question first and then kind of give you guys some background. My overall question is, am I being greedy when it comes to buying a house?

So kind of some background, my husband and I paid off $180,000 of debt in January of this year. And yeah, it took a long time, but we made it. So since then, we've fully funded our emergency fund with $20,000 and we are in baby step 3B. And we have about $45,000 in our down payment account right now.

So I guess, you know, in listening to your show, you guys kind of talk a lot about if you can get into the market, you should get into the market. Um, you know, cause prices are only going up. Um,

Um, you know, I guess my kind of question is, I wanted to buy a house that's around $350,000. You know, that's just kind of the area that we want to be in the size of house that we want to be in. And that would kind of take us about seven to eight more months of saving to do that. And we could just buy, you know, a smaller, probably $250,000 house in the next

couple of months to get into the market, but it wouldn't be exactly, um, like what we were wanting. Um, so I was just kind of curious what your guys' thoughts were on that. What is your after-tax household income per month? Um, so we bring home, uh, around 10,000 a month. We did, when we paid off our debt, we did start investing 6% into retirement. Um,

We're 29 and 31, so we just kind of felt like we should start a little bit while we started to save for our down payment. Okay. So you're okay to sort of sacrifice a little bit and go, hey, we could be using that investment money for the down payment. We're going to do a choose-your-own-adventure, which is totally fine in Baby Step 3B. You can invest anywhere from 0% to 15% when you're in 3B saving that down payment. So you're doing it the right way. Everything's fine. But you're saying, hey, I want to buy it off more than I can chew because I'm getting a little antsy to jump into this house.

Is that essentially what's going on here? Well, if I bought the house now, we would just buy like just a smaller house that we would move out of sooner than if we just kind of waited the seven to eight months to get into kind of the bigger house in the area that we wanted to be in. So you're saying in seven months, you'll have enough to get the 350 home and do it the right way?

Yeah, we're putting about six grand into our house account now, like every month. So I don't think it will take us that long. I don't think this is greed. I just think it's a lack of patience because seven months is going to fly while you guys save. And when you step into that home, it's going to be, this is the house instead of, well, this is fine. But really the next one, it's going to have this. And so I just, you know, I've been around the block when it comes to, you know, buying houses and selling and

I think it's wise to get in the market when you can, but I don't want you to just buy a house because you should buy a house. Right, right. Okay, so it wouldn't be like beyond crazy to just kind of wait. If it was five years until you could do that, I would say just go ahead and get it. But seven months is a different timeline. Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't be more than a year, but I think it will be about seven, eight months. Okay. How much do you have in your down payment?

Account right now? We have about $45,000 in there right now. And in seven months, you'll have closer to what? $100,000? $80,000. $80,000? Yeah, six times seven plus $35,000, so about $80,000. Okay. And that's if nothing changes. What if one of you gets a raise or you work extra or get a side hustle? Yeah. Yeah. So my husband is actually in the process of getting a raise now. So we're just kind of waiting for that

That's what I would, personally, Melanie, I would crunch the numbers and go, how can we spend less? How can we make more to make this happen in five months instead of seven? And make it a fun game, make it a fun challenge. Right. And I guarantee you'll get there faster than you think. And then work with a real estate pro. You can jump on ramsaysolutions.com slash agent and you can begin the process to go, okay, are we actually realistic here? Are there houses that we love in this price range? And can we get the deal before someone else snatches it up?

And I would begin the process. I mean, six months is not a long time. Melanie, what if you decided together as a couple we're going to buy ourselves a house for Christmas? That would be pretty cool. Our birthdays are right there. We share a birthday, too. Okay, so our double birthday Christmas present is we're buying ourselves a really nice home. Okay.

Yeah. And y'all start getting after it. And y'all have, y'all already have what? 12, 15% of a down payment already towards this $350,000 house, right? Yeah. Yeah. So in the next six months, if y'all start kind of looking around and you get close to, you can pull the trigger now if you want to. Yeah, I know. I just, you know, I don't, I, that 20%, I don't want to get locked into that PMR. I know you're not locked into it forever. Once you cross the 20% threshold, you can write a letter and they'll drop it off.

Okay. But I'm just saying, I like the idea of y'all having a destination because it makes it very real. Right. Because you're going to get 20% and if you just keep floating along, it's easy to go, let's get 25%.

And then like, well, let's just do 50%. We'll half the house. And it just keeps punting it and moving it and moving it and moving it. Yeah. That has started a little bit because, you know, I brought all the debt into our marriage. And so, you know, I don't ever want to go back. You know what else he brought, Melanie? Joy. Happiness. Fun. And that's priceless. He has never, ever, ever said anything about it. He just put his money to it and we got...

We got moving and grooving. And that's what tells me this is going to work out. You both are aligned. You're both excited. You're both working the plan. And that tells me it's going to happen faster than you think. And so stay the course. You can start home shopping now. Work with that pro. And when the time is right, you'll know. But I don't think you have to jump into something now. And I don't think you have to wait eight months or else. It's not that binary. Send us a photo of your Christmas home. I think that would be amazing. That would be fun.

I will absolutely do that. Can't wait. Congratulations, Melanie. Wow. It's funny, John. The people that are working the Ramsey plan, they're more like, and the people that are just impulsive out there, like, yeah, the only debt I have is like some car loans and student loans, like, I don't know, 80K. Like, they're very nonchalant. And the folks following the plan are like, I don't know. I need that 20. You know, they're so dedicated, so diligent, so disciplined. But I think you start to feel the peace as you go.

And you feel more and more like, oh, this plan works, right? And it slowly works its way down the tracks, man. I love it. Yeah, we get a lot of real estate calls on the show, whether it's should I move, should I buy, should I sell? And our team created a really great resource. It's totally free. If you go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate, we have lots of free tools and resources to reach your home goals, preparing to buy, home buying, home selling, wealth building, investment property, finding an agent,

I've got a new in-depth home buying course that our team created. And so a lot of great features on there. And one of my favorites is the home payoff calculator. That's where it gets real. You're like, we're paying how much in interest a month? Go look at how much you guys are paying. America, how much you paid in interest this month. Then do the home payoff calculator. See how much faster you can pay it off and how much interest you'll save. I guarantee that'll put some pep in your step to get to freedom and get that eagle over the door. Have you seen that, John?

The eagle over a door represents this house has paid off. Is there anything more American and rock and roll than that? I can't think of anything. I mean, the Rolling Stones, I guess they're from overseas, so they're not American. Yeah, that's not like that at all. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Our scripture of the day, Philippians 419. My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

Tom Snyder once said, misers are no fun to live with, but they make great ancestors. I like that. See, John? I do have purpose. Agree to disagree, George. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Daniel's up next in San Diego. What's going on, Daniel? Hey, good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you so much for taking my call. I feel so lucky. Sure. How can we help?

So basically, I am wondering, is it okay to retire pretty much super early with my wife and live off fixed income that will be coming in for life? Where is the fixed income coming from? VA disability. Okay. How old are you two? I am 35. She is 41. Okay. And we have devised a plan.

That sounds awesome. We have devised a plan and a budget. We have been using the Dave Ramsey's seven baby steps for five, six years now. We have been completing all the steps, working the best we can, and I've been fighting with the VA for 13 years, and finally this past year just won my appeal, and I'm now able to claim 100% disability from the VA.

which brings me to around $4,000 a month from the VA. That also covers me 100% for healthcare, any healthcare-related needs. That also covers my wife through CHAMPVA because I'm at 100% status. She qualifies for CHAMPVA, so her healthcare will be covered. Okay, so you guys are going to—this is the plan. Retire early, $35,000, $41,000, making $4,000 a month. Are you debt-free?

Yes. Do you have an emergency phone right now? Yes, we have been working on that. Currently, we have a pretty high income to debt ratio. I'm a truck driver, so I make around $6,000 a month plus my $4,000 income. She works, she makes a little over $3,000.

um about 3,500 a month so between the two of us we have about 13,000 coming in my car payment is about 500 you just told me you're debt free that is that is the only thing that I've been taking double payments on the car we have a two-year plan so I don't plan on going right now and our plan involves purchasing an RV because we are extreme travelers okay do you have the money to purchase that RV

That is the problem that I'm running into. That's the question I have. What's the problem? I looked at purchasing an RV and I'm unable to get a loan because I have no revolving credit. There are credit cards. I don't have any credit cards. I'm so happy that you could not get financing on this RV because it would be a burden in your life and not a blessing. Okay. So let me ask you this, dude. You wake up at 50 years old. What do you want to be doing?

My wife and I now, we travel a lot. We're extreme travelers. I get that. I like to travel too. I like to go way back in the backcountry. I like all that. What is your purpose going to be when you're 50? What will you be contributing to in the world? I would like to be doing the same thing I'm doing now, traveling, doing as much as I can to see and live.

uh, as much as I can of the world. Um, and my, I guess my thing is, is with a fixed income with pretty much the, the ability for my wife and I, who we are very good with a budget. Um, we don't live above our means. We would be able to live on that. And then also I'm very handy too. So there's other things that I could be doing. I'm a CDL truck driver. So at any given time I could go back on the road.

If we decided, because we wanted to start with a 10-year plan, try it out for 10 years and see how that goes because we want to travel all around the whole country. All right, here's the deal, Daniel. Here's the deal, brother. Here's the deal. The data tells me if you retire at 35, your health is going to fall off a cliff. I'm telling you from talking to people who are down the road from you that if you retire, if you exit the work world just to go have fun, to go see stuff,

Real, real quick, that runs out of gas. But here's the other thing. I would also tell you, you're telling me that you're great with your money and you're great with your budget. Y'all do make a lot of money right now. I mean, you add it all together, 13 grand a month is a good haul. That's good. But I'm also watching you have a two-year plan making 13 grand a month, but you got a two-year plan on a depreciating asset. So I would question whether you're good with your money. You make a lot. That's awesome. You don't owe anything else. That's cool. What was left on the loan?

My car is like 19.5. I've been making double payments on that. We share that between... But no, you hear what John's saying. You guys make over $150,000. Why is it going to take two years to pay off $19,000?

But you paid off in two months. Oh, no, no. The car is not going to take two years at all. I have a six-month plan. I plan between the next six to eight months, I want to pay that car. Our two-year plan is my son is going off to college. My wife, we want to save a big nest egg of money in the next two years with my truck driving and her work. What's a big nest egg? What's the number?

Mine is between $25,000 and $50,000 just to have a cash asset or cash available. I wouldn't call that a nest egg. That's an emergency fund. Okay. I think we need to think about what happens later when life costs more than $4,000 a month 20 years from now.

I think we need to actually invest. Are you referring to like inflation? Yeah. So here would be my plan. If you want to go travel for a few months, you can do that. I don't think setting a 10-year plan to do this is wise. I think you need to save up, pay cash for the RV, and before you do any of that, you pay off the car loan, we get an emergency fund, we begin investing 15%, and then we save up to pay cash for the RV. We do that. Our 401k, I have a Roth IRA. Okay.

going already my wife has her 401k building i think she has like 25 or 30 000 so what's your question dude like you like you've already got this plan worked out and it doesn't really matter what we say like what's your question i've yeah you're answering it for me i guess uh with the purchasing of a vehicle on my question i was unable to get the loan so that's what i was confused about is this a hundred thousand dollars what's this rv gonna cost

The $65,000, and they denied me for lack of a revolving credit, even though I have a 700 and something credit score. So that's not why they denied you then. There's something else going on. Because I've seen people that should not be driving $65,000 campers get them. Okay. So all I have to say is this. You dodged a bullet like the Matrix. Thank God you didn't get it. Because the moment you drove that RV off the lot, it would be worth $45,000.

And before the year was over, we were 30. So would it be better over the next two years to save up and purchase the RV in cash? Yes. And buy it on the road. And I would go on the road temporarily or just rent an RV for now and check it out. See what that life's going to be like. See if you like it. And if you do love it, then set a, you know, two year plan to go. We're going to pay cash. We're going to spend 30 grand on an RV. We're going to travel for a year and we're going to reassess. Okay. Let me ask you this. Um,

I've had some friends in my life. I've run into some folks. I would call them friends and buddies. 100% disabled veteran. What's your disability? $4,000 a month. No, no, no, no, no. What's the nature of it? Yeah, what's the nature of the disability? So I get 70% for PTSD, and then I get... I have...

shrapnel wounds to my neck and face. I have lack of feeling in my face. I also get from my shoulder and my back a little bit. Okay, good. As a taxpayer, I'm honored to be supporting you for indefinitely. I have no problem with that. You put it out on the line for me and my family. But here's what I want you to hear. Thank you. The folks that I've talked to in the past, there's a sense that screw all of this,

I've done what I was put on earth to do and there's a period at the end of that sentence, now I'm gonna go do my life for me. And my challenge to you is this, I want you to consider what is a life well lived between 35 and 95? 60 more years. What if you created a life that the least interesting thing about you was your veteran status?

And actually, you served your community. You helped people. You grew businesses. You transformed your local community and beyond. And you saw the world in the process. Think bigger than just 35 and I quit. This is The Ramsey Show. ♪

Dr. John Deloney here. Mental and emotional health challenges, broken relationships, it's all just part of life, but they don't have to define you. The Dr. John Deloney Show is here to help. It's a collar-driven podcast where you can get practical advice on dealing with anxiety, loneliness, depression, relationship challenges, your kids, and so much more.

Listen to questions from our callers, or if you're walking through a tough situation and need some help, give me a call. You were never meant to do life alone, and that's what this podcast is all about. Follow along on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or the Ramsey Network app. Remember, you're worth being well.