When Are You Going To Clean Up Your Financial Stupidity?
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. George Campbell, number one best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke, Ramsey Personality, and the

Oh, various other things. He is my co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour, many other things around here. He's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Katie is going to start us off in Akron, Ohio this hour. Hi, Katie. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So my husband is a physician, so he's got a really good income. But he also has almost $500,000 in student loan debt. We've been married three years, so I kind of married into his debt. And as such, we're not sure if now is even an acceptable time to be considering buying a couple of new-to-us used cars. Right now, he works out of state and will for the foreseeable future.

So he's gone 50% of the time and I'm here with all the kids. Last week, two of our vehicles were broken down at the same time. So I had no transportation. So I was just, we're looking to spend maybe a total of 40,000 on a van and a sedan and just don't know if we're still supposed to be driving clunkers because of that massive student loan debt. Are we attacking the massive student loan debt?

Probably not as fiercely as you would like, which has, and not as seriously as I would like either, because this is a second marriage for both of us. We've both had to kind of adjust our financial views a little bit, a little give and take. And so I'm more gung-ho than he is, but at the same time, we are still paying them off. We've paid off 100,000 of them in the past two years. Yeah. What's he make?

He makes $400,000 gross. So we're bringing home a little over $18,000 a month. You should be bringing home more than that. Your taxes aren't that high. It's about $19,000 after taxes and insurance. That's almost 50%. You don't have a 50% tax. There's some kind of problems going on here. Is he investing through his retirement plan?

Yes, but that's actually already been maxed out for the year. So, yeah, I know. That's why you're taking home less as well. That's part of the equation here. So if we pause investing, you could get back $20,000 in your paycheck. I mean, the question is not really cars because based on the way you guys are currently living...

You're trying to wander out of debt while continuing to do investing. And while you have, but do this, you make 400,000. You only paid off a hundred grand in two years. I mean, and it's just awful.

So, um, you know, there's no intensity at all. We do also have a lot of expenses that others may not have with him working out of state. He has to maintain an apartment out of state. Um, we have three, well, I have three step kids that live in a different state that he has to go out there to visit on a monthly basis. Um, and so hotel rooms and travel for that, um,

um and then yeah but truthfully katie you you told you told us you guys are not intense you guys are not working our system okay i'm not mad at you but so i don't know why whether you buy a car matters i mean if you want to go buy a car buy a car if you're going to keep working it this way but you're going to struggle as long as you continue to do this and so um

You know, it's you guys are going to have to decide if you're going to lean into this debt thing and get rid of the debt. If you're going to lean into it, then stop the 401k and buy one $10,000 car and get rid of these two pieces of crap that keep breaking down. But, you know, as long as y'all keep acting like people that make $400,000,

You're going to keep spending what you're spending and you're going to justify it and rationalize it. And you're going to stay in debt. You're not going to get out. So, you know, I, it doesn't matter, you know, the $10,000 car doesn't matter. It's, but what it does do the question, what the question does do in your house, not, not with us, it's not, doesn't affect us, but between the two of you, it causes you to say, okay, are we going to do this or not? Are we going to keep limping?

through this because at this current rate you're going to be in debt for 10 years and that's just you know that's not a plan you know it's not a good plan but uh and if you're going to do that then yeah sure buy a car i mean it's not buy all the cars you want to buy i don't care i mean it's not it because it doesn't what you're doing is you're half butt doing everything and that's just not going to the everything we teach anyway so um yeah you guys need to have a discussion about this

Okay. We need to sit down and make the money we have behave better and we need to behave better. And, um, we need to get in very, very intense because you are a broke doctor's wife. You're married to a doctor who is broke, broke, poor people making 400 grand. That's what you are. So you guys got to decide if that's how you want to live or not. I don't want to live like that. So,

Yeah. Part of this is getting a line going, all right, how much can and should we be throwing at this debt? We want to be done in three years. Okay. That's 170 grand a year. We got to be throwing at this. What does that take per month? Once you make it mathematical. And what must be true? Yeah. We got to cut some lifestyle expenses. What has to be true of our lifestyle? What has to be true of the travel apartment? What has to be true about this and true about that? And, you know, and what's the way we can, for a short period of time, what can we sacrifice? And,

That's what you do, regardless if you make $40,000 or you make $400,000. Maybe you can repair the cars for $5,000 instead of spending $40,000, and that buys you a few years. Who knows? Yeah. But I think what this highlights is not a car issue. What it highlights is the issue that you guys are – the plan you're working –

you know, is not, not working, not well, and you're not on the same page. And you guys probably need to talk about what the flip we're going to do going forward. I mean that, then that will answer your car question. And do you even have 40 grand in cash to pay for this? Yeah, probably not. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. So, um,

George, one of the things that happens, and it happened with me, I didn't have a choice because I went broke. But you can choose to take away all your options. You can choose to take away all your rationalizations. You can choose to do this. And you have to kind of run a mental scenario. I always tell people, like, okay, you have no money. What if you had to have $10,000 by Christmas alone?

to save the life of your child with a medical procedure and you couldn't borrow it what would you do you'd find it you'd find it and all of a sudden all this oh i have to do this i have to do that and bull crap we're getting ten thousand dollars if you make it a priority it happens it's like it's life or death whatever you focus on so you'll see all of a sudden all that all this stuff we think we need

When you are trying to save the life, you know, when you put it in that kind of a mental gymnastic routine, then, you know, then you're forced into looking at your life realistically. Yeah. Because dead isn't life or death, but you kind of have to make it that way in order to get out. No, it's not. But if you say, you know, if you act like that's how important this is, until it becomes important, you're not going to do it. That's the thing. As long as there's something else that's more important. That's any goal in life. You're not going to do it. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Real estate's weird right now. Buying a house right now is weird. It's a good idea to buy a house right now, but it's weird. Wacky out there. Selling a house right now? Weird. Wacky out there. You're going to sell or buy a house right now. You really need a pro in your corner that knows what the flip they're doing.

Not your Uncle Henry who just got his license three weeks ago and has never sold a house. Now he's going to sell your $500,000. That's a dumb idea. Don't do that. Get a pro, somebody that does a lot of volume, 50, 100, 200 houses a year. They know what they're doing. They're high-octane, high-protein.

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It's a free service. We'll hook you up with the people. We take care of it. We want you to get the right people helping you buy or sell probably one of your largest assets of your life, right? It's big time important. So, RamseySolutions.com slash agent. Pim is with us in Pittsburgh. Hi, Pim. How are you? Good. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up?

Yeah, so just a little back story. My wife and I are followers of the Baby Steps. We're on four, five, and six. We have about $65,000 left on our mortgage. Way to go. And we'd be completely debt-free. So that being said, my in-laws, her parents are not able to pay for it.

They don't see eye to eye with that. They kind of do their own thing. I don't agree with anything financially that they do pretty much, but that's them. That being said, they were, they redid their will and we're kind of updating it and kind of going over it with us. Um, they want to leave us a timeshare and two rental properties, uh,

and we don't want any of it um my wife and i have we just that's we don't want to be landlords ever be landlords that's not something we want to do and it's her parents right it's her parents yeah now the problem really comes in where i'm a little bit more vocal than my wife so now i look like i i'm not appreciative you've already said you've already said all this right

Oh yeah. Yeah. It hasn't, it hasn't gone very well. I mean, I kind of say that, you know, it's, I mean, I, it's, but basically it's like, I think this is like, especially the rental, not too much time share the rental stuff. I think they view as a legacy, I guess. Um, but it's not something that, I mean, my, even if someone were to give us a million dollars right now, my wife and I would not buy

buy a rental property it's just not something that's fine yeah that's cool want to get into so well this is how to kind of yeah i mean go around it but be direct well i think you've already been direct yeah and now you're accused of being the ungrateful son-in-law right who's spoiling the whole family messing up the whole thing it was all going good till you came along have they ever liked you pimp has this always been a tumultuous relationship

No, no, honestly, it's been good. But like I said, it's just we've been, we've never kind of, they just, like I said, they don't do. Okay, so you said to them, I don't want this. And now that hurt their feelings. That's where we sit today, correct? Yeah, pretty much. Okay, so what would you think the net, what, you know, I don't know what to do to solve that other than it's been said, because you don't need to say it again, right?

Right. You told them we don't want this. And there and then they got their little feelings hurt. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know if we just bite the bullet whenever that day comes. We could just know or no. I think your your conclusion is correct. The only thing I would have said if you to call me before you talk to him about it would have just been your wife needed to tell him, not you.

Gotcha. I mean, she was there. I know, but she didn't carry the weight of it. You carried the weight of it. It's different when it comes from their own daughter. Yeah. Dad, I love you and I appreciate you. We do things different. I don't want to be a landlord. I know it means a lot to you to have these rental properties, but dad, I don't want to be a landlord. Thank you. It's very kind of you. And I don't certainly don't want dadgum timeshare. It's legalized fraud. I don't want anything to do with it. It's the worst industry on the planet.

And so, I mean, she doesn't say all that, but she could just say, Dad, I love you, but no. And you sit there with your mouth shut. That would have been the only thing I would have changed about this scenario, but it's too late. That cat's out of the bag now, right? Right, yeah. No take backs. Any more discussions need to come from her.

Okay. If you want to have a follow-up and make sure it's that the will is changed or whatever it needs to come from her. Otherwise, if they die and you're still in the will with this stuff, you just put the rental properties on the market and sell them, and you never take the timeshare into your name and just let it go into default.

Okay, that was going to be my next question. Because I did some research, and it looks like as long as you don't kind of sign any paperwork. Never touch anything. Don't even discuss the timeshare. Just pretend like it didn't exist, and it will deteriorate, and it will go its own way. And they can't go after, like. They can't come after me for their timeshare, and they can't come after you for their timeshare, because neither one of us did this deal. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, you can't force a contract by inheritance. Okay. You'd have to be dumb enough to sign it when they put it in front of you. Okay. Now, if you just say, no, no, you people can have that. Just take that back. Well, we'll sue you. Who are you going to sue? The estate? Yeah, good luck with that.

Because they're not going to. Timeshare people are just gross. They'll move on and find another victim. They're looking for old people that they can feed off of, and they bus them in from the Walmart parking lot and pressure them with a free meal or a free hotel room. Oh, yeah. That happened on our honeymoon. First thing, first person you interact with is the timeshare salesman when you get to the resort. And I said, no, thank you. There's nothing you could offer us that would make sitting through three hours of this hell worth it. Jeez, man.

It's like, you know, they're just, it's the scummiest thing. Oh, yeah. Anyway, so, dude, your wife has to talk about this. You can never talk about it again to them. You can only encourage her and cause her to have courage to be clear and kind and grateful. And the answer is no.

Anytime it comes up that anything you can do like that, but yeah, you just, you can't do there's those convinced against their will or of the same opinion still. And sons-in-law are not usually in a position of strength.

to uh take this on our daughters-in-law you know you you know you gotta you gotta you gotta take care of your own blood there um it's the it's the best possible probability of this turning out well relationally anyway for the rest of you out there if you're facing that billy's in chattanooga hi billy how are you billy billy hey dave i'm good how are you better now that i found you what's up

No, I have a question for you. I think you'll feel a certain type of way about it, but I accidentally made a lot of money in crypto, and I'm wondering what would be smartest to do with it. I'm still riding it right now. Back in 2020, I put about $12,000 in. It turned into $800,000 in less than a year.

I thought I was very smart and I was like, well, if I wait for over a year, I'll save a bundle on taxes. So I'll just sell 10% or enough for a house and let the rest ride. And then the rest crashed down to about 16,000. Oh my goodness. You went from 12 to 800 to 16? Yes. But now, so this is, I bought a house since then with that 10% that I sold. It's coming back up quick and fast.

And I'm wondering if I should just pay off the house altogether and be done with it with that. I'm going to be way more conservative than I was last time. I'm not going to expect for it to get back up that high. George and I would tell you to cash out any crypto today by the end of the day and then work the baby steps with it. Pay the consumer debts first, get the emergency fund, then the house. Work the baby steps with it. And we're not hanging on until tomorrow, doing it by the end of the day today. Too much anxiety for me.

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I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, one hill I will die on is that you deserve all the good you have and more for all the good that you've done. I have a question that I'll try to keep simple in a really complicated situation. I am my dad's oldest daughter. I'm helping him with his trust. We've got a really great attorney that's helping us. We're in the four

formation process of that and we're learning as we go. I am one of four children with the addition of a fifth child that my dad had with his second wife who was abducted when he was two and now that son would be 31 and my dad's wanting to include him in the trust with conditions like that he can prove his identity and that kind of stuff and we're just trying to, I'm just trying to know what the best way is to

um, to do this. If that makes any sense, it's a, he's been gone for, for 28 years out of the family. None of us know. My sister knew him. I didn't really know him. He doesn't, as far as I know, no, we exist, but my dad's wanting to include him in the trust with contingency that he like changed his name back and, and that kind of stuff. And I just, I really want to honor my dad's wishes, but I'm not sure how to handle this the best way. Wow.

Okay, so what is it you want to handle? I mean, if your dad puts you, put him in the trush, you put him in the trush, you put the conditions on it, and then how do you handle it when your dad passes? Yeah, because one of the conditions my dad is considering is that if he wants to reintegrate back into the family. But he doesn't even, if he wants to do all that, why don't he call him right now? Well, he's working on that. He's trying to locate him before he dies. Oh, y'all don't even know where he is.

We might. We don't know for sure. He's had his name and identity changed, but we think we might have found a city. So we're working on that in the meantime. But the trust has to go, you know, kind of go assuming that maybe we don't find him before my dad passes. Okay. Well, you'd have to ask your attorney for Oregon law on that. But I would suppose you could put a clause in there that if we can't locate him within...

you know, X number of months, then this clock, then all of that, all of their shares just revert, revert to the other kids. Okay. And you know, your dad has to, um, believe that you all are really going to look for him. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you could just not, not locate him. You could just, I mean, you, if you wanted to not do your dad's wishes, which you're not saying, okay, but you could just not try. And with that clause and then the shares would all revert to you guys. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's mostly in the attorney's hands. He would be the one that would... That's part of what's happening is that the attorney would be the one to hunt him down. So I don't think we would have the ability to drop that ball the way that it's being written up. Okay. All right. The attorney can't find him within X number of days, 180 days, and or he won't meet... If he does find him, he won't meet the guidelines that your dad's putting in place.

If he won't agree to do those things, like he just gives you guys the bird after you find him, right? Which very well might happen. I mean, this is going to be weird for him. I know, and I feel really sad for him because he was two years old when he was taken. Taken by his mother? Yes. Okay. All right.

So she just jetted with the kid before Amber Alert and never found her. Is mom still around? Do we have contact with her? No, no. She changed her name. She changed the boy's name and her youngest son from a previous marriage. But her older sons, their names are still true. And that's how we've kind of been able to make some connections on Facebook.

It's like a true crime podcast. Yeah. Well, I think you guys, from a relational standpoint, I think your dad, if he wants to go this far and be a blessing financially to this child, my advice to him would be you guys pull out all the stops right now. You hire a private detective. You go find the guy.

uh-huh right now okay while your dad's alive okay that's that's just a practical piece of advice it's not legal or financial because it's going to be a whole lot easier to figure out what the flip to do once you can locate the guy and actually begin a conversation

Right. But if you, otherwise, I guess you just put in the trust. Again, I don't know Oregon law, but you'd have to, and I assume most areas you could just put a clause in the trust that if the attorney cannot find within 180 days of death, cannot find him or whatever number of days, then the shares revert to you guys. And or if he chooses, you do find him and he chooses not to meet the obligations your dad put in place, the guidelines. Right. Is your dad in good health? I'm in good health.

No. Okay. Yeah. No, that's why we're making some moves on this. I mean, he might live another decade, but he might go tomorrow. It's one of those unknown things. Is it appropriate to require possibly a DNA test as part of this brother proving his identity in the test? Sure. Okay. I mean, we know exactly who he is. He looks just like my dad and everything, but it would be more...

If there was other family who tried to contest it, his other family that tried to contest it, if that was ever an issue. They don't have a standing with the court to contest the will because they're not a participant. The only thing they would do is just stir up trouble. But I mean, there's nothing legally that they could do. Like, I couldn't come in out of the blue and jump into your all's deal.

You know, George couldn't and contest. Right. You can't contest something you don't have anything to do with. And that's all the rest of that bunch has nothing to do with this. Yeah. His other half brothers and his mother who's nutty and all this other stuff.

Right. I'm definitely trying to keep it just about the mechanics of the trust because there's lots of different emotions involved, and more than anything, I just really want to honor what my dad's desire is for this. Well, your dad is being unfair to the rest of you all to leave this to you to do. He should go do it now. I'm sorry, what? Find the brother? Find him and reestablish contact.

Yes, he's actively working on that. We've got like plans A, B, and C in place, and some things are still unknown. So he's actively working on that. Is this a massive wealth, Stephanie? What is the estate? It's more than he ever thought he would. He's got a couple of properties that we would sell, and currently it would be between five, probably five and $900,000. Split between the five of you? Okay. Okay.

Yeah. But there's a possibility that just part of it would go five ways and the rest of it would just go four ways if this brother doesn't want to participate. That's stuff we're still trying to figure out. Yeah. I just think you're going to get the guidelines. It's two, three paragraphs in this trust. It doesn't have to be rocket science. You know, here's the things that we're requiring. A DNA test, um,

some other proof of identity um integration back into the family changing the name and uh changing the name and they we require those things otherwise but it's for 100 grand he may not want to do it he really it's a lot to ask i mean you're not got a lot of leverage here this is your dad trying to make good have too many years too late this is the ramsey show

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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. George Campbell, Ramsey Personalities, my co-host today. Tyler is in Alabama, Birmingham to be precise. Hey, Tyler, what's up? Hey, Dave, I'm good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Uh, yeah. So I'm trying to invite the ways of Dave into the house. Um, and it seems like getting traction is kind of tough. Um, me and my wife, we've overcome a lot in the past five or six years and money's kind of the next thing up for us to start handling. Um, got a young family, two boys, six and five years old. Um, the, I want to start doing the baby steps. The math is there. I make enough and I have enough left over to start, um,

Getting some traction, but it's, you know, at the end of the month, we're like, where'd it go? We feel like we're not doing anything extravagant, but obviously we are. It's just seems like fast food and gas stations and then Mother's Day's birthdays, et cetera, you know. But whenever it seems like whenever the money conversation comes up, there's just a lot of emotion tied to it. And it kind of devolves into either emotions or a little bit of finger pointing and things like that. So I just wanted y'all's advice on how to kind of get this thing going.

That was pretty vague. You're saying you're having a discussion using the tone that you're using with us right now, or you're emotional? I get there. Probably to my own fault, I kind of wait until I'm aggravated and impatient about money, and that's when I want to talk about it, you know? Yeah, that is your fault. You're right. Right. And she's emotional, too?

uh yeah you sort of push each other's buttons when this comes up let me let me backtrack a second you said we've overcome a lot what does that mean uh so we've been sober clean and sober from drugs and alcohol for about six years good for you congratulations how long you been married yeah i appreciate uh for the same amount of time they're about getting married a little bit before we got clean so wow and what do you do for a living

I'm a field manager for HVAC company, a residential company here in Birmingham. Good for you. And what's your household income? It's $100,000 salary right now. This is the first year that they're introducing a profit bonus at the end of the year, but I don't really know what to expect, so I'm not really counting those chickens before they hatch. Got it. Fair enough. On the budget, I'm sticking to $100,000. So how old are you? I am 28 years old. Okay, good. Well, so all of that is part of this story, right?

The budget conversation, the two of you sitting down, includes all of your stuff from the past. Right. And all of your things out of your... The way you grew up, it includes...

you know, the way you have money was handled at your house when you're a kid, the way money was handled at her house when she was a kid, the getting clean and the having been needing to get clean, then now you're making more money than you've ever made in your life. All of that comes, all of that adds to it. So, you know, what I would suggest is that you start over with the approach and you start

When you're calm and you sit down. Yeah. Number one, when you're calm, not when you're frustrated. And I think you probably start with an apology. Like, I think we can do better with our money and I've not handled our discussions very well. I've screwed this up. I'm sorry. Cause you are, you should be.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I'm going to be the first to tell you if I'm at fault in the way that I kind of had to be in charge of the stuff at first, if I was a couple steps ahead as far as getting clean when it all first started out. So there's some echoes, there's some fear. Exactly. All those concerns. It's control issues. Okay. Today...

We're clean and have been a long time. Today, this is you talking to your wife, we make more money than we've ever made, and we're both sober and smart. So today, if we were to start doing a budget or start talking about money, it's going to be different than it was in the past. Today, we both have a vote. Today, we would consider everything together and decide as a team what we are going to do with our money.

And so you get a vote, I get a vote. We're going to sit here and talk about it. And, and, you know, you don't, you don't start talking about what to do until you talk about why to do it.

Because I think if I make $100,000 a year, A, we could clean up our mess. B, we could become wealthy. And C, we could travel or have nice cars that are paid for. We can move up in house. All of those things can happen if we can get our hands around this subject. And I think that would be exciting. And kind of start dreaming together again.

about what a really cool, prosperous future would look like. Does that make sense? Then talk about what, but husbands typically were the worst. Sometimes wives do it, but it's usually husbands. We talk about what to do because we're going to jump in there and fix it. And so Dave Ramsey says, you need to sell your car, you know, and that crap. Then you turn my name into a cuss word and I didn't even do anything, you know? And so that's, that's, you got to sit down and talk about, let's talk about big picture, uh,

I think, you know, we've got this trash in our rear view mirror. We've got sunshine out the windshield. We could really have an incredible life. We could change our family tree. I get excited about it and talk and get her and then shut up and let her tell you what she'd like to do. Ask her questions. Hey, what are you excited about? What are you dreaming about? If we had a million dollars, what would you want to do? Yeah, right. Okay, now let's go get a million dollars.

Then she's excited about the plan. And she's not got you coming at her with finger wagging and going, you know, if you just quit going Chick-fil-A every day, we could do this. You know? You can't do that. That crap doesn't work, man. So we both are going to – I think we could lay out a plan together that we both agree on and stick to.

And we can do with our money smart things and have some fun along the way and become wealthy. And I think that kind of lingo, that kind of.

sentence structure is what's going to help you. George, what do y'all? Well, and then you go and listen, this is not going to be my harebrained plan. I've got, I found this plan. Millions of people have done it. It's so simple and yet it's hard because it's going to take us making some sacrifices. When you look at it and see if you think it's good. Yeah. And she checks it out and give her a vote because right now, a lot of the times with your excitement or passion or frustration, it just comes across. It brings the echo back from the days when you had firm fist on the money because she wasn't clean yet.

Right. And she feels like you're taking that control away again. You're marching back into her life with muddy boots again. And so you're bringing up. Now, I'm going to send you Rachel's book for both of you to read. Know yourself, know your money.

Because it goes into the household you grew up in. It goes into are you a scarcity person or an abundance person? It goes into all of those things enter into this discussion. And all of the stuff in that book is why the budget committee meeting, we call it, is a difficult meeting at first.

Because you bring all these suitcases full of crap into the meeting. All your shame, guilt, baggage, mistakes, family trauma, it comes with you. Yeah. And you got to be the ones to change it generationally. Accusations, all these things come in there. And so you got to go, okay, we don't do that anymore. And so, and you guys out there that it does take a little while to build trust. It takes a little while to...

Sharon at first didn't believe she had a vote. Even though you told her, hey, you've got to vote. You've got to show her with your actions. She had to experience it for a while because for a long while she didn't have a vote. And I just did whatever flip I wanted to do. And so, you know, we've been married 43 years. She said, you know, somewhere around 35 of them are awesome. That's a pretty good track record. The more the time goes on, the better percentage you have. And it's like, you know, the...

How many years? Think about it. We went completely broke, lost everything. They took the water meter out of the front of the house because I kept turning it back on after they turned it off. And they just took it away? They took it away. I didn't know you could do that. Well, they have to when you keep stealing water, and that's what I was doing. Wow. I mean, we were that broke. So we went from this level of terror to having an emergency fund.

And how many years do you think that we had to not touch that emergency fund for her to heal? Multiple. Yeah. Three, five. It wasn't 10 minutes, baby. I can tell you that. It wasn't just because I said it. It took a little time. It's a process. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey guys, George Camel here. No matter what platform you use for news or entertainment, you and I both know it is way too hard to keep your feed from getting junked up with bad content. I know I'm not the only one who's gone searching for The Ramsey Show, only to find myself two paws and 12 videos deep in a kitten hole on YouTube, which is great, but not what I'm looking for right now. And heck, if you're tuning into this digitally, there's probably some weird, scammy,

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George Camel, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke. He is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. James is in Salt Lake City. Hi, James. How are you? Really good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Yeah, so we have a situation here. My wife and I got married about three months ago, and my father-in-law

I know you say there's always a little bit of crazy in the family, and I feel like he's been the crazy in our family so far. We learned a few months ago he drained his 401k to send to somebody in the Philippines because they promised him a 50% return on his investment. And he didn't tell anyone, and he was so excited about it that he quit his job. And then he just sold his house.

I helped him sell his house because I'm an agent.

And we also had a, he's planning on going back to the Philippines. He's wanting to move there because he just reached the 62 and a half and wants to retire. And he's so excited about this investment that he feels like he can, but he has zero savings. He just sold the house and yesterday we closed and got the money. It's in my wife and I's account, but he wants to spend all of it in that investment in the Philippines. Um,

because he wants to get more of a return. So we do have that power of attorney that gives us the ability to, I guess, hold back on it. I mean, it was originally intended to give us access to his accounts while he's gone and manage things. But we feel like this is some kind of Ponzi scheme again, and he doesn't have any savings, any income whatsoever.

and we're kind of worried about what to do, especially because with the... Has anybody talked to him about the fact that he got scammed? We've tried to, but... And he doesn't believe it? It kind of fuels him. No, he doesn't believe it, and it's kind of fueled him even more. He's like, oh, I'm going to prove to them that it's not a scam by sending more. And then every time he talks to the person he sends money to with some doubts, she's like, oh, I'll give you more of it. How is he communicating with this person?

And how did he find them? It's been over calls. It's like a friend that he connected to some kind of friend he used to know. What's the investment supposedly in? He said it's some kind of government project. Oh, boy. Yeah. There's a Nigerian prince involved. And he hasn't actually seen the return on this money. There's no actual results. He got like $2,000 a couple of weeks ago, and that kind of...

And that was after he sent his whole 401k over there. So it's definitely not anything that he sent over. And it's kind of made him even more excited. Well, that's part of their scam is they give you a little bit and they go, oh, if you give us more, we can... And then you give them even more and then they disappear. It's a pretty standard scam. Okay, so this is your wife's dad. You're a whole three months on the scene. Your wife has to tell him, Dad...

I love you too much. I'm going to protect you from how dumb you are. He's not crazy. He's just dumb. I mean, he's naive, right? I mean, that doesn't make him crazy. People get scammed all the time that are trusting, sweet, kind people. Yeah. And I think his daughter has to look at him and say, Dad, I am almost positive you have gotten scammed, and you don't think you did, but...

Because I love you, I'm going to sit on this money for you until this proves out. If you get all of the money from your 401k back, then we'll talk about doing more investing with the lady. But until you get all the money back and get a return, we're not putting any more in. $2,000 is just bait. But you can't do this. She's got to do it. But you're telling me you have control of the account. So you don't, I mean...

Yeah, we do. This is not a matter of persuasion. You're just telling him what you're going to do. He's going to be pissed. Yeah, and that's what we're worried about, too. Well, you can't keep that. He's either going to be pissed or he's going to be broke. You get to choose which.

There's really not a middle ground. Because, I mean, the guy you're describing to me, he's got a hook hanging out of his lip. He's a bit hook, line, and sinker, buddy. And he's about to be homeless, which means he's going to be living with you for the rest of his life. Homeless and penniless and stuck in the Philippines. And that's what we're worried about. Yeah. With their culture, it's like if the parents can't provide for themselves, the kids take a net. And that's what I'm concerned about. Is he Filipino? Yeah, he's Filipino.

Yeah. So I'm worried, like, oh, he's going to lose all his money, and then we're going to be married, and then we're going to have to take her dad in and take care of him. And she needs to tell him all that. Dad, I see where this is going, and I don't like it. Yeah. And you're not Hispanic, right? No, no. Yeah. You really got to stay out of this. The only chance you've got of him maintaining a relationship with his daughter is if his daughter handles this.

It can't be we. It's me. She needs to say, Dad, I am not going to give you your money.

until this investment returns because i am almost positive you have gotten scammed i know you don't think that but i love you and i am going to protect you from this woman who is scamming you and i know you're going to be angry with me but later on we'll see how it works out if you get all your 401k money back and i'm wrong i'll release this money to you but i don't think you're going to get your money back i think you're i think you've gotten completely taken in

And just she just needs to tell him that that's what I would do if it was my family But she doesn't need to say my husband and I have talked about this She's got to bear the emotional brunt of this because it's the only person he can hear it from And come back to later if you get saddled with the blame for this You're just going to be the evil evil son-in-law. Everything was okay till you came along Yeah, and you don't understand how it is in our family

And all this crap, right? That's the narrative that's going to come out of this. So, yeah, the only chance she has of doing this. So you really have two options. One is she handles it and tells him, because I love you, I think this is a scam, and I'm going to protect you from this woman by not releasing these funds. I don't need them. They're going to be sitting here. You don't have to worry about me taking the money.

And if you get all your money back and you get a 50% return on your money, I will release the funds because I was wrong about you being scammed, but you're not going to get your money back. Dad, she stole it from you. You got, you got scammed dad. And this is your wife talking to her dad and she doesn't need to say, bring does do not bring your name into it. And do not say we say me because I'm telling you, her dad is going to be pissed at you for decades.

If you get blamed for this, move. She's got to carry the emotional weight of this and for the good of her dad. And that's what I would do if it was in my house. That's how we would handle it. Wow. I'm so sorry. That's awful. This is The Ramsey Show.

I've been doing this show for over 30 years and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills? How

I'm going to eat next week. Yeah, in the middle of all that grief. Like it's just, it is, it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here.

You've got to say it out loud, and you've got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282, or go to zander.com. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. Keisha is with us in San Antonio. Hi, Keisha. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm great. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

I'm calling because I need guidance. I am a great saver. However, I haven't invested at all. I'm 50 years old. I have about $300,000 in cash and I haven't invested. So my money is just sitting in the bank, not earning any income. Mm-hmm.

and I need your help. I opened a Roth IRA yesterday, and I put $8,000 in there because that's the max that you can put, but then I don't know where to go forward. What did you put it in? I put it in a Fidelity account. I just funded the account. I haven't invested yet. Okay. What are you going to invest it in? I don't know. That's why I called you. Oh, okay.

Okay. I don't know what to do next. I'm going to research, but I wanted your guidance as a blueprint before I started moving forward. Do you have a retirement plan as well through your employer? I do, but I haven't taken advantage of it. Do you have like a Roth 401k? Have you done some homework on that?

I haven't done anything. I just started yesterday, and that's why I'm calling today so I can get some guidance. I have a little bit more money saved. So in my checking account for myself, I have $300,000 saved. I put the $8,000 in the Roth IRA yesterday. My daughter, I've saved for her college and a CD, 5%, and she has $100,000 in there.

And then I have a $25,000 that I operate. That's my operating budget out of my checking account. Okay. You are very good at saving. What do you make? Well, I'm a nurse and my income varies. So right now it can be from depending on how much overtime you want to do. So it can be from one 50 right now. It's 76, 75. That's cool. Good for you. All right. So this is not a one time five minute discussion. Um,

and you suddenly are an investor, okay? This is you begin the process of learning over the rest of your life about investing. And the more you learn, the more comfortable you'll be, okay? Like when you went to become a nurse and you went to nursing school, you didn't go to one class and then you were a nurse, right?

You began a journey of learning and that made you competent. Does that make sense?

And your confidence and your peace of mind will increase with your competence as you learn more. So what you're looking for is not just an answer from Dave on the radio or George for a few minutes here. We'll get you started, but you're going to start the process of learning. And the more you learn, the more comfortable you'll be investing. And you'll be as good an investor in a year or two as you are a saver.

And you need to be, and I'll tell you why in a minute, okay? So what you're looking for is go to RamseySolutions.com and click on SmartVestor Pro and find the pros in San Antonio and talk to a couple of them and interview them and decide who you want to work with, what you're looking for, someone you're comfortable with, and here's what's really important, and we try to not have any SmartVestor Pros that aren't this. Number one, they're going to teach, if you go to our SmartVestor Pros, the people we recommend,

They're going to do stuff the way we teach. So it's going to sound like we sound on the radio. The advice is not going to be the opposite of what we teach. Okay. The second thing is, is they're going to have the heart of a teacher. They're more concerned about you learning a little bit before you invest because in a person who starts investing from where you are, um, you'll freak out the next day when the news media has something to say on the channel.

If you, if you don't know what you're doing. Okay. So, or if you just did it cause Dave said, do it or George said, do it. Okay. So I want you to have someone with a heart of a teacher. And that means when you meet with them, every time you meet with them, you should learn something. Okay. And so that way you're making your investing decisions. I'm not George isn't. And the smart investor pro isn't, you are making the decisions cause it's your money.

And you need to be, have your hands around it. Now, having said all of that. I'm learning all of that. That's what I was saying. I just wanted a guidance. So if someone tells me something that's just too far off, then I'll say, no, no, this is my blueprint. Yeah. Okay. Well, your blueprint is that you have to understand it or you don't do it.

That's number one. We teach people, and George and I both personally invest in four types of mutual funds evenly, 25% each. So $75,000 each each.

out of the 300, okay? And we would say growth, growth in income, aggressive growth, and international. Mutual funds that have at least, if you're buying from a SmartMister Pro, have at least a 10-year track record. Don't buy brand new funds. Now, inside your 401k, you can do exactly the same thing and max it out. And as George pointed out, do a Roth 401 over there. And maybe they've even got a match, and that'll help. And...

You make enough, plenty, to load that 401k up and do a Roth with Fidelity, and you may choose to move that Fidelity or that Roth to the SmartVestor Pro from Fidelity, or they may help you do it with Fidelity. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. Fidelity's not bad. There's nothing wrong with them. All these mutual fund companies have good funds and not-so-good funds.

And so you're going to look at the track record on the mutual fund and say for the last 10 years or 20 years or 30 years, it's averaged X percent. It's had so many down years, so many up years. And here's what the stock market has looked like. And we're going to measure that and look at that. And you're going to learn about all that. So four types of funds, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth. And here's why this matters. Okay. Okay.

The $300,000 has been sitting there for how long? Well, actually, it's gone down quite a bit. I had $500,000 in there, but it's probably been in there for five to seven years. Why has it gone down?

I had a major expense that I had to pay $50,000 for that. And I paid for a funeral. And just over the years, I had a major expense, and that made me look back at my finances to see what I was doing. Do you have an emergency fund separate from this money? Yeah, she said she had $25,000. Okay, you've been dipping into this.

Over time. I would dip into over time, yes. Yeah, okay. So let's just pretend from an investment viewpoint that you had $300,000 sitting there for seven years and it made nothing, okay? If it was invested at a 10% rate of return, over seven years it would have doubled. Exactly. It would have become $600,000. So the fact that you've not learned about investing and not therefore done investing has so far cost you $300,000. Right.

That's how important this is. Because here's the deal. You're 50. When you're 57, if you invest it well, this will be 600. And when you're 64, that 600 will be 1.2 million. And that's if you never add a dime to it. And when you're 71, that 1.2 million will be 2.4 million. If you quit dipping into it and you start investing it well.

That's pretty cool. Yes. I'm going to double my income this year. I don't need your income. I just put your money to work instead of it sitting on its butt. Okay. That's all I did. And it made you worth a couple million bucks at 71 years old. That's how important this conversation is. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you for asking these questions. Oh, thank you.

So starting from day zero today, if I invest this $300, by the time I'm 71, I could have potentially $2 million. Yep. Okay. Just think, if it's invested at 10%, a lump sum will double every seven years. Okay. And by the way, that number doesn't come out of thin air. That's the actual track record of the S&P 500, the 500 largest companies on the stock market. 11.3% is what it's averaged since the stock market began.

That's the average annual. And so if you only make 10, if you don't even do as good as the market...

Every seven years, your money will double. So get online right now and get a smart Mr. Pro in your corner. Go have a meeting or two. Interview a couple of them. Find somebody you like and begin the process of learning and get this money to work. Get it up off its butt. It's sitting there. And it's dwindling away because you haven't unplugged it from your emotions. You need to set it over there somewhere and forget it. I'm more scared of losing all that money than scared of the stock market, which has a great track record. Absolutely.

Get on it. You'll be doing just fine. Good stuff. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Our question of the day comes from Steve in Mississippi.

Steve says,

We paid $150,000 up front when we made the deal, and we've been making the monthly mortgage payments since last year. Recently, we've reconsidered the deal and want to legally transfer the house to our names. The bank says they can't consider the $150,000 as a down payment because there's no contract. They suggested changing the sale price to $150,000 instead. Is this a bad idea for us? If we sell in the future, will potential buyers be confused about the low purchase price compared to the house's value?

There's a lot going on here. A lot of mistakes have been made already. Yeah. Steve, what you did was unbelievably stupid. This is dangerous, really dumb and dangerous. Okay. Let's just pretend. Let's pretend the couple you're buying this from had a car wreck and it was an accident, but they get sued for a half million or $500,000 and they lose the lawsuit. There's now a lien on the house that they own.

For $500,000, you just lost your $150,000 in that scenario. Oh, if the bank discovers you've done this, that the mortgage is with, they're going to call the loan 100%. You have to pay the whole stinking thing off in 30 days or they're going to start foreclosure. There's a due on sale clause in paragraph 17 in the deed of trust that your relative signed, and he sold the house for

Without the bank's knowledge under the table and when they discover that they'll call the whole mortgage and foreclose on him and Take your house that you put $150,000 down on dumb Oh if the house burns you got no insurance doofus because you don't own the house and their homeowners insurance doesn't cover you as a renter they had to transfer that to fire an AC and they didn't do that either a landlord policy and

So you guys have just lined up stupidity in a row and knocked it over like dominoes. Dangerous. All so you could get a 3% mortgage that isn't even yours. You're killing me, dude. You're killing me here. Wow. You just rented very expensively. Yeah. And you gave the landlord $150,000. What you can do is write up a contract that says I'm going to put down $150,000. And put down $150,000 and go to the closing table and get a mortgage.

And do a normal house transaction where you now own the house and you now have a 6% mortgage, which is what you should have done from the very first moment. And if you don't and you want to just transfer it and just take over, you can't take over the mortgage, get a new mortgage in the amount of the mortgage and what the bank is suggesting to you, that's fine too. I don't care. Get this house in your name now and shut up about your interest rate.

You've got a whole lot more at risk than 3% here with the level of dumbness that y'all have engaged in here. Gee, man, just unbelievable. Question, Dave. You can't just make up crap like this. You have no idea what the implications are. So obviously. He put in $150K. Would he have to get that back and then put it back in to make it official? Well, you could just show it on a closing statement as a,

As a down payment, you just show it on the closing statement because it's already been transferred to the owner. Reduce what the owner is going to receive. It can show. But you have to have a contract that says this. And you can't have two contracts. It's called dual contracts. That's fraud. You can't have one you show the bank and one that's the real deal. You show them what you're doing. We'll put down 150. The money's already been transferred to them like it was an earnest money deposit. Okay. And you can do this properly and above board.

or you can just not show it. Now, if you buy it and you record the deed at the lower price to your other question, it does not affect the value of the property whatsoever. If you buy a half a million dollar house for $350,000, it does not make the half million dollar house worth 350. It makes it worth 500 because it was already worth 500. The house is not, appraisals aren't done based on what you pay for it. Appraisals are done based on what other properties in the area sold that are similar.

That's how appraisals are done. Unless everyone in the neighborhood sold for $150,000 less. Exactly. It's not going to affect. Exactly. And so, no. I mean, let's say you bought the house at a foreclosure or something at a bargain. Does that make it worth less? No. It's still worth what it's worth. You just got a deal. And so, the last part of your question is not a problem at all. So, if the bank, whoever the flip the bank is on this deal...

uh wants to just give you a mortgage and put the property in your name at 150 off the price and you guys go get a mortgage that's fine if you want to do a contract showing the total price and 150 000 credit you can do that too get with a title company they can show you how to do that it's not rocket science but people do not do these deals backwoods mississippi deals man

It works like this is a land contract or a contract for deed. People do those as well. It's the same mess, same exact mess. And when you've got increasing interest rates or when people try to do this because they think they're taking advantage somehow of that, but the risk that you're taking is unbelievable here. Unbelievable. The juice ain't worth the squeeze. That's what they say. Yeah. And oh, by the way, if you do change the insurance into your name as if you're an owner, you're

You have to notify the mortgage company because they want proof of insurance. And when you notify them that that happened, that's going to indicate that there's been a transfer and the due on sale clause is going to be activated and they're going to call the mortgage. So that's how I know you didn't do the insurance because they would have already started a foreclosure on your butt. So I know you don't have insurance. You're screwed, man. Go get this fixed this week as fast as you can before this thing goes sideways on you.

This is a disaster. They said last year they did this deal. And so this has been a long time, a lot of risk you've been sitting on. Let's drive the car out on the thin ice and hope it doesn't fall into the pond. It's going to thaw, people. It's going to thaw. You're going in. You're going to get wet.

Oh, this just gives me a headache. So scary. So scary. Well, I've watched people do, and you know, the problem is these dumb butt TikTok real estate scam artists, people, how to go buy a house and really you don't have to take title to it. That's just stupid butt stuff, man, because you don't have control of the asset.

And you, you know, the other party goes and gets an IRS lien. Boom. The title's clouded. You're screwed. The other party gets sued to half a million dollar lien with a car wreck. But can you tell this has happened to people I know? And I've worked in these situations trying to clean up these messes after they've happened. So yeah, get this thing fixed. And guys, you can't just make up real estate law while you and your buddy are drinking beer. That's not how this works.

You don't get to change the way things go down, man. I got a deal. Let's just transfer it. What does that look like? You're killing me here. Come on, man. Wow. That does sound like how that deal came about. Oh, I guarantee you. Man, I'll just title it. Forget the title. Just give me some money and we'll make it yours. I'm telling you, it was at happy hour or over a serious bag of pot. One of the two. Something was going down here. It's just, oh, this is not wise. This is the Ramsey show.

Wow. Oh. So what is the right way to do this? Let's go back in time. The right way to do it is to contract to buy the house, keep your $150,000 in your pocket, and go get you a 6% mortgage. And is this something you'd bring in an agent if you don't have to have an agent? You just got to have a contract and you got to go get a mortgage company.

That's willing to qualify you. And you've got to get a title company to close the deal, right? And so a title company can close the real estate, and you get title insurance, and then you can get proper homeowner's insurance, and the things you need to do when you buy a house. And this was all for the 3% spread that they make. Oh, 100%. And the guy selling it is just a... He thinks he did him a favor, and he set his relative or his friend up

for a complete fall. And there's risk on that guy's part, too. He's got, I guess, these weird rental situations. The biggest risk is he could get foreclosed on if he can't come. Let's say the mortgage is $300,000 and they call the loan and he can't get the house sold before they... Does somebody really sold to pay out? Because he's got to pay off $300,000 if they call that loan. If they activate that due on sale clause, and they will. This is 360 degrees of stupid. Completely watched them do it. This is the Ramsey Show.

Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're with us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Well, with undeniable research and data, George Campbell's new book, Breaking Free from Broke, exposes the most common money

lies and excuses head-on like credit card schemes investing traps and mortgage mythology It's all the stuff you wish you had been taught somewhere in school But weren't and he shares a story of how he went from a negative net worth to a millionaire in less than 10 years And it's a number one bestseller cool George

It's been fun. I love, I've been getting DMs now as people have been reading it and they got the every dollar budget going and they're saying, I cut up my cards. Thank you for exposing the system, especially young people. And that now they're saying I'm gifting it to the young people in my life to help them avoid the mistakes that I made. So this is preventive medicine now because Dave, you've been doing the emergency surgery for about 30 years plus now. And I'm trying to help the next generation avoid all of the broke mistakes.

Well, there's two things in this book that are exceptional. Number one, the level of snark is fabulous. That's in there. The George quality brand snark is all through here. And the other thing is the depth of research and the detail you go into on why these things suck.

I mean, it's not just you ranting. We have, I think, 140 sources in the book, and they're all in there. Because I wanted people to know this is not my opinion anymore. This is all data-backed. Yeah, there we go. Just like that. Breaking Free from Broke, the ultimate guide to more money and less stress. RamseySolutions.com slash store. Place to go. There you go. You can always get it at the store. Lisa's in Waco. Hi, Lisa. How are you?

Hi, I'm fine. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, I'll give you my question first so you'll know the direction I'm going. I want to know if we are going to have to live on beans and rice through retirement. How old are you? I am 53 and my husband is 59. How much money do you have in your retirement accounts?

Okay. We just talked to a retirement specialist because my husband is getting close to retirement. And I've looked at – he is a postman and a pastor. So in his postal – he has a TSP for $50,000, but then he will get a pension. It's not very much because we just went back to work nine years ago.

But the total pension, Social Security, and TSP that he's going to be receiving as of today, if he retires at 63, is $2,068. Okay. That's all the money you all have? Okay. So that is what he would be getting per month. Do you have any other nest egg?

Right now, I've been working the baby steps since last year. We have eight children. And I stayed home to be a stay-at-home mom for their whole lives. And then my last one is 14, and I went to work whenever my husband did. And she was three when she went to school.

and the teachers told me I needed to go back to college. So I did. So for five years I did college school, full-time college, full-time and mom, full-time. And you got $50,000. Is that your total nest egg? Um, a total nest egg. That's what it looks like. Okay. And you're 53 and he's 57, 59, 59. And your household income is what is, um, 7,700 a month. Okay. Okay. Um,

He does not get to retire next year. You don't have any money. Or in four years. He's 59. Right. Yeah, you're going to be working a while. Okay. And you need to work the baby steps. How much debt do you guys have left? Okay, I paid off 16 credit cards in 13 months, $47,000. Good for you. So when I went back to school... Do you have any debt now? Yes, I do. How much debt do you have now?

$17,000 in a car, $21,000 in my house, and $32,000 in my school loans. Okay. We need to clean up the car and the school loans as soon as possible in Baby Step 2, and then you need to start setting aside 15% of your household income into retirement accounts in Baby Step 4 until you get the house paid off. And when it's paid off, you load up everything. And you guys need to get with this. It's time to clean it up right fast. Yeah. Really, really fast. Yes.

I've been trying. You're by yourself. Where is he? We've been living. He works as a postman. I know. You told me that. Why is he not helping you? He is helping me. How come I've been trying? How come we aren't trying? Well, I take that back. Okay. We are trying. We are working on this together. Both of you roll up your sleeves in gazelle and tents.

get these debts cleaned up, and then go from there. Yeah, we've said for years now, Dave, retirement is not an age, it's a financial number. You don't get to declare retirement just because you turned 62. You got to have money. And we see too many sad stories where people go, well, I'm going to rely on Social Security and a pension to get me by. And you realize we're living in poverty. You got $7,700 coming in now, and that's $2,000 coming in. And your expenses are six grand, and in retirement, you're going to have two. That's a problem. It's an issue. So yeah.

We need to get the 32 cleaned up on the student loan, get the car paid off. Then there's only 21 left on the house. That's good news. So we can get that knocked out as we go along later at maybe step seven or six. But then start immediately. If you start saving $15,000, $20,000 a year and you do that for the next five to 10 years, you can build a pretty substantial nest egg and get with a good mutual or get with a good smart investor pro to help you do that, not a retirement specialist. Yeah, I don't know what that was. It worried me.

Well, it's somebody they paid a fee to to help them analyze the postal pension, which is not, you know, you can analyze it all day. It's going to be what it is. So what we've got is 50K, which is not nearly enough. So we need to be adding to that as soon as we get the debt cleaned up and get the emergency fund in place as fast as we possibly can. That's the idea. Benjamin's in Los Angeles. Hi, Benjamin. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Thank you so much. How are you today? Better than I deserve. How can I help? So I have kind of a doozy for you. Um, I am working on breaking the family curse of poverty and, um, me and my wife are through baby step two, working on baby step three. Uh, and I have an eye on my father, um, and just kind of watching him live paycheck to paycheck. Um, and,

And he's, he's working kind of as a handyman installing toilets and in Michigan. Um, I live in California. And so in looking at baby step three, after four, baby step five, four, five, and six, uh, the kids, kids, I have two kids. So all of that, I also am wondering if it's wise for me in looking ahead to his future, trying to be a good son. And, um,

putting a addition on my house or trying to save to put an addition on my house for when he can finally stop working or when he can't work anymore, I can have a place for him to land. It would be cheaper to rent him an apartment in Michigan. What would this addition cost? I looked at it, and it was about $60,000, $70,000 between. I got a couple bids, and so looking at it, yeah, about $60,000 to $70,000. What's your household income? My house is paid off.

Ninety-one. Okay. You've got an awful lot of stuff to do before you start providing housing to your parents. Indeed. I don't know how you're going to get to all of it. Right. Your obligation is to your children before it is to your dad. Yeah. I just feel worried he'll be called on the street one day. What's one day? Is that 12 years from now or tomorrow? He's 55. And he's able to buy more. He's 55? Yeah.

He's not 80. Good Lord. We're worried about something that's a decade and a half away. Man, go run your life. I would not worry about this. In the next 15 years, go become a millionaire. And then you have to take care of your dad. You don't need to be getting bids on an addition to your house for a 55-year-old. Why did you even spend the calories? No.

No, no, no, no, no. I doubt you're even in this house by the time he needs a place. You'll probably move by then. Your whole life is going to be completely different 15 years from now, 20 years from now. It has nothing... No, no. Wow. Um...

That's thinking ahead. Hey, man, go back to work in the baby steps, and the best way you can serve your dad is to take really good care of your family and your kids and build wealth, and then you'll have the money to write a check. And if you want to have an addition and you got a couple million dollars 15 years from now, it won't be a big deal at all. You can do it. But you don't have to worry about it today. Good Lord. She thought the guy was 80 or 75. This is The Ramsey Show.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour, Ramsey Network's production podcast.

is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Oliver is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey, Oliver, what's up? Hey, how are you doing today? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Yes, so I was calling in to see if I can get some guidance. I have been working on the baby steps for a while now, watching the videos, trying to learn as much as we can. We recently have paid about $35,000 in debt

Now we're left with about 40. So my question is, is should I take money out of my retirement 401k to pay for, to try to limit some of the debt that I have? We're trying to save for a house, but we just recently found out that we are going to have to do IVF in order to start our family. So,

We're trying to knock out the debt as quickly as possible so we can start saving for that as well. So I was trying to see is it okay for me to use my retirement to knock out as much debt as I can. Well, you've got a lot of goals that are good goals. Having babies is a great goal. The only thing better than having babies is having grandbabies. If I'd have known how great grandbabies are going to be, I'd have been nicer to their parents. So, yeah, having babies is a good thing, right? So, and...

Getting a house is a good thing. These are good goals. And so you're going at it, you know, the right way. And, of course, when we start talking about IVF, we're talking about something very emotional, right? Yes. I mean, like logic and everything goes out the window when you start talking about babies. They've been trying to get us to get credit cards, and we're not trying to use credit cards. We're not going to use credit cards for IVF.

Because here's the problem. Having done what I do, I want you to go do the treatment. I want you to have babies. I want to do anything I can to help you. OK, but I don't want you to be paying payments. And it didn't take, you know, it's more painful than not. I mean, then not having your IVF work.

paying payments on IVF that didn't work with that painful reminder every single month, stinking month. That's horrible. Don't set yourself up for that. That's an emotional train wreck you're asking for. Please don't do that. And I don't care what they say about how you were supposed to handle your money there. They're just doctors, which means they're financial idiots usually. Okay. So, um, yeah, no. What, what is this particular version of IVF going to cost? Um,

They're estimating $25,000. Okay. Again, endorsing the idea that you're doing this, yes, you need to go do this. Yes, we're going to help you do this. I want you, having sat here in this chair answering these questions for 30 years, this is not the first time I've had this question, okay? I want you to go shopping because that's a high number. I think you can do this less expensively. I think there are other ways, other options.

Okay.

Yes, sir. Okay. But logic goes out the window because there's so much emotion and we pay whatever we got to pay because babies are important. No, no, no. We're going to actually use wisdom about an emotional process. And part of that wisdom is not touching your 401k. Yeah. And there's two reasons why. Number one, you're going to pay an exorbitant penalty for doing so. Your income tax rate plus a 10% early withdrawal penalty, which is like borrowing at 30-something percent interest. Right.

which you would never do. And on top of that, you've unplugged all this growth and compound interest that would have worked for you over the next several decades. So robbing your 401k is not a place you want to go to pay off debt or to fund the IVF. What's your household income? Roughly around 130. Good. And you paid off 30k so far. What's the 40,000 remaining? So we have 12,000 in a car, which we tried to sell off, but it was only worth

little less than five. We have 11,000 student loans, 7,000 credit cards, 35 in a medical credit card, and 7,500 in a personal. Okay. All right. So here's, no, I'm with George. No, we're not going to cash out the 401k. How old are you guys? I'm about to be 30 and she is 27. Okay. All right.

Um, it sounds to me like you could be debt free in around another year. When we broke it down, we have it scheduled for next September. Okay. So a year and a couple of months. Yes, sir. Okay. And let's pretend that we found IVF that was 15. Then by the, if you're debt free in September, you'd have the 15 within three or four months.

So that following December or January, we can talk about a procedure. Okay. And you'd be 31. That's probably your best plan. If logic's out the window because babies matter and you're not going to do that, then push pause and just step back from the baby steps and scratch together the money and do your IVF now. And then after that, start your baby steps back. That's declaring it an emergency. That's what that is.

If you do it that way, that would be like you cover your four walls, your insurance and every other penny you're going to spend saving up for this treatment. And then as soon as you get the IVF behind you, then you then you start back and you finish off the 40 K. That's not my preference. That's that's plan B. But none of these include cashing out a 401k and none of these include borrowing money for IVF. You follow me?

Yes, sir. Yeah, you can do this, and you should do it. And the house is just in the distance. You're just not getting a house for a while because we're going to put this in front of the house for sure. Agreed? Definitely. Yeah. Yes, sir. No, the IVF was when we found out we had to do that, that's what we knew we were going to have to do that before the house, but it was should I cash out just to get that

But if you're saying that let's not do that, let's just attack it little by little, then we'll go ahead and do that. Yeah, I mean, you'll be done by September, which means you'll probably be done by July or August. You'll probably make it earlier than your math is telling you. Most people do because you've got a real reason. You have a huge why. You have a huge why. And so roughly this time next year, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we're going to be starting to chunk money aside for IVF in one year.

give or take and so you know that that's right that's what i would do if i were in your shoes uh and please go shopping please please learn more about um the different pricing models and the different ones a guarantee one's in a single attempt there's all kinds of different ways they go at this and it goes from 7500 and up when you look at it that way

And you got to look through and that's what the experience I've had with the customers we've dealt with. And I've dealt with this a bunch. Not a medical guy, just been asked this question a bunch. This is The Ramsey Show. George Camel, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Nathan is in Seattle. Hi, Nathan. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

So my wife and I just got married about a month ago. We're just starting out. And together we have about $165,000 worth of debt. Ouch. So we're...

Yeah, really. We're getting ready to tackle that, but I'm about to be eligible for benefits at my job, and we're trying to figure out if I should go ahead and do the 401k match, given that it's extremely generous. If I contribute 6%, then the company contributes 10% on top of that. So that's a massive multiplier right there. Okay. And what kind of debt is the $165,000?

It's mostly student debt. We got about $10,000 of a car loan and pretty much all the rest of it is student loans. What's your household income? Together, we bring in about $95K before taxes, though we're looking to do side hustles, work overtime, hoping to get that more up into the $120,000, $130,000 range, but baseline $95K. Why so much in student loans with a sub-$100,000 income? What were the degrees in?

My wife got her degree as a licensed marriage and family therapist. So that's $135,000 of the loans. It's a very expensive program, but doesn't pay a whole lot, especially right after graduating. She's still working towards the hour requirement for her license. Okay, and what are you doing?

I'm a handyman. I didn't graduate. I've got about 17,000 loans myself, but I now work as a handyman. Okay. Where's the generous match? That's at my job. It's a company that takes care of developmentally disabled adults. So I basically do all of the maintenance for the 14 properties that they have. And so, yeah. And what do you make a year? So you're not an independent, you're not a small business owner. You work for someone as a handyman.

Yes, that's correct. I see. And you make what? I make $25,000 an hour. Okay. So about $50,000 a year. Right about. Though I have opportunities for essentially unlimited overtime. When will she be licensed? So she'll be licensed in about two to three years. It's an hour requirement. Washington recently got rid of the time requirement, so it's just basically as fast as she can get her 3,000 hours. Okay.

And in the meantime, she's making almost nothing. Yeah. Meantime, she's making about 45. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um,

Okay. Well, the answer to your question is no, you do not enter into the 401k, even though the generous, even though it is ridiculously wonderful and generous, because it's just a temporary thing. We're going to, how quickly are we going to be out of this debt? And of course that has everything to do with how much income you guys generate. And so the more, more you can do on your side hustles and other things, and the faster she gets through her 3000 hours, the faster you guys are going to be through.

through this that and then you'll start your 401k you got plenty of time to build wealth

And if you don't focus on this debt exclusively and you try to do three things at once, you're not going to get there. So I hate it because I'm a math nerd and I know what that match will do for you. But it's a temporary thing. It's just for a little while, like a year. I mean, like two years, maybe three, but hopefully two and some change. And you guys are clear. And then, you know, by then her income shoots up.

up and you'll be able to take advantage of this and you'll be debt free and have an emergency fund and you'll be setting the course towards wealth building. But

Every dollar you throw in that 401k in the meantime slows down your get-out-of-debt and it slows down your wealth building more than the match. I did the math on it, and it would currently take us about three years, maybe a little less than three years to get out of debt, and doing the 401k match would slow us down by about six months. Yep, that's exactly right. But it'll slow you down more than that because the power of focus psychologically is

When you're focused exclusively on one thing, that's where we find the probability of you actually making it through the plan. That extra $250 that you're going to get back in your paycheck by not doing the 401k is going to psychologically get you so pumped because you're adding that much more to your debt. Yeah. And the only other thing I'll add to the discussion, Nathan, is the great news is you know how to be a handyman. Dude, that is your side hustle.

You can make bank. You know you can make $90 an hour as a handyman in your neighborhood? Just running your own show, man. Do you know why? Because I paid that to a handyman. You did? Yes. Reluctantly.

But that's what I paid. Because you don't even know how a screwdriver works. Exactly. I was willing to pay for the privilege. You're that guy. But you can make 50 to 90 in any neighborhood in America doing this kind of stuff. Yeah, I'm telling you, man, we're talking to handymen that run their own business, you know, print up some digital business cards and hand them out around to their neighbors in wealthy neighborhoods and boom.

You go in, you fix every little stinking dishwasher leak or garbage disposal that's out or whatever else they need done. And you do it and you wear blue booties on your shoes and you go in with a smile and you charge them a lot of money. And we're talking to guys in that world right now, Nathan, that are making $200K.

So would you say that it's worthwhile then to not wait until I'm out of debt to organize an LLC? You don't need an LLC. You need to go get your tools and go to work. You don't have to have an LLC. You just go get it. You can just declare a sole proprietorship. That's all you got to do. You don't need an LLC until you're making a million dollars or something. There's no point. The LLC doesn't do anything. You'll pay self-employment tax. That's it. If I were you, my side hustle right now,

would be to build a great handyman business so big that it forces you to quit your tiny little job, and then this whole thing is nothing to do with nothing. This whole discussion about a 401k goes away because you're going to be making so stinking much money running your own deal. The generous 10%, truthfully, is five grand a year right now with your income. That's the max. You can create that with a side hustle very quickly and invest that yourself. So I don't want you to get hung up on that. I think your side hustle is going to out-earn your...

If you'll go do what I'm talking about, start your own business right now, today, start handing out, let people know in wealthy neighborhoods that you'll do whatever that you need them. They need you to do. And, you know, you're there to serve them and you're going to charge them and you're going to be on time and you're going to do what you said you were going to do. And you're not going to over, you're not going to double bill them. You're not going to rip them off, but you're going to charge them a lot and they don't care. George paid 90 bucks.

I know. But you know what? It was because the guys actually showed up and did the work, and I trusted them. And the other guys never showed up. So, you know, at some point... It's not a hard business. Just show up and be kind. If you know how to turn a wrench and you know which end of the screwdriver to use, it's not a hard business. You've got to show up on time. That's it. And people, man...

Because they've already cross-wired their dishwasher watching a YouTube video and blew the house up. So they're glad to see you show up. And you talk to these small business owners, Dave. It's amazing. They're making money, man. I'm telling you. Because they're competent and they have integrity. That's all it takes to be successful. Show up.

and do the work with a smile and take a bath and you you really can't you can't mess this up man i'm telling you you're gonna make so much that this whole discussion about your 401k with this 45 000 job is going to be because you're going to quit because you're going to be running this bone business full-time for it's over that's where this is going to end up going i love this story i can't wait to see the end of it call us back and tell us how it turns out oh and by the way then you're out of debt in two years

That's what I'm saying. We need a more aggressive debt payoff plan. Because what I like about pausing the 401k match is it gets you a little bit angry. Like, oh my gosh, I'm missing out on the match. Good. Let that fuel you to get rid of your debt faster to get back to the match faster. That's the power, really, the psychological power of pausing. More than the math of it. You want to hear the irony of this whole thing? What's that? Three years from now, he's making $250,000 as a handyman. And with her $165,000 worth of student debt to become a marriage and family counselor, she's making $80,000.

That's an interesting story about the value of education. The value of a trade in today's society. Mike Rowe would like that story. He would. I hope he's listening right now. He would be giving us his little Mike Rowe snicker. That little snicker of his. That deep voice of his. This is the Ramsey Show.

George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke. He's my co-host today. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. No one wins at anything accidentally. Oops, I was married 40 years. You stay married 40 years by working at it. No one wins the Super Bowl by getting off the bus and has no idea why they're there. They spent 25 years throwing a football.

and becoming the best in the world at it, and you get off the bus at the Super Bowl. You don't get off the bus and go, I don't know what happened. Where are we? I don't know what I'm doing. You don't accidentally win. Success is a series of intentional acts. Wealth building is no exception to that idea. If you're going to build wealth, you're going to do it on purpose.

And if you're going to do it on purpose, the way you do it is monthly. You do a written plan telling your money what to do, giving every dollar a name. It's called a budget. And every dollar gets a mission. Every dollar gets an assignment. Every dollar gets a name of your income before the month begins. And you agree on it with your spouse. And you pinky swear and spit shake to stick to the stinking plan. And then you execute your plan that causes you to win.

You don't wake up at the end of the month and go, I don't know where our money went. Look, we got a tax refund. How'd that happen? You can't do it. You got to do it on purpose. And that's why we named the world's best budgeting app EveryDollar. It's the most robust...

Flex app out there. This thing is kicking butt. Tens of millions of people are opening up their phone every day, every week with their spouse, with every dollar on it and keeping up with their budget and telling them what to do using this particular software, EveryDollar. You can download EveryDollar for free in the App Store or on Google Play right now. And you can even go to EveryDollar.com if you want to. It's free to check it out. Go get started. Libby's in Orlando. Hi, Libby. How are you?

Doing well. Better than I deserve. Good. How can we help? So I have been just going back and forth with my husband and ping-ponging in my head about my current situation. So I gave birth to my first child. Yay! What'd you have? Yay!

I'm a little boy. Little boy. Awesomeness. Very cool. Yeah, we have no debt. We use the envelope system for eating out and for groceries. Those are the only two, though. And we're just really, we're minimalists.

Um, we've been living just on my income and saving for retirement, everything that my husband makes because he's commissioned. So we just never know what he's going to bring in. Some years is great. Some years, not so much. And, um, I, my job is pretty demanding. I work in the ministry, so we're always understaffed. And, um, I came home a couple of weeks ago to just a screaming child and a really frustrated husband. And he's like, you have to quit your job.

You have to quit it. And that was really hard for me to hear because I felt like I was letting my family down. But I also feel like it's my calling.

So I'm just really stuck right now. I feel like if we quit, or if I quit, it'll be really hard for us to figure out a budget because his income is so sporadic. We do have savings, but it's only six months, and I just feel, I don't know. What do you make? I make $55 a year. And what does he make a year?

It depends. Oh, you've told me that six times. What did he make last year? Last year it was $70. Okay. And what was it the year before? The year before that it was around $100. Okay. What will it be this year? So far it's probably looking like $50. $50? So he went from $100 to $70 to $50? Yeah. What's he sell? Insurance. Why is it going down?

His partner and him, they just haven't, they're one of their leads, the major source of their leads. It dried up. They decided to structure their company in a different direction. In half? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, yeah, it's been progressive. That's what it's looking like. So I'm really nervous, but I also know we have savings and we're very frugal people. I don't want to quit, but I do want to honor my husband. So what did you say your calling was? You said, this is my calling. Her husband called her to come home. That's her calling. Well, yeah. Well, yes, I know. But my purpose is also being a wife and a mom as much as I would rather be out there. Wait a minute. Let's just stop a second. You just said you don't want to quit.

I don't. Why? It's a youth ministry. I just love it so much. Our kids just are broken in the public school. It's dark. Here's the practical options. Either you put the baby in daycare and you keep working. Is your husband keeping the child during the day? Yes, because the business has been so slow. Of course the business is slow. He's keeping a baby. If you don't work, your business gets slow.

Yeah, well, he's not in the sales side of it. I mean, he is. I don't know. How is he not in the sales side and he's on commission? It's because of how his partner and him, they split it, how they split the commission. So his partner goes out and reels him in. I feel like it might be time to end this partnership. Okay. Well, I don't have control over that. Okay, let's – yeah, you do. He told you to quit. Maybe you could tell him to quit.

There's an idea. Anyway. I believe in being a submissive wife, though. Submissive wife doesn't mean you submit to misbehavior or stupidity. Okay? And it doesn't mean you go along with things that aren't wise. That's not submissive. Submissive doesn't mean doormat. No, and I'm not a doormat. No, we're a partner. Well, then let's talk about a proper biblical understanding of that.

Okay. And it doesn't mean you go along with things you shouldn't go along with. That's not what submissive means. That is not honoring. If your husband was doing cocaine, you're not submissive to that. No, but that's different. It's not different. It's still misbehavior. It's just an extreme misbehavior. Okay. And him not running his career. Well, causing him to keep a baby and get stressed out to yet to, to demand that you quit your job that you love, uh,

There's a lot of stuff wrong with that whole thing. So his career is what needs work, not yours. He needs to rethink how he's going to go out his career. And it's not because his income is erratic. It's because it's failing. It's gone down 30% a year for three years in a row. And he's sitting at home not working. Well, he works from home. So he's able to like... You don't work from home if you're keeping a baby. Babies are a full-time job.

They're very demanding little critters. Have you noticed? Yes. There's no multitasking while watching a baby. Yeah. So that's mythology. I don't work from home and keep an infant. So what's wrong with putting the baby in daycare? If you want to continue working, he needs to go to work. And he needs to rethink his career. That's what I would do if I were in your shoes. If you called me up and said, I hate my job, I desperately want to be a mom,

And I'm a full-time mom and I'm going to quit my job because I hate it. I would say quit your job and be a mom. And let's figure out his career so that you guys can afford to eat even though you're frugal and you're minimalist. Okay? But you still got to have money coming in. And so he needs to work on his career. I would tell you to do that. But I'm also not going to, you know, if you want to work, there's nothing wrong. It doesn't make you a bad wife or mother to work. Yeah. Yeah.

There's no wrong answers here unless it's wrong for you. Both of my daughters work, and they have three kids each. And they're godly women, and they're great moms. I guess I just don't buy the whole you can have it all thing. So I feel like I have to choose. I disagree. It's not have it all. It's one version of motherhood versus another version of motherhood.

And you're going to get judged on both sides. Neither one are evil, and both contain guilt. You can't get away from mom guilt. It chases you everywhere, apparently. So I've been told. I suffer from none of that. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, James 1, 12. Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. Thomas Edison said, when you've exhausted all possibilities, remember this, you haven't.

I do like that. That's good. Lisa's in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Hi, Lisa. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm well. Thank you for taking my phone call. Sure. What's up?

So I was calling to get your advice about a rental property that we have that's paid off. Since the tenants moved out, we've put about $30,000 on credit cards to get it renovated, to get it ready to either sell or to rent out again. And I just wanted to give you my financials to get your advice as to what you would do if you were in my shoes. Sounds like you can't afford to have a rental property.

I know. The $30,000 in credit cards is a big no-no. I already know. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's like you're too broke to have a rental property because you can't even renovate your own property. Right, right. Okay. So what's the property worth? What's it worth?

So the comparative market analysis said it's worth $152,000 once it's all said and done and renovated. But that's our rental property. We also have a house that we live in now that we owe $169,000 on rent.

Total debt, including the $30,000 in credit cards, is $280,000 total debt. That's a HELOC loan for $83,000, our current primary residence, which is $169,000, and then the $30,000 buying the apartment. What was the HELOC loan for?

So the HELOC loan, again, stupid financial decisions that I made, but the HELOC loan was to pay off the rental property. It was like $43,000 that was left, and we paid off one of our car loans. So you didn't pay it off. You moved the rental property debt onto your personal residence. Stupid, stupid. You didn't pay it off. You just moved it. You're right. You're right. Okay. I'm not yelling at you. I'm just trying to make sure you understand. So yeah, sell it and pay off this crap.

Pay off the HELOC and pay off the credit cards.

Okay, do the baby steps, start with the credit card, then go to the HELOC, and then would you put all the rest of it into the rest of the mortgage, 169, or would you invest it? Not put on the mortgage. And make sure you have an emergency fund. Have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. If you're working the baby steps, you're going to do that. You're going to be 100% debt-free except the house. That leaves 169 on the house only. No HELOCs, no nothing else. But you didn't even have enough to pay off all your debt. What was the other debt? You had the HELOC and what else?

Credit cards and one other thing. So you ready to yell? All right. I'm not yelling. No, no, no. That was it. No, I know you're not. So it was $169 for the mortgage, $83 for the HELOC, and then the $30,000 for the credit card. I got that. That's it? So what did you ask me then? Is that it? Yeah, that's it. That's our total debt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you pay off the credit cards and the HELOC with the sale of the rental, you will have enough left over to build your emergency fund out, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. Okay, good. That's great.

Here's another way of thinking about this, okay, Lisa? There's a thing called a sunk cost analysis, which is reverse engineer the thing, okay? Let's pretend we had $150,000 sitting in the middle of our kitchen table. Okay. Stacks of Benjamins, okay? Would we go buy a rental property with it and pay cash worth $150,000, or would we pay off all this stupid debt?

Definitely pay off the stupid debt. See, that's reverse engineering it, okay? So that tells us to sell the rental property and pay off the stupid debt. I figured you were going to say that. I'm fairly predictable. But it's a good thing, though. It's always great advice, and I appreciate you taking the time for my call. Honey, we love you. We appreciate you calling in. Thank you for being a listener, okay? Hey, no problem. Have a blessed one. You too, kiddo.

It's that simple and it's that hard. You know, but the lure of the stupidity on Tic Tac telling you that you got to have a rental property. Oh, and then they say never sell it. It's passive income. I got your passive income. $30,000 worth of renovation. There's your passive income. And it was paid off. That teaches you what it's, there's nothing passive about owning real estate. It's very active.

there's things called tenants that you better be active with. An active headache all the time. Yeah. So she so desperately wanted to keep this rental property, she just kept backing into it and backing into it. If I put enough money in, it'll make sense. There we go. Eric's in Fort Lauderdale. What's up, Eric? Hey, how are you guys doing today? Better than we deserve. How can we help?

Yeah, I'm just wondering what the next step is after being debt-free, because I feel like I'm just throwing money into savings with really no goals. Well, let's get some goals on the table here. How much do you have in savings? $50,000. How old are you? 34. Cool. How much have you got in savings? $50,000. Oh, you said that. God, I'm sorry. All right, and you're saying you don't have plans. Are you single?

Yeah, I'm single, not married, no kids. I feel like I should want that stuff because everybody has that, and I feel like that's what somebody my age would want or should want, but I'm really not interested in it right now, so I don't really know what my next step is besides just throwing money into my savings. There's three things you can do with money, and you ought to do all three always, regardless. You ought to save and invest it.

for future goals and you do need some goals whatever they are i don't care if it's family you need to go okay let's say i want to be a millionaire by the time i'm 40 i don't care let's set it up okay the second thing is you need to enjoy money have some fun with it plan a vacation yeah and spend some of it on good old eric he's a good dude he works hard okay the third thing is you need to be generous so always be giving always be investing and always be enjoying at some ratio

If you're ever doing only one or only two of those, you are out of balance. And so you need to, you know, what I would do is lay out a game plan and make my money behave. It's very satisfying to make money behave. It tastes, has a bad aftertaste on the back of your tongue when it just leaves and you don't know where it went.

That's called regret. Okay. And so, you know, you need, if you lay out and say, okay, I'm going to systematically invest. And if I do that for this period of time, I'll have a million dollars in a good mutual fund. Okay. And I'm going to enjoy this percentage of my income.

So I do that. I get a check in from the publisher on total money makeover. I get a nice check ever so often from them on that. I think still sells like a crazy man. And so I take that check and it's already divided up. Half of it almost goes to taxes, right? And the other half is divided between fun, additional generosity and additional investing. So when the check comes in, in a sense, it's already spent. Predecided.

Okay. And just do that, and that'll give you, that'll get rid of this gnawing feeling. But if you don't want to get married and have kids, that's fine. There's no, I mean, do what gives you joy.

I will warn you that about the time you commit to that, she will run over you. I mean, you won't be able to stop her. Yeah, you won't be able to. It's just going to happen. About the time you think you got that, yeah, okay. Anyway, but anyway, that might not happen, but you don't have to. There's no rule that says to be happy you have to do that. Just because everybody else does something doesn't mean you have to do it. So that's cool. But, yeah, you're right, George. Get some goals.

And what are we, you know, I want to own 10 pieces of real estate. I want to own. You want to start a business. Who knows what it is. Yeah. And what would I do if I had a million dollars? I don't know. Let's get a million dollars and find out.

But I love just splitting it up. It just helps to be logical and go, I'm going to give some, save and invest some, and enjoy some. And then you create your every dollar budget and you actually have a line item for giving. And you actually mark things down under that category. And you actually have a spending fund money category for Eric. And then you have no guilt when you take that fund money and buy a cool car. Because you pre-decided.

It's not impulsive. I got my generosity over here. I got my investing over here. This is money for, okay, I'm going to buy a cool car. And you don't have to go, I don't think I'm... Should I have done that? What did I do something wrong buying that car? You didn't do anything wrong. You did it on purpose. That's cool. That's one of the most underrated parts. I feel so guilty spending this much on a vacation. Why? You worked your butt off. You should only feel guilty if you have no generosity and no investing and you're broke and you went on vacation. And it was all impulsive. Yeah, that's not what... But if you've...

plan it out and you got this money sitting there for that purpose ding ding ding that's the most underrated part of doing an every dollar budget is there's no guilt you pre-decided nothing's impulsive because everything was intentional it's kind of boring once you get it rocking i know that's why you gotta add a little bit of fun in there a little bit of peace like you have to add an impulsive fun line item in the budget this is i'm gonna be impulsive with my 20 this month get crazy dave crazy

That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

Hey, folks, Dave Ramsey here. You know, budgeting doesn't have to be boring. You just need a budgeting app that's made with you in mind, and that's EveryDollar. The EveryDollar app has helped millions of people work the baby steps and take the stress out of planning and managing their money. Start budgeting with EveryDollar for free right now. Just go to RamseySolutions.com slash EveryDollar and download the app today. That's RamseySolutions.com slash EveryDollar.