Financial Freedom Gives You Safety, Not Risk

Summary

The Ramsey Show Podcast Summary

Episode Title: Financial Freedom Gives You Safety, Not Risk
Date: February 23, 2026
Hosts: John Delony and George Campbell (Ramsey Network)

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Overview

This episode of The Ramsey Show tackles financial freedom as a gateway to safety and peace—not risk. Hosts John Delony and George Campbell take live calls from listeners about crushing debt, navigating tough family financial requests, dealing with risky investments in crypto, and managing major life transitions. Throughout the show, the Ramsey team underscores their signature advice: Build wealth with discipline, budgeting, and smart decisions; financial mistakes can be overcome; and peace comes from structure, not shortcuts.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Attack Debt Aggressively to Gain Freedom (00:12–08:39)

Case: Ethan’s $118k Student Loan in Baby Step 2

• Situation: Ethan & his wife (“Big Dog” loan), $118K at 6.1%, she had to reduce work after a preemie baby.
• Advice:
  • Pay extra monthly—paying weekly vs monthly only matters to the extent you can lower principal sooner.
  • Focus on boosting income through overtime or higher hours once wife returns to work.
  • Treat debt like a house fire—throw everything at it for a season to get on the other side.
  • Visualize progress: create tangible reminders (e.g., paper chains).

Notable Quote – John Delony [04:18]:

“I refuse to sit on the couch and pay them 50 bucks in interest for the privilege of watching whatever dumb show I just watched… let that thing just wormhole its way into your brain.”

Action Steps:

• Reverse-engineer the payoff timeline to make the goal concrete (break it into monthly targets).
• Live on as little as possible; throw every extra dollar at the debt.
• Give grace to a spouse more risk-averse or exhausted—it’s a season.

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2. Family Requests & Maintaining Boundaries (10:19–19:04)

Case: Dustin’s Dad Wants Their Only Extra Car

• Situation: Parents struggling after business failure, asks to borrow car for months. Dustin has two vehicles (needs both for work/family).
• Advice:
  • “You don’t have it to give.” Prioritize your own family’s stability.
  • Offer emotional support and guidance rather than financial rescue if it threatens your financial stability.
  • Consider helping with catching up payments to facilitate selling, instead of risking your own resources.

Notable Quote – John Delony [12:17]:

“This isn’t about setting yourself back. This is about your dad put a pretty heavy burden on you… the reality is you don’t have it to give, and that’s heartbreaking.”

Notable Psychological Insight [16:03]:

"You’re not violating your own values here... you’re trying to take his sadness and his franticness and his fear and you’re trying to manage that for him, and you can’t do that." — John Delony

Key Takeaway:
Drawing loving boundaries, even with parents, is honorable. Becoming financially strong puts you in a better position to help later—out of choice, not obligation.

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3. Couples & Investment Disagreement—Crypto vs. Mortgage (21:39–30:50)

Case: Monica’s Husband Wants to Pivot to Crypto

• Situation: Husband has been using part-time job income to pay off mortgage; wants to shift to investing in cryptocurrency.
• Advice:
  • Investing in crypto at this phase (with mortgage still unpaid and retirement not maxed out) is speculation and undermines family unity and safety.
  • Core issue isn’t just about crypto—it’s about unity, values, and trust in marriage.
  • Find the “why”: Does he seek fast wealth, FOMO, pride? The wife seeks safety and stability.

Notable Quotes:

“There is a guaranteed outcome of paying down your mortgage... It’s a guaranteed interest rate.” — George Campbell [23:42]

“This is about him feeling bored, prideful, FOMO… this is not about crypto. This is about him violating the agreement you made together.” — John Delony [25:21]

Practical Steps:

• Delay risky investments until you’re 100% debt free and fully invested for retirement.
• Focus conversations on unity and shared long-term goals, not just the “surface” issue.

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4. Late-Career Planning & Special Circumstances (33:21–41:44)

Case: Terry's Late Start on Retirement with a Special Needs Adult Child

• Situation: 60 years old, pension ($47k/yr), new consulting career, wants to catch up before retirement, limited investment savings due to care needs.
• Advice:
  • Aggressively pay down remaining $60k mortgage (target: debt free into retirement).
  • Invest 15% of income now, then max out contributions once mortgage is gone (consider solo 401k for higher limits).
  • Use a retirement calculator to determine exact savings goal & timeline.
  • Establish a special needs trust to provide for her child in the future.

Notable Quotes:

“That angst that we all feel as we get closer to retirement…it’s quenched when you have real information…” — John Delony [40:10]

“Getting facts on paper gives you a path forward.” — George Campbell [42:02]

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5. Budgeting Resistance After Years of Financial Success (44:02–52:30)

Case: Gary Wants Wife on Board with Budget Before Retirement

• Situation: 26-yr marriage, never budgeted (“just got by” making significantly more than spent), nearing retirement, net worth $5.5–6M.
• Advice:
  • Re-cast budgeting not as restriction, but as a shared path to peace, clarity, and options in retirement.
  • Use “visioning” (what do our next 25 years look like?) as an entry point for financial talks, rather than accusations about spending.

Notable Quotes:

“A budget is not a matter of survival, it’s a tool to bring you together and say, ‘what do we want the next 25 years to look like?’” — John Delony [52:17]

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6. Navigating Ministry Careers & Social Security Exemption (53:42–62:31)

Case: Daniel Contemplates Opting Out of Social Security/Medicare for Ministry Job

• Situation: 1099 role, would mean paying full FICA unless exempted for religious reasons, tight finances.
• Advice:
  • Exempting from Social Security is risky—requires absolute discipline to invest the difference for retirement & disability.
  • Consider long-term impact on survivorship and disability.
  • Only opt out if you have airtight financial and insurance plans to self-fund retirement/disability.

Notable Quotes:

“While these programs are a mess…they are still something.” — John Delony [56:45]

“Only proceed if this thing is airtight. You’ve checked it 27 ways to Sunday.” — George Campbell [62:31]

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7. Tackling Large Debt: To Sell the House or Not? (86:28–94:39)

Case: Lee Grapples With Massive Debt After Saw Mill Business Failure

• Situation: $150k non-mortgage debt, $400k potential home equity, income down to $60k/year, new baby on the way.
• Advice:
  • If income can’t be rapidly increased or assets liquidated, selling the home to clear all debt and reset is advisable.
  • Use a portion of proceeds for a 6-month emergency fund, the rest as down payment/future financial security.

Notable Quotes:

“This was a reset. It was kind of like we went through a bankruptcy—now we do the right thing so we’re never in this position again.” — George Campbell [93:50]

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8. Should I File Bankruptcy or Keep Fighting? (107:33–116:00)

Case: Ann’s Real Estate Income Plummets, $150k+ Debt, IRS Owed

• Situation: Supported by 40k income, contemplating bankruptcy.
• Advice:
  • Bankruptcy brings a “seven-year shackle”—it’s a last resort.
  • Instead, engineer an aggressive payoff plan (e.g., $3,200/month = debt free in four years).
  • Priority order: IRS, then business loans, then credit card debt.
  • Get a job with stable income; real estate can remain a side hustle.

Notable Quotes:

“You are not the dollar amount you bring home... you are still a person worthy of being loved.” — John Delony [110:46]

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9. Rapid-Fire Lightning Round Q&A

Topics and Advice Snapshots

• Using parents’ wedding gift to pay off student loans?—Not unless the gift was explicitly for that; honor the intent of the giver. [69:59–74:39]
• Buying a house single or wait for marriage?—If ready and stable, buy when it makes sense for you; don’t wait on a maybe. [117:49–122:27]
• Selling investments vs. taking a HELOC for home renovations?—Never risk your actual home with debt; cash flow extras by selling non-retirement investments instead. [97:25–105:15]
• Buying insurance for a $2,000 car?—Prioritize robust liability coverage; comprehensive/collision only if you can’t replace the car yet. [77:37–84:30]
• Still house hunting, rent or buy now?—Don’t compromise on location for speed. Wait and rent until you can afford where you want to be. [96:16–97:25]

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• “The faster you bring the principal down, the less interest you’ll pay.” — George Campbell [01:44]
• “I got a dog on two legs… on wheels now. Thanks for bringing it up.” — George Campbell [29:55]
• “You can’t avoid the angst [of retirement planning]… There’s one path only, and it’s through it.” — John Delony [41:25]
• “If you put, this is a big number, but if you put $3,200 toward your debt, you’d be debt free in four years.” — George Campbell [114:36]
• “Buying a home is the biggest financial decision you’ll ever make. Do it with caution and be planted there.” — George Campbell [96:59]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:12–08:39: Attacking big student loans; overtime and accelerated payments
• 10:19–19:04: Family financial requests & healthy boundaries
• 21:39–30:50: Crypto vs mortgage—marriage & investment unity
• 33:21–41:44: Late career & special needs trust retirement planning
• 44:02–52:30: Budget resistance in high-net-worth households
• 53:42–62:31: Should ministers opt out of Social Security?
• 86:28–94:39: Should Lee sell the house to clear business debts?
• 107:33–116:00: Is bankruptcy the only option for business owners?
• 69:59–74:39: Should you use wedding gifts to pay off personal debt?
• 117:49–122:27: Buy a house single or wait for marriage?
• 96:16–97:25: Rent longer or buy in an undesirable location?
• 77:37–84:30: Car insurance for a beater truck

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Tone & Takeaways

• Tough love, empathy, and directness—Hosts challenge listeners to take bold actions but repeatedly offer emotional support, recognizing the stress and shame often tied to money.
• Discipline equals peace—The path to safety, peace, and generosity goes “through it” (budgeting, sacrifice, boundary-setting), not around it.
• Shortcuts (crypto, borrowing for emergencies, raiding retirement, skipping unity in marriage): Nearly always turn into warnings about lost peace, broken trust, or lasting regret.
• Financial freedom = options + generosity—It’s not only about surviving, but having the resources and margin to help others when ready.

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For further tools, budgeting resources, retirement calculators, or to ask your own questions, visit www.ramseysolutions.com.

Transcript

[Announcer]

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today.

[John Deloney]

Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, I'm John Deloney joined by George Camel, taking your calls on your money, your relationships, your work, everything, anything you got going on in your life, we're here. 888-255-2225. Let's go right down the street to Nashville, Tennessee and talk to Ethan. What's up? Ethan?

[Caller]

Hi, can you hear me?

[John Deloney]

I got you, man. What's up?

[Caller]

Well, thanks for having me on today. And I was calling because my wife and I were in baby step number two and we've made some pretty good progress and. But we've made it to our final. We call it the Big Dog. It's our final big payment and it's a student loan of 118,000. And that's one loan that is six. Yes, it's. My wife's the occupational therapist and that was her graduate, like, degree.

[John Deloney]

That is a big, big dog.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah, that's why we named it that. But today my question is it's at a 6.1% interest rate and it makes me sick to look at the balance and like, it goes up like, I mean, like this. From the last time I checked, it was sometime this week to, I think last night was like $70. Do I save any more money by, like, paying that weekly or monthly or. I just didn't know if I saved more. If I say if I paid every single week versus, like every month, just one big.

[George Campbell]

I mean, the faster you bring the principal down, the less interest you're going to pay. But the simplest way to do it is just apply extra to each monthly payment.

[Caller]

Monthly. Okay.

[George Campbell]

How much are you guys making?

[Caller]

We're fixing their taxes and we made around 140 in 20, 25.

[George Campbell]

Okay, what is she making?

[Caller]

Well, she's prn ot at the hospital and. Wait, which. We just had our first baby back in July and she's. She was born a little early, so she's needed a little extra love, we call it. And so she kind of put her hours back, but she made. She made like 29,000 this last year.

[George Campbell]

And.

[Caller]

But the year before, while, you know, before we were having the baby, she had made like 65.

[George Campbell]

Okay, how do we get her making closer to six figures so we can knock this out quick?

[Caller]

Well, our daughter's fixing to like. We're waiting for the next doctor's appointment to come up. We're hoping that like she can come off like breathing treatments and whatnot so we can hopefully free up mama to be able to work more hours.

[George Campbell]

How much are you making?

[Caller]

Because I, I made, I made 120 this last year.

[George Campbell]

Awesome. Okay, what do you do for work?

[Caller]

I guess I'm a UPS driver.

[George Campbell]

Okay, is there room for overtime for you?

[Caller]

Oh yeah, and I get plenty of it.

[George Campbell]

Okay, I think one or both of you get hustling as soon as this baby is healthy. Let's get this income up because that's your, your greatest shot at getting rid of this debt faster than the interest is growing. Because it's just one loan, so there's really no debt snowball here. It's basically you're trying to knock out a mortgage, correct?

[John Deloney]

Can I say something cruel to you, Ethan?

[Caller]

Please.

[John Deloney]

I'm gonna put a. I'm gonna put a. A worm in your ear. And you're gonna have to promise me that once you've paid this off, you're gonna take that worm out. Are you ready?

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[John Deloney]

So one time I was, me and some buddies were going to a concert and one of my buddies was an attorney and we were all meeting at his house and I got there early, which has never happened in human history, but I got there early and we just plopped on the couch and we ate some and we watched an episode of Seinfeld and we got up after that 30 minute episode and he goes, well that cost me $300 or something like that. Cuz his billable hour rate was 600 bucks an hour, whatever it was back then. And I remember looking at him thinking, that's a terrible way to live, right? And here I am Now, I'm on 100% commission. I had that same thought sometimes, like, well, I just watched a whole football game and I could have been. I want you every time you're not on the clock and you're not and you're not fully participating in your house, right? But I want you to think, man, that hour just caught get. I just donated this much more money in interest to that bank and use that as fuel to say I'm gonna pick up two more extra hours in overtime today, I'm gonna do an extra hour tomorrow, I'll come in for a half day on Saturday because sitting on the couch, I refuse to sit on the couch and pay them 50 bucks in interest for the privilege of watching whatever dumb show I just watched. You can't do this forever. It will melt you and Your family, but for a season, to get this stupid student loan out of your life, man. Let that thing just wormhole its way into your brain.

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[John Deloney]

I'm not going to pay these banks. I'm not going to exchange, you know, kicking my feet up to pay these banks some more money. I want him out of my life.

[George Campbell]

Do you guys have any other debt?

[Caller]

No, we're currently renting, which. Our rent's only like 650amonth. We're able to make like. Yeah, we make some like. And all of our vehicles are paid for. The only thing we have is that big dog.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so. Because here's what I'm thinking, you guys. If you make, let's say, 150 this year, if you really get after it, which is very doable, you probably clear, what, 9,500 bucks a month and take home pay.

[Caller]

Yes, sir, Thereabouts.

[John Deloney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

So think about that. If you can live off a small portion of that, three or four grand, we can throw five, six grand at this debt. You're done in less than two years. You're talking 18 to 24 months, max.

[Caller]

Yeah. Then that. That's. We actually even were trying. We were just talking the other night, and I guess we've kind of put it to the side. We're just saying. We're just going to come back and talk about. We was actually trying to see what we could do in, like, the next 13 months.

[George Campbell]

Like, I love set a goal. That scares you a little bit and excites you a whole lot.

[Caller]

Yeah, it excites me. It scares her. So I'm the one that's like. I'm the one. There's times where I might be, like, kind of dragging her along and all this.

[John Deloney]

Well, hold on.

[George Campbell]

She's.

[John Deloney]

She's been pregnant for a year and had a child with help. Like, don't drag her too, like, you know what I mean? Give her some grace. Yeah, it's been a tough year.

[Caller]

Yeah. And I can be a little too intense sometimes, which she. She tells me. It's like I'm the hair and she's the tortoise in life, so.

[George Campbell]

Well, you got some homework now. Just figuring out how much can we really throw at the debt right now and how much can we throw at it when she' back to work full time?

[Caller]

Sure.

[George Campbell]

And then you can kind of get a timeline going and go, all right, 14 months. Game on. We're getting this thing done.

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[George Campbell]

And then stick to it. Hold each other accountable. Do the every dollar budget, and every month, you Pay your four walls, your insurance, anything. Other than that, it's going towards the debt.

[Caller]

Yes, sir. We love it.

[George Campbell]

That's it. I think you guys will get there. I have a lot of faith in you, and I'm wishing you the best with the health of that little sweet baby George.

[John Deloney]

I don't hear that very often. How. And you work through it with a ton of people, through budgeting and helping them. Like you do those webinars and stuff, like actually sitting with people and helping them work their budget. It seems to me that the. The. For me, at least, the greatest path forward would be to say, I'm going to put a ridiculous month amount, right? 13 months, 15 months. And I'm going to reverse engineer then and say, okay, what must be true. What dollar amount would I have to come up with? And that, to me, feels like taking a. What feels like a big target on the side of a wall and making it like a laser target. Like, okay, I've got to get this many dollars this month. I can figure out how to do that.

[George Campbell]

Oh, yeah. And when you. When you look at, like, a big mountain, like, he's got 118 grand, it's hard to just look at and go, yeah, we can knock that out.

[John Deloney]

Six grand. And it's like, oh, cool, 112, that. Right? It's just so. Feels so insurmountable.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. And so the breaking it down into small chunks that you can see on paper is if we live off of 3,000, we will have 6,000 left over.

[John Deloney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

That's the fact. So I love focusing on the facts because debt is emotional. It's scary. You're going, we'll never pay this off. And they go, wait, you guys make amazing money. What if you just took control of that, did a budget, gotten a plan, held each other accountable, and made it fun?

[John Deloney]

I know this is cheesy, but we had our Excel spreadsheets and we had all of our stuff. We did this before the EveryDollar app, but we went old school and made a construction paper chain. And I hung it in the bedroom.

[George Campbell]

Arts and crafts, baby.

[John Deloney]

I want to see this thing. I'm going to tear off a chain every week. And just watching that thing get below

[George Campbell]

six figures, below 75 grand, 50 grand, 25. It's like an auctioneer in reverse.

[John Deloney]

Watching that chain get shorter and shorter was awesome.

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[George Campbell]

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[John Deloney]

All right, let's go out to Columbia, South Carolina and talk to Dustin. What's up, Dustin?

[Announcer]

Hi.

[Caller]

Thank you for taking my call.

[George Campbell]

Is your car okay, Dustin?

[John Deloney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

You good?

[Caller]

I was rolling up the window.

[John Deloney]

Oh, there you go. Sweet, sweet.

[Caller]

My question is, do you risk setting yourself back on the baby steps and your goals to help family in need? Here's the situation. My dad lost his business last year, and ever since then, it's been a process of losing just about everything. He is going to lose their car, the family car. And he came to me and asked if he could borrow one of my wife cars. We have two. We have a truck that I use for work and an suv, a midsize SUV that my wife uses. Here's the thing that would complicate it. We have a baby. We have another baby coming in September. And that would, you know, create its own problems with the growing family. Plus, my dad would likely need the car for probably the rest of the year. I'd say probably till at least around the time the baby comes. And my wife and I would look at saving for a new car. Yeah, we just finished baby step three.

[John Deloney]

Let me take this off the table for you.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

Y' all are not in a position to do this. Like, I like at my house, I have an old farm truck. I could give that truck. I could loan somebody because I've got my car that I get to work with. My wife has the car that she gets to work with, and. And we both shuttle kids around. And I have an old farm truck that I, I loan out regularly. You don't have that?

[Caller]

No.

[John Deloney]

And so you're not in a position to. This isn't about setting yourself back. This is about your dad put a pretty heavy burden on you. And I. I don't know him. This could have been a manipulative move you've dealt with your whole life, or it could be a guy who's just at desperation level right now. But the reality is you don't have it to give. You don't have to give, and that's heartbreaking.

[George Campbell]

Now, you can help him work through this in other ways because he's probably in a cloudy spot right now, but it doesn't mean that we're going to be in the car giveaway business. So what happened to his vehicle? Did it get repoed? Did he have to sell it?

[Caller]

It's going to be. He doesn't have the money to dig out of the hole. He's in two panes behind and it's. He's upside down on it.

[George Campbell]

And when you say he lost the business, what does that mean, the business?

[Caller]

He had a lot of debt on the business equipment, a lot of landscaping business. He had a large client that dropped him and then he had another customer, refused to pay him about to $15,000 of services last year. So.

[George Campbell]

Okay, but he has the equipment. He can sell off all the equipment and hopefully walk away with something. It's gone. What do you mean?

[Caller]

Some of it was repossessed, some of it he sold and paid off some of the loans, but he doesn't have any equipment left.

[George Campbell]

Okay, and what's he going to do for work for income right now?

[Caller]

Right now he's working at a hardware store making about $20 an hour. But he has another job lined up now that'll pay him about twice that great in April.

[John Deloney]

So he's not just sitting on the couch feeling sorry for himself. He's out there hustling.

[Caller]

Yes.

[John Deloney]

Good deal. That's noble. That's good. Good deal.

[George Campbell]

And what's his transportation right now? Is it still the car that's about to be repoed and can we sell it before it gets repoed or catch up on payments and sell it?

[Caller]

I think it's about past that point

[George Campbell]

because if you now what you could do if you wanted to is just catch him up on his payments so that he can go sell this thing, which is better than repo, which they're going to come after him for the deficit. They're going to go sell it at auction for way less than it's worth and then still come after him. And so you'd be in a better spot if you can help him catch up on payments to then sell it outright and make more for it.

[Caller]

Is this something that you would use your emergency Fund for.

[George Campbell]

Because that's if I had a baby on the way. No, because right now you got to protect your own family. They come first.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And so if I'm in your shoes, we're kind of in stork and storm mode right now, and dad's in his own storm mode, and we all got to figure it out.

[John Deloney]

I would honor my dad by having a. If this is possible geographically, having a face to face conversation to saying, dad, like, I 100% get that you're in a trouble. In trouble. And I really honor the way, like, you're setting a good example for me as a. As a young dad for when, like, life throws you a whole bunch of curveballs in a row. You put on. You put on your belt and you went to a hardware store.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

Like that's honorable. And I got a new baby on the way. I've got a youngster. I'm not in a position, both financially or with vehicles to. To help you out, man. And it breaks my heart, but I. I'm just not in a position to do that. That face to face, man to man conversation. Assuming a. He's not going to throw a temper tantrum and he. He'll actually hear you.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

I have a rule that I only have conversations if somebody can hear me. Right. And if they're angry or frustrated or think I owe them or whatever would. Would be in the case here. I. You can decide whether you'd have that. But that would be a neat way to honor him, to say, hey, I want you to know, I see and I'm proud of you, and I simply don't have it to help with right now.

[George Campbell]

Do you know the deficit on his payments? The exact number.

[Caller]

$2,700.

[George Campbell]

Goodness gracious. So this is more than two payments? Unless this is a giant payment.

[Caller]

It is two payments. It is a over $1,300 payment.

[George Campbell]

Goodness gracious.

[Caller]

And so I just. I don't have it.

[John Deloney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

And hey, let me. Let me tell you this. There's a psychologist out of New York, her name is Becky Kennedy, and she's a friend of mine, and she gave me this new definition of guilt I want to pass to you. She said often what we call guilt is not that at all. Guilt is a feeling that's inside of our chest. That's right. And good. When we violate our own values. Right. You haven't violated your own values here. That guilt that you think you're feeling, you're trying to take his sadness and his franticness and his fear and you're trying to manage that for him, and you can't do that. Right. And so it's you saying, I'm not violating any of my core values. I'm doing what's right for me and for my wife and for my young child and the child that's about to be here. And, and I'll sit with you while you have these, these feelings, these big feelings of fear and terror and embarrassment and shame, all that stuff that he's feeling. But I can't hold that for you. I'll sit there with you, but I can't carry it for you. And I know all of this. You're talking to two guys who love their own dads. I know this is, this is heavy for you.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

But you know what else it is? It's a line in the sand where you go, I want to be in the position to where if this ever happened again, I could help.

[John Deloney]

Right.

[George Campbell]

And I wouldn't flinch. It would be such a small part of our world that I get to help the family that I love, and it wouldn't set us back. And so it's, I mean, this is one of those things where you start to run away from the decisions that your parents have made. Not the character. He sounds like, he's a great guy, but as far as the decisions and the financial place he put himself in, highly leveraged and running a business that he still is going to owe a bunch of debt on. You know, I'm never going to put myself in that position. I'm going to pay cash for things. I'm not going to owe other people money.

[John Deloney]

And this is the other side. When we talk about financial freedom, I, I, I don't do a great job of talking beyond my own house. Right. Like, I want my house to have peace, but part of my house having peace is knowing I can help folks out when I think it's the right thing to do.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

And so this is yet another encouragement for you and your wife to stay the course. And y' all paid off everything you own. You've got yourself an emergency fund saved up. You got a new baby on the way. We're going to continue to walk these baby steps all the way out. And I want to be in a position one day that come what may, I can help out, Right? Hey, let me just. Like, you're a good son, man.

[George Campbell]

Really, he's lucky to have you, regardless if you can fund his misbehavior. He's so lucky to have a guy who cares this much about his Old man willing to walk through this with him.

[John Deloney]

You're a good son. And by drawing this line here and having the courage to have a face to face with him, you're also showing courage and like honor for your family too. Your, your wife and your two young kids.

[Caller]

Thank you for that.

[John Deloney]

Like it's, it's an honor to talk to you.

[Caller]

Okay, thanks. And I love your book Building a non anxious life.

[John Deloney]

Oh, thank you. Yeah. I think the, the hard part about building an unanxious life is these moments. It's not, it's. It's simple, but it's real, real hard in, in real life.

[Announcer]

Right?

[John Deloney]

All right, brother. Keep going. Doing the next right thing, man. George, this one's hard. This is one of those like. And again, we should probably talk about this more. This is the give like no one else, right?

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

This is the. I've taken care of my family and my bills. I, I drive this vehicle or we live in this size house or we don't go out to eat this often because it's more, more valuable to us to have a pot of money that when one of people we love gets, gets in a pickle. Yeah, we can sit down.

[George Campbell]

And the weak can't help the weak. And so you get to a place of strength. It gives you a lot of opportunity to make impact.

[Announcer]

Finally, mortgage rates have dropped. And you know what that means. People who've been sitting on the sidelines are about to jump back in to the housing market. So if you've been waiting to buy, this could be your window. But you've got to be prepared and do it the Ramsey way. You need to contact Churchill Mortgage. Their home buyer edge program gives you peace of mind. In a wild market, you can cap your rate for 90 days. So if rates go up, you're protected. If rates go down, Churchill will drop yours automatically. And get this, Churchill will even back your offer with a $10,000 seller guarantee. So if your loan falls through due to financing, the seller still gets paid. That's how confident Churchill is. Plus, when you shop as a Churchill certified home buyer, it's stronger than pre approval. It makes you look like a cash buyer, which makes your offer rise to the top. So don't let this moment pass you by. Get ready now. Go to Churchill Mortgage.com to get started today. That's ChurchillMortgage.com this is a paid advertisement

[George Campbell]

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[John Deloney]

Let's go talk to Monica and Indian in Indianapolis. What's up, Monica?

[Caller]

Hi.

[Female Caller]

How are you guys?

[John Deloney]

I'm good. What's up with you?

[Female Caller]

I'm good. Thank you so much for taking my call. I love you.

[John Deloney]

I love you.

[Female Caller]

And my, my sister loves you, George.

[George Campbell]

Oh, that's sweet.

[John Deloney]

Why doesn't your sister love me? All right, I get it, I get it, I get it.

[George Campbell]

Teaches.

[John Deloney]

Been happening since high school. All right, so what's up?

[Female Caller]

So, yeah, I've been having conflict with my husband. We. I work full time. He works full time. And then he also has a second job. Second part. A second job that's part time. Excuse me. And we've been thus far using his income from his part time job as extra principal payments towards the mortgage. But he now, starting in March, wants to use that income towards investing in crypto.

[George Campbell]

That's an oxymoron.

[John Deloney]

I'm not on board.

[Female Caller]

And we just have a lot of conflict on it. So I wanted to get your guys thoughts. I'm a bit afraid of being controlling because I grew up in a home where my mother was very controlling and wore the pants in the house. And I don't want to be like that.

[George Campbell]

You're not being controlling. If my wife said, hey, I know we got debt to pay down, I'm gonna go gamble in Vegas instead. Are you okay with that? I think it's wise as a spouse to say, mm, that's not a good idea. Those are opposing goals.

[John Deloney]

What about the last two months with crypto has made your husband be like, you know what, I'm gonna, I think I need to get in on this.

[Female Caller]

I know he has a friend who's in on it, and he claims, and this friend claims that he's very successful in it recently.

[George Campbell]

Successful because it went down 50%.

[John Deloney]

50%. It's lost 50% of its value in the last two months, which makes me

[George Campbell]

think, well, maybe he's trying to like buy the dip. Everyone's going, now's the time, man. It's going to climb back up to 100,000. And maybe it does. I'm not here to play back the tape a year from now and be wrong. That's fine. I just think there is a guaranteed outcome of paying down your mortgage. There's a guaranteed interest rate, which is your mortgage interest rate that you're making by paying down this mortgage. So really what this is, there's a difference in risk tolerance. And you guys have different definitions of winning. So you're just not on the same page. You value different things right now in your marriage.

[Female Caller]

Okay?

[George Campbell]

So it's really a conversation about unity. And he thinks, well, this is our path to financial freedom. And you're going, nope, my financial freedom looks like less risk, not more.

[John Deloney]

And keeping this conversation. The fight about crypto, you're never going to get below the surface of the water. You all going to make a lot of splashes, and you're going to take in a lot of water up your nose, but you're never going to get to the actual issue, which is under the water, which is, hey, we made an agreement that we wanted to never owe anybody any money again, and you're violating that agreement.

[Female Caller]

Okay.

[John Deloney]

And that's. That's the real issue. This is a trust issue, right?

[Female Caller]

Yes, definitely.

[John Deloney]

And often I wonder if your mom ended up wearing the pants because that's who she was or if she ended up because, over time, she felt like she had to.

[Female Caller]

Yeah, I still don't want to be like that because I unfortunately, like, resent her way more than my dad. Dad. When it comes to what they did with me financially as a child.

[John Deloney]

I got that. And that's why it's imperative for you to not fight this on the surface. Don't engage in a proxy war. This is not about crypto. This is about him feeling like, you can't tell me what to do. This is about him feeling bored. This is him feeling prideful. Fomo, Right. Fear of missing. Right. Fear of missing out. And this is about you saying, hey, we made a deal, and you're violating our core. Like, have the true conversations underneath the thing.

[Female Caller]

Okay.

[John Deloney]

But just for whatever it's worth, George and I are 100% on your side on this one.

[Female Caller]

Oh, thank you.

[George Campbell]

I've never won against a crypto bro yet, so just know I don't think this is going to be easy to win him over because he is so convinced that you guys are missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime. Right.

[John Deloney]

And George gave you the best. Like, I just view this as sitting at a blackjack table in Vegas, and the house has won four times in a row, and the guy next to you is like, dude, they can't win five. This is it. Let's go. All it. Like, put all your chips on, and they might. Right. Like, it's. Maybe you win this time, but maybe you don't.

[George Campbell]

I just talked to a caller. The wife found out about some financial infidelity. He took out a HELOC $250,000, put it into crypto, lost it all.

[Caller]

Wow.

[George Campbell]

He claims he hit the sell short button instead of sell, which we all know is a lie. And so this is what it leads to. I'm not saying this will be your husband, but there's a level of, like, fear, greed, pride that lead to a. The risk meter being broken, which leads to desperation, really bad financial problems. And so paying off your house, nobody calls in saying, oh, my gosh, worst decision of our life. We are deeply in debt. They're not. You're debt free. And so there's an opposing goal that you guys have. And I would get to the bottom and say, hey, what are you really hoping crypto will do for us? Is it quick wealth? Is it freedom? Is it the security? Is it fomo? And then share your why? Hey, paying off the house for me makes me feel safe, makes me feel stable. And the security matters more to me than the potential of making money.

[John Deloney]

And if you want to be a gangster, you can say, hey, we pay this house off and we get this much cash in the bank. Not gonna use all your money to buy some crypto. Here's.

[George Campbell]

I like that compromise.

[John Deloney]

There's 25 grand to go. Buy as much crypto as you think you can get.

[George Campbell]

Or once we're in baby step seven, and we're already investing 15 of our income into retirement, now we can go play now you can use your fund money to go do this.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Female Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

How much is left on the mortgage?

[Female Caller]

244,000.

[George Campbell]

Okay, and how much are you guys paying extra right now? What's your total payment?

[Female Caller]

Our mortgage payment? Our mortgage payment is 2,400, and we've been paying double.

[George Campbell]

Nice. 4,800.

[Female Caller]

Yes.

[Caller]

Correct.

[George Campbell]

That's awesome. And so, based on that timeline, when will you guys pay this off?

[Female Caller]

If we keep paying double, it would be paid off four years within the next six years.

[George Campbell]

Okay. My guess is he goes, man, six years is a long time to be paying double. It would be easier if I could 10x my money and put it into crypto, and then we could pay off the mortgage. Is that his thinking?

[Female Caller]

I think so, yes.

[George Campbell]

He wants to shortcut this and speed up the process. Okay. I always go back to this proverb because it's so grounding for me. It's Proverbs 13:11. Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers, little by little, will increase it. And you know what? You know what get rich quick is it's wealth gained hastily. And when you do it, little by little, you Tend to lower your risk, increase your peace, and you stick with it. You're not going to make any rash decisions. When you worked really hard to get this money or pay down the debt. You're not going back in because you sacrificed for it.

[John Deloney]

I can't imagine how many people who have leveraged their souls and watched it all get cut in half the last couple of months. I don't have a penny in crypto, but even it makes my stomach hurt

[George Campbell]

just thinking it's 24 7. At least the stock market closes. You could be up at 3am watching it go up and down.

[John Deloney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

And so for me, it's just not worth. I got other things to be anxious about. Don't need one to add to the list. I'm good. I got a dog on two legs right now, so let's worry about the real things.

[John Deloney]

Dog on wheels.

[George Campbell]

That's true. He does have a wheelchair now. Thanks, John, for bringing it up. Appreciate that.

[John Deloney]

Not. Not a lot of people can say, hey, you know what? I got a dog on wheels.

[George Campbell]

At least it's not a Tesla.

[John Deloney]

You have one of those too?

[George Campbell]

I do. Oh, for two.

[Caller]

Even better.

[John Deloney]

What else you got, George?

[Announcer]

I don't.

[George Campbell]

I don't have any crypto. So that's the good news. But here's the thing. People think we are anti crypto. What we are is anti get rich quick, anti gre, anti pride, anti destroying

[John Deloney]

your marriage, anti doing things out of order.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, there's a time and a place

[John Deloney]

to have as much crypto as you want. After you have taken the existential risk of your home getting taken away, of your cars getting taken away, of your ability to take care of your family getting taken away.

[George Campbell]

Replace this with sports betting, Whatever you want. It's just there's a risk here. It's speculation, it's unwise, and it's not investing. And there's way better ways to access peace.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. All day long,

[George Campbell]

You've worked too hard to get control of your money just to let strangers control your data. Think about it. Just about every time you sign up for a newsletter, grab a coupon code, or start a free trial, your personal info, like your name, email address, phone number, and more, gets scooped up and sold by data brokers. Here's the deal. Freedom isn't only being debt free. It's also being free from companies cashing in on your data. And that's where DeleteMe comes in. DeleteMe's privacy experts find your personal info on these shady data broker sites. They get it deleted and they keep it gone. It's like having a digital cleanup crew that scrubs your online life so you get way fewer of those spam calls, creepy texts, and scam emails that make you wonder how they even found you guys. The less noise in your digital life, the more time you have for what actually matters. Because when you protect your privacy, you protect your peace and your freedom. So go to JoinDeleteMe.com Ramsey to get 20% off their annual plans and take back control. That's JoinDeleteMe.com Ramsey.

[John Deloney]

If you have a simple tax situation like you haven't had any major life changes or big investments, you got to use Ramsey Smart Tax. Ramsey Smart Tax is affordable and keeps filing simple. Plus it has built in support in case you need a little help. I run my taxes through it every year before I send it off to cpa. And it is awesome. It's easy, it's perfect. It's good. Filing early means getting the best deals and you can get that tax stress off your shoulders. So as soon as you can get all your tax documents, go to ramseysolutions.com/smart tax and start filing. Let's go to Manchester, New Hampshire and talk to Terry. What's up, Terry?

[Female Caller]

Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

[John Deloney]

Of course. Thanks for calling. What's up?

[Female Caller]

So I'm just looking for a little bit of advice. I'm 60 years old. I just ended a career in which I'm receiving a pension. And I've started a second career which I'm hoping to work for about the next 10 years. And I'm just wanting to make sure I'm on the right track as far as what I should be Investing over next 10 years.

[John Deloney]

Very cool. What's your new side hustle? I mean, it's not even a side hustle. What's your new career?

[Female Caller]

Yeah, I'm consulting. So I started an llc. I'm debt free except for my house. I only owe about 60 on my house. But all I have right now is that pension. It's about 47,000 a year. And I know that's not going to be enough. And I'll tell you, I don't have anything else because of a couple of things. First, I just found you guys a few years ago, but I also have a special needs. I'd. So throughout. He's in his 30s, so throughout the years when, you know, things come up and every time I think I have a little bit of money to set aside, something comes up, right? So then I have to spend, or I do spend so here I am and I'm getting a little worried because, you know, he continues to have needs, but I just want to make sure I'm on the right track. So I have a 47,000 pension. My gross income is about 130 to 150 a year. I have expenses from my business of about 30k, I'd say. And I'm just trying to figure out how much do I put aside, how much do I try to invest between now and then to feel like comfortable. I feel like it should be like my goal should be about 300,000 in an investment account. Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Okay. At 70. So that's your goal. And you still have the mortgage. And the goal for, I would say let's go into retirement completely debt free, house and everything. And so I would be investing 15% of your awesome income while paying down extra on the house. And in no time you're going to pay off that house.

[Female Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

With this income, right. In the next few years it's gone. Which means the following seven years we can now max out retirement options like for you, a self employed person, a solo 401k.

[Female Caller]

So I tried to ask my tax person and my investment guy about that and they both were just like, you don't need that.

[George Campbell]

What did they say you need?

[Female Caller]

They have me right now. In a, I wrote, I rolled some 403B money into a SEP IRA.

[George Campbell]

Okay, that works too. I like the Solo 401K because the Contra, the contribution limits are massive, especially for someone your age because you have catch up contributions. So you're talking, I think it's 80 grand this year for someone in your shoes.

[Female Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

Which is insane. You can really catch up on retirement with that kind of, with those kind of numbers. And so I would look into that as an option.

[Female Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

On top of your ira, Terry, I'm

[John Deloney]

gonna ask George a question on your behalf. Okay. He's smarter than I am at this stuff. So, Terry, how old are you again?

[Female Caller]

60.

[John Deloney]

60. All right, George. My gut tells me that if I was in her situation and I suddenly stumbled on, not stumbled on, I created 130 to 150, 000 in extra value.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

So in New Hampshire, I'm going to guess you'll, you'll take home 80 of that after taxes and then you're going to have 30 of that off the top. So you're gonna have $50,000. My, I, I would feel a, an intense internal pressure to not put a penny in retirement until I could just throw everything and get that house Taken off like that. Like clear my house at 60 grand, work maniacally to get that risk taken off. So I've got that taken care of. And then I would spend the next however many years just socking every penny away and trying to live off that 47. Could I find a world where I just condensed my expenses, my travel, all that kind of stuff, lived off that pension and I just started saving everything. Is that bad?

[George Campbell]

I wouldn't say it's bad. I think either way, if you did it on paper, you'll kind of get to that finish line either way. But if you're traveling, tracking through the baby steps, it's 15% until the house is paid off, and then we're maxing out retirement. And so I like the idea of you flexing this save this investment muscle because you really haven't. It's been the pension the whole time. And so you'll get used to not seeing that money in your bank account. Instead, it's going towards your future. And I can crunch the numbers for you here. Let's say you pay off the house in three years. Could you pay it off by 63, put 20 grand a year towards it?

[Female Caller]

Yeah, I can.

[George Campbell]

And then after that, the mortgage is freed up on top of the money you can throw. How much could you throw a month after that? If you keep making what you're making,

[Female Caller]

three grand a month at least.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so three grand a month from 63 to 70, you'll have $362,000 at our 10% rate of return.

[Female Caller]

And then I just let that sit, really?

[George Campbell]

Yeah, if you let it sit. I mean, what we've seen in the stock market, it's the rule of 72, it'll double if you get a 10% rate of return, that money would double every 7.2 years. So if you didn't need it, you could live off of your pension for a few years. It's just going to continue to grow. And if that's in a Roth 401K, it's going to be completely tax free because you used after tax dollars to fund it. Okay, so think about that. It's like net income, 360 grand.

[John Deloney]

And then if you create a special

[Female Caller]

needs trust, this isn't like pie in the sky.

[George Campbell]

No, I would, I would tell you if you are way out of line, but you told me Your goal is 300 grand in that investment account plus your pension, you will be okay.

[Female Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

And if you do four grand a month, you'll have 483 grand. And so you can play around with the numbers using our investment calculator to kind figure out what that future is going to look like.

[John Deloney]

And I would create a special needs trust for my child that if something

[Female Caller]

happens, I'll need to find out more about that because I feel like I never have enough money to do that.

[John Deloney]

Okay, yeah, I would dig into that. But if you end up with 400k in retirement funds or retirement accounts, plus your pension, and I don't know how pensions work with trust and with special needs trust, I don't know whether it would be transferable or not, their survivor benefits, something like that, but I would dig in and get every bit of that information. And by the way, some of that panic is the wrong word, but that growing gnawing, it's tiny right now, but it's getting bigger. That sense of angst, right? Like you're 60 and then you're going to blink and you're going to be 70 and your special needs child will be 40. That it, it feels like guilt. Almost like, I need to take care of him. What am I doing? I didn't make enough money. And you start like, a lot of that type of angst is quenched when you have real information.

[Female Caller]

Don't you hit the nail on the head with that? Because that's why I'm feeling a little bit frantic about yes, exact thing you just said.

[John Deloney]

So finding somebody and saying, I want to learn about this and here's the words I use now, I want you to teach me like I'm a ninth grader and I ask folks that about any purchase I'm making, if I'm going on a hunting trip, if I want to learn about this electric brick circuit thing. I want to learn how to work on the lawnmower. I ask people teach this to me like I'm in ninth grade and I walk away learning how to actually do this thing.

[Caller]

Okay.

[John Deloney]

And at least, even if there's no way you're going to leave that conversation feeling great, right? Like, oh, he's going to be like, you're going to realize, oh, I got a decade's worth of work to do, but you'll have real information and an actual lit path on what direction to take.

[Female Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

I think you're gonna feel a whole lot better when this is knocked out. I would reach out to a couple of state attorneys in your area and just get a feel and go with the one that you like, that you trust and have them explain it to you and have them walk you through what. What is this going to cost to set up. It might be a few thousand bucks, but you will sleep so much better at night knowing that you've taken care of your family and now we're on track for retirement.

[John Deloney]

And George, this goes when it comes to finances, when it comes to retirement, when it comes to future. That angst that we all feel. And the closer you get to the third and fourth quarter of your life, the bigger that anxiety gets. You cannot avoid it or work around it. There's one path only, and it's through it.

[Announcer]

Right.

[John Deloney]

And often that path is lit with real information. And so getting real information on a special needs trust, using the Ramsey retirement calculator to say how many dollars will equal this many dollars. Right.

[George Campbell]

Getting facts on paper because your emotions will cloud your judgment and you feel

[John Deloney]

overwhelmed all the time. And facts on paper give you a path forward.

[Announcer]

Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John. Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're going to die or something.

[John Deloney]

Well, I used to be one of those guys. I didn't even think about it. And one of my buddies said, hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids. And I immediately went and got term life insurance.

[Announcer]

That's a gut punch.

[John Deloney]

And. Oh, you're telling me. And for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse, they've lost somebody important to them. They don't know what to do next.

[Announcer]

Me, too. I mean, you're going to have a crisis here and you know, you got two options. While you're sitting and talking to a young widow, she's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow.

[John Deloney]

That's exactly.

[Announcer]

These are the two options. And take care of your dadgum family, man.

[John Deloney]

Term life insurance can replace income, pay off debts, cover funeral expenses. So your family can actually have the opportunity to just be sad, to just miss you.

[Announcer]

That's exactly what it's supposed to be. It's saying I love you to your family. Term life insurance, Jeff Zander and the team at Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years. They're the only people I trust. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282.

[John Deloney]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. I'm John Deloney joined by George Campbell taking your calls. 888-255-2225. Let's go out to HTONE and talk to Gary. What up, Gary?

[Caller]

Hey guys, how are you?

[John Deloney]

We're good, my brother. What's up with you?

[Caller]

Yes, not too much, really. Enjoy the show. My question is I've been happily married for coming up on 26 years. You know, I hit the hit the wife lottery. We've been sort of financially very fortunate during our marriage and you know, at this point we're in a very good place financially. But you know, we have never really followed or kind of strictly adhered to any sort of budget during that entire time. You know, I have tried, you know, throughout the years, you know, at various points to you know, get my wife on board with at least sort of looking and following some sort of budget. But you know, probably mostly my fault, those, you know, those discussions just end up in arguments and you know, I just wonder at this stage, at this point in our lives I'm, you know, considering, you know, I'm looking at retirement hopefully in the next few years or the ability to retire, you know, is it, is it worth it to continue to try and fight that battle and you know, you know, it's sort of, if we've made do and gotten by with the way we've been doing it, is it worth it to try and you know, get that, try and continue to get her on board?

[John Deloney]

I have like a physical aversion to the words just getting by.

[Caller]

Yeah, maybe I shouldn't say, you know, maybe that's the wrong word. As far as, you know, we're just in a, you know, we're in a, we're in a good place.

[John Deloney]

Have you all just out earned your spending for all of your marriage?

[Caller]

Pretty much.

[John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller]

Pretty much.

[John Deloney]

So let me ask you this.

[Caller]

That's just been me on a single, you know, that's maybe just being lucky on how we are being me on a, a, a single salary that whole time.

[John Deloney]

But yeah, so just, just talking to you and me and George and a couple million people, just us three, us three guys. Why do you want her on a budget?

[Caller]

What? You know, I, I, so it's of course, you know, as we consider retirement, you know, the spigot. Yep. The earnings spigot is gonna, is gonna turn off and you know, we want to, you know, frankly, we want to be, you know, I want to be able to stress free live the retirement we, you know, we both want.

[John Deloney]

So, so if you Sit down with her.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

And talk about a budget as a path to. And I'm gonna use language that Texas males don't use. Okay. If you sat down with your wife and said, hey, we're heading into retirement, our life is about to change dramatically, time wise, financially, all of it, and I won't feel safe in my own skin unless we have a plan with our money, would you join me in

[Caller]

that

[John Deloney]

versus her feeling like a budget is you trying to control her.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

If you were open and honest about, hey, I want to solve for peace in the fourth quarter of our life, the back half, the third quarter, and the fourth quarter. And that means, here's what peace looks like for me. I'd love to hear what peace looks like for you. And then how can we agree together on, here's how many dollars are going to come in from our investments, from our retirement accounts, et cetera, and here's what it costs to live our. And just live in that reality as a way to have peace and inside your own chest to feel safe. If she won't join you in that, if she looked at you and rolled her eyes and was like, I'm driving this Suburban, I don't care what you say, then A, you know what she truly thinks about you, and B, yeah, there is a futility to that because you've married somebody who doesn't care about you. Really. It doesn't care about her. Doesn't care about anything other than what I want right this second. My hope is that's not the case. My Hope is for 20 years, when you've brought up budgeting, it's been about, you're spending too much. Why'd you buy this? We didn't need that. We don't even have a budget. And then she just decides to, to go to war back with you.

[Announcer]

Right.

[George Campbell]

She associates the word budget with stressful money.

[John Deloney]

Fights, complain. Yet another complaining husband. I do all of this, so I deserve this. And you come home and you got another box from Amazon. Right. That kind of fight. And I don't know if that's the case. Does that sound familiar here?

[Caller]

Yeah, I think, I think that's, I think that's fair. You know, I've listened to you guys and I've tried to, you know, the last time I brought it up, you know, it was sort of I, I. Statements. Yeah, it was on a vacation. You know, it's about a trip. And, you know, it came up last minute and, you know, I said, no, we can't do that. And I tried to Go back and later explain. Said, you know, I, I'm concerned about, you know, how we do that. But we just sort of went back to, you know, my first reaction, which was no. And said, well, that really caused stress and the way I, you know, so I don't, you know, there's equal blame on.

[John Deloney]

Sure.

[Caller]

Equal blame.

[John Deloney]

So.

[Caller]

So I don't want to make it sound like it's just her.

[John Deloney]

No, well, of course not. But. But own that on that up front. I'm sure I have not done a great job of talking about this for the last 25 years.

[Caller]

Are there, I guess, are there kind of tools or resources that I should read or, you know, I don't. Maybe I'm just a bad at it,

[George Campbell]

but I think it's just a different approach. I don't think you need to read a whole book.

[John Deloney]

I'm writing the book right now, actually. I just left a meeting right before this show. I'm writing that book right now. It's just not how. It won't come out until October, I think, but. So it's not in the world that I know yet.

[George Campbell]

Just save the word budget for the very end into the. How are we going to do this? All right, we'll just make a financial plan. It happens to be called a budget. But start with the vision, the dream, the fear.

[John Deloney]

What do we want our life to look like?

[George Campbell]

Man, we've just floated through and we've done really well. But I have not done a good job leading us in this area and really crafting a vision for what's going to happen when I don't want to work or can't work anymore. So how old are you guys?

[Caller]

So I'm, I'm, I'm 53. She is a little bit. A little bit older than that. Okay.

[George Campbell]

What's your net worth?

[Caller]

And so probably about five and a half to six million.

[George Campbell]

Amazing. So you guys are living pretty good.

[Caller]

We. Well, that's, you know, and I guess it's, you know, you could retire today, right? I probably could, but, you know, it's sort of, believe it or not, just you look back and it's, you know, it's an obscene amount of spending. But.

[George Campbell]

Well, are things feeling tight? Because you can still say, hey, we've done really well. It's crazy that we've worked this hard, have this level of net worth, and things still feel tight. I would love to have extra margin.

[Caller]

Yeah. Right now. I mean, absolutely. They do not, not feel tight.

[John Deloney]

So. So a budget for her isn't a matter of Survival. A budget for y' all isn't a matter of survival. It's a really a tool to bring y' all together and say, what do we want the next 25 years to look like? And that's a totally different conversation. That's a different path.

[George Campbell]

It's a transparency and clarity tool.

[John Deloney]

Yeah, take, take her on a half day retreat and say, I want to plan our next 25 years. And I'd love to hear what you want that to look like.

[George Campbell]

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[John Deloney]

Let's talk to Daniel in Des Moines, Iowa. What's up Daniel?

[Caller]

Hey guys. So good to talk to you.

[John Deloney]

You too, brother. What's up man?

[Caller]

Just hopefully a quick question here, but I am looking at taking a position in full time ministry later this year. And I'm wondering, is it number one, is it morally okay for me to take a religious. Religious exemption from Social Security and Medicare. And then number two, if it is, is it wise? Kind of considering I guess the circumstances I'm in.

[John Deloney]

What are your circumstances?

[Caller]

So nothing huge. I mean me and my wife, we're debt free. Besides the house, we're already investing 15% into retirement, but we have a baby on the way. And the other thing too is going into a position like this, I'd actually probably be taking about a 20k pay cut. So those are kind of it. And the other thing too, I guess is I wouldn't be hired on as a W2. It'd be a 1099. So I'd be paying the full extent of Social Security and Medicare that like, I think it's around 15% if I were not to take that exemption.

[John Deloney]

So it sounds like you've already made this choice. There's a lot of reasons. This is a tough move.

[Caller]

Yeah. Yep.

[George Campbell]

There's a lot to think about too. Of what you're giving up here. And listen, I love the idea of not having to pay all these extra taxes for a system that isn't giving me great returns. But you got to think about things like term life insurance. You get strong term life in place if something were to happen to you. Strong long term disability insurance because you lose that with ssdi. Long term care insurance.

[Caller]

I've got. Yeah. And I've got the long term. I've got where I guess I should say I got term life insurance. We're good there at the long term disability. That is one thing I was, I was thinking about too. But yeah, yep.

[John Deloney]

What I, what I've, I'm going to be honest, I have a, I have a bias to this question and my bias is not representative of reality. It's just my experience. And that is I've just sat with too many 60 and 70 year old pastors who lived on property, lived in a church house and got paid pennies and they have zero, nothing. And so the discipline it would take for me personally to never waver in saving for future me and future wife and future family, I can say I don't think I would have that type of discipline. And so while these programs are a mess, an absolute dumpster fire, they are still something.

[Female Caller]

Sure.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

And my fear is you're not doing this not because you have another long term plan in place. You're doing this because you're trying to make this job that you really feel called to take financially palatable today. And that's making a decision.

[Caller]

I'm definitely trying to bridge the gap between the pay I'm getting now anyway and the pay I would be getting, I'd definitely make it a lot easier.

[John Deloney]

And again, that's solving a problem for today. You. But it's really leaving future you high and dry.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. If you're having to justify this by saying, well, if I take the exemption I'll get 10% back. But, but you're not going to be investing the difference that you're saving if it's already tight and if your income stays pretty low for the rest of your life, all to get an exemption. Well, that was a terrible plan.

[Caller]

Right, right. So as I was looking into this and looking into all the different things anyway, tax benefit wise anyway, like housing allowances and all this stuff too, I think it would be palatable anyway to actually keep investing just about the same amount we are right now. And if I did take that exemption, it wouldn't be so much as a 20,000 pay cut as probably more of a 10 to 12 pay cut, which is still. My wife works too, so she's making okay money too. And so I'm kind of. Yeah, I might just be trying to justify this all, but, but yeah, that's, that's kind of what I mean.

[John Deloney]

So let me ask you this hard question. Can you afford to do this?

[Caller]

Yeah, it would be tighter, but I mean, we've looked into it and you know, I felt this call for, shoot probably the last five years and even for. If I was to completely take a step away from the money side of it too, for our future family, I think this, this would probably be still the right, right thing to do just because of. I know there's, you know, there's definitely different stresses in ministries, but the job I'm in now, you know, I haven't been happy with since, since I got into it, six or seven years.

[John Deloney]

Oh, there's, there's few stresses like full time ministry stress. I grew up in the home ministry. It's, it's, it's, it's chaotic and it's, it's noble and it's worthy and it's awesome.

[Caller]

Them.

[John Deloney]

Right. I, I have a gut reaction growing up in this household. A gut reaction to groups of church leaders who pay ministers very low and expect them and their families to show up in certain ways that are financially impossible. Right. So I, that's, that's my own baggage. I won't put that on you. Is this new job going to give you opportunity? Will you have time? I know a lot of ministers do stuff on the side. They have. My dad had a mowing business on the side for, for seasons or he did janitorial work to help make the bills during those seasons. Do you have opportunities where you could do that too?

[Caller]

Yes. Yeah. So I'm working as an electrician full time right now. So outside of that, there's definitely, you know, side work I could be doing on the side if, you know, if we really needed it to. And the other thing too that makes me a little bit more comfortable with this is I've seen the same as you. You know, like ministry positions typically do not get paid very well. This one is definitely on the, I think the higher end of what would normally get paid for this position. So it's definitely more palatable in that way too. But yeah, there is other ways I could be making income outside.

[John Deloney]

And again, I want to say this out loud. We don't do ministry for money. I mean like, we don't do it to get rich, right? And yes, like, that's, that's like get struck by lightning kind of thoughts, like, I want to do this so I can get rid. Yeah. That's not how I do this. But also there is a reality. It's very, very expensive to be al life today. Very, very expensive to have a child and to feed and clothe that kid these days. Right. And educate that kid. It's just, it's insane. And so there is a reality to it also, Right?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And that's, that's one of the other things that is kind of just weighing on this decision. Anyways, we got a baby on the way coming in September, and it's our first one anyway. And you know, I obviously, I want to take care of my family too. Yeah. And.

[John Deloney]

And maybe you take this job and you keep hustling on the side for a season to stack cash.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

And you just, you and your wife shake hands and say, we're going to have a really busy six months until the smoke clears on our new job, our new life, our new. Like when we have the. You we can do all the math on paper we want, but there's a lived reality when this is the only amount of money in the checking account. This is the bills we have.

[Announcer]

Right.

[John Deloney]

And you add a new mouth to feed on top of that. That. And she, Your wife comes home and says, hey, I just can't stomach going to work anymore. And do we have a. Do we have. Are we setting ourselves up for. We're get. This new value is going to emerge and we can't afford to take that value. Right. Because you have to work. Because I took this job, like, so

[George Campbell]

it removes your options and flexibility.

[John Deloney]

That's right. That's right. So it might be that, hey, I'm going to keep working electrical work on the weekends and I'm going to keep working electrical work on the evenings and doing odd jobs and whatever so that, that we can be as flexible as possible so we can have peace in our house.

[Caller]

Right.

[George Campbell]

And by the way, you'll have to pay Social Security on that side work. So you'll never escape the system, unfortunately.

[Caller]

Definitely knew that.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. Again, I always want to tell you, like, what would I do in my house? I would. I pay into Social Security and Medicaid and so George and you.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, I would. Your next steps would be just calculate how much you need to invest yearly to replace all the benefits, evaluate your insurance, disability, life insurance, make sure that your, you know, organization meets all the IRS rules to do this, and then only proceed if you know, this thing is airtight. You've checked it 27 Ways to Sunday, and then you can move forward. But I, I would not just go, ah, sounds good. Did not have to pay those taxes. I'll take it.

[Caller]

Sam.

[Announcer]

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[Caller]

For.

[George Campbell]

Our team here at Ramsey is super excited. We built a new free AI tool called Ask Ramsey that is built and trained on proven Ramsey principles. And today we're going to break down the most asked questions from the week. A lot of themes here. We got creating and managing budgets. A lot of questions around that. How to deal with credit card debt, retiring versus continuing to work. And the number one question this week was around retirement. What was it, John?

[John Deloney]

How much do I need to save and when can I expect to retire?

[George Campbell]

You tell me.

[John Deloney]

Well, and this is kind of awesome because off air, because I have your cell phone number. I've called you several times and been like, hey, I have a retirement question. Or what about this fund? Should I move this money over here? And not everybody has your cell phone number now.

[George Campbell]

I just text John back with the link to Ramsey Solutions dot com. I'm not your human Google, John, but

[John Deloney]

it's like having, it's like, this is like having George or Dave or me or Rachel or Ken, like jade in your pocket.

[George Campbell]

Because it's literally, it's built on things we've said on the show, all of our articles that we've written. And so this is really good. I want to take this for a test drive and see how it does with this question. How much do I need to save and when can I expect to retire again? This is a free thing. You guys can jump on ramseysolutions.com and use that Ask Ramsey search bar to ask your question. So I'm going to pull this up. Our team's going to pull up my screen here. So if I fat finger something, I'm sorry, there's no wizard of Oz today. Just me. All right, let's see what it spits out. And what's really cool, John, is it analyzes the question and asks me follow up questions. So it's a real conversation, just like, like you'd have on the Ramsey show. And we're going to see what kind of follow up questions it asks. I'm guessing it's going to need to know, well, how much do we have saved? When do we want to retire?

[John Deloney]

I want to kick some stuff. I'll kick some numbers to you. Okay.

[George Campbell]

Okay. So it's going to. Yeah, let me go scroll the bottom here. So it's walking me through how to calculate your nest egg if you want to have this much. Here's how to calculate that. And at the bottom it says, what do you think your monthly budget would look like in retirement?

[John Deloney]

All right, let's pretend we have. I'll put a big number up there. Let's say we were going to have $7,000 a month in expenses.

[George Campbell]

Okay. Monthly budget, $7,000.

[John Deloney]

And let's say between me and my wife, we have $500,000 in retirement.

[George Campbell]

Okay.

[John Deloney]

And let's pretend I could go back in time and I'm, I don't know, 35 years old.

[George Campbell]

Got it. Must be nice.

[John Deloney]

And I want to invest 500 bucks a month.

[George Campbell]

I will invest 500amonth. Okay. Let's see if it can figure out how much we really need to create this nest egg. Live off of the income once we are work optional or fully retired. And it's working. It's working its tail off here. Who we go find five Ramsey Resources. It recapped our situation, our monthly retirement goal, and it says. Here we go. It's calculating based off a 7 to 8% withdrawal here. It's showing us our target nest egg is about 1.1 to $1.2 million, not including Social Security or any other income stream. So it says, are you on track right now? You already have 500, 000 saved and it's going to continue to Grow. It will reach about 2.7 at age 65. That's pretty incredible. So it's telling us we are on track and if you invest more, you could have more. And that makes me feel really good. Thanks. Ask Ramsey.

[John Deloney]

Yeah, not bad.

[George Campbell]

It's that easy.

[John Deloney]

That's pretty great.

[George Campbell]

Not a lot of people can get through the phone lines. And Googling things is gonna send you into 19,000 rabbit holes. That is not the Ramsey advice that you trust. So go check out for yourself. Go to ask your question ramseysolutions.com youm'll see the search bar there. It says Ask Ramsey and. Or you can click the link in the description if you're on podcast or YouTube.

[John Deloney]

All right, let's go out to Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of my favorite places in the United States, and talk to John. What's up, John?

[Female Caller]

Hey, John.

[Caller]

How's it going?

[John Deloney]

We're doing great, brother. How can we help, man? Oh, hey.

[George Campbell]

Breaking up on.

[John Deloney]

Yeah, you're breaking up for me.

[George Campbell]

Are you inside of a tunnel?

[Caller]

All right.

[George Campbell]

We might have to try you again later. Oh, all right, John, we tried our best. We'll try to get you on a clear line here. I will go out to Christy in St. Louis instead.

[John Deloney]

Let's talk. What number is she?

[Announcer]

Four.

[John Deloney]

What's up, Christy?

[Announcer]

Hi.

[Female Caller]

How are you guys?

[John Deloney]

Remarkable. How are you?

[Female Caller]

I'm doing pretty well. I just had a question. I am 28 and my fiance is 26. We are planning to get married in like April of 2027. And I'm trying to figure out kind of how we're going to pay for that. We did get the or a gift from his parents that they're going to spend about $25,000 to help us with the wedding. And we're budgeting about 40,000 just with other extra costs and all that kind of stuff. But I have about 69 to 70 thousand dollars in student debt. We don't have any other debt. And I'm wondering if we should use part of that gift money to put down towards my loans or if we should put all of it down towards the wedding and then cash flow. Put all of it down towards my loans and cash for the whole wedding or.

[John Deloney]

George may disagree with me. I. I would not take a gift from my fiance's parents to pay off our. My student loans. I would use that money towards the cost of your wedding.

[Female Caller]

We haven't told them. Yeah, we haven't told them. That's what we're thinking about potentially.

[John Deloney]

I would not do that. I. If I Gave my kids like, yeah, I, I wouldn't do that. If they said, hey, this is y' all free and clear to use however you want want, that's a different story. If they said, hey, we want you all to start your, your marriage off debt free. We're going to pay your student loans. That's, that's another thing. But them saying, hey, we want to support. We know you guys are struggling. You know, y' all are working really hard. We're going to give you $25,000 to help pay for a nice wedding. And y' all were like, cool, we're gonna use that to paint the house. That would not be cool. That's my take on it. What do you think, George?

[George Campbell]

No, I agree. If it was gonna like clear your debt today and it frees you guys up to cash flow, this whole thing, then I'd be like, okay, sense, like you're essentially just trading the money one way or another. But I would just use this money for the wedding because you need it. It's not like you just have $100,000 sitting around.

[John Deloney]

Yeah, hold on. The option you're not mentioning is you and your fiance deciding we're going to do our wedding for $25,000 and essentially putting 15 grand towards your student loans.

[Female Caller]

Yeah, that was another option. The only problem is we did put a deposit down on a place, it's an all inclusive in Florida, which is where we're wanting to get married because our families live out there. And it's going to be about 28, 000 for the actual wedding. But that's only if it's 100 people. And we all know that that's probably not going to happen. Like 120 and then they charge per head. So we're trying to like buffer that a little bit. We're expecting it to not cost the 40,000, but we really just want to have a safe buffer.

[John Deloney]

Okay, but hold on.

[Female Caller]

We're okay with.

[Caller]

Hold on.

[John Deloney]

You are telling this story as though this thing to you. And I want you and your fiance to get back in the driver's seat of your own lives. The only things that are going to happen with this wedding are what y' all sign your name to and what y' all allow.

[Female Caller]

It's true.

[John Deloney]

And so if there's only a hundred spaces, there is only a hundred spaces. And we're going to have to be grown ups until Aunt Edna's cousins, sisters, dogs, roommate, you can't come.

[Female Caller]

Yeah, and I'm very okay with that. Like, I'm very Much like a. I'm a boundary and I don't need these cousins at my wedding. But he's on the other side. He's got a really big family.

[Caller]

Well.

[John Deloney]

And I can guarantee you his parents $25,000 investment is gonna.

[George Campbell]

That's strings attached.

[John Deloney]

There's strings attached.

[George Campbell]

Edna will be on the invite list

[John Deloney]

and so that might mean. What did you. What are you in for this wedding venue. If you canceled Today,

[Female Caller]

we put 5 out or 500. Sorry. 500 down for the deposit.

[John Deloney]

I would much rather lose 500 than 15,000. And we could pay a 500 stupid tax and say whoa, let's get back in the driver's seat.

[Female Caller]

Yeah. The only thing is though, like you

[John Deloney]

don't want to do it. I know, I know you don't want to do it. But here's the thing. I don't want to just do whatever I want to do and then take a gift and say I have to do it this way because I was so out of control with my wants and my spending that I'm going to use this to cover up the last time I was out of control with my wants and my spending. And I took out a bunch of student loans.

[Female Caller]

Well, my student loans actually I needed that because I got a master's in physician assistant studies. So I make like a really good salary and I needed that for that job.

[George Campbell]

So what do you guys make a year once you're married?

[Female Caller]

So once we're married, he'll be a captain in the air force. So he's gonna be making like 110 gross salary. And I'm making the least I'll ever make right now which is like 100 and then I'll be making like 120 to 150.

[George Campbell]

Awesome. So you guys can knock out this debt quick once you're married. So that's good. And you should be able to cash flow the rest of the wedding without issue if you continue on. Right?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Female Caller]

Well my thing, yeah, I was gonna. Right now I'm starting to hopefully bonus at my job because I have the ability to do that. So I'm right now putting down about $2,500 a month towards my loans. And then I'm putting down 4,000amonth when I start. Actually when I move in with him in like two months.

[George Campbell]

Awesome.

[Female Caller]

So I'm going to be chunking it down and I'm not going to be putting anything down towards the mortgage with him. He's going to cover the mortgage. So that's going to be a godsend. Then I was also thinking, like, to get Gazelle Intense, why don't I just also, in addition to my 50 hours a week, go pick up, you know, a doordash job and then, yeah, yeah,

[John Deloney]

dude, before you're married, spend every spare moment you can stacking cash and getting this this debt off.

[Announcer]

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[Caller]

Foreign.

[John Deloney]

Or Selling your home is a big deal man, buying and selling a home makes me so anxious all the time. And with all the clickbait headlines and conflicting data out there, it's hard to know what's really happening in the housing market. And I can almost guarantee you whatever you're reading on social media is not reflective of reality. We are here to make the latest trends easy to understand. Understand here is real, honest data. As of today, median home prices dipped a little below 400,000 bucks last month, which is typical for this time of year. Mortgage rates also dipped to 5.44 in January. That's down from 6.27 last January, giving buyers some breathing room. And since rates are unpredictable, the best time to buy is when you're you're financially ready, not not when you're trying to guess when home prices are going to drop or when rates are going to drop, or whenever you think you can time the market. When you're ready. To learn more about housing market trends and to get free tools to help you buy or sell your home with confidence, go to ramseysolutions.com market or click the link in the Show Notes. If you're listening on podcast or YouTube, this is a great, great resource. I love it. All right, let's go back to Santa Fe, New Mexico and try John again. Hey, John.

[Caller]

What's up?

[John Deloney]

What's up?

[Caller]

Hey, how's it going?

[George Campbell]

Much better.

[John Deloney]

We can hear you well. What's up, dude?

[Caller]

The reception in this building is not very great. I'm doing good. So I am buying my first vehicle this coming up Monday. I'm buying it from a co worker at work. She is selling it for $2,000. The truck is worth about three.

[Female Caller]

I'm trying to figure out how much

[Caller]

insurance coverage I should get on it. I've been checking different policies. I've been checking, you know, getting quotes from two or three different companies, trying to figure out which ones are better with, you know, claims and rates and all sorts of different things. It's just trying to figure out with the truck being worth so low, how much coverage should I get on it?

[George Campbell]

Where are you at financially?

[Caller]

So I'm just started working at my first job within the past, I think about here, six months or so, six, seven months. So I have about a little over, I believe, 1500 saved in my emergency fund. I have just under 4000 in a. In my car fund. So I have plenty of money for the truck and also for repairs. And then I have a pretty good main checking account as well. So like I'm financially stable from where I'm at at the moment.

[George Campbell]

Do you have any debt?

[Caller]

I do not have any debt.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so let's talk about.

[John Deloney]

Can I just shout you out for getting a $2,000 truck and not getting your first job and going out and buying the biggest, dumbest truck you can get like I did. Good for you, brother.

[George Campbell]

I didn't know those.

[Caller]

My parents have taught me well.

[George Campbell]

Can I ask what truck this is? Because I want it now.

[Caller]

Yes. It's a 2000 Toyota Tundra.

[George Campbell]

Yes.

[John Deloney]

Epic. Yes. Gen 1.

[Announcer]

Dude.

[George Campbell]

Did you get a pre purchase inspection on it?

[Caller]

They got an inspection a few months ago whenever they were first talking about selling it. And so I know what needs to be fixed and they've been doing some minor things like spark plugs and oil changes that way. All I really need to do are some. A couple major things.

[George Campbell]

Okay, cool. And you have the money set aside for that?

[Caller]

Yes, bro.

[John Deloney]

I have a Gen 1 Tundra and I love it. Well done.

[George Campbell]

So you're talking about how much coverage should you get because it's so cheap.

[Caller]

Yes.

[George Campbell]

All right, so the one you definitely need, it's non negotiable. Is your liability insurance correct? I like to go 250, 500 250. 50. That's your split on that.

[John Deloney]

And that's because if you hit somebody, the chances of their car being 50 grand is.

[George Campbell]

Yep, that's 250k per person, bodily injury, 500k per accident, bodily injury, and 250k property damage. So that's the part that it doesn't matter what car you're driving, you need to protect everything else.

[Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

So beyond that, we're talking comprehensive coverage, which is, you know, theft, fire, weather, all of that. If you're like, hey, I could probably cut this because I can replace the car if it were to burn up, I can just go buy a different one. And then same with collision. If there was damage to your car from an accident, insurance isn't going to write you a check if you don't have that. So if the car's paid off, it's older and low value, which yours is, and you could replace it from savings, then I would do it. What you might want to do is hang on to get all of these coverages for now and then drop it once you're in a better place financially. Once you have 10 grand in an emergency fund, okay. Because you're riding it fairly tight between the money you have for the car fund and your emergency fund to where you get one more emergency on top of the car being, you know, done. Now we got a real situation on our hands. So I would personally get it for peace of mind so I can sleep good and once I'm doing a little better, more money in savings, then you might want to look at dropping, you know, collision or comprehensive.

[Female Caller]

Okay.

[Caller]

And then also with the collision, comprehensive. Would it be a smart idea using my car fund for repairs and also saving up for a new car, a better car? You know, a few years down the line, I'm going to pretty much ride this one to the ground if I can. So would it be better to get a, like a $500 deductible or $1,000 deductible?

[George Campbell]

If you can swing the thousand dollar deductible, it'll lower your premium. And so because you have the money and you could handle the extra $500 of risk, I would take that. Okay. And the one other thing you should look into is uninsured and underinsured insured motorist protection, you know, if medical expenses, if, if you're hit by an uninsured driver, hit and run injuries. We're seeing more and more of this, sadly, where the person driving the car didn't have insurance. And so you're not Getting anything. So that's worth having. And what I would do is jump on ramseysolutions.com insurance and we have trusted pros, a whole network of them across the country, including in Santa Fe, that can help you price all of it out and say, hey, what would it be if I added this, this. Okay, what if I took that away? What coverage do you think I should have based on my situation? They'll walk you through all of that so that you're confident in what coverage you're getting and getting you the best price. Cuz they'll shop the top companies.

[John Deloney]

And John, let me tell you, in my house, I have a new fancy Tundra. I have my wife's car and I have my old Gen 1 Toyota that we use out on for hunting trips and stuff like that. I have full, full coverage on the two nicer cars. I have liability on the Tundra and basically I'm just making a deal with the devil that if it wrecks, if I wreck it or somebody hits it, it's just gone.

[George Campbell]

Okay.

[John Deloney]

And so, but I do, even though I don't have a payment on the other cars, I do because those are nice and I want them to be replaced if something happens to them. So I pay more for that coverage. Now I also want to tell you one more thing. I have a Gen 1 Tundra. I drove it for years before I spent crazy money trying to make it cool.

[Caller]

Okay. Yeah, I'm not interested in bells and whistles.

[John Deloney]

I know, but dude, this is like a, this is a drug. Once you put that first thing on it and then the second thing on it, you're gonna start seeing cool Tundras everywhere. You're gonna be like, oh, I want to get new suspension, I want to get bigger tires. And so just continue to hold the line like you've done so far. Far. Okay, that would be awesome. And by the way, I have a feeling this car will outlast you. So driving, trying to drive it into the ground, best of luck to you.

[George Campbell]

Did you mention how many miles it has on it?

[John Deloney]

It doesn't matter.

[Caller]

Just over, just over 300,000.

[George Campbell]

Yes. I just wanted to know, to let people, because they, they go, John, it's got 100,000 miles. It's going to burn up on the interstate tomorrow. And I. Oh no, it's a Toyota, dude.

[Caller]

We've driven the Alcan and our Toyota and Honda like three times. So I mean, and they both of them have over 2 or 300 miles on it.

[George Campbell]

So yeah, fantastic.

[Caller]

We're used to that.

[George Campbell]

Try to set a world, a world record.

[John Deloney]

Well, it's just not hard with those.

[George Campbell]

I think someone did over 500,000.

[John Deloney]

Oh, easy.

[George Campbell]

It's pretty incredible.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. Well done, man. Well done, man. You're a wise young man. That's good for you.

[George Campbell]

Very few young guys are thinking this way. Yeah, most guys are picking up $1,000

[John Deloney]

truck payment a month, not a $2,000. And by the way, can we be honest? This truck doesn't look nice.

[George Campbell]

Not turning heads at the stop light.

[John Deloney]

No.

[George Campbell]

Except for bad reasons. They're like, oh, my gosh.

[John Deloney]

No, no, no. There's. There's Tundra people who are like, that's awesome.

[George Campbell]

It's rock.

[John Deloney]

That's pretty rad. But yeah, he's not going to meet somebody. And she'll be like, I'm falling in love with you because of your truck. That's not going to happen here. If somebody goes out with him, he'll know, oh, she really likes me.

[Announcer]

Right?

[John Deloney]

It's not going to be because his truck looks cool. But man, that's so wise for future him.

[George Campbell]

Yep. And honestly, a good, you know, 200 detail, you'll feel like it's brand new to you. It's pretty sweet. That's exciting.

[John Deloney]

200 detail. Where do you get those?

[George Campbell]

That's the going right in my neighborhood. I don't know where you live, John. They probably have an upcharge for the baloney family.

[John Deloney]

Way more expensive. Expensive than that.

[George Campbell]

I got a good guy.

[John Deloney]

I got a good guy.

[George Campbell]

I love the mobile ones. They come to the end of the driveway, they get it done for 200. Yeah, well, maybe you have a gigantic truck. I have tiny toy cars.

[John Deloney]

That is true. Tiny electric toy cars.

[George Campbell]

There's a lot of square footage.

[John Deloney]

Do they use a screens wiper to wipe off a Tesla?

[George Campbell]

They use special gloves. They're so sensitive, just like me.

[John Deloney]

I bet they do. That's another hour in the books. Be right back on the Ramsey Show. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. I'm John Deloney, joined by George Camel. Let's go out to Columbia, South Carolina and talk to Lee. What's up, Lee?

[Caller]

Hi. Hi, John and George.

[John Deloney]

How are we doing, brother?

[Caller]

Good. How are you guys?

[John Deloney]

We are doing all right, my man. How can we help?

[Caller]

So I'm trying to break out of this paycheck to paycheck thing and I'm looking for some advice.

[John Deloney]

Excellent. I'm glad you called, man.

[George Campbell]

Tell us more. What's your financial situation?

[Caller]

So, long story short, I owned a sawmill I produce railroad ties, cross ties. I lost my contract two years ago. I went and got another job as a Mechanic. I'm making 1280 a week and I have three different loans with mortgage included. The mortgage is 130 at 4.5 and I have 10 years left on it. The second one is five years on a 4.5, 45,000 left on it. And then the last one is five years at 8.5 at 50,000. That was to clean up my line of credit that I had for the mill. And then I have two credit cards. One 2500, one 2000 $8,000 that I loaned from my family. And then 5000 miscellaneous. So my monthly payments, everything except food like lights mortgage and the loan payments are 41.90amonth. And I just can't get out of it. So what I'm considering is using the equity from my house. I bought it for 160 with 7 acres. Just prior to Covid and I talked with an auctioneer and he thought he could probably get upwards of 400 the property. So my question is, would you guys advise me to do that or hang in there and see what I can work out?

[George Campbell]

What'd you say your mortgage payment was?

[Caller]

It is roughly 1300amonth.

[George Campbell]

Okay. So it's about a quarter of your. Now that's not your take home pay. The 1280, is that gross or is that what actually shows? That's gross.

[John Deloney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

So it's more than 25% of your take home pay. But it's not on fire. The mortgage isn't the problem. You're trying to sort of shortcut it and clean up the mess by just selling. Would you just go rent somewhere?

[Caller]

Probably.

[George Campbell]

Okay. Because you wouldn't be in a spot to buy another place. I'm guessing if you sold it took now you could clean up all the debt with the proceeds. You'd clean up the mortgage plus all the other debts which add up to what? What's the total amount of debt you have not including the mortgage? 283.

[Caller]

Not including the mortgage. Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Okay, so you got 150 there. So. Yeah. I mean you got $150,000 of debt making 60 grand gross.

[Caller]

Yes.

[George Campbell]

Yeah. The math is not math in here. Unless there's something that we can sell or liquidate or use a bunch of savings that you have sitting around. Is there anything like that?

[Caller]

I have no savings. I do have my equipment still and that's. I don't. I'm sure you don't. The lumber market is like murder. And so that tank's the value I could possibly get 30 to 40,000 for my equipment. And that's about all the assets.

[George Campbell]

Okay. So that would knock your debt down to, you know, maybe if we're lucky, 110, but then we're still. We're making 60 grand. So if there's no room for growth with your income right now, where you could double that, then selling the house would give you a nice clean slate if you're ready to change your behavior.

[Caller]

Well, we are.

[George Campbell]

And by we, who else is involved?

[Caller]

My wife and I have two children and another one due any day.

[John Deloney]

Wow.

[George Campbell]

Well, congratulations. Congratulations.

[Caller]

Well, thank you.

[John Deloney]

No time like the present, Lots of stress.

[George Campbell]

No time like the present to clean this mess up. Yeah, well, there's other people involved now. Is your wife staying home with the kids?

[Caller]

She is, and she. She will be more than ready to start clean as well.

[John Deloney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Could you go rent somewhere for a thousand bucks if you sold?

[Caller]

Yes. Yes.

[George Campbell]

Okay. You said that so quickly that I feel good about it. I would. Personally, in your shoes, I definitely would consider selling the house. It doesn't sound like there's a lot of variables in your life that are about to change. There's nothing you could sell. Your income's not going to go up drastically. I don't know that. You could get seven side jobs. You could clean this up over the next few years. But I think with the stress of the baby on the way, it would just be so much more freeing to sell the property, rent for a while, and start to rebuild a solid foundation.

[John Deloney]

And you're. You said this property that you bought for 160 is now worth 400?

[Caller]

Roughly, yes. Our area has seen a rampant increase in commercial manufacturing and et cetera. And we're also close to an army base, so there's a lot of people looking for houses.

[John Deloney]

Okay. I would not take the word of an auctioneer.

[Caller]

Okay.

[John Deloney]

I would go to ramseysolutions.com martin market and get with one of our real estate pros.

[Caller]

Okay.

[John Deloney]

Who will come in and do comps in the area, projections in the area, because you may at your. Your property sold at auction maybe at 400. It may sell in the housing market at 600.

[Caller]

Okay.

[John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller]

And so I know a similar. Similar property. Well, actually, trailer house with an acre or 2 sold for 400. Like very close to me.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. Like your area sounds a lot like what happened in Nashville a few years and stuff. Got bananas.

[Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

And so I would sit down with a true real estate professional that you trust, and we have A whole network of them that I'd suggest you, you get with. That's who I get got with when I sold and bought houses. So it's not, I'm not asking you to do something I wouldn't ask, I didn't do it with my own family. But get a true price on what this property will go for. And here's the, the other thing. You and your wife have to make an ironclad commitment because if this works, you're going to be sitting on what, 250, $300,000 cash. You can sneeze and that money's going to be gone. Cuz suddenly she'll need a new car, you'll need to upgrade your truck. You're going to want to do this and that money will just be gone. Y' all will have to make an ironclad commitment that this money goes into retirement, this money goes into an emergency fund. We never ever, ever, ever borrow money again, ever, ever. And we have to learn to live on a budget with our $65,000 year salary.

[Caller]

Sure.

[John Deloney]

Because you're going to feel rich and bro, you're going to burn your, you're going to crack open your nest egg at a real young age with really young kids. Man, you're going to be in a mess.

[Caller]

Yeah. So the game plan, we're both ready for something different.

[George Campbell]

Good, good. So the game plan would be if and when you sell, use the proceeds to pay down all the of your debt. The money left over is going to become your emergency fund. Three to six months. I would lean towards six months. Single income, family with three kids. I'd feel a whole lot better having six months of expenses saved up. And then beyond that, any money beyond even that, then it's okay, we can start saving back up for down payment. Let's not get out of the housing market for too long because guess what, the next house you buy is probably going to be a half million dollars. So you're going to need a giant down payment to make that payment work with your $60,000 income.

[Caller]

Right.

[George Campbell]

So that's the homework is we're going to put this all to good use. And like John said, no lifestyle creep. We're not having fun here. This was a reset. It was kind of like we went through like a bankruptcy and it's sobering. And now we want to do the right thing so that we're never in this position again.

[Caller]

Yeah, I mean it just burns you down every day trying to get on it. And we've made progress. We paid off a $13,000 credit card last year. But it's just.

[George Campbell]

Yeah, yeah. I mean you got a mountain ahead of you with that 150 and so that would. Based on the math, it's a decade plus just to get rid of this. So I would sell, I would rebuild. I try to get that income up and you guys will survive this and be renting for a while.

[Caller]

Sam.

[John Deloney]

Hey good folks. Dr. John Deloney here. Don't you think life is too short to hate Mondays? Listen, you're worth loving the work you do and where you do it. So guess what? Ramsey Solutions is hiring. If you're ready to join an amazing team that's all about changing lives and spreading hope, we want to see your application. Right now we're hiring for technology, sales, marketing, writing, copy editing and creative roles. Check out all our job [e-mail] careers that's ramseysolutions.com careers careers. Our question of the day is brought to you by Y Refi. Defaulted private student loans don't go away by ignoring them, but you can face them with a plan. Why? Refi helps you refinance into low fixed rate payments built around what you can afford. Forward so you can take control and get back on the baby steps. Go to yrefi.comramsey right now. That's the letter y r e f y.com Ramsey may not be available in all states.

[George Campbell]

Today's question comes from Abigail in Pennsylvania. My husband and I are at a crossroads and need your home buying advice. Should we buy a house that is affordable but not in a city that we love or rent for another year until we can afford to buy where we prefer to live? It's a no brainer for me.

[John Deloney]

It's the quickest mention of the day ever.

[George Campbell]

I'm renting for another year to get the thing I want. It's called delayed gratification. If there was some sort of like urgency, we have to move now for whatever reason. Then move now. But then you're kind of stuck there. You don't want to be buying a house and selling a year later. That's going to cost you. So rent for another year. Buying a home is the biggest financial decision you'll ever make. So do it with caution and be planted there.

[John Deloney]

I don't even have anything to add.

[George Campbell]

That's just my. That's my take. One man's opinion. But I want to live somewhere that I enjoy living.

[John Deloney]

Did I? It's not even that.

[George Campbell]

Is that too much to ask?

[John Deloney]

I want to live where I Want to live. And if it's going to take one more year of sacrifice than outstanding, so be it.

[George Campbell]

I just. I'm glad they didn't say, or should we just buy a house now we can't afford in the area? That's. That was my fear. That's a very different question. Yeah, but if you're willing to wait, just do it right the first. First time.

[John Deloney]

Let's go out to Philadelphia where we were born and raised and talk to Melody. What's up, Melody?

[Female Caller]

Hi. How are you?

[John Deloney]

Outstanding. How are you?

[Female Caller]

We're doing great, thanks. I am calling today because we have started an addition on our home, and because of change of plans, we're going to add a little bit more to it and. And increase cost. We are maxed at our budget. So I was looking for some advice. I was looking for some advice. Do we take a home equity loan?

[Announcer]

No.

[Female Caller]

Or should I sell some stock that I have?

[George Campbell]

Oh, I didn't know we had an option B. This is nice. How much do you have in stocks?

[Female Caller]

So I have a brokerage account. This is in a retirement, and there's about 328,000.

[George Campbell]

Well, let's go. How much of that are you going to need to liquidate to finish this renovation?

[Female Caller]

I'm thinking around 60,000.

[George Campbell]

Okay. Are we like in a spit shake that this is 60 grand and it's not going to turn into 150 grand? It's already done that once. Yeah, we've already been down this road.

[Female Caller]

You know what? Jolly. It jolly well may. You know, it's kind of touch and go with the price of construction costs and the. Well, they rise.

[John Deloney]

But you didn't. You didn't sign a contract that said, I'm going to build this for this price?

[George Campbell]

No.

[Female Caller]

Our builder, it. My husband's able to work with him, so he works at an hourly rate. And we are purchasing the building material.

[John Deloney]

Yeah, but this. Are you saving money in your left hand that's costing you more money in your idea hand, Meaning if you had. If you had signed a contract and said, I want this. This edition for $210,000. Shake hands. They are responsible for sourcing materials when they continue to go up and up and up and up and up. But by saying, hey, we can do this for 175,000 just by all GC it. And I got a guy who work hourly now, y' all are in to significant. You see what I'm saying?

[Female Caller]

Yes.

[John Deloney]

It may be too late for that,

[Female Caller]

but, man, we're very in. We're much In a position where we don't have solid answers or solid.

[George Campbell]

That's the part that scares me. This could be an endless project. And so I would get some real hard numbers before continuing this thing. What is your house worth before the addition?

[Female Caller]

According to Zillow, around 300,000.

[George Campbell]

What's the total addition going to cost you based on what you currently, currently know with all the extra you're gonna have to put in?

[Female Caller]

75,000.

[George Campbell]

Okay. And you said you still need 60 to go, so you thought this thing was going to cost you 15.

[Female Caller]

No, no, no. I'm sorry. Seven get five was the original. What happened was it's going to be a four car garage and we thought, oh, let's add in second floor.

[George Campbell]

Okay. So it's going to be really $135,000 additional, probably almost 50% of the home value we're adding. Are there homes in your, on your street that are worth that? Because I'm scared you're going to overbuild the neighborhood. Nobody's looking for a $500,000 home when the rest are 350.

[Female Caller]

We're going to stay here our whole life. This is not something that we're looking to ever.

[George Campbell]

How old are you guys?

[Female Caller]

Move or scout? 47, 48 years old. Old.

[Announcer]

Wow.

[George Campbell]

You're talking 50 more years in this house.

[John Deloney]

I wish I was as confident as you. I love my house in my neighborhood, but man, I'm not bold enough to make that statement. I it you have transformed this project into a, I'm oversimplifying it, but a four pillar, four wall project to a two story addition, I think that's worth hitting the pause button and going and talking to a contractor to see what it would cost to do do this thing. And if you might come back and it's triple the price and y' all are still in better shape. Great. I would at least want that peace of mind because once you start adding second floors, dude, I want this thing insured and bonded and I want it done right. That's. That's just me. And that's what I would do at my house. What would I pay guys hourly to do all kinds of stuff. I would not pay people hourly to do this big of a project.

[George Campbell]

You want the full scope, something this big. What was the brokerage account earmarked for?

[Female Caller]

You know, honestly, that's kind of like our savings. When we have extra money, we buy stock and we look at it as if we need it. It's going to grow, okay? It will grow till we need It.

[George Campbell]

So this wasn't for something else. And now we're robbing Peter to pay Paul, it's totally fine if you use some of this money to finish the addition.

[Female Caller]

Correct.

[George Campbell]

Okay. I would calculate how much you'll pay in capital gains tax.

[Caller]

Right.

[Female Caller]

Well, that, that's kind of the concern. And with the high returns right now on the market and the percentage rate of buying right now, which one is the better choice for us?

[John Deloney]

Well, I could tell you I would take off immediately. Again, as for me and my house, I would not put on the block the very house I'm trying to put an addition on that's supposed to be my house for the next 50 years. And when you take out a heavy HELOC to fund another project on that same house, you're putting the house itself on the block. I would not do that.

[George Campbell]

So whatever you do, we are not going into debt for this addition. And if you do want to continue on, I would liquidate parts of the brokerage. And you can, you can kind of choose which stocks are selling off and you want to choose the ones that are going to have the least amount of capital gains. And if you need help with that, you can reach out to a smartvestor pro and go to ramseysolutions.com for that. But John, I was reminded of this verse from Luke 14 that I just want to read out loud because it's so perfect for the situation. For which of you intending to build a tower does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it, lest after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. That's a roast right there.

[John Deloney]

I mean,

[George Campbell]

it's just plain.

[John Deloney]

I don't put a shovel in the ground until I've shaken hands and we've agreed on a price. Because it's an endless, endless. And I don't, I don't trust myself. I like the fact that when I shake hands, there is always a. If you change after today, not only is it going to add cost for the. Whatever you want to, to actually change and do, there is a percentage penalty. And that puts a, that puts an extra hurdle, an extra set of breaks on my whims. And let's just do this. And let's just do this because she's right. It's going to be. Let's add a second story. Then it's like, well, let's just put a bathroom up here. And that's going to turn into. We need to have an another entrance.

[George Campbell]

Well, we're going to be here for the rest of our lives. We might as well make it what we want.

[John Deloney]

Yes, and suddenly you've burned through that brokerage account and you're taken out of here.

[George Campbell]

Well, if you're. The problem is it's exacerbated when you take out debt because you're using your house like a piggy bank. And so it's so much easier to go. Well, we can just do more. Yeah, we don't have the cash. We can just take more on the line of credit.

[Announcer]

If.

[John Deloney]

If every time you sell one of those stocks you have to pay the capital gains on it, you're going to be very particular about what you sell and how much money you're bringing in. And that's going to act as a set of brakes on this endless bill.

[George Campbell]

Bringing friction back into the process is the way to make a wiser decision.

[John Deloney]

And. And I. I trust Melody that she's going to live in this house for 50 years. I don't see that happen almost ever, ever, ever, ever.

[George Campbell]

I'll be impressed. Call us back when you're 97. Let us know.

[Announcer]

How many times have you started January saying this is the year I'm finally going to get my money under Christmas control. But then months go by and you still feel broke. You work too hard to keep living like that. Look, there's only one way to move the needle on your finances this year. You've got to have a plan. So start by downloading everydollar. Every dollar is way more than our world class budgeting app. In 15 minutes, we'll build you a personalized plan to free up extra margin in your budget and use it to beat debt and build wealth. You'll find thousands of dollars on average just the first day and you'll get new steps and new lessons every day that help you stay on track and create unstoppable momentum. Don't waste one more day feeling broke and stressed. Get your plan in just 15 minutes by downloading everydollar for free.

[George Campbell]

Foreign.

[John Deloney]

Things is when people share their stories of how they are winning. We just got this amazing review of our Every Dollar app. I love this app. It makes it super easy to budget. With my husband, we have implemented this practice since our wedding day and we have had zero. No way. It's awesome. Zero money fights because there's full transparency when it comes to our money and we're on the the same page. Awesome. Listen, this can be your life too. You can take control of your money. You can change your family tree. You can live like no one else. Go download our Every Dollar budget app for free in the App Store or for you Android users on Google Play. Let's go out to Dallas, Texas and talk to Ann. Hey, Ann, what's up?

[Caller]

Hi.

[Female Caller]

Thank you for taking my call.

[John Deloney]

Of course. Thanks for calling.

[Announcer]

What's.

[John Deloney]

What's going on?

[Female Caller]

Thank you. I'm so grateful, actually that someone can look at my situation from outside of the box. I am considering to file a bankruptcy and I was wondering if you would recommend doing that or not. Honestly, I don't want to do that because I'm very grateful that, you know, the banks gave me that money back when I needed it. So I want to pay back, but I feel like I just can't.

[John Deloney]

All right, well, tell us about your situation. How much do you owe?

[Female Caller]

So I owe. I have five credit cards and two business loans. That totals to 123,000. And I also owe about. I owe about 35,000 to the IRS and that tax, I used to make about 154 years thousand a year. And in 2024 I made only 52,000. In 2025 I made 39,000. I did, you know, start doing all kinds of gigs and, you know, delivery and driving for Uber. I set up an ebay store. I started selling everything, you know, my expensive suits and, you know, things trying to help me. I also had to file for forbearance last year. I've been out of forbearance for about nine months and I just had to file for another one and I'm in the second one and. But the good thing is my car is paid off.

[John Deloney]

Good. All right, so before we get to the actual money part, okay, what, what were you doing for your job when you were making 150 grand and what are you doing now making only 40?

[Female Caller]

I own a business. Well, I sell real estate.

[John Deloney]

Okay.

[Female Caller]

That's, that's what I did. I sold real estate. And as, as you know, I don't know, you know, real estate hasn't even selling very well.

[John Deloney]

Yeah, it's been a tough season.

[George Campbell]

Okay. Why do you need business loans for real estate?

[Female Caller]

I, back then, so when things were great, you know, so 1 20,000 was for marketing and set from the website and, you know, following up with clients. They did, they took over all my marketing team for me and did everything so I could focus on my clients.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Female Caller]

And then 60,000 was. It's with Small Business Administration that was taken out during COVID that that loan

[John Deloney]

is haunting, haunting small business owners still. But. So George is going to walk you through the money side of this. Okay? But what I'm hearing is deep, deep shame, and I want to free you from that.

[Female Caller]

Okay, well, you're right.

[John Deloney]

Okay? Like, you are not the dollar amount you bring home. So, yes, your business has crashed, okay? You are still a person worthy of being loved. You're still a good community member. You're still a fellow Texan, Right?

[Female Caller]

Yes.

[John Deloney]

And so you have to back out of the. The muck and the mud and the actual stress you have from real bills that need real dollars to pay them. That's all real. Okay? But on top of that and underneath that, this sense that I am a human failure, all that is doing is bringing extra weight to an already challenging situation. I want to free you from that. Okay, yeah, let's set that nonsense down. It might be that moving forward, you sell real estate as your side hustle and you get back in the 9 to 5, 8 to 5, I'm going to go clock in somewhere and I'm going to go get a real job all day, every day with benefits. Like, get in there and I'm going to do that. And I'll sell real estate at nighttime and on the weekends until the market picks back up. Maybe that's the move, I don't know. But I want you to get to the core. Who am I? And if you're a great real estate agent, what that tells me is you're somebody who serves other people. You're somebody who listens well. You're somebody who fights for their clients. And that type of heart is useful in a million different industries. Okay? And so trying to hang on to my identity as a realtor is drowning you to the tune of 110 grand a year. Let's let that go and say, okay, who am I? I'm somebody who helps people when they. When they need help. I'm somebody who shows up, I'm somebody who listens. I'm somebody who fights for. For people. And man, you. That opens you up to a. A whole suite of different career opportunities that backfill your purpose on the plan. It.

[Caller]

Okay, cool.

[Female Caller]

Yeah, I like that.

[John Deloney]

Okay, so let's walk through the money stuff.

[George Campbell]

All right. And are you covering your four walls right now? Are you covering your. Your basic bills? Food, rent, utilities, transportation?

[Female Caller]

Yes, that's pretty much the only thing I can cover. And the minimum payments, as were. I basically like trifle Uber or self driving, sell stuff, you know, clothes My old, you know, whatever I own and to pay those minimum payments. Really? Because I have several of them and they're not small.

[George Campbell]

Yes.

[Female Caller]

Each of them like IRS payment alone is 6, $670 every month.

[George Campbell]

And how long is that payment plan for?

[Female Caller]

So I owe 35,000. I don't think they had like a year.

[George Campbell]

Okay, well your goal up front is the IRS debt. That one rises to the top because they can really mess with your life. So we want to get them off our back before we tackle the business loans and the credit cards. Now that's going to take getting our income up. That's really the variable here that you can control.

[Female Caller]

Okay.

[George Campbell]

And so this is going to be the hard work. It's easy for me to say go get more income, but I can crunch some numbers with you to show you that bankruptcy is not the only option. In fact, I wouldn't recommend it as an option for you because it will destroy your financial life in a whole nother way.

[Female Caller]

Yeah, I really don't want to do that. I really don't. I want to, you know, pay with it off. I don't, I feel I, you know, it's just not right to do that.

[George Campbell]

So think about this way.

[Female Caller]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

If we reverse engineer this and just put some facts on paper right now and try to just step away from the emotions. If you put, this is a big number. But if you put 3200 bucks towards your debt, you would be debt free within four years.

[Female Caller]

Really?

[George Campbell]

Yeah, that's the math. Take you have $158,000 in debt, so you can divide it by however many months, whatever your goal is, and go, all right, that's the number I need to come up with for my debt. Now that means you need to go make $7,000 a month in order to do that. Right.

[Female Caller]

Uhhuh.

[George Campbell]

You need to have enough money to cover your bills, cover your insurance, basic expenses and every extra dollar is going towards your debt. And if you do that within a few years, you can climb out of this. But not making $39,000. We need to get back up to a six figure income to knock out six figures of debt. Are you tracking with me?

[Female Caller]

Right.

[John Deloney]

That means I'm going to go find a fifty or sixty thousand dollar year job

[George Campbell]

and make more every single year. You're going to be so good at your job, they're going to be promoting you so fast. And if it's self employed now, self employment in real estate, it's a tough game, big right now. And so to John's Point if you can go find something that is salary, benefits, steady, you're going to feel so much better about climbing out of this because you're not waiting on that next commission check to come through.

[Female Caller]

Right? Right.

[John Deloney]

And by the way, four years of 3, 200amonth, that sounds insane, right? It's a long time. But ace, the seven year shackle around your ankle from bankruptcy is way worse.

[Female Caller]

Yeah, and I've been trying to pay this off for years anyway. I probably paid it in multiples, but, you know, it's unreal.

[George Campbell]

It's whack a mole right now. And so instead you're going to do the debt snowball method and I'm going to help you, walk you through this. I'm going to give to you my book, Breaking Free from Broke Total money makeover and give you the every dollar budgeting app so that you have a game plan instead of just spray and pray. We're rooting for you.

[Announcer]

All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're people you can trust to have your back. From the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near [e-mail] agent. That's ramseysolutions.com.

[John Deloney]

Behold. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him. And he with me. Revelation 3:20. The quote of the day is from Bruno Mars, George's man. George has Bruno Mars tattoos on his chest.

[George Campbell]

He loves that guy. My ceiling in the bedroom.

[John Deloney]

You can't knock on opportunity's door and not be ready. All right, let's go out to the 512. Let's go out to Austin, Texas and talk to Natalie. Hey, Natalie, what's up?

[Female Caller]

Hi, guys. I'm so excited to talk to y'.

[George Campbell]

All.

[John Deloney]

We're excited to talk to you. What's going on?

[Female Caller]

I am 27 and I'm wondering, should I buy a house this year by myself or wait until marriage to share that whole experience and homeowner responsibility? We're not going to engaged yet, but probably headed that way in the next year or so. Obviously, I don't want to bank on that happening.

[John Deloney]

Oh, you're so wise.

[Female Caller]

It also seems like a huge milestone that I want to share with him, but I also don't want to miss a good opportunity to buy a house.

[George Campbell]

Well, are you financially ready to buy a house on your own right now? As it stands, yes. Tell me about the money here. What are you thinking about buying? How much do you have saved?

[Female Caller]

I've got saved about 300,000.

[John Deloney]

Woo.

[George Campbell]

Natalie, what are you doing?

[Female Caller]

I've just been blessed with it.

[George Campbell]

What's your income? People want to know how you did this.

[Female Caller]

My income fluctuates. My base is around 117, but the job I'm in has, has some pretty awesome bonuses.

[George Campbell]

And you have no debt.

[Female Caller]

No debt.

[George Campbell]

I love it.

[John Deloney]

Okay, hold on. You've been blessed. Yes. Fair. And you've been really wise and a good steward of this money.

[Female Caller]

I would like to think so because

[John Deloney]

I have lots of friends in Austin, Texas and if they had that kind of money, it would be in invested poorly in really flashy automobiles, houses they can't afford. Like they would be up to their eyeballs.

[George Campbell]

You're in like the point, 0001%, the fact that you're a single woman, no debt, with 300 grand sitting in the bank. So you've worked your butt off to be blessed.

[John Deloney]

Does this guy know?

[George Campbell]

Yeah, I'm very curious because I'd be like, let's get married sooner.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

What's he, what's this idiot waiting on? Because not only do you have money, you're like a wise good human being.

[Female Caller]

Yeah, he does know. And get this, he doesn't let me pay for a single date.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. You know why? Because he's Texan. Well done.

[Female Caller]

Yeah, he's a good one.

[John Deloney]

Yes, well done.

[George Campbell]

I love it. So should you buy a house, I know you want to share the joy and the truth is he's going to get the joy of homeownership for the rest of his life. Like if I just picture it, if he's stepping in the situation and you are fiscally responsible, you've got a reasonable mortgage payment. Now he steps in with his income too. And now you guys crush through this mortgage. I don't think he's going to be like, man, I just really wish I was there at closing. Closing, you know what I mean?

[John Deloney]

And by the way, I, I don't know who you've talked to. I have bought a lot of houses over the years. None of them have been a pleasurable experience. And, and by the way, that includes when I am using a mortgage lender that I trust, a realtor that's a friend of mine. And the closing attorney is a. Is a college roommate of mine. The whole process is still so stress induced. I hate it. I hate it. It, I hate it. And so I don't know what you've imagined this will be like, but I almost think you'd be doing both of y' all a huge favor if you just bought this house.

[Female Caller]

Okay. And don't share the grief with him.

[John Deloney]

I mean, he's going to share the grief if he's dating you.

[Female Caller]

Fair point.

[George Campbell]

There are some things to think about though with a long term decision like this. You know, where do we both work? Is this going to make sense for. For us? Are there going to be major renovations? Do I like the area? Does it have good schools in case we start a family here? So there are things to think about. But I would go ahead and get your foot in the door of this housing market, especially before it ramps back up because I have a feeling at some point it's going to get crazy again.

[John Deloney]

Why, why do you feel is the 300 grand is burning a hole in your pocket? What do you feel like you're missing out on?

[Female Caller]

I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I'm just so sick and tired of dealing with property management companies.

[George Campbell]

Ah, you get to deal with yourself soon enough. You're like, this toilet's not working. Oh, dang it.

[John Deloney]

I gotta, I gotta fix it sometimes.

[Female Caller]

I would rather just do it myself.

[George Campbell]

Yes, a true Texan right there. Well, Natalie, I'm so proud of you. I would definitely start shopping, start to see what's on the market, what's in their budget. Stick to a 15 year fixed rate mortgage, make sure the payment's not more than a quarter of your after tax income. And you will be in such good shape because once you have dual income comes maybe you decide once you have a kid, I want to stay home and it'll be a no brainer because you did it everything the wise way.

[John Deloney]

Or let's just take two years and let's just pay this house completely off, which would be amazing. And then it's going to be a

[George Campbell]

multi, multi, multi million.

[John Deloney]

Have a paid off house before I'm 30 and I can do whatever I want. That's amazing. Good for you, Natalie. That's awesome. Dude. Let's go out to Houston and talk to Kevin. Hey, Kevin. What's up, brother?

[Female Caller]

Hello.

[Caller]

How's it going?

[John Deloney]

Good man. What's up?

[Caller]

Yeah, so basically graduated law school in May and having a lot of trouble finding positions. I'm about to Take the bar exam in a few days and just wondering what advice you guys had, what kind

[John Deloney]

of law you want to go into.

[Caller]

Well, I was hoping to be in house counsel somewhere. I would love to do that. That's a little tougher to get in.

[John Deloney]

Yeah, that's tough for a first year grant grad. That's almost impossible.

[Caller]

Yeah, like that.

[John Deloney]

Like my students and my friends who are attorneys, that was always like a destination. I want to get there one day. Right.

[Caller]

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I'm also looking into more realistic options like family law as well.

[John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller]

Estate planning.

[John Deloney]

So have you, have you.

[Caller]

I've just done. Oh, sorry.

[John Deloney]

Are you struggling with. Have you sent out a bunch of applications? Applications?

[Caller]

Yeah, I mean, hundreds.

[George Campbell]

Okay.

[Caller]

I lost track at this point.

[John Deloney]

So when somebody tells me they've sent out hundreds of resumes, almost always they are applying to online job application inquiries. Is that, is that true for you?

[Caller]

Yeah, I mean, I think I would put it into different categories where, you know, I have tailored applications. I mean, I've still done hundreds of those and applications through contacts that I know.

[John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller]

But yeah, and then the category of like, okay, let's just put a resume in, put a cover letter in and see where we go from there.

[John Deloney]

And personally, I don't count those because the ability for anyone to even get to those resumes these days is so hard. Right. I much prefer you focus on, on folks you went to school with. A lot of my students would. One person would get into a firm and then two or three of them would end up working at that firm. Or one person would get a job at the DA's office and then four of them would follow them to the like. That tended to be what I saw, how my students got their foot in the door at places. Do you not have access to a career services department at your law school?

[Caller]

I do, but it's very, very limited, especially in my case. Like, they don't have a lot of postings and you know, when you do talk to them, they just refer you to the postings. And in my case, I got a scholarship in a law school in a different state and now I'm trying to get my license in Texas.

[John Deloney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

Do you think that's hurting you?

[John Deloney]

Yeah.

[George Campbell]

That's on top of not having passed the bar yet.

[John Deloney]

Yep.

[Caller]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously, obviously not passing the bar, but yeah, the lack of opportunities through the school is a little rough.

[John Deloney]

Yeah. So I, I, here's what I would focus on. I would put every single aim, every gun I have at passing the bar exam period. I would join both the, the local community bar association and the state bar association. And I would look at every government opening right now in a. Yeah. In a one hour radius. And you might not want to do government law, not want to do assistant DA work. You may not want to do that kind of work, but that might be the only work available to you. And by the way, those are opportunities for you to get a ton of different cases and a ton of different clients and rub shoulders with a ton of different attorneys and judges that can help you begin to network for your next move. But that's. That would be where I start. Right there.

[George Campbell]

I'd quit applying and start going, all right, I need to set up 15 conversations this week with people that are in this space. Maybe it's the alumni, maybe you know, a judge's clerk. Whatever, whatever it is, just go, hey, I'm going to hang. I'm going to see how I can add value to their life, get to know them. It's not a desperate plea for a job.

[John Deloney]

That's right.

[George Campbell]

You're just making the connections. And they might know a guy who knows a guy and that's how you get it. Or that temp job or contract work turned into full time work. Or they knew somebody who was looking for somebody. That's how people get jobs in the real world these days. Versus the spray and pray. I click some buttons and hopefully it's

[John Deloney]

an addiction and nobody's calling me. Yeah.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[John Deloney]

And it wouldn't surprise me if you're University where you're graduating has an alumni in an alumni group in Texas. Check them out too. Thanks for calling, brother.