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Stewie
Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Just the other day I realized I've got about $300,000 in my house. Oh, wow.
Ken
Wow.
Stewie
And I'm not. I'm unsure of what to do with it. And how did. Is it. Do I take it to the bank?
Jade
Is it okay, Is that your only. Is that your only money, Stewie? Is the 300,000 or have you ever used a bank?
Stewie
No, I have a bank. I have a bank. It started, I don't know, it started as kind of a game 10 years ago. I save $100 bills and I just save. I don't know.
Ken
Yeah, but that's a lot.
Stewie
Some money in a bank. But I just, I got more than. It's too much at the house, it seems like.
Jade
Yeah, it's a risk.
Ken
It's too much. What do you have? Do you have a traditional savings account?
Stewie
I have, I have got a checking account and I've got a high yield savings account for some other money that I've got.
Jade
Okay, do you have any investment accounts? Anything that's like a 401k or an IRA, anything like that?
Stewie
I never have.
Jade
Okay. Okay. How old are you, Stewie?
Stewie
I. 50. I turn 50.
Ken
You have no 401k, no retirement account of any kind?
Stewie
Never have.
Ken
Who do you work for? Well, you don't need to tell us that because I want to keep you as private as possible. But what kind of work do you do?
Stewie
I'm self employed. I work in agriculture. And our business does. Our business takes in a lot of cash. And I just, at one point I decided, you know what? I like cash. I'm going to keep it around and out of hand.
Ken
Well, listen, so Jade is pulling up her handy dandy investment calculator. This is off of Ramsey Solutions website, ramseysolutions.com. you need to pay close attention, Stewie, with the numbers and then she'll tell you what to do.
Jade
So, Stewie, with you just saving these hundred dollar bills, what would you say in a month, how much do you think you put away into savings under your mattress or wherever it is in your house?
Stewie
I have no, it's slowed down quite a bit. My family's a lot larger now. The kids are bigger. We're spending more.
Jade
Sure. But I mean, is it 500 bucks? Is it, you know, give me a ballpark.
Stewie
Yeah. 500 to 1,000, probably. 500.
Jade
Okay, I'll say 500. So here's what I. Here's, here's what I want to show you. First off, if you take that money and you invest it, which you should be doing because the truth is the time is going to come when you don't work. Right. You're 50, I'm sure there's going to be a time where you don't want to have to go into work. Correct, Correct. And you need to have a nest egg of money to draw off of. And there's a limited amount of time for you to build that nest egg. Fair enough.
Stewie
True.
Jade
Therefore, we need to harness the power of compounding interest. And when it's at home, there's zero compounding interest. As a matter of fact, it's almost negative. It's depleting the value of your money because inflation, right. There's no hedge against inflation. And you understand that. So if we can, you know, next step is, yeah, you pop it in a high yield savings and maybe get 3.5% or maybe 4%, that's okay. But if you were to invest it in really just kind of your basic index fund, you know, good growth stock, mutual fund growth and income, you could really have an average annualized rate of return of around 10%. Like you could pretty much bet on that. Okay, so if we did that, if we just popped that 300,000 into an index fund, I mean you don't even have to get sophisticated here. That money. And you just said, hey, instead of putting the $500 that I sock away under the mattress, I'm going to just add that to that pile every month. Do you know that just in 17 years, by the time you're 67, you're going to have, it would be almost $2 million. It'd be 1.89 million.
George
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Ken
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Jade
It'd be 1.89 million.
Stewie
I mean it seems hard to believe, but I believe you.
Jade
Yeah. And it is. And you hear the bigger part is you need that money. Because you said your family's continued to grow. There will come a day, whether you want it or not, that you can't work. So if I were in your shoe, Stewie, I know Ken would do the same. We would be skipping down to the bank. You know, we'd be skipping over to invest that money right away because you said. How much do you have in the high yield savings?
Stewie
Probably 400.
Jade
Oh, man. Oh, man. You're a rich man, Stewie.
Ken
Hold on. I just want to make sure. 400,000.
Stewie
I do.
Ken
Okay, so that's amazing. But listen, you've got to get with a SmartVestor Pro.
Jade
Got to.
Ken
Okay, so we're going to have Christian direct you to the spot on our website. You need to interview a minimum of three smartvestor pros. They're independent of us, they're licensed, the whole nine yards, but they'll advise you the way we've advised you, and you are sitting on $700,000 in cash. So what our advice would be is that you have three to six months of your expenses in that savings account. High yield. Okay, so let's just say, for sake of discussion, that's 50,000.
Jade
I'd even let him keep 100. Clearly, Stewie is the type that likes.
Ken
Okay, so let's say he keeps 100 in there. So now we've got $600,000 that you need to get invested soon in really good. The mutual funds that she's talking about and let that money go to work for you. And no longer are we putting money in the drawer the way you Pay yourself, the SmartVestor Pro that you select and go with, and they're going to explain everything to where you understand it, and your eyes are going to bug out of your head.
Jade
Yeah.
Ken
And now you start doing what Jay told you to do, and again, you're going to be a very, very wealthy person. But you need to get on it, because you've lost who knows how many millions of dollars by not having done this earlier. And at 50, it's time for you to step up and do this. There's nothing to be scared of. And they'll explain it well, but that's your next step.
Jade
What's your aversion to it, Stewie? What is. What's caused you to kind of shy away from that?
Stewie
I don't know if I have an answer. It started out as a game. I thought, I like saving money, so I. You started as, and then you won the game. You know what? I, I, I feel. I felt maybe sometime I'm Fearful of the. I am fearful of the stock market.
Jade
Okay, that's what I was getting to tell. Tell us about that. Why are you fearful of the stock stock market? Because that, that originated somewhere and if we can just put our finger on that, we can, we can change that and shift that in your mind for you.
Stewie
I'm not sure. I mean, I know that my grandpa told me stories of hardship during the Depression. I don't know if that's enough.
Jade
Yes, I just. Yes, those stories.
Stewie
I'm scared of the stock market.
Jade
Stock market, Stewie, spend some time thinking about that tonight. Because those stories, all of those things. Grandma, Grandpa told me this. I saw an image of this. I heard this report on tv, I read this in the news. All of that stuff starts to build up and it starts to inform our, our view on a particular subject. And the thing is, that's okay. That's normal. But we do have to come to a point where we challenge it and we say, okay, this is the story I'm telling myself. Is it actually true? Is it true? Or is this just what I've been around? And therefore the people that I was around believed this, and therefore it became my belief. But if I actually hold it up next to facts, I find out that that's actually not the truth. And so I love that you called in today, cuz Ken and I are giving. We are giving you the facts. The truth is the annualized rate of return of the stock market since inception has been hovered around anywhere between 9 to 12%. Right. Depending on a given year. And so it's always going to. It's always ended up, up. And yes, there's been downturns, but usually it recovers very quickly within the next year or two after it's. It's fully recovered and then some. And so the point of the stock market is it's a long term. It's a long term ride. Right? It's not something you hop in and hop out of. But in your case, Stewie, oh my goodness. You pop in 600,000 and maybe you leave the other a hundred thousand liquid. And I mean, you're going to be a very rich man when, when it comes time to retire. So well done.
Ken
And I would be very careful about how I transported the 300,000 in cash to the bank.
Jade
What do you do? You put it in a duffel bag.
Ken
Even that looks pretty obvious. If some dude rolls into your local bank in a duffel bag, you're like, there's cash in that bag.
Jade
Yeah, be careful, Stewie.
Ken
They're gonna. I don't know how many trips you got in there. Maybe you're wearing some old school parachute pants.
Jade
Oh, man. And it. Oh, God.
Ken
I think about some security on that. It's a lot of dough you got.
Stewie
Can you walk? Can you just walk in with that kind of money?
Ken
And I don't know, here's what I would do. I would go talk to my local bank in the branch and say, here's what I've done. Help me do this the most secure way. They've done this before, so.
Stewie
Okay, yeah.
Jade
Otherwise you're going to need some very, very muscle bound people to walk with you.
Ken
I always put myself in his shoes. If I tried to take that, I would break. My car would break down. Something crazy random would happen to me.
Jade
Oh, man.
Ken
You know what I mean?
Jade
And you'd be on the side of the road just with the stack of cash.
Ken
Yeah, I think I'd go hire a local Brinks guy and just be like, lock me in the back of this thing with it. Drop me off.
Jade
Yeah. No, I'm kidding.
Ken
I'm kidding. That's not what you should do. Go talk to your local branch manager, get a plan and go talk to a smartvestor pro. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.
Episode Title: I've Been Stacking Cash In My House For Years (It's Over $300k)
Hosts: Ken Coleman & Jade Warshaw
Date: March 4, 2026
Caller: Stewie
Main Theme: Confronting the risks and missed opportunities of hoarding large amounts of cash at home, and receiving expert advice on how to put that money to work for long-term financial security and wealth building.
This episode spotlights “Stewie,” a 50-year-old self-employed agricultural worker who’s kept over $300,000 in $100 bills at his house for years, initially as a “game.” Stewie feels stuck—unsure what to do next, hesitant about the stock market, and uncertain about safely banking such a large cash sum. Ken and Jade walk him through the risks of keeping cash at home, the power of investing, and steps to take action.
[00:10 - 01:20]
[01:34 - 02:43]
[02:14 - 03:53]
[04:59 - 05:14]
[05:14 - 06:40]
[06:40 - 08:46]
[08:46 - 09:48]
Ken and Jade’s core advice:
Don’t let fear or past stories dictate your future—take action with the facts. Invest the majority of your cash safely, keeping a reasonable emergency fund, and get expert advice from an independent professional. Not only does this minimize risk, but it seizes the extraordinary opportunity for growth and financial security. And—when it comes to literal cash piles—talk to your bank so you can move funds safely and without drama.
Summary by: Ramsey Show Highlights Summarizer